Censored 2014

by Mickey Huff

  A new documentary film, Dirty White Gold by Leah Borromeo, goes beyond the issue of farmer suicides to explain how the global fashion industry and international consumer habits contribute to the lives and deaths of Indian farmers. Dirty White Gold examined the cotton supply chain, with the aim of generating support for legislation that will, in Borromeo’s words, “make ethics and sustainability the norm in the fashion industry.”38 A previous documentary film, Micha X. Peled’s Bitter Seeds, also illuminated Monsanto’s negative impacts in India. Bitter Seeds, which followed a teenage girl whose father committed suicide due to debt, showed how Monsanto lies directly to Indian farmers, going as far as making up fictitious farmers who “have success” with the new Bt cotton. Monsanto has claimed that there has also been a 25 percent reduction in pesticide costs. In Bitter Seeds, both of these claims were proven false.39

  The uniformity created by Monsanto’s seeds, and by GM seeds more generally, has led to agricultural catastrophes because there is less seed diversity compared to earlier times. For example, today only four varieties of potatoes are widely grown, and one study indicated that we have lost about 97 percent of the varieties of vegetables grown before the twentieth century.40 What’s been done is done: we may not be able to recover seed lines lost in the process of our desperate desire to make all tomatoes look identical or “perfect.” However, agricultural standards of uniformity are not the only issue. We may be able to survive with only a few varieties of vegetables, but GM crops have been shown to pose health risks.41 Our faith in technology, coupled with our desire for perfection, comes at great cost, not only for farmers, such as those in India, but also for consumers.

  One solution is to assure that consumers are better informed about the health risks of GM foods. If members of the public had better information about the potential risks of eating genetically modified food, then they could make informed decisions about whether or not to eat it. In California, Proposition 37 was an attempt to inform the public. If passed, it would have required labels indicating if a product contained any GM ingredients. In November 2012, the proposition failed to pass due to large donations from big corporations, including Monsanto.42 Though consumers in California suffer less than farmers in India, both are victims of Monsanto’s pursuit of money at the expense of public health.

  Previous Censored reports have addressed the health risks associated with GM foods, as well as efforts by Big Ag and the US government to affect policy, both domestically and abroad, on their regulation.43 In this year’s Censored story #24, Cassandra Anderson and Anthony Gu-cciardi reported that Monsanto’s GM alfalfa may have been set free in 2003—a full two years or more before it was deregulated in 2005.44 In a letter obtained by health website NaturalSociety with permission to post for public viewing, it becomes clear that the USDA may have turned a blind eye to the entire situation, allowing the possibility of widespread GM contamination of GM-free crops.

  The case is especially problematic because alfalfa is a perennial crop; it does not need replanting each year, like annual crops do. As a perennial, it is vulnerable to cross-pollination and, therefore, GM contamination. For this reason, genetically modified alfalfa could quickly spread to crops across the US, threatening the integrity of organic products—including organic meat and dairy products, if those animals are fed alfalfa believed to be GMO-free, but are in fact carrying Monsanto’s patented genetically modified trait.45

  The revolving door between Monsanto and the USDA—alluded to in the introduction of this news cluster—may be partly to blame. Thus, for example, Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods previously served as the vice president for public policy at Monsanto; Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom Monsanto employed as a corporate lawyer in the 1970s, recently ruled in favor of Monsanto in a case pitting the corporation against a soybean farmer from Indiana; and Obama’s chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the US Trade Representative, Islam Siddiqui, previously worked as the vice president of CropLife America, a lobbying group that represents pesticide and genetic engineering companies, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, and DuPont.46

  The more the public learns about the potential hazards of GMOs, the stronger the opposition gets. The US may wish to follow the lead of other nations that have taken robust stands against GMO production. Peru placed a ten-year moratorium on GMO seeds, which otherwise threaten that country’s diverse, abundant crops.47 As Jonathan Benson reported, “This embargo will help perpetuate the native biodiversity practices that have sustained Peruvians since the days when the Incan Empire reigned supreme.”48

  Bans and boycotts are nonviolent forms of resistance to GMOs. When we put our money where our mouths are, change can happen. In Europe, Monsanto has halted the lobbying of GMO plants due to low demand from local farmers.49 It is simply supply and demand. If we don’t buy it, they’ll stop making it.

