Photo Credit: Jesse Clark
June 2, 2013
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“OMG, GMO, WTF?” Nine letters printed on a protester's T-shirt
summed up the frustration of the thousands who gathered in San
Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza for the culmination of the local March
Against Monsanto action on May 25. San Francisco’s protesters joined
more than two million people in 400 cities around the world in a
backlash against the $58 billion multinational corporate giant Monsanto,
responsible for chemical poisoning, genetically engineered seeds, and a
multitude of
offenses since its founding as a chemical company 100 years ago.
Pamm
Larry—the self-proclaimed Grandma behind Calif.’s Mandatory Labeling of
Genetically Engineered Food Initiative (Prop. 37)—spoke to the crowd
about ongoing efforts to follow the momentum of the global march.
“It’s
the little tiny things that add up, which have made this movement
explode around the world and the country, and I’m so excited to see that
it’s moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas getting out there,” she
told the crowd via megaphone, noting that a mother started the March
Against Monsanto (MAM) effort via a Facebook page. “I’m gonna ask you
all not to let this energy die, please.”
While Prop. 37 failed to
pass a vote in 2012, Larry and other organizers are pushing for another
labeling initiative on the 2014 ballot.
“It takes a willingness to
stand, to talk to people not like us, and meet them not with anger but
with love—and to meet them with an open heart, because an open heart is
what draws people in and they can’t help but want to join us and listen
to us,” she continued. “Everybody eats, everybody breathes, everybody
wants to breathe good fresh wonderful juicy clean air. We cannot allow
them to take over our planet while we sit by and decide to go out and
have another beer.”
Monica Lopez, who works with a grassroots
organization called Label GMO in San Francisco and helped organize the
city's MAM rally, says the anti-GMO movement is in defense of a
fundamental tenant of democracy.
"I believe that many have not yet
understood the association between democracy and the situation we find
our food system today," she says. "Real food is not a privilege for the
elite but rather a fundamental right for every human being. Yet our
grocery stores are filled with toxin-ridden foods that could not even
enter 60 other nations in the world. Is this really how we want to
nourish the American population?"
While March Against Monsanto was
among the largest global efforts in history with 400 simultaneous
events in 60 countries around the globe, no major corporate media
outlets in the US covered the live event. CNN ran a followup short on
the event on May 28, and mainstream coverage has trickled in here and
there, but has been sparse.
Despite the mainstream media’s
decision to ignore thousands of people marching down the nation’s
busiest thoroughfares, the movement to end Monsanto’s toxic
hold over agriculture is
gaining more participants everyday.
Reports across some of the major media outlets like the
Washington Postrevealed
Monsanto’s most recent crime when a farmer in Oregon discovered that
unapproved GMO wheat was growing in his field. After testing, scientists
confirmed the wheat was of a strain tested by Monsanto that was not
approved due to concern that other countries would not import the GM
wheat.
The
Washington Post reports:
Japan,
the largest market for U.S. wheat exports, suspended imports from the
United States and canceled a major purchase of white wheat on Thursday
after the recent discovery of unapproved genetically modified wheat in
an 80-acre field in Oregon.
Investors drove down the price of
Monsanto shares by 4 percent on May 31 as South Korea joined Japan in
suspending imports of U.S. wheat after an unapproved strain of
genetically modified wheat was discovered in a field in eastern Oregon.
Among
the many concerns the March raises about Monsanto is the pervasiveness
with which Monsanto products appear in foods we eat, according to a
column on the
Huffington Post.
While
the March Against Monsanto and followup efforts are primarily focused
on exposing the dangers of GMO food products and Monsanto’s toxic
chemical history, some have also used the protest as an opportunity to
expose the ties between corporations like Monsanto and the government.
Perhaps the most glaring example of Monsanto’s hold on government is the
fact that the US Food and Drug Administration, the government agency
charged with protecting people against potentially dangerous products
that corporations might produce, is run by ex-Monsanto executives.
However, the GMO industry’s influences on the US government are more
insidious still.
According to an
analysis
by the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group MapLight, dedicated to
revealing money’s influence on politics, members of the US senate
received $1,260,384 in campaign contributions from the PACs of key
companies supporting the use of genetically engineered crops from
January 2009 to March 2013.
Additionally, on May 23—just two days
before the March Against Monsanto—the Senate defeated an amendment by
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that sought to
ensure states’ rights to enforce their own laws labeling GMO foods, by a vote of 27-71.
The
New York Daily News reports that Sanders' primary goal was to protect states that want to label GMOs from facing lawsuits:
If
the state of Vermont wants to go forward, I don't want to see us sued
in a multimillion-dollar suit by a very powerful, wealthy corporation
who says, well, you don't have the right to do it, it is a federal
prerogative.
Monsanto has responded to calls for labeling with claims that it would be unfair and harm its business:
We
oppose current initiatives to mandate labeling of ingredients developed
from GM seeds in the absence of any demonstrated risks. Such mandatory
labeling could imply that food products containing these ingredients are
somehow inferior to their conventional or organic counterparts.
Following the March Against Monsanto, the Daily Kos and Credo launched a
petition
to demand the US Senate repeal the law that has been dubbed the
Monsanto Protection Act. The petition has gathered more than a million
signatures and counting.
The Monsanto Protection Act came to be
when President Obama signed spending bill HR 933 into law in March, a
bill primarily concerned with the threat of government shutdown. With HR
933 the president also signed in a piece of fine print located under
Section 735, called the Farmer Assurance Provision. The provision bars
federal courts from halting the sale or planting of GMO seeds.
Food Democracy Now's executive director Dave Murphy
told MSN
the provision is “basically an ATM machine [and a] corporate handout to
Monsanto." Murphy adds that every farmer and consumer is at risk.
The
provision allows Monsanto to continue using GE seeds in farms across
America and was written in collaboration with some of Monsanto’s
representatives. It allows Monsanto and other large corporations to
ignore existing food safety rules, and continue selling genetically
modified seeds even if a court blocks them from doing so.
The
March Against Monsanto has spurred additional efforts, including a July 4
Moms Across America March on main streets throughout the US to label
GMOs. The upcoming march is organized by
Occupy Monsanto,
whose stated mission is “empowering citizens of the world to take
action against Monsanto and its enablers like the FDA, USDA, EPA, GMA,
BIO, and the processed food companies that use Monsanto's products.”
Following
the march, more than 800 scientists from around the world have called
for an end to what they call a dangerous “global GMO experiment,” and
created the Institute of Science in Society—a non-profit group that
calls for an end to GMO crops. In their
open letter,
the scientists highlight why governments need to stop the use of
genetically modified crops before they cause irreversible effects to
human and animal health worldwide.
Additionally in the week following the March Against Monsanto a
printable list of Monsanto-owned foods has gone viral on Facebook, encouraging a boycott of its products.
Label
GMO's Monica Lopez says the best things people can do is to support
their local organic farmers, read labels, and align their actions with
their individual ethics by purchasing only certified organic or non-GMO
certified foods. She also suggests supporting restaurants and food
companies that exercise fair, sustainable and organic food practices,
boycotting GMO products, signing petitions in support of food system
restoration.
"Get involved with local food justice groups," she
says. "Call and/or write your local political leaders and let them know
you care about our food system and the long-term health of our children
for generations to come."
Only time will tell whether the
outpouring of citizen support and millions of petition signatures can
compete against the corporate giant, but it is likely no coincidence
that Monsanto’s stocks have steadily
fallen following the global march and this week’s widely publicized GMO wheat debacle.
April M. Short is a Bay Area journalist focusing on social justice reporting.
Genetically
modified foods have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick,
sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied
in lab animals. The effects on humans of consuming these new
combinations of proteins produced in GMOs are unknown and have not been
studied. See more under 
Posted: 06/02/2013 10:44 am EDT | Updated: 06/03/2013 3:02 pm EDT