Category Archives: Government

glyphosate, GMO's, Government

Major Change To U.S. Biotech Regulations Will Exempt Some GM Crops From Government Oversight

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Sciencemag.org - May 18, 2020 - Erik Stokstad

Many new varieties of genetically modified crops will be exempt from regulation in the United States under a new policy.
Brent Stirton/Getty Images

A major change to U.S. regulation of biotech will exempt some gene-edited plants from government oversight. The new policy, published in the Federal Register today, also calls for automatic approval of variations of established kinds of genetically modified (GM) crops, easing their path to market.

Industry groups are welcoming the new rule, whereas opponents are decrying the reduction of government oversight.

“The main good thing is that it will allow certain aspects of gene editing to move forward,” says Kent Bradford, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis. If researchers use gene editing to design a plant that could have been bred conventionally, the new plant will be exempt from regulation. But anything else—such as moving a gene between species or rewiring metabolism—will still require a regulatory review.

The gist of the shift is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) will now focus on new traits themselves rather than the technology used to create them, a change of approach that plant scientists have long wanted. Several reviews by the National Academy of Sciences have concluded that the risk that GM plants will become weeds is generally low, and that molecular tools typically don’t pose new risks compared with traditional plant breeding techniques.

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COMMENT FROM DR. RATH HEALTH FOUNDATION

COMMENT

Seemingly hidden under cover of the mainstream media’s ongoing preoccupation with the coronavirus pandemic, the new U.S. biotech policy also calls for automatic regulatory approval of variations on certain types of GM crops. The goal appears to be to make it easier for biotech companies to get such crops onto the market. Predictably, therefore, industry groups are welcoming the new rules as they will inevitably profit from the reduction in U.S. government oversight.

Ultimately, of course, the main reason biotech companies are interested in GM crops is that their seeds can be patented. Patents on GM seeds, and the multibillion dollar potential profits and market control that may result from them, act as powerful incentives for biotech companies to find ways of forcing GM foods onto our dinner plates – regardless of the possible dangers to human health. This patent-based business model, with its focus on products that don’t exist in nature, is essentially the same as the one that is used by the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Not surprisingly, therefore, many pharmaceutical and chemical companies also now have biotech subsidiaries.

Government, Greenhouses, Organic Farming, Permaculture

ORC at 40: Challenging times for organic, but we can be ‘driving force’

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Natural Products - Jan 22nd, 2020 - Jim Manson

As it begins its 40th year, the Organic Research Centre (ORC) – the UK’s leading independent organic research body – has moved to new premises. 

The relocation to Trent Lodge in Cirencester follows a rethink of the charity’s business model since the departure of long-standing CEO Nic Lampkin last year. 

The decision was made to sell the ORC’s previous headquarters, Elm Farm near Newbury, with the aim that proceeds would provide long-term stability, a source of investment income for core funding, and scope to invest in the organisation for the future.

The new premises are situated next to the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), which will help boost the ORC’s industry relations and collaborative activities as well as providing a base for research.

Editorial Note from CCFSH:

Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada - Photo - Ken Billings

Across the country, Agriculture Canada has 20 Research farms. Two in each western province, four in Ontario, four in Quebec and one in each of the Eastern provinces.

According to Agriculture Canada, the jewel in Ottawa, 1150 acres in the middle of the city, called the Central Experimental Farm uses chemicals on 95 to 98 % of the farm.

The people of Canada have a unique opportunity to build a better, healthier business plan. These research facilities, taken over by a volunteer Board of Directors could produce ‘ Organic, Permaculture and Greenhouse Research and Education Centres to provide fiirst class organic research facilities for school children to learn first hand about the wonders of growing safe, healthy food. This is a win/win if we can out maneuver the marriage of Big Agra and the Federal Government control.

This was a big dream of Dr. Shiv Chopra. To do this, it has to be sooner than later. In places like Ottawa, they have already earmarked 70 acres for a hospital and the city developers are drooling over the rest of the Central Experimental Farm.

What do you think?

Ken Billings

Executive Director, CCFSH

Agrochemical Industry, GMO's, Government

VIDEO: GMO - Seeds of Destruction - Lecture by F. William Engdahl - 94 min

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Opendox SE - Stockholm the 9th of April 2014 - Posted by CCFSH Apr 10, 2019

The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

GMO - SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION by F. William Engdahl - LECTURE, April 9th, 2014

One of the most important video lectures you will ever see on the history of the GMO industry and their agenda…CCFSH.

Opendox.se and Anarchos present F. William Engdahl’s lecture about GMO - genetically modified organisms; Monsanto; international politics of patenting plants and animals; central governance of all food production; controlling human birth rates and depopulation programs.

F. William Engdahl (born August 9, 1944) is an American German freelance journalist, historian and economic researcher. After earning a degree in engineering and jurisprudence from Princeton University in 1966 (BA), and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm from 1969 to 1970, he worked as an economist and free-lance journalist in New York and in Europe. His first book was called A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. In 2007, he completed Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl is also a frequent contributor to the website of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Anarchos is a Swedish publishing house which provides works with alternative world views and ideas from authors and researchers like F. William Engdahl, David Icke, Bill Still and many more - often translated from to Swedish.

