GMOs - Running The Country

April 2, 2014

14 Reasons Our Family Boycotts Kellogg’s

Diana Reeves lost her son to cancer before creating GMO Free USA, an activist organization dedicated to exposing the multiple problems associated with genetically modified organisms and pressuring companies to stop sourcing their products with GMOs. Among other achievements, Diana initiated the Kellogg’s Boycott campaign in July of 2012.

We are proud to join with Diana, GMO Free USA, and thousands of other families in the Boycott Kellogg’s campaign. Our family has been boycotting Kellogg’s (and several other major purveyors of GMOs) for a few years now. And we certainly boycott Kellogg’s as we Run For a GMO Free USA. Why Kellogg’s? Following is a list of 14 reasons. Any one reason is sufficient to justify a boycott. All of them together make it impossible to justify NOT boycotting Kellogg’s.

1. Kellogg’s uses 100% poison-saturated, poison-producing GMO corn. GMO corn is registered by the EPA as a pesticide. (If GMO corn were sold in a hardware store, it would be most appropriately placed next to the other bug killers like Black Flag and Raid.) In addition to GMO corn, Kellogg’s products also include Round Up drenched GMO soy, GMO sugar, GMO canola and GMO cottonseed oil.

2. Perhaps more than any other breakfast cereal brand, Kellogg’s symbolizes quality American agriculture. Poison saturated GMOs are the product of modern chemical intensive agribusiness, not American agriculture. Boycotting Kellogg’s will help Kellogg’s return to its roots as a healthy food company.

3. GMO corn is America’s largest monoculture crop. Monocultures destroy natural plant biodiversity. Poison saturated GMO corn monoculture plays a large part in the recent precipitous decline in the numbers of Monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

4. GMO agriculture kills soil. One early soil scientist, Charles E. Kellogg, stated, “Essentially, all life depends upon the soil … There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together.” ~ Charles E. Kellogg, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1939 (http://www.academia.edu/3419876/Global_Economic_Impact_of_GMOs)

5. Poison saturated GMO corn is implicated in a host of modern illnesses . . . including cancer. Some researchers believe that Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Round Up) is the cause of these illnesses. Independent scientists now tell us that Glyphosate is multiple times more toxic when combined with the adjuvants found in Round Up. In addition, Glyphosate’s toxicity multiplies when it binds with metals in the soil. Sri Lanka recently banned the use of Round Up in certain regions due to an epidemic of kidney disease in agricultural workers.

6. Increasing numbers of scientific studies suggest that poison saturated GMO corn and soy are no more healthy for laboratory and agricultural animals than they are for humans. And most GMO corn and soy are fed to agricultural animals. Numerous farmers document that animals refuse to eat GMOs when given a choice. We recognize and honor the wisdom of the animals when we say no to Kellogg’s GMOs.

7. Kellogg’s markets toxic GMOs directly to children. Contrary to what Tony the Tiger says, That’s not “GRRRRRREAT!!!” When our kids tell us they’ll die if we don’t buy them a box of Fruit Loops, we get to show them the truth about deceptive and dangerous advertising. We show them our purchasing decisions matter and that we value their health over glitzy advertising.

8. Kellogg’s boasts the following on its website: “To further our commitment to people, Kellogg became one of the first companies to proudly display our cereals’ recipes and nutritional info on our boxes — so our consumers knew exactly what they were eating.” How then does Kellogg’s justify the nearly $800,000 it contributed to the propaganda campaign that defeated Proposition 37 to label genetically engineered foods in California? Any company that actively fights GMO labeling deserves to be boycotted.

9. Kellogg’s already sources its ingredients from non-GMO sources . . . in other countries. We will boycott Kellogg’s products until Kellogg’s provides the same GMO Free products it already sells in other countries.

10. Once a major company like Kellogg’s removes GMOs, its sales will increase and other major players will have to follow Kellogg’s lead to remain competitive.

11. We buy and eat a ton of organic cereal, thus showing our support for organic agriculture. Organic farmers face huge economic challenges in our pro-GMO agribusiness culture. One major risk they face is contamination from GMO crops and subsequent lawsuits for alleged patent infringement from the likes of Monsanto. The U.S. Supreme Court may be okay with such absurd lawsuits, but we are not. As more people buy organic, more farmers will take the risk to grow organic crops.

12. By boycotting Kellogg’s, we keep our money out of the hands of Monsanto millionaires and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. Thus, we can rest assured that Monsanto and the GMA are not using our money to buy out politicians and deceptively (and sometimes illegally) influence voters to vote against their own best interest.

13. By boycotting Kellogg’s, we are joining with thousands of other families who are actively taking charge of their health and purchasing decisions. Diana writes, “For the last 3 quarters – that’s 9 months, Kellogg’s sales in the US have been down. Breakfast foods were down by 4% in the 4th quarter of 2013.” Together, we are making a difference.

14. We boycott Kellogg’s because we can! People often ask, “But what can we do, the system is so corrupt?” We can all boycott Kellogg’s. It’s easy to do. Kellogg’s needs us more than we need Kellogg’s. If everyone boycotted Kellogg’s, Kellogg’s would change its ingredients overnight. Other food manufacturers would follow. Boycotting Kellogg’s is not the only thing we can do, but it’s one thing we can all do.

This is a call to action! Boycott Kellogg’s now. Let’s boycott Kellogg’s until Kellogg’s returns to its roots as a partner in healthy agricultural practices and a provider of healthy products. We look forward to purchasing Kellogg’s breakfast cereals in the future, but until Kellogg’s removes GMOs and stops funding anti-labeling propaganda, we will continue to boycott Kellogg’s. Join with Diana and join with thousands of other families in our boycott of Kellogg’s products. And then when the day Kellogg’s finally goes GMO Free, we can all join with Tony and shout, “They’re Grrrreat!”

