Thread: Judge Sides With Monsanto: Ridicules Farmers’ Right to Grow Food Without Fear, Contam

Judge Sides With Monsanto: Ridicules Farmers’ Right to Grow Food Without Fear, Contamination and Economic Harm
Posted on February 27, 2012 by admin

On February 24, Judge Naomi Buchwald handed down her ruling on a motion to dismiss in the case of Organic Seed Growers and Trade Assn et al v. Monsanto after hearing oral argument on January 31st in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Her ruling to dismiss the case brought against Monsanto on behalf of organic farmers, seed growers and agricultural organizations representing farmers and citizens was met with great disappointment by the plaintiffs.

Plaintiff lead attorney Daniel Ravicher said, “While I have great respect for Judge Buchwald, her decision to deny farmers the right to seek legal protection from one of the world’s foremost patent bullies is gravely disappointing. Her belief that farmers are acting unreasonable when they stop growing certain crops to avoid being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement should their crops become contaminated maligns the intelligence and integrity of those farmers. Her failure to address the purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act and her characterization of binding Supreme Court precedent that supports the farmers’ standing as ‘wholly inapposite’ constitute legal error. In sum, her opinion is flawed on both the facts and the law. Thankfully, the plaintiffs have the right to appeal to the Court of Appeals, which will review the matter without deference to her findings.”

Monsanto’s history of aggressive investigations and lawsuits brought against farmers in America have been a source of concern for organic and non-GMO farmers since Monsanto’s first lawsuit brought against a farmer in the mid-90′s. Since then, 144 farmers have had lawsuits brought against them by Monsanto for alleged violations of their patented seed technology. Monsanto has brought charges against more than 700 additional farmers who have settled out-of-court rather than face Monsanto’s belligerent litigious actions. Many of these farmers claim to not have had the intention to grow or save seeds that contain Monsanto’s patented genes. Seed drift and pollen drift from genetically engineered crops often contaminate neighboring fields. If Monsanto’s seed technology is found on a farmer’s land without contract they can be found liable for patent infringement.

“Family farmers need the protection of the court,” said Maine organic seed farmer Jim Gerritsen, President of lead plaintiff OSGATA. ”We reject as naïve and undefendable the judge’s assertion that Monsanto’s vague public relations ‘commitment’ should be ‘a source of comfort’ to plaintiffs. The truth is we are under threat and we do not believe Monsanto. The truth is that American farmers and the American people do not believe Monsanto. Family farmers deserve our day in court and this flawed ruling will not deter us from continuing to seek justice.”

The plaintiffs brought this suit against Monsanto to seek judicial protection from such lawsuits and challenge the validity of Monsanto’s patents on seeds.

“As a citizen and property owner, I find the Order by the Federal Court to be obsequious to Monsanto,” said plaintiff organic farmer Bryce Stephens of Kansas. ”The careless, inattentive, thoughtless and negligent advertisement Monsanto has published on their website to not exercise its patent rights for inadvertent trace contamination belies the fact that their policy is in reality a presumptuous admission of contamination by their vaunted product on my property, plants, seeds and animals.”

“Seeds are the memory of life,” said Isaura Anduluz of plaintiff Cuatro Puertas and the Arid Crop Seed Cache in New Mexico. ”If planted and saved annually, cross pollination ensures the seeds continue to adapt. In the Southwest, selection over many, many generations has resulted in native drought tolerant corn. Now that a patented drought tolerant corn has been released how do we protect our seeds from contamination and our right to farm?”

A copy of Judge Buchwalds ruling is located here.

http://www.osgata.org/wp-content/upl...D-Decision.pdf



http://www.osgata.org/judge-sides-wi...-economic-harm


Are we awake yet?

Safeguard Organic Standards!

National Public Radio's Diane Rehm Show covered the organic standards debate on Tuesday. Here's the show's teaser: "The market for organic food has grown from just $1 billion in 1990 to nearly $30 billion today. As big corporations enter the market, concern has grown about enforcement of organic standards, and some see the movement drifting away from its founding principles of sustainability and local farming. They are alarmed by organic tomatoes grown in far-off, Mexican deserts that require constant irrigation, organic cows living on industrial-sized feedlots, and chickens laying organic eggs while confined in high-capacity barns. But others say that big farms bring organic food to the masses."



