Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

True.  For my part I try to avoid their soy and grain products and rely on
other sources of food.  For more on the threat let me suggest
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Destruction-Hidden-Genetic-Manipulation/dp/09737
14727
http://www.vandanashiva.org/


paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 12/17/2008 at 7:07 AM Desert Eagle wrote:

>FYI Looks like they're "picking up the pace" to destroy mankind...
>
>You, or someone you know, may be interested in this subject that (in 
>reality) affects us all.
>
>http://www.opednews.com/articles/Raids-on-Seeds-life-itsel-by-Linn-Cohen-Co
le-081215-45.html
>
>Headlined on 12/15/08:
>Raids on Seeds (LIFE, itself) ... by Monsanto
>by Linn Cohen-Cole Page 1 of 1 page(s)
>www.opednews. com
>
>MONSANTO'S DESTRUCTION OF SEED CLEANERS AND THE IMMENSE THREAT TO HUMAN 
>ACCESS TO SEEDS
>
>I have been reporting on the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's
>raids 
>on Mennonite dairy farmers, on the recent Ohio Department of Agriculture 
>SWAT team raid on an organic coop, on the USDA's terrible weapon against
>all 
>farmers with animals (NAIS - the National Animal Identification System) - 
>trying to give an idea of the destructive forces being used intentionally 
>against non-corporate farming.
>
>But unless one sees what is happening to seeds themselves, one misses the 
>scope of things.
>
>Life itself depends on seeds.
>
>Multinational biotech corporations such as Monsanto have been genetically 
>engineering them, promoting GE-seeds as producing better yields, helping
>the 
>starving of the world, using less pesticides and as a boon to small
>farmers.
>
>Independent studies already show crop failures
>
>http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IBTCF.php
>
>http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July06/Bt.cotton.China.ssl.htmland
>
>and a link between GE-crops and organ damage and various diseases
>
>http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEN20080222
&articleId=8148
>
>and it's clear they are designed to require petroleum-based pesticides and

>the use of pesticides has gone up with their use.
>
>http://www.pan-international.org/panint/files/WG2%20Genetic%20Engineering%2
0and%20Pesticides.pdf
>
>But even if the GE-seeds were wonderful and all that was promised, the
>real 
>problem with them are the patents they come with. The biotech companies
>are 
>monopolizing seeds themselves, actually privatizing the DNA of life. They 
>sell the GE-seeds at many times the price of normal seeds. In India, where

>Bt-cotton farmers have been committing suicide in huge numbers because of 
>debt, Monsanto sells Bt-cotton seed at 1000% higher than normal seeds. 
>http://www.dailymai l.co.uk/news/ worldnews/ article-1082559/ 
>The-GM-genocide- Thousands- Indian-farmers- committing- suicide-using- 
>genetically- modified- crops.html.
>
>And the seeds come with a contract that must be signed, preventing farmers

>from collecting seeds off their own land at the end of the season - an 
>historic rupture of humankind's free access to natural growth. For it is 
>important to notice that the biotech multinationals are not just claiming
>a 
>patent on their process of altering the seeds but claim to own growth 
>itself.
>
>As astounding a move as that is on human resources of survival, they are 
>doing more. They are removing actively and aggressively and thoroughly 
>removing access to normal "open pollinated" seeds, the ones we have known 
>since the beginning of time, that farmers have collected and saved and 
>shared among each other.
>
>In the Midwest, where Monsanto sells GE-corn and GE-soy and now owns most
>of 
>it, it also bought up the "normal seed" companies so farmers no longer
>have 
>places to go for normal corn or soy. And though GE-corn cross pollinates 
>over miles and miles with normal corn so maintaining organic corn is
>nearly 
>impossible now, if its GE-crop is found on a farmer's land, Monsanto sues.

