ALERT!! HR1105….Another Bill to Force NAIS

Every Thursday for the past 6 Months, Government Officials have raided homes and businesses. Sometimes at gunpoint, sometimes with a warrant, and sometimes with nothing more then the burly bodies that intimidate those about to be oppressed.

The intent of these raids is to gain control of the distribution of such seemingly innocuous ‘weapons’ as raw milk, vegetable seed, cattle and other farm animals. It is nothing more than collusion between the FDA, Department of Agriculture and Monsanto to force small farmers out and to stifle organic farming. The result so far is to terrorize small farm owners and their families. It has also alerted those of us who are sensitive to any attempt by our federal government to control our actions and to force compliance with laws attempting to give up control of time-honored family-owned farming traditions. Once the family-run farm is ‘under control’ they will next cone after backyard gardeners.

Here in the US, Monsanto goon squads routinely trespass onto privately owned land, take samples of privately owned crops and then claim Monsanto’s frankenseed crops are being grown illegally, their patents have been violated. According to Monsanto, these are “unauthorized seeds”. Those two words are a harbinger of things to come and should give you an idea where all of this is headed.

Courts have ruled that if Monsanto’s seeds sprout in a ditch near the uncontaminated natural crops of a farmer who refuses to grow gmo, the crop belongs to Monsanto along with fines and penalties.

The following is a list of those at the vanguard of this very under-reported war:
John Stowers Farm LaGrange, Ohio. Crime: They run a private, members-only food co-op.

Greg Niewendorp, Michigan. Crime: refusing to participate in the NAIS

Steve Hixon, Illinois. Crime: cleaning seeds

Paul-Martin Griepentrog, Wisconsin. Crime: refusing to participate in the NAIS

Democrats are submitting one bill after another in the House and Senate in response to the massive backlash against the National Animal Identification System, making sure that as one bill is exposed and opposed, another quickly takes its place. As farm and ranch groups respond angrily to the overt attempts to end family farming and ranching in favor of industrialized frankenfood factory farms, as Monsanto and other GMO developers gain ever greater ownership of food production and supply, USDA and FDA acting in concert with local law enforcement are raiding farms and ranches.

It was discovered that funding for these bills which have not even been passed, is already underway.

Today, Thursday of course, H.R. 1105 is awaiting assignment to Committee in the Senate. It stands poised to allocate $289 million to APHIS for the implementation of the National Animal Identification System. It also outlines the time frame to implement in 2009 the tracking of 33 species.

We as voters do not go to the polls to elect officials to represent Multi-National Corporations or Lobbyists paid by groups attempting to get their piece of the pie. We elect officials to protect us, the consumer.

If a dozen or more terrorists held two women, 10 children, toddlers and a baby hostage for six hours, the event would be televised nationwide and on the front pages of newspapers the next day. Unless, of course, the perpetrators are members of our federal government.

I find it very disturbing that our main-stream-media has chosen not to report these raids. The only way to learn of them is through blogs, websites, and word of mouth.

I write about this topic from time to time in an attempt to do my part in keeping as many people as possible aware of the progress that Monsanto and other GMO advocates are making toward owning all seed companies. In 2005 Monsanto’s seed/genetic trait holdings were primarily in corn, cotton, soybean, and canola. That year they purchased Seminis, the world’s largest vegetable seed company (see And We Have the Seed) specializing in seed for vegetable field crops.

Now their takeover of the vegetable seed sector continues, as they have announced the intent to purchase the Dutch breeding and seed company, De Ruiter Seeds. This purchase diversifies Monsanto’s seed holdings in vegetable field crops (Seminis) to “protected culture” fruits and vegetables (primarily tomatoes and cucurbits produced greenhouse, hothouse, etc). Analysts from Bank of America say that this gives Monsanto 25% of the world vegetable seed market, but I believe that this is a low estimate.

Meanwhile, Monsanto is taking many other steps to keep farmers and everyone else from having any access at all to buying, collecting, and saving of normal seeds:

1. They’ve bought up the seed companies across the Midwest.
2. They’ve written Monsanto seed laws and gotten legislators to put them through, that make cleaning, collecting and storing of seeds so onerous in terms of fees and paperwork that having normal seed becomes almost impossible.
3. Monsanto is pushing laws that ensure farmers and citizens can’t block the planting of GMO crops even if they can contaminate other crops.
4. There are Monsanto regulations buried in the FDA rules that make a farmer’s seed cleaning equipment illegal because it’s now considered a “source of seed contamination.”

Monsanto has sued more than 1,500 farmers whose fields had simply been contaminated by GM crops.

Still think they don’t have a plan to own every seed in the world?




Further Reading:
Everything you need to know about NAIS

No NAIS

Monsanto’s Position on Seed Patent Infringement

Who Own’s Your Tomato?