  CONCLUSION

  The natural world sustains us. In pursuing technological advances, we often do great damage to our planet’s natural processes. Technology can be wonderful, but we must use it with care and remember our duty to protect and preserve the planet that ultimately sustains us. Perhaps a return to what was once valued will be our salvation; the Suquamish leader Seattle (1780–1866) continues to remind us: “The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth.”

  SUSAN RAHMAN, MA, is a sociology instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College and the College of Marin. Her areas of interest include Palestinian self-determination, issues of privilege and inequality, and media literacy. Her current work focuses on the role of self-reflection in social transformation. She lives in Sebastopol, California, with her partner Carlos, daughter Jordan, and dogs, Rosie and Cody.

  LILIANA VALDEZ-MADERA was the student researcher for Censored story #24, “Alabama Farmers Look to Replace Migrants with Prisoners,” in Censored 2013, and for Censored story #20, “Israel Counted Minimum Calorie Needs in Gaza Blockade,” in this volume. She recently graduated from Santa Rosa Junior College and will transfer to Dominican University of California this fall. A psychology major and aspiring poet, she plans to continue her involvement with Project Censored.

  Notes

  1. See, for example, Jeremy Bloom, “Monsanto Employees in the Halls of Government,” Red, Green, and Blue, February 9, 2011, http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/09/monsanto-employees-in-the-halls-of-government/, and a supporting graphic, http://ciredgreenandblueorg.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2012/02/monsanto-employees-government-revolving-door.jpg.

  2. “The world hasn’t ended, but the world as we know it has—even if we don’t quite know it yet,” Bill McKibben, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (New York: Henry Holt 2010), 2.

  3. See the Censored News Cluster, “Iceland, the Power of Peaceful Revolution, and the Commons,” in this volume.

  4. See, for example, Devra Davis, “Cicadas and Cell Phones,” Huffington Post, April 30, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devra-davis-phd/cell-phones-cancer_b_3157171.html.

  5. For example, “No Evidence Linking Cell Phone Use to Risk of Brain Tumors,” US Food and Drug Administration, May 17, 2010, http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm212273.htm.

  6. James F. Tracy, “Looming Health Crisis: Wireless Technology and the Toxification of America,” Global Research, July 8, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31816.

  7. “Fracking Can be Undertaken Safely if Best Practice and Regulations are in Force,” Royal Academy of Engineering, June 29, 2012, http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/shownews.htm?NewsID=771.

  8. Elizabeth Royte, “Fracking Our Food Supply,” Nation, December 17, 2012, http://www.the-nation.com/article/171504/fracking-our-food-supply.

  9. Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, “Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health,” New Solutions 22, no. 1 (January 2012), http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/Impacts_of_Gas_Drilling_on_Human_and_Animal_Health. Cited Royte, “Fracking Our Food Supply.”

  10. Chr
ista Marshall, “Can Fracking and Carbon Sequestration Coexist?,” Scientific American, March 16, 2012, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-fracking-and-carbon-sequestration-co-exist.

  11. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, “Why Food Riots Are Likely to Become the New Normal,” Guardian, March 6, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/mar/06/food-riots-new-normal.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid.

  14. “3 Killed in Haiti Amid Food Riots, Clashes,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2008, http://articles. latimes.com/2008/apr/05/world/fg-hait15.

  15. “Food Cost Threatens Rebound in China,” New York Times, March 11, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/12/business/global/food-costs-threaten-rebound-in-china.html?ref=foodprices.

  16. Richard Anderson, “Food Price Crisis: What Crisis?” BBC News, October 15, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19715504.

  17. “Food Facts: Your Scraps Add Up,” Natural Resources Defense Council, March 2013, http://www.nrdc.org/living/eatingwell/files/foodwaste_2pgr.pdf; “USDA and EPA Launch U.S. Food Waste Challenge,” United States Department of Agriculture, June 4, 2013, http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2013/06/0112.xml.

  18. Anderson, “Food Price Crisis.”

  19. Dive!, directed by Jeremy Seifert (2009; self-released), http://www.divethefilm.com.

  20. Colin Todhunter, “Embracing Sustainability: Forsaking Meat and Chemical Agriculture,” Global Research, September 18, 2012, http://www.globalresearch.ca/embracing-sustainability-forsaking-meat-and-chemical-agriculture/5305093.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.

  23. See also, Censored story #2, “Oceans in Peril,” in Censored 2013: Dispatchesfrom the Media Revolution, Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth with Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories, 2012), 87–89.

  24. “Rising Ocean Acid Levels Are ‘The Biggest Threat to Coral Reefs,’” Guardian, July 9, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/09/acid-threat-coral-reef.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Suzanne Goldenberg, “Report Warns of Global Food Insecurity as Climate Change Destroys Fisheries,” Guardian, September 24, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/24/food-climate-change-fisheries.

  29. Matthew Huelsenbeck, Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World, report, Oceana, September 2012, http://oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/Ocean-Based_Food_ Security_Threatened_in_a_High_CO2_World.pdf; cited in Goldenberg, “Report Warns.”

  30. Richard Anderson, “Food Price Crisis: What Crisis?” BBC News, October 15, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19715504.

  31. Ibid.

  32. James A. Foley, “Humanity’s Access to Fresh Water in Peril, Conference of 500 Water Scientists Says,” Nature World News, May 25, 2013, http://www.natureworldnews.com/ar-ticles/2110/20130525/humanitys-access-fresh-water-peril-conference-500-wateer-scientits-s.htm.

  33. Jason Overdorf, “India: Gutting of India’s Cotton Farmers,” GlobalPost, October 8, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/america-the-gutted/india-cotton-farmers-monsanto-suicides; Belen Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold,” Al Jazeera, December 8, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121257593528550i.html.

  34. Overdorf, “India.”

  35. Ibid.; Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold.”

  36. Vandana Shiva, “From Seeds of Suicide to Seeds of Hope: Why Are Indian Farmers Committing Suicide and How Can We Stop This Tragedy?,” Huffington Post, April 28, 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vandana-shiva/from-seeds-of-suicide-to_b_192419.html; quoted in Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold.”

  37. Overdorf, “India.”

  38. Fernandez, “Dirty White Gold.”

  39. Bitter Seeds, directed by Micha X. Peled, 60 min., http://www.itvs.org/films/bitter-seeds.

  40. A study by the Rural Advancement Fund International (RAFI) compared the number of varieties of different commercial crops known to the US Department of Agriculture in 1903 to the number of varieties of these crops for which seeds existed in the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) in 1983. Considering about seventy-five different vegetables together, the RAFI study found that approximately 97 percent of the varieties on the 1903 lists are now extinct. See Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney, Shattering: Food Politics and the Loss of Genetic Diversity (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990), 63.

  41. For example, James Corbett and Anthony Gucciardi, “GMO Foods: Science, PR, and Public Backlash,” Global Research TV, October 29, 2012, http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2012/10/gmo-foods-science-pr-and-public-backlash.

  42. Ronnie Cummins and Katherine Paul, “Did Monsanto Win Prop 37? Round One in the Food Fight of Our Lives,” AlterNet, November 9, 2012,http://www.alternet.org/food/did-monsanto-win-prop-37-round-one-food-fight-our-lives.

  43. On GM health risks, see Censored story “Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed, Censored 2007, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006), 72–74; on industry and government efforts to avoid regulation and open markets, respectively, see Censored story #20, “US Agencies Trying to Outlaw GMO Food Labeling,” Censored 2012, ed. Mickey Huff and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2011), 95–96, and Censored story #21, “Forcing a World Market for GMOs,” Censored 2005, ed. Peter Phillips and Project Censored (New York: Seven Stories, 2004), 101–104.

  44. Cassandra Anderson and Anthony Gucciardi, “Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?” Global Research, May 4, 2012, http://www.global-research.ca/widespread-gmo-contamination-did-monsanto-plant-gmos-before-usda-approval/.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Bloom, “Monsanto Employees in the Halls of Government”; Janie Boschma, “Monsanto: Big Guy on the Block When it Comes to Friends in Washington,” Open Secrets, February 19, 2013, http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/02/monsanto.html; “USDA Watch: Which Side is Obama On?,” Organic Consumers Association, no date, http://www.organicconsumers.org/usda_watch.com.

