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Monsanto has announced it will scrap plans to sell an insect-resistant maize in France, the second move in a week by biotech company to retreat from the genetically modified foods market in Europe. Monsanto's announcement on Tuesday (24 January) came a week after Germany's BASF said it would suspend the development of GM crops in Europe and move its plant science arm to the United States. BASF's move is a particular blow for Europe, said Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, director of agricultural biotechnology at EuropaBio. "The BASF decision is not good for Europe because I think it is the reaction...

DENVER (AP) — Charles Palmer is a hardy 71-year-old former Marine and Vietnam veteran who trains cockatiels to say "Semper Fi" and "Whatcha doin', man?" He also loves fruit — and especially melon for lunch. "He's never one to get sick," said his wife, Tammie. The Colorado Springs man ate a cantaloupe that was purchased in mid-August, his wife said. Within several days, he was overcome by an excruciating headache. The next morning he was extremely weak and gripped by dry heaves, his wife recalled. "I started slapping his face and saying, 'You've got to talk to me,' but he...

The Who’s Who of Munich Cultural Life (1937) proclaimed “all of Germany has become his garden” for Alwin Seifert, the organic-first gardener was fashionably green and fascist. In How Green Were the Nazis? Thomas Zeller adds, “Seifert, however, was constantly trying to extend his influence. The chaotic style of governance in Nazi Germany matched his strategy of molding alliances, especially since he enjoyed the tacit protection of his two most powerful patrons, Hess and Todt.” As I’ve noted, there’s a wide difference between peaceful made-for-television environmentalists and reality, or power-hungry greens. “With Hess, he shared an interest in Steiner’s methods...

E. Coli Not Found in Initial Testing of Sprouts By JUDY DEMPSEY and JAMES KANTER Published: June 6, 2011 BERLIN — A day after German agricultural officials identified locally grown sprouts as a possible cause of the E.coli outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened more than 2,200, the officials said Monday that initial tests had failed to show conclusively that the bacteria originated with the sprouts. Results from the first 23 of 40 tests on several varieties of sprouts came back negative, said officials from the agriculture ministry in the state of Lower Saxony. The ministry did not...

German Organic Farm 'Behind E.coli Outbreak' 4:13am UK, Monday June 06, 2011 The E.coli outbreak could have been caused by vegetable sprouts grown on an organic farm in Germany, an official has said. German beansprouts are said to be behind the E.coli outbreak Preliminary tests found that bean sprouts and other sprout varieties from the farm in the Uelzen area, between the northern cities of Hamburg and Hannover, could be traced to infections in five German states, Lower Saxony Agriculture Minister Gert Lindemann said. "There were more and more indications in the last few hours that put the focus on...

From a runner-bean spotted spiralling along the balcony balustrade of a Beijing apartment, to long waiting-lists for allotments, a plethora of gardening websites and a mushrooming of organic farms and shops, Chinese families are increasingly looking to "grow their own". In recent years China has been hit by a number of food scandals and fears about safety have lingered. In 2008, 300,000 babies became seriously ill and six babies died after being given formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. In April this year, police seized 40 tons of beansprouts which had been treated with dangerous growth promoting chemicals and...

Four weeks after the government moved to shut down Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, unpasteurized milk across state lines, angry moms who made up much of his customer base rallied on the Capitol’s grounds Monday to demand that Congress rein in the food police. The moms milked a cow just across the street from the Senate and served up gallons of fresh milk, playfully daring one another to drink what, if sold across state lines, would be considered contraband product. “The FDA really screwed up this time. They got between a mom and a farmer,” said Mark McAfee,...

Gemeinnutzgeht vor Eigennutz. (The common good supersedes the private good.) ~ Nazi slogan Prologue Fanatical environmentalism, vegetarianism, animal rights and public health are four progressive policy initiatives that most people would not readily associate with Hitler and the Nazis. "Unlike Marxism, which declared much of culture and humanity irrelevant to the revolution, National Socialism was holistic," wrote Jonah Goldberg. Indeed, "organic" and "holistic" were the Nazi terms of art for totalitarianism. The Mussolinian vision of everything inside the state, nothing outside the state, was organic-ized by the Nazis. In this sense, the Bavarian cabinet minister Hans Schemm was deadly serious...

DES MOINES --- Iowa farmland values shot up 19.7 percent in the past six months and a total of 25.4 percent in the past year, according to the latest survey from the state’s ag land realtors. The Iowa Farm and Land Chapter #2 REALTORS Land Institute released the results of its survey March 22 and it showed just about what everyone expected n land values jumped dramatically in the past few months. That’s no surprise to farmers or realtors, according to Troy Louwagie, a realtor in Mount Vernon who runs the survey. Everyone knew ag land values have gone up,...