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Permaculture: A Revolution in Food Security

This is a topic I posted on one of my other blogs at “Are We Green Yet?”. I feel the subject is topical enough to post here as well. I was going to rewrite it to take out some of the political aspects of it but reconsidered when I realized that a little politicizing is good for gardeners now and then. And after all many of us are part of the new food revolution, so here goes.

A new term has entered our lexicon, peak oil. What the everyday consumer is supposed to envision upon hearing this term is that the world has already extracted half of the planet’s natural oil resources and from this moment on the rate of production has entered a terminal decline. What this means to us of course is that the price of oil will only go higher due to its increasing scarcity and our ever increasing population size and our continued dependence on fossil-fuel-burning industry. British Petroleum (BP) claims we have not reached this ‘peak’ point while other oil companies say we have. And the debate continues without any clear way of knowing if we have reached peak oil because no one knows exactly how much oil is available under the planets surface.

Personally, I don’t know who to believe because I am not an expert, so I, like the rest of us, am at the mercy of those who are, or claim to be, experts. I do, however, believe we should aggressively research alternative energy sources no matter how much oil remains to be extracted. The longer we wait to actually adopt an alternative energy source(s) the more money we are throwing at big oil who clearly have no real interest in pursuing an alternative to using their product and the more environmental damage we are doing to the planets surface, air and water.

In the meantime, while we watch our government drag its feet in setting token and ineffective attempts at environmental policy while agribusiness and oil executives suck every dollar out of our pockets, there is a movement underway that has, unwittingly, been developing for years by individuals covering a wide spectrum of people who call themselves home gardeners, urban farmers, weekend garden ‘hobbyists’, and lately, locavores.

Permaculture and the increasing desire to become self-sufficient and sustainable is a lifestyle whose time has returned. Farming communities survived quite well for many, many years before we became industrialized and traded our independence for the convenience of having such things as: out-of-season fruits and vegetables every day of the year, and someone else to grow and can our foods.

With the emergence of recent issues concerning food safety, food and gas prices, genetically modified food, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation of food over great distances, and food freshness and quality, more and more people are becoming painfully aware of the dangerously vulnerable position we are being forced into. The continued reliance on agribusiness, government, big oil and even financial organizations to provide for our daily necessities is in jeopardy.

I am convinced that communities everywhere need to create local, sustainable, community gardens to supplement each individuals home gardens for the purpose of creating community food surplus in case of national emergency. I realize I may sound alarmist, but our nations cupboard is bare.

I recently discovered a group based in Nevada City, California, called Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy. APPLE is a grassroots group striving for a more self-reliant, sustainable local economy (as opposed to global economy that the world’s money changers are pushing for). They produce locally what they consume locally, as much as possible. It is an intuitive idea that I believe many people have been craving as an answer to our need for food safety and community activism. It is a means of re-establishing our own control over what we eat and how it is grown.

They have produced over 100 videos, they call them conversations, featuring everyday individuals who adopted permaculture and have taken the step towards sustainability in their own yards. Be sure to watch #51 “An Experiment in Back Yard Sustainability” and #100 “Suburban Permaculture with Janet Barocco and Richard Heinberg”.

One such video, entitled “How Much Food Can You Grow in Your Yard?”, shows an urban lot, measuring 75’ by 125’, in Port Townsend, Washington. The home owner, Judy Alexander, takes us through her self-sustained property re-educating us on how it is possible to grow enough food to sustain your family and have excess for neighbors, friends, or community storage.

Whether you agree or disagree with the narrators assessment that we have reached a peak of human innovation, information, wealth and health, check out the videos for some very educational insight to what it can be like to regain our independence and get back the satisfaction that being in touch with land brings.

There are of course many other groups out there creating their own sustainable eden. One of my personal favorite experiments in permaculture is taking place at the “Little Homestead in the City”. They call themselves eco-pioneers living a homegrown revolution on a sustainable, real-life original urban homestead. They have set an excellent example of how anyone can create an environment that reaches out to the community at large and can therefore inspire others fulfill their own need for independence. It truly is a revolution.

Our dependence on oil is becoming more and more expensive in terms of cost of extraction and production which gets passed on to the consumer, and in the cost of damage to the environment in terms of exploration, extraction and burning of oil which is felt by everyone. We are being forced to accept higher food prices as the result of short-sighted use of food crops for the production of bio-fuels instead of using non-food crops. In our rush to sever ties to foreign oil we are made to believe that the only immediate answer is to damage the environment further by increasing the number of offshore oil wells.

Through the use of the internet and our increased access to each others gardens and skills, through blogs and websites as educational tools, we are all becoming more empowered to take the course of our future into our own hands, to grow our own food, and share the excess with neighbors in an attempt to get this food revolution off the ground.





Further reading:
Instant permaculture for the suburbs

Are we running out of oil?

Why peak oil is probably about now

Permaculture Institute

Homesteading Today

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