Millions Against Monsanto

Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn't matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, "I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract.

If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots - destroy what they have worked on for 40 years - I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away".'

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Britain Must Launch GM Food Revolution, Says Chief Scientist

Britain must embrace genetically modified crops and cutting-edge developments such as nanotechnology to avoid catastrophic food shortages and future climate change, the government's chief scientist will warn today.

In the clearest public signal yet that the government wants a hi-tech farming revolution, Professor John Beddington will say UK scientists need to urgently d evelop "a new and greener revolution" to increase food production in a world changed by global warming and expected to have an extra 3 billion people to feed by 2040.'

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UK to Spend £100m on Supporting GM Crops for World's Poor

Britain is planning to quietly spend up to £100m on support for genetically modified crops for the world's poor despite not having allowed any of the controversial foods to be grown commercially at home.

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Campaign to Stop GM Wheat

Wheat industry groups in the United States, Canada and Australia said May 14, 2009, they would work toward the objective of "synchronized commercialization of biotech traits in the wheat crop."

This must be stopped.

1. Roundup Ready wheat will contaminate conventional and organic wheat and destroy the diversity and adaptability of locally-bred varieties critical to ensuring food supplies in regions across the globe.

2. The only genetic trait for which Monsanto has sought approval is tolerance to the herbicide glyphosate that it sells under the name Roundup. Roundup Ready wheat is not designed to increase yields to feed the world, but to increase Monsanto's profits by increasing the use of its herbicide Roundup. During the global food crisis of 2008, Monsanto's profits increased 120%. Since the introduction of GE crops in 1996, the number of people going hungry in the world has ballooned from an estimated 800 million to over 1 billion.

3. Improving crop quality is the key to providing higher net incomes for farmers and weathering climate change. Higher quality wheat is being produced through conventional plant breeding, not Monsanto's genetic engineering, which is focused on making farmers dependent on Monsanto's expensive seeds and herbicides.

4. In countries requiring the labeling of food produced through the use of genetically engineering, GE crops have been limited to those used primarily for feed, oil and fiber. This has allowed food companies to avoid national labeling requirements. GE wheat, however, would primarily be used for human consumption and food products derived from GE wheat would be labeled in many countries across the world.

5. All studies on the subject have shown that consumers will reject genetically engineered food if it is labeled. Consumer rejection of GE food is rational. The amount of herbicides used on Roundup Ready GE crops is much higher than that used on conventional and organic crops.

6. There have been no long-term studies on the human health effects of consuming foods, like Roundup Ready wheat, that have been genetically engineered to withstand massive doses of herbicides. Since 1996, we have all been subjects in an experiment on the safety of GE crops. Only when children born after 1996 reach reproductive age and beyond will we have some idea as to whether GE food crops were safe or not. If observations of animals fed GE crops are any indication, we can expect to see severe health and fertility problems in this first generation of GE-consuming humans.

We must stop GE wheat and withdraw other Roundup Ready crops from the food supply before it is too late.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

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US, Canadian and Aussie Wheat Industries Unite Behind GM

Major wheat industry organizations from the US, Canada and Australia have announced that they intend to work together to commercialize genetically modified (GM) wheat crops.

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Genetically Modified Crops Reach 9 Percent of Global Primary Crop Production

Genetically modified crops reached 9 percent of global primary crop production in 2007, bringing the total GM land area up to 114.3 million hectares, according to Worldwatch Institute estimates published in the latest Vital Signs Update. The United States continues to be the global leader in production, accounting for half of all GM crop area.

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