Monsanto Buys Climate Firm for $1B, Reports 4Q Loss On Weak Seed Sales

| WTF News |

Ahead of the Oct. 12 March Against Monsanto, Monsanto announced their latest acquisition on the morning of their earnings release revealing a “larger than expected” quarterly loss. Listen to the conference call and downloadslideshow PDF for reference. This was a slick move to paper over the loss and redirect the attention of investors, which TechCrunch described as cunning. One thing that stood out on the earnings call was there was no mention of the global Oct. 12 protests which reportedly has some hedge funds dumping the stock.

TechCrunch Interview this morning with Monsanto VP of Global Strategy Kerry Preete and Climate Corporation CEO David Friedberg

Monsanto Acquires The Climate Corporation

Monsanto

ST. LOUIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Climate Corporation for a cash purchase price of approximately $930 million. The acquisition will combine The Climate Corporation’s expertise in agriculture analytics and risk-management with Monsanto’s R&D capabilities, and will provide farmers access to more information about the many factors that affect the success of their crops. The companies’ combined capabilities will support greater productivity while utilizing the planet’s finite resources more precisely.

The acquisition is expected to expand on The Climate Corporation’s leadership in the area of data science, which represents the agriculture sector’s next major breakthrough, and will immediately expand both the near- and long-term growth opportunities for Monsanto’s business and Integrated Farming Systems platform.

“The Climate Corporation is focused on unlocking new value for the farm through data science,” said Hugh Grant, chairman and chief executive officer for Monsanto. “Everyone benefits when farmers are able to produce more with fewer resources. The Climate Corporation team brings leading expertise that will continue to greatly benefit farmers and their bottom-line, and we want to expand upon this tremendous work and broaden their reach to more crops and more world areas. We look forward to working closely with our distribution partners and others in the agricultural industry to bring this suite of information resources to the farm.”

The Climate Corporation was founded in 2006 by a highly successful team of software engineers and data scientists formerly with Google and other leading Silicon Valley technology companies. Since that time, the company has built the agriculture industry’s most advanced technology platform combining hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling, and high-resolution weather simulations to deliver a complete suite of full-season monitoring, analytics and risk-management products.

“Farmers around the world are challenged to make key decisions for their farms in the face of increasingly volatile weather, as well as a proliferation of information sources,” said David Friedberg, chief executive officer for The Climate Corporation. “Our team understands that the ability to turn data into actionable insight and farm management recommendations is vitally important for agriculture around the world and can greatly benefit farmers, regardless of farm size or their preferred farming methods. Monsanto shares this important vision for our business and we look forward to creating even greater experiences for our farmer customers.”

The Climate Corporation has a core set of support tools to benefit farmers. These include products that help them boost yields on existing farmland and better manage risks that occur throughout a crop season. The Climate Corporation will continue to offer its current risk-management products including an online service that provides crop planning, monitoring, and recommendations, and insurance offerings through its network of independent agents.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of Monsanto’s 2014 fiscal year. Following the acquisition, The Climate Corporation will operate its business to retain its distinct brand identity and customer experience. The company will continue to maintain headquarters in Silicon Valley and all of its employees will be offered continued employment.

Combined Company to Be a Leader in Data Science, Acquisition Expected to Drive Near-and Long-Term Growth Potential

The acquisition of The Climate Corporation represents a natural extension of Monsanto’s vision to increase crop productivity, conserve more of our planet’s natural resources and improve the lives of people around the world. It will also greatly expand The Climate Corporation’s capabilities in data science, agriculture’s next major growth frontier, an area that represents a potential opportunity of $20 billion beyond Monsanto’s core focus today. The companies estimate the majority of farmers have an untapped yield opportunity of up to 30 bushels to 50 bushels in their corn fields, and they believe that advancements in data science can help further unlock that additional value for the farm.