—
Brett and his 15-year old son, David, are currently running from coast to America coast promoting a GMO-Free USA. Brett and David blog at RunningTheCountry.com. Brett wrote this blog in Dalhart, Texas, some 1,200 miles into their run. Support their run and mission at RunningTheCountry.com/donate.

March 28, 2014

Women Ecowarriors by Vandana Shiva

Women Ecowarriors
by Dr. Vandana Shiva

Source: http://www.asianage.com/columnists/women-ecowarriors-670

Over the last four decades, I have served the Earth and grassroots ecological movements, beginning with the historic Chipko Movement (Hug the Tree Movement), in the Central Himalaya.

Every movement in which I participated, I noticed that women were the decision-makers — they decided the course of action and even were unrelenting in protecting the land and the sources of their sustenance and livelihoods.

Women who were a part of the Chipko movement were protecting forests because deforestation and logging in Uttarakhand led to floods, draughts, landslides and other such natural disasters. It led to scarcity of fuel and fodder. It led to the disappearance of springs and streams, forcing women to walk longer and further for water.

The dominant paradigm of forestry is based on monocultures of commercial species where forests are seen as timber mines that produce timber and generate revenue and leads to profits. The women of the Chipko Movement taught the world and me that timber, revenue and profits were not the real products of the forest; the real products were soil, water and pure air.

Today, science refers to these as ecological functions of ecosystems. Illiterate women of the Garhwal Himalaya were four decades ahead of the scientists of the world. By 1981, the government was compelled to stop logging in the Central Himalaya.

On April 22, 2002, which is recognised as Earth Day, I was invited by women from a small hamlet named Plachimada in Palghat, Kerala, to join their struggle against Coca Cola which was mining 1.5 million litres of water a day and polluting the water that remained in their wells.

Women were forced to walk 10 kilometres every day in search for clean drinking water. Mylamma, a tribal woman leading the movement, said they would not walk further for water. Coca Cola must stop stealing their water. These women decided to set up a satyagraha (struggle for truth) camp opposite the Coca Cola factory. I too joined them in solidarity and over the years supported them. In 2004, Coca Cola was forced to shut down.

In 1984, a terrible disaster caused by a leak from Union Carbide’s pesticide plant in Bhopal killed 3,000 people immediately. Still thousands of children are born with disabilities. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow, which refuses to take ownership of responsibility for justice. In 1984, as a response to the Bhopal disaster, I started a campaign, “No more Bhopals, plant a Neem”.

The women of Bhopal were also victims of the disaster. But they did not let their hopes and fight for justice wane. For example, Rashidabi and Champadevi Shukla continued their struggle for justice. They also provide rehabilitation to the children born with disabilities. They have set up a Chingari Trust to honour women fighting corporate injustice. In 2012, they invited me to give the Chingari award to the women fighting against the nuclear power plant at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu.

In 1994, I came to know that the use of neem to control pests and diseases in agriculture has been patented by US department of agriculture and multinational WR Grace. We launched a neem campaign to challenge the biopiracy. More than 100,000 Indians signed to initiate a case in the European Patent Office. I joined hands with Magda Alvoet, the president of the European Greens and Linda Bullard, president of International Foundation for Organic Agriculture to fight the case for 11 years. On March 8, 2005, on International Women’s Day, the European patent office struck down the biopiracy patent.
Why there’s a trend of women leading ecology movements against deforestation and pollution of water, against toxic and nuclear hazards? I partly believe that in the division of labour, it is women who have been left to look after sustenance — providing food, water, health and care.

When it comes to the sustenance of the economy, women act as both experts and providers. Even though women’s work in providing sustenance is the most vital human activity, a patriarchal economy which defines the economy only as the economy of the marketplace, treats it as non work.

The patriarchal model of the economy is dominated by one figure, the gross domestic product, which is measured on the basis of an artificially created production boundary (if you produce what you consume, you do not produce).

When the ecological crisis created by an ecologically blind economic paradigm leads to the disappearance of forests and water, spread of diseases because of toxics and poisons, and the consequent threat to life and survival, it is women who rise to wake up the society to the crisis, and to defend the Earth and lives. Women are leading the paradigm shift to align the economy with ecology. After all, both are rooted in the word “oikos” — our home.

Not only are women experts in the sustenance economy. They are experts in ecological science through their daily participation in processes that provide sustenance. Their expertise is rooted in lived experience and not in abstract and fragmented knowledge, which cannot see through the connectedness of the web of life.

The rise of masculinist science with Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Bacon led to the domination of reductionist mechanistic science and a subjugation of knowledge systems based on interconnections and relationships. This includes all indigenous knowledge systems and women’s knowledge.

The most violent display of mechanistic science is in the promotion of industrial agriculture, including genetically modified organisms as a solution to hunger and malnutrition.

Industrial agriculture uses chemicals developed for warfare as inputs. Genetic engineering is based on the idea of genes as “master molecules” giving unidirectional commands to the rest of the organism. The reality is that living systems are self-organised, interactive and dynamic. The genome is fluid.
As these issues move centrestage in every society, it is women who bring the alternatives through biodiversity and agroecology that offer real solutions to the food and nutrition crisis.

As I have learnt over 30 years of building the Navdanya movement, biodiversity produces more than monocultures. Small family farms based on women’s participation provide 75 per cent of the food eaten in the world. Industrial agriculture only produces 25 per cent, while using and destroying 75 per cent of the Earth’s resources.

When it comes to real solutions to real problems faced by the planet and people, it is the subjugated knowledge and invisible work of women based on co-creation and co-production with nature that will show the way to human survival and well being in the future.

Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust