WUC NEWS: Monsa nto

MONSANTO ANNOUNCES "GLOBAL CENTER" FOR DEVELOPING GMO CORN

TheWake UpCall 0 Monsa nto 11:26 AM

MONSANTO ANNOUNCES "GLOBAL CENTER" FOR DEVELOPING GMO CORN

Monsanto announced this week that it is opening a new facility in Mexico to research and develop new hybrid types of corn resistant to di...

Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens

TheWake UpCall 0 Monsa nto 5:59 PM

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<strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Big wins can happen in small places. The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, finishing a settlement causing Monsanto to pay $93 million to the tiny town of Nitro, West Virginia for poisoning citizens with Agent Orange chemicals.</span></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The settlement was approved last year, but details were worked out only weeks ago as to how the funds were to be spent.</span></div>
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<img alt="gmo monsanto crop money 263x164 Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens" height="249" src="http://cdn.naturalsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/gmo_monsanto_crop_money-263x164.png" width="400"></div>
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Monsanto Ordered to Pay $93 Million to Small Town for Poisoning Citizens

Big wins can happen in small places. The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, ...

Roundup Linked to Global Boom in Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance

TheWake UpCall 0 Gluten, Monsa nto, Roundup 9:31 AM

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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Celiac disease, gluten intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome are on the rise worldwide, and that rise has taken place in parallel with the increased use of glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide, shows a new US peer-reviewed paper from Dr. Anthony Samsel and Dr. Stephanie Seneff. The review has been published in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Toxicology.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHUGEf3rvPuazGsdW8J-9SuqYGHRjYqhPpMpsuWrMnqNdfPHR85t2CwGh22ENeckCNocX4Pj_ClHugZfjoVpxvPy9rGeASfkfy8BqQtJBXoZj6d2P0AGv3Nj4bdKtqqHwrDPB4Sn_w9sh/s1600/1911898_619791158068448_1174335451_n+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbHUGEf3rvPuazGsdW8J-9SuqYGHRjYqhPpMpsuWrMnqNdfPHR85t2CwGh22ENeckCNocX4Pj_ClHugZfjoVpxvPy9rGeASfkfy8BqQtJBXoZj6d2P0AGv3Nj4bdKtqqHwrDPB4Sn_w9sh/s1600/1911898_619791158068448_1174335451_n+copy.jpg" width="640"></a></div>
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Roundup Linked to Global Boom in Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance

Celiac disease, gluten intolerance and irritable bowel syndrome are on the rise worldwide, and that rise has taken place in parallel with t...

Indian Farmers Trapped and Desperate

TheWake UpCall 0 Indian Farmers, Monsa nto 8:34 AM

<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of farmer suicides is the largest in human history is estimated to have reached 300,000+ and rising as we speak.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">India has the largest number of smallholder farmers in the World, 600 million by some estimates. From this army of workers one impoverished desperate man, or indeed woman, with a noose of debt around their neck takes his or her own life on average every thirty minutes, A statistic barely comprehensible, representing the tidal wave of suicides that has swept through the farming community in the last 15 years.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img alt="Article image" class="imagecache imagecache-article_main_image" height="288" src="http://www.nationofchange.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_main_image/indiafarmer2013.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039) 0px 1px 5px; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px; border-top-left-radius: 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px; border: 0px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.498039) 0px 1px 5px; height: auto; margin: 0px 0px 16px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" title="article image" width="480" /></span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The agrarian crisis of which farmer suicides are a tragic consequence is a mega calamity, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%204q6m5NgrCJs" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">rooted, P. Sainath, rural editor for The Hindu states</a>, in one fundamental cause: ‘the drive towards corporate farming’, predicated by the “predatory commercialization of the countryside”, that is forcing “the biggest displacement in Indian history”. Shocking and destructive it should be seen as part of a greater whole of interconnected issues facing India. Sainath makes this clear, “don’t detach this crisis from the overall political, economic social direction of the country, he says.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The number of farmer suicides - the largest in human history is estimated to have reached 300,000+ and rising as we speak. Add to this the 400 a day who <em>attempt </em>suicide and fail, the 2,200 that daily<em>quit farming</em> and the one and a half million family members affected by suicides, plus the millions facing the very issues that are driving the tragedy, and the scale of the inferno begins to be clear. Shocking, as they are, these figures are an <em>indication</em> <em>only</em>; women are one of eight groups who are generally excluded from official data because most do not have title to land. A woman is not classed as a farmer, she is a farmer’s wife, and her suicide is not included in the figures, nor are The Center For Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University’s (HRGJ) report on farmer suicides tells us, “family members of farmers who have committed suicide—who themselves take over farming land, and subsequently commit suicide because of debt”, and less surprisingly the Dalit and Adivasi (indigenous) people are also invisible to a government who ignores them in death as in life.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The major cause of this epidemic is indebtedness to banks and moneylenders, hiding behind the debt however is twenty years of market liberalization at the hands of the government that has withdrawn all agricultural support, failed to invest in irrigation, improve the availability of rural credit, or provide farmers with alternative seed purchasing options – other than GM shopping. HRGJ convey government statistics stating: “that 241,679 farmers in India committed suicide between 1995 and 2009”, the majority are cash crop farmers, growing cotton being particularly hazardous work. Suicides have been highest in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, all high cotton producing areas.</span></span></div>  <br />
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="view view-embedded-messages-donation view-id-embedded_messages_donation view-display-id-em_msg_donation1 view-dom-id-2"><div class="view-content"><div class="views-row views-row-1 views-row-odd views-row-first views-row-last"><div class="views-field-body"><div class="field-content"><div class="em_message"><div style="margin-bottom: 16px;"><a href="https://secure.nationofchange.org/?em=3" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.</span></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Growing disadvantage</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a result of economic liberalization, designed and sold by the parents of globalization or market fundamentalism; the IMF and the World Bank, India has become integrated into the global market and what Sainath calls ‘<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1OlgDw5tQ4" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">McEconomics– it tastes the same everywhere’</a>. The state has increasingly withdrawn from the public sector and become “more interventionist on behalf of the corporate world and the super elite.” As state support for farmers was withdrawn India opened up to huge foreign corporations and their equally mega native partners.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The foreign multinationals were at a huge advantage because as HRGJ makes clear, “the price of their products was set artificially low as a result of agricultural subsidies in their home countries,” affecting the costs to Indian (and African) farmers, secondly and equally devastating, “the Indian government’s removal of quotas, duties, and tariffs on imports made it cheaper for these entrants to import their products into the country.” Whilst these policies implemented some twenty years ago have as HRGJ makes clear “helped usher in dramatic economic growth this growth has been unevenly distributed, largely benefiting the nation’s elite, while the majority continues to endure grinding poverty.” Sound familiar; political loyalty in corporate politics lying firmly with the corporations, the duty of politicians in market fundamentalism being continual accelerated growth and maximum profit, no matter the human or environmental cost.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Genetically modified mayhem</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the invasion of multinational corporate man came his agricultural weapon of choice, GM modified cottonseed. The Monsanto Bt seed has flooded the Indian market, to the extent that in some Indian states it is now impossible to buy non-Bt seed, despite the unconvincing evidence to its efficacy. With no choice and convinced by blanket advertising and misleading demonstrations made in ideal conditions, 95% of farmers take loans and invest in GM Bt seeds that,<a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/in-india-gm-crops-come-at-a-high-price/" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> the New York Times (16/10/12) report,</a> “can cost three to eight times the cost of conventional seeds”. In addition to authorized distributors a black market has thrived, that as shortages appear, can set “prices as high as 2,000 rupees ($38) per packet, leading to a profusion of bootlegged seeds illegally marketed as genetically modified products.”</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Costs of seed, fertilizers and pesticides, all incidentally supplied by the same company, have increased year on year. One farmer relates in the NY Times how “the old pesticide used to cost us 200 rupees per litre…. Now I have to pay between 2,000 to 3,000 rupees. And I need to apply it more and more every year.” With low yields and low market rates as well as the collapse of government investment Indian farmers are increasingly dependent on loans resulting in a debt cycle that is inescapable.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as costing the earth the Bt cottonseed demands a great deal more water, a fact that is being hidden from Indian farmers unable to read the English instructions and water warnings on seed packaging - an accidental corporate oversight, no doubt. With poor irrigation, most farmers rely on rainfall to feed crops. When the monsoon rains fail, so does the crop, leaving the farmer with a massive debt to service and the prospect of further loans to continue farming the following year. The lifeblood of the Indian farmer is in danger of becoming even more scarce as the government goes ahead with the privatization of water (as we collectively shake our heads in disbelief) and irrigation pathways, sold no doubt into the hands of Indian corporations. One doubts there are farmer, Dalit or Adivasi cooperatives in the bidding - so much for participatory democracy. </span></span></div>