>It's a rare farmer who can stand up them, even if the farmer has done 
>nothing wrong.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Schmeiser
>
>Having bought up the normal seed companies, having locked farmers in the 
>Midwest (only an example, it is true worldwide) into patent contracts that

>remove their right to collect seeds anymore, having set loose a 
>biotechnology that contaminates normal seeds of farmers who do not buy
>into 
>the patented seeds, having made plain it will sue if even a volunteer
>plant 
>comes up, Monsanto is now working to eliminate the last man standing
>between 
>humans and corporate privatized seeds - the seed cleaner.
>
>The farmers has had three choices - to buy normal seed (now almost gone),
>to 
>buy GE-seeds at huge cost (and going up
>
>http://www.opednews.com/articles/During-a-world-food-crisis-by-Linn-Cohen-C
ole-080723-548.html)
>
>or to collect their own seeds and use them the next season. If a farmer
>has 
>even 10 acres, collecting and cleaning those seeds is a huge task. If he
>has 
>1000, it would be an impossible task without the seed cleaner whose 
>equipment can separate out seed in just a few hours and whose costs are
>1/3 
>that of buying normal seed.
>
>Thus, the move to eliminate seed cleaners.
>
>The seed cleaner is the man who makes sustainable agriculture possible.
>
>
>So, Monsanto is picking off seed cleaners now across the Midwest, in 
>Missouri,
>
>http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/2008-07-11/Monsanto_patent_fight_ensn
ares_Missouri_farm_town/
>
>in Indiana,
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/26/eveningnews/main4048288.shtml
>
>and now in Illinois where they are going after Steve Hixon.
>
>Shortly after someone broke into Mr. Hixon's office and he found his
>account 
>book on his truck seat where he would never have left it, evey one of his 
>remotely located and very scattered customers had three men (described as 
>goons with "no necks") arrived at each farm, going out onto it without 
>permission, and serving close to 200 farmers. Mr. Hixon and state police
>who 
>were called in, believe a GPS tracking device may have been put on Mr. 
>Hixon's equipment. All of his customers being sued and are being intensely

>pressured to settle, with the men coming back again and again and with
>daily 
>calls and letters. It appears they are being a choice between being sued
>or 
>settling out of court or testifying against him that he encouraged them to

>clean GE-seeds.
>Monsanto has made a fortune on those kinds of Mafia extortion settlements 
>since no one has the money to stand up to them and paying them off some
>huge 
>amount even if the farmer has done nothing, saves them from legal costs
>they 
>can't possibly manage and then a potentially worse fate as one little
>local 
>lawyer goes up against not one but multiple legal teams working for
>Monsanto 
>and present in court.
>
>The first words out of the judge's mouth when Moe Parr, a seed cleaner in 
>Indiana was sued, were "It's a honor to have a fine company like Monsanto
>in 
>my courtroom."
>
>In addition to the personal attacks on seed cleaners, Monsanto is getting 
>laws put into place that themselves are overwhelming and destructive of
>seed 
>cleaners and all those who save normal seeds.
>http://www.ethicalinvesting.com/monsanto/news/10040.htm
>If Monsanto can eliminate seed cleaners, they would have accomplished a 
>TOTAL monopoly in the Midwest, the bread basket of the world, and they
>would 
>control world food, feed and now bio-fuel prices at will. They would, as 
>well, have broken the fragile dam that seed cleaners and seed bankers now 
>provide against the insanely-fast and just plain insane on-coming tide 
>genetic engineering.
>And Monsanto is working closely with the FDA in redefining seeds as a 
>potential health hazard, subject to bioterrorism, and under that rubric to

>create rules for importation (controlling access)
>Interim final rules on Prior Notice of Importation
>rules for registering acceptable facilities (setting up corporate
>standards 
>for the storage seeds, threatening small farmers)
>
>Interim final rules on Registration of Food Facilities
>rules for talking police control of the seeds (allowing for raids on 
>farmers)
>
>Final rules on Administrative Detention
>and rules for a level of record keeping almost impossible for small
>farmers 
>and ordinary people to achieve.
>
>Upcoming final rule on Establishment and Maintenance of Records.
>
>"These new rules will allow FDA to better identify potentially dangerous 
>foods, as well as respond more quickly to new threats and to handle 
>foodborne illness outbreaks more efficiently."
>Using the Bioterrorism Act and the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN),