VIDEO of LECTURE (93 min)

or Youtube VIDEO of Lecture (93 min)

Agrochemical Industry, GMO's, Government

SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION: THE HIDDEN AGENDA OF GENETIC MANIPULATION

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by F. William Engdahl - Reviews from Goodreads - Apr 9,2019

Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation: William F. Engdahl - Goodreads rating 4.3 out of 5

This skillfully researched book focuses on the effort of a tiny socio-political American elite to gain control over the very basis of human survival: our daily bread. Control the food and you control the people. It’s no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader into the corridors of power, into the back rooms of labs, behind closed doors of corporate boardrooms. He cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain control over food production worldwide. If it often reads as a crime story, that should be no surprise: that is what it is. Engdahl’s carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. An eye-opener and must-read for all those committed to social justice and World peace. http: //globalresearch.ca/books/SoD.html

Marijan Jost, Prof of Genetics, Krizevci, Croatia - Back cover: “If you want to learn why biotech corporations insist on spreading GMO seeds around the world - you should read this carefully researched book. You will learn how these corporations want to achieve control over all mankind, and why we must resist…”

Anton Moser, Prof of Biotechnology, Graz, Austria - Back cover: “The book reads like a murder mystery of an incredible dimension, in which four giant Anglo-American agribusiness conglomerates have no hesitation to use GMO to gain control over our very means of subsistence…”.

Dr. Arpad Pusztai, biochemist, formerly of the Rowett Research Institute, Scotland - Back cover:” What is so frightening about Engdahl’s vision of the world is that it is so real. In this new age of ‘free markets’, everything - science, commerce, agriculture and even seeds - have become weapons in the hands of a few global corporation barons and their political fellow travellers.”

Related reference from Dr. Shiv Chopra’s book: “Corrupt to the Core” - back cover

Dr. Shiv Chopra’s name has become synonymous with food safety. With full support of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada - a 50,000 member union of scientific and professional public service employees. Dr. Chopra and his colleagues refused to approve various harmful drugs such as Bovine Growth Hormone, Baytril, and Revalor_H, for use in meat and milk production. They opposed a series of prime ministers and health ministers who had little or no regard for public safety. They defied gag orders, spoke publicly to the media, and testified at many Senate and parliamentary committees. The courts supported Dr. Chopra and his fellow scientists. Today, the dangers of these drugs are internationally recognized. Chopra’s fight against the totally avoidable sources of Mad Cow Disease, calling the bluff on the Anthrax scare, and warning about the myth of safe and effective vaccines are equally inspiring stories.

Here is a full account of how government corruption endangers the public food supply. This book contains a blueprint for the establishment of food safety and security: Dr. Chopra’s “Five Pillars of Food Safety,” which was presented in April 2008 to the Canadian Parliament by MP (NDP) Paul Dewar.

Seeds of Destruction Review

BONUS: VIDEO LECTURE by William Engdahl on Seeds of Destruction (93 min)

Or Youtube VIDEO LECTURE (93 min)

GMO's, Government

A fishy return on public investment: The policy collision over genetically modified salmon

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The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network

Canadians are the first in the world to eat a genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) fish, thanks in part to over $8 million in federal government funding behind its development. The government is set to receive 10% royalties from sales relating to the GM salmon research, as part of a $2.8 million funding agreement in 2009 between the GM fish company AquaBounty and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. 38% of Canadians say they would “definitely not eat” if given the choice, and so the product’s success, arguably, depends on the government maintaining its position against mandatory labelling of GM foods. Published in the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives magazine Monitor, Sept/Oct 2018.

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Agrochemical Industry, Genetically Engineered (GE), Government

Scientists Sound Alarm Over Mysterious Gov’t Plan to Spread Viruses Using Bugs

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Anti Media - by

A team of scientists sound the alarm in a new Science Policy Forum report about a mysterious US government program that is developing genetically modified viruses that would be dispersed into the environment using insects. The virus-infected or ‘Frankenstein’ insects are being developed as countermeasures against potential natural and engineered threats to the US food supply. The program is operated by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) could be viewed as an attempt to develop an entirely new class of bioweapons that would prompt other nations to seek similar weapons, they cautioned.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and the University of Freiburg both in Germany, and the University of Montpellier in France suggest DARPA’s program could likely breach the Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons.

Dubbed the “Insect Allies” program, DARPA began modifying insects in 2017, with the plan to produce more resilient crops to help farmers deal with climate change, drought, frost, floods, salinity, and disease, said Gizmodo. The technology at the center of the program is an entirely new method of genetically modifying crops. Instead of modifying seeds in a lab, farmers would send swarms of insects into their crops, where the genetically modified bugs would infect plants with a virus that passes along the new resilience genes, a process known as horizontal genetic alteration. Hence the technology’s name—Horizontal Environmental Genetic Alteration Agents (HEGAA).

For HEGAA to work, Gizmodo explains that DARPA labs develop a virus that is inserted into the chromosome of a target organism. Scientists would use leafhoppers, whiteflies, and aphids genetically altered in the lab using CRISPR, or a variant of a gene-editing system, to carry the virus into crops. Each plant would then be infected by the insect, triggering the intended effects of protecting crops from natural and or human-made threats.

However, the lead author of the report, Richard Guy Reeves from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, says DARPA’s Insect Allies program is disturbing and an example of dual-use research in which the US government, in addition to aiding farmers’ crops, is also developing a biological weapon.

Read on…

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