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<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Critics of GM seeds maintain, “the solution to increasing costs and spiralling debt is a shift toward organic and eco-friendly farming methods.” The NY Times reports, “and these are low technology, simple to use, not costly methods – you don’t have the high costs of pesticides or genetically modified seeds.” Monsanto unsurprisingly offer a different answer to this social tragedy: “Buy more BT seed,” they suggest,” with the hope of increasing yields. Unsurprisingly, they dodge any responsibility for farmer suicides, asserting that claims attributing debt to the impact of the thirsty, expensive Bt seed are spurious and “misinformed”. Corporate responsibility beginning and ending at the door marked profit.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: 700;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Legacy of debt</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A suicidal farmer’s debt does not, alas, die with him: loans merely become the responsibility of the wife (or husband) of the victim, who in many cases repeat the final desperate act, some families have witnessed two or three suicides. Dowries add to the mountain of debt for families in poverty, and widows under the unbearable pressure of huge debt and the burden of finding a husband for their daughters, may in desperation take their own lives.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The cycle of debt has created a spiral of death and extended multiple suffering; Children whose Father or Mother commits suicide are forced to quit school or university and take up the reins of the farm. Sainath describes one young man, symptomatic of many thousands, “I see a child trying to be a man whose eyes tell you how scared he is, pitchforked into a position he is not ready for”.  Entrapment the order of the day, keeping people in a position of permanent anxiety, depleted of energy and with no state support, completely at the mercy of market forces and unable to resist. In the 1960s and 70s, when agricultural reforms where tabled in India, Sainath relates there was a peasant revolt, “in the ‘1990s and 2000s there is mass suicide and despair,” outcomes causing less obstruction to the corporate political plan, of the commercialization of everything and everyone, everywhere.</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the face of what is suicide on epidemic proportions the Indian government is guilty of appalling neglect, moral and legal - they are signatories to all the key international human rights conventions and are obliged to respect, protect and observe the human rights of farmers and their families. Instead, and in keeping with corporate politics, a plethora of fundamental human rights are being ignored. HRGJ list the rights breached, as: “the right to life; the right to an adequate standard of living; the right to work; the right to food; the right to water; the right to health; and the right to an effective remedy among other rights.” Instead of meeting its responsibilities the government has followed the bureaucratic line of least resistance and set up a series of committees to examine the crisis. It is the Indian way, according to Sainath: “You keep forming committees until somebody gives you the report you want. There have been 13 reports on farmer suicides, for example.” These are pointless distractions from a government that, whilst ignoring the human rights of the most vulnerable members of Indian society, subsidizes the wealthy and procrastinates as farmers in deep despair drink pesticide or rat poison to escape the interminable torture of debt.</span></span></div><br />
<div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Learn more:</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px;"><a href="http://www.nationofchange.org/indian-farmers-trapped-and-desperate-1359469777" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.nationofchange.org/indian-farmers-trapped-and-desperate-1359469777</span></a></div>

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Indian Farmers Trapped and Desperate

The number of farmer suicides is the largest in human history is estimated to have reached 300,000+ and rising as we speak. India has the la...

Indian Man Single-Handedly Plants 1,360 Acre Forest

TheWake UpCall 2 Monsa nto 3:31 AM

<a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.caritas.org/activities/climate_change/desertification_in_india.html" style="color: #96a411; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">Deforestation and desertification</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> are critical problems in India that have led to barren land, increased soil erosion, decreased agricultural production, and devastated local wildlife. However one Indian man has made a stand – by single-handedly planting and cultivating a </span><strong style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1,360 acre forest</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> that is home to a complex, thriving ecosystem.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Jadav “Molai” Payeng started his project 30 years ago when he was still a teenager. Then, in 1979, flood waters washed a large number of snakes ashore on the local sandbar in Jorhat, some 350 km from Guwahati. When the waters receded, Payneg (who was 16 at the time) noticed the reptiles had died due to a lack of forestry.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">“The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage. I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it. There was nobody to help me. Nobody was interested,” said Payeng, who is now 47, to <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/man-single-handedly-plants-entire-forest.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29" style="color: #96a411; text-decoration: none;">The Times of India.</a><br />
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<script type='text/javascript' src='http://ads.qadserve.com/t?id=a2b34d3a-e07c-4678-a7a8-346319aafab6&size=728x90'></script><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Payeng chose to live on the sandbar, starting a life of isolation as he began work to create a new forest. Planting the seeds by hand, watering the plants in the morning and evening, and pruning them when required, he cultivated a huge natural reserve. After a few years, the sandbar was transformed into a bamboo thicket.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">“I then decided to grow proper trees. I collected and planted them. I also transported red ants from my village, and was stung many times. Red ants change the soil’s properties . That was an experience,” Payeng recalled.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Over the years, the reserve has seen a huge variety of flora and fauna blossom on the sandbar, including endangered animals like the one-horned rhino and Royal Bengal tiger. “After 12 years, we’ve seen vultures. Migratory birds, too, have started flocking here. Deer and cattle have attracted predators,” claims Payeng . Unfortunately, locals reportedly killed a rhino which was seen in his forest, something that Payeng clearly disapproves of.  ”Nature has made a food chain; why can’t we stick to it? Who would protect these animals if we, as superior beings, start hunting them?”</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><img alt="Jadav Payeng, Jadav Payeng forest, Jadav Payeng nature reserve, Jadav Payeng assam, Jadav Payeng ecosystem, Jadav Payeng local hero, Jadav Payeng times of india, india desertification, india deforestation, india payeng" src="http://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/04/subtropical-forest-india-537x376.jpg" /></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-93864820/stock-photo-subtropical-forest-of-india.html?src=ba173c0b7947aefe61f4e0d7a388b21a-1-25" style="background-color: #929201; color: white; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Subtropical forest in India</a><span style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"> photo from </span><a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/" style="background-color: #fbfbfb; color: #929201; font-family: Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Shutterstock</a></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Amazingly, the <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://aasc.nic.in/Acts%20and%20Rules%20(GOA)/Environment%20%20&%20Forest%20Department/Environment%20%20&%20Forest%20Department.htm" style="color: #96a411; text-decoration: none;">Assam state forest department </a>only learnt about Payeng’s forest  in 2008 when a herd of some 100 wild elephants strayed into it after marauding through villages nearby. It was then that assistant conservator of forests Gunin Saikia met Payeng for the first time.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">“We were surprised to find such a dense forest on the sandbar. Locals, whose homes had been destroyed by the pachyderms, wanted to cut down the forest, but Payeng dared them to kill him instead. He treats the trees and animals like his own children. Seeing this, we, too, decided to pitch in,” says Saikia. “We’re amazed at Payeng. He has been at it for 30 years. Had he been in any other country, he would have been made a hero.”</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
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<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Via <a data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/man-single-handedly-plants-entire-forest.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+%28Treehugger%29" style="color: #96a411; text-decoration: none;">The Times of India</a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
Read more: <a href="http://inhabitat.com/indian-man-single-handedly-plants-1360-acre-forest/#ixzz2ahTTlr00" style="color: #003399; text-decoration: none;">Indian Man Single-Handedly Plants 1,360 Acre Forest | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building</a> </span><br />
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Indian Man Single-Handedly Plants 1,360 Acre Forest

Deforestation and desertification are critical problems in India that have led to barren land, increased soil erosion, decreased agricultur...

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