>the FDA now has a focus on seeds which includes
>
>Prevention (federal and state surveillance sampling programs to monitor
>the 
>food supply)
>Preparedness (strengthen laboratory capacity and capabilities)
>Response (surge capacity to handle terrorist attacks or a national
>emergency 
>involving the food supply), and
>Recovery (support recalls, seizures, and disposal of contaminated food or 
>feed to restore confidence in the food supply).
>For those of you painfully familiar with what is happening to real milk 
>dairy farmers and the government use of false "contamination" reports to 
>raid farms, steal products ad equipment and terrorize and destroy farmers,

>it will be important to see how "bioterrorism" has now moved control over 
>normal food even more tightly into the hands of government/corporat e 
>agencies, giving them national reach, crushing regulations for farmers, 
>immense policing power over food, and the use of an emergency to be able
>to 
>seize and destroy anything they choose.
>
>At the level of seeds, it is important note that Monsanto is promoting
>every 
>part of this.
>
>http://www.fda.gov/oc/speeches/2004/asta0629.html
>
>The laboratories that FERN uses represent the FDA, FSIS, the Environmental

>Protection Agency, the Department of Defense, Bureau of Customs and Border

>Protection, the Agricultural Marketing Service, the Animal and Plant
>Health 
>Inspection Service, and the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards
>Agency. 
>Other federal members of the FERN include the Agricultural Research
>Service, 
>the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland 
>Security, the Laboratory Response Network (LRN) and the National Animal 
>Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN).
>
>The FDA talks about "a safety net" for human health but it is one defined
>by 
>corporation and one that is closing on small farmers' existence.
>And even the FDA's basic food safety is being "set" in a way aimed to 
>destroy seed cleaners and (if you will notice in the short list below) 
>organic farming itself.
>FDA's guidance on good agricultural practices (GAPs) can be found in the
>FDA Guide to Minimize Microbial Hazards for Fresh Fruit and Vegetables
>where the key sources of contamination in seed production include:
>
>
>Agricultural water sources
>Use of manure as fertilizer
>Harvesting, transportation, and seed-cleaning equipment
>Seed storage facilities
>
>Please note the FDA does not include Monsanto's petroleum-based fertlizers

>or pesticides, or GE-labs, as potential sources of contamination.
>
>In addition to buying on seed companies, suing farmers, eliminating seed 
>cleaners, putting laws against seed cleaning and saving into place, 
>influencing the FDA and Homeland Security regulations on seeds that set 
>farmers up to lose theirs in "food safety" or "bioterrorism" raids, a law
>in 
>Canada pushed by the FDA, USDA and the WTO (all heavily involved with 
>Monsanto) would criminalize all natural substances. Thought it initially 
>seems to be "only" an attack by the pharmaceutical industry on all natural

>health substances, it would include seeds and seed banking. And it would 
>become law in the US - and without any ability to vote against it - if the

>North American Union is passed.
>
>articles.mercola. com/.../archive/ 2008/06/ 19/vitamin-c- about-to- 
>be-made-illegal- in-canada. aspx?source= nl
>
>We need to understand that the effort to defend Steve Hixon, a seed
>cleaner, 
>is an effort to defend the right of all of us and of our farmers worldwide

>to OPEN access to normal seeds. We must protect those who collect and
>clean 
>them and we must roll back the massive corporate efforts to utterly
>control 
>them - by criminalizing any aspect of owning, growing, collecting, storing

>and re-using of them.
>
>Seeds are life and survival itself and our human right to access to them
>is 
>being taken over. That is why people are coming together now to help
>defend 
>Steve Hixon, a seed cleaner.
>
>For those interested in joining FarmOn, a list aimed at providing funds to

>support the legal teams gathering to help Hixon, go to farmon@googlegroups

>.com and request to sign on.
>-- 
>Remember this statement:
>"When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people 
>fear the government [or the IRS, for that matter], you have Tyranny."
>(Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence of the United

>States)
>Thanks,
>Mike Golden
>
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