The combined capabilities will immediately expand both the near- and long-term growth opportunities of Monsanto’s Integrated Farming Systems platform and research and development pipeline in the coming years.

Longer-term, the combination is expected to broaden the product choices available to farmers beyond Monsanto’s current row crop and vegetable portfolio, both inside and outside of the United States. This includes the delivery of insight and decision-support tools that could increase agriculture productivity on a billion planted acres around the globe.

Monsanto and The Climate Corporation share a commitment to delivering innovation for farmers through a broad range of choices and service providers. Monsanto noted that, consistent with its broad-licensing and multi-channel approach to technology, it intends to deliver the value of The Climate Corporation’s current and future applications through its distribution network.

Monsanto today also announced the company’s financial results for its fiscal 2013 fourth quarter and full year, including the financial effect of The Climate Corporation acquisition. For more information about today’s earnings announcement, see the press release and supporting resources available atwww.monsanto.com.

About Monsanto Company

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and large-scale farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world’s natural resources such as water and energy. To learn more about our business and our commitments, please visit: www.monsanto.com. Follow our business on Twitter^® atwww.twitter.com/MonsantoCo, on the company blog, Beyond the Rows at www.monsantoblog.com, or subscribe to our News Release RSS Feed.

About The Climate Corporation

The Climate Corporation aims to help farmers around the world protect and improve their farming operations with uniquely powerful software and insurance products. The company’s proprietary technology platform combines hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling, and high-resolution weather simulations to deliver climate.com, a SaaS solution that helps farmers improve their profits by making better informed operating and financing decisions, and Total Weather Insurance, an insurance offering that pays farmers automatically for bad weather that may impact their profits. The company is also an authorized provider of the U.S. Federal crop insurance program, enabling authorized independent crop insurance agents to provide farmers with the industry’s most powerful full-stack risk management solution. In the face of increasingly volatile weather, the global $3 trillion agriculture industry depends on the company’s unique technologies to help stabilize and improve profits and, ultimately, help feed the world. For more information, please visit http://www.climate.com or follow the company on Twitter @climatecorp.

CEO and chairman Hugh Grant described the earnings call like “none other” as he talked about “integrated farming systems” and other things about extending the company’s advantages. The earnings loss is a sign of possibly weakening positions in some areas although the company is healthy overall, hence the reason for acquisition and diversification.

Yahoo
Oct 2 (Reuters) – Monsanto Co, the world’s largest seed company, reported a larger quarterly loss on Wednesday as seed sales slipped, but total sales rose and the company said it was positioned for strong growth in 2014.

The leading developer of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and other crops also announced it was acquiring a climate data science company as part of a long-term growth plan.

Overall, the company lost $249 million, or 47 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $229 million, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts on average were expecting a loss of 43 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales rose to $2.2 billion from $2.1 billion a year earlier, but sales of its key seeds and genomics business dropped to $1.19 billion from $1.20 billion a year earlier.

Monsanto in their own words

Monsanto
Year after year, farmers gain valuable insights from their crops and fields. The information helps farmers grow their crops more efficiently, and allows them to make smarter choices as they work to produce more food using fewer resources.

That’s why Monsanto’s acquisition of The Climate Corporation fits in with Monsanto’s commitment to produce more, conserve more and improve lives.

The Climate Corporation’s expertise is in data science. The company turns a wide range of information into valuable insights and recommendations for farmers. For example, recommendations may be planting a few days earlier or changing an irrigation schedule.

The ability to provide farmers better information to develop practical recommendations can help them, regardless of size or preferred production practice, produce more while most efficiently using resources.

The acquisition of The Climate Corporation represents Monsanto investment in supporting farmers by offering them novel options in the way they manage risk on farm – including weather, which is the single biggest risk farmers face on an annual basis. The Climate Corporation’s data science expertise is an important complement to our Integrated Farming Systems℠ research platform that provides farmers with field-by-field recommendations on how to maximize yield and manage risk. The Climate Corporation’s