Under these programs, the USDA uses chemical poisons to murder literally millions of birds each year, including an occasional endangered species animal by accident. This is all part of the USDA's insane program of death to protect the financial interests of conventional agriculture giants.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the “lame duck” Congress, another law was passed that didn’t quite get the same media coverage as the Bush tax extension “package,” the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and the new START treaty. The Food Safety Modernization Act was not steeped in the same level of popular controversy as these other pieces of legislation. Nevertheless, its passage may affect our daily lives even more than these, and in a rather stealth manner. Yes, the week before Christmas, the 111th Congress of the United States gave Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services...

Rubrene crystal raises hope for the use of organic semiconductors and cheaper, more efficient solar cells Rutgers University physicists have found new properties within a material that could lead to the production of less expensive and more efficient plastic solar cells. Vitaly Podzorov, co-author of the study and assistant professor of physics at Rutgers University, along with his research team have discovered that organic semiconductors allow energy-carrying particles -- which are created by "packets" of light -- to journey a thousand times farther than researchers previously thought. "Organic semiconductors are promising for solar cells and other uses, such as video displays, because they can be...

Washington - -- Obama administration officials Wednesday outlined a broad array of efforts to elevate organic and local farming to a prominence never seen before at the sprawling U.S. Department of Agriculture. The shift is raising eyebrows among conventional growers and promising federal support to a food movement that began in Northern California and was considered heretical only a few years ago. "Guys, this is your window - use it," USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan told organic farmers, processors and retailers at a conference Wednesday in Washington that was sponsored by Santa Cruz's Organic Farming Research Foundation and the Organic...

GUATEMALA CITY — Some 450,000 pounds of organic coffee sit in a warehouse here, stacked neatly in 132-pound bags. It's some of the world's best coffee, but Gerardo De Leon can't sell it. "This is very high quality and it's organic. But ... the roasters don't want to pay extra these days," says the manager of FEDECOCAGUA, Guatemala's largest growers' cooperative, which represents 20,000 farmers. De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he'll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for...

A meteorite that hit the town of Murchison, Australia, hasn't quit giving up its secrets. The Murchison meteorite is one of the most studied space rocks because many pieces were recovered after it was seen breaking up as it fell through the atmosphere in 1969. Approximately 100 kg of the carbonaceous chondrite was recovered. Carbonaceous chondrites are extremely important to scientists as they were formed from material that existed in the solar system's planet-forming disk of gas and dust. They are, quite literally, time capsules holding onto a 4 billion year old record of the birth of our solar system....

According to Gunny G Online: “This astounding control will include the elimination of organic farming by eliminating manure, mandating GMO animal feed, imposing animal drugs, and ordering applications of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides. Farmers, thus, will be locked not only into the industrialization of once normal and organic farms but into the forced purchase of industry’s products.” HR 2749 creates severe criminal and civil penalties, including prison terms of up to 10 years and/or fines of up to $100,000 for each violation. Does it include judicial review, Congressional oversight, a defined and limited set of penalties and punishments for a...

When I first started writing my upcoming book Organic Manifesto a year ago, I fully expected to have lots of information about how organic foods are healthier for you because they are more nutritious. The more research I did, the more I realized that nutrition is the least of our worries. Aside from the fact that the nutritional content of just about ALL of our food has declined over the past 50 years, we are, as a rule, overfed. And good nutrition is available from many sources in our diet. So I wasn’t surprised in the least when a report...

Shoppers face an array of choices on fruit but little guidance on which type to pick. Expensive organic? Pricey farmers' market? Cheap ones from the grocery store? Cost is certainly important. But there are essential numbers that go beyond the price tag. Which contain the highest levels of pesticides?

You can stop wasting your hard earned money at Democrat Party HQ...uh I mean Whole Paychecks...whoops Whole Foods Market. The following was reported in the Investor's Business Daily: "Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large U.K. study found. Despite a small number of differences in nutrition between organic and conventionally produce food, no evidence of any extra health health benefit was found, London researchers said. The result was the same for studies of meat, dairy, and eggs." IBD 7/30/09 Seems that slapping an organic sticker on something these days is a license to steal. Thankfully I never...

Britain’s first ever green superstore is languishing ever deeper in the red after losing nearly £36million as the recession takes a bite out of organic food sales. The U.S. owners of Whole Foods Market had hoped to open 40 more emporiums across the UK after beginning trading in London in 2007. But, two years on, they have failed to leave the capital after their flagship British shop in up-market Kensington lost an astonishing £35.9million last year.