  47. Annie Murphy, “Peru Says No to GMO,” Christian Science Monitor, April 25, 2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2013/0425/Peru-says-no-to-GMO.

  48. Jonathan Benson, “Peru Bans All GMOs,” Natural News, May 8, 2013, http://www.natural-news.com/040245_GMO_ban_Peru_Monsanto.html#ixzz2SiRUtjON.

  49. “Monsanto Set to Halt GMO Push in Europe,” RT, May 31, 2013, http://rt.com/news/monsan-to-stop-lobbying-eu-084/.

  CENSORED NEWS CLUSTER

  Iceland, the Power of

  Peaceful Revolution,

  and the Commons

  Andy Lee Roth

  Censored #9

  Icelanders Vote to Include Commons in Their Constitution

  Jessica Conrad, “Icelanders Vote to Include the Commons in Their Constitution,” Commons Magazine, November 2012, http://onthecommons.org/magazine/icelanders-vote-include-commons-their-constitution.

  Thorvaldur Gylfason, “Iceland: Direct Democracy in Action,” Open Democracy, November 12, 2012, http://www.opendemocracy.net/thorvaldur-gylfason/iceland-direct-democracy-in-action.

  Student Researcher: Pedro Martin Del Campo (Sonoma State University)

  Faculty Evaluator: Andy Lee Roth (Sonoma State University)

  Censored #17

  The Creative Commons Celebrates Ten Years of Sharing and Cultural Creation

  Paul M. Davis, “Creative Commons Celebrates 10 Years of Opening Culture,” Shareable, December 7, 2012, http://www.shareable.net/blog/creative-commons-celebrates-10-years-of-opening-culture.

  Jason Hibbets, “Celebrating 10 Years of Creative Commons,” opensource.com, November 29, 2012, http://opensource.com/law/12/11/celebrating-ten-years-creative-commons.

  Timothy Vollmer, “Pallante’s Push for U.S. Copyright Reform,” Creative Commons News, March 20, 2013, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/37576.

  Student Researcher: Nicholas Lanoil (San Francisco State University)

  Faculty
Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

  Censored #19

  The Power of Peaceful Revolution in Iceland

  Alex Pietrowski, “Iceland’s Hordur Torfason—How to Beat the Banksters,” Waking Times, December 11, 2012, http://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/12/11/icelands-hordur-torfason-how-to-beat-the-banksters.

  Student Researcher: Pedro Martin Del Campo (Sonoma State University)

  Faculty Evaluator: Ed Beebout (Sonoma State University)

  RELATED VALIDATED INDEPENDENT NEWS STORIES

  Iceland’s Modern Media Initiative Supports WikiLeaks Alternative

  Lowana Veal, “Alternative to Wikileaks Arises in Iceland,” Inter Press Service, September 24, 2012, http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/09/alternative-to-wikileaks-arises-in-iceland.

  Student Researcher: Rory Scotland (Sonoma State University)

  Faculty Evaluator: Peter Chamberlin (Sonoma State University)

  Iceland Refuses to Aid FBI in WikiLeaks Investigation

  “FBI Agents Flew to Iceland to Investigate WikiLeaks,” Democracy Now!, February 1, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/1/headlines/report_fbi_agents_flew_to_iceland_to_investi-gate_wikileaks.

  “Iceland Denies Aid to FBI in WikiLeaks Investigation,” RT, February 2, 2013, http://rt.com/news/iceland-fbi-wikileaks-investigation-292.

  Trisha Marczak, “Iceland Gives FBI the Boot,” MPN (Mint Press News), February 4, 2013, http://www.mintpress.net/iceland-gives-fbi-the-boot.

  “Eight FBI Agents Conduct Interrogation in Iceland in Relation to Ongoing U.S. Investigation of WikiLeaks,” WikiLeaks, February 7, 2013, https://wikileaks.org/Eight-FBI-agents-conduct.html.

  Student Researcher: Ariel Garcia (College of Marin)

  Faculty Evaluator: Susan Rahman (College of Marin)

  Norway’s Economic Success: Managing Petroleum Wealth