Support the California GMO Labeling Ballot Initiative
California is poised to be the first state with mandatory GMO labeling laws through the 2012 California Ballot Initiative process. Polls show support to get this initiative on the ballot & voted in. Over 80% of those polled supported mandatory labeling.

A win for the California Initiative would be a huge blow to biotech and a huge victory for food activists. Monsanto and their minions have billions invested in GMOs and they are willing to spend millions to defeat this initiative. California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Labeling laws in CA will affect packaging and ingredient decisions nation-wide. The bill has been carefully written to ensure that it will not increase costs to consumers or producers.

Learn more on the Organic Consumers Fund website

Organic Consumers Association: Millions Against Monsanto


California Ballot Initiative to Require Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Signature Gathering Efforts Gains Serious Momentum

Safeguard Organic Standards!

National Public Radio's Diane Rehm Show covered the organic standards debate on Tuesday. Here's the show's teaser: "The market for organic food has grown from just $1 billion in 1990 to nearly $30 billion today. As big corporations enter the market, concern has grown about enforcement of organic standards, and some see the movement drifting away from its founding principles of sustainability and local farming. They are alarmed by organic tomatoes grown in far-off, Mexican deserts that require constant irrigation, organic cows living on industrial-sized feedlots, and chickens laying organic eggs while confined in high-capacity barns. But others say that big farms bring organic food to the masses."



Support the California GMO Labeling Ballot Initiative
California is poised to be the first state with mandatory GMO labeling laws through the 2012 California Ballot Initiative process. Polls show support to get this initiative on the ballot & voted in. Over 80% of those polled supported mandatory labeling.

A win for the California Initiative would be a huge blow to biotech and a huge victory for food activists. Monsanto and their minions have billions invested in GMOs and they are willing to spend millions to defeat this initiative. California is the 8th largest economy in the world. Labeling laws in CA will affect packaging and ingredient decisions nation-wide. The bill has been carefully written to ensure that it will not increase costs to consumers or producers.

Learn more on the Organic Consumers Fund website

Organic Consumers Association: Millions Against Monsanto


California Ballot Initiative to Require Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food Signature Gathering Efforts Gains Serious Momentum

Monsanto’s Blatant Corruption and Disregard for Health
Thursday, March 08, 2012 7:38



It is well known that Monsanto’s GMO crops provide a very real threat to both public health and the environment as a whole, but the depth of Monsanto’s corruption is often a less covered topic. It has been revealed by WikiLeaks that Monsanto not only has key figureheads stationed in powerful government positions inside the United States, but also has many — if not all — U.S. diplomats on their payroll.

In the bombshell report, the leaked cables reveal that many U.S. diplomats work directly for Monsanto. Furthermore, Monsanto also has international titans pushing their agenda to maximize profits and increase the spread of genetically modified food.


The same WikiLeaks cable exposes how in late 2007, the United States ambassador to France and business partner to George W. Bush, Craig Stapleton, urged a ‘target retaliation’ against the European Union and certain nations that did not support Monsanto’s GMO crops. Stapleton, a close business partner of George W. Bush, actually co-owned the Dallas/Fort Worth-based Texas Rangers baseball team with the former president in the 1990s. The ambassador stated:

Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.

In addition to threatening trade wars and using political corruption as a business model, Monsanto has also been busted for forcing workers into ‘slave-like’ conditions. Forcing slave workers to work the cornfields for 14 hours per day and buy their food at highly-inflated prices from the company store, Monsanto has been running these slave rings for an unknown number of years. It wasn’t until Argentina’s tax agency, known as AFIP, raided the Monsanto corn field did the operation become unveiled.

Monsanto’s corruption has never been more obvious, with many political figureheads in the U.S. government spearheading the initiative to spread Monsanto’s GMO crops far and wide. Even billionaire celebrities like Monsanto shareholder, Bill Gates, have been pushing GMOs as the answer to everything from starvation to sustainable agriculture. Of course, despite this, it has been proven by a team of 900 scientists that GMO crops are not an effective way to fight starvation.

In addition, scientists have shown that GMOs are damaging to your health. A prominent review of 19 studies examining the safety of these crops found that consumption of GMO corn or soybeans can lead to significant organ disruptions in rats and mice – particularly in the liver and kidneys.

Disregarding this information, the USDA is now preparing to give Monsanto’s new GMO crops even speedier regulatory review in order to secure their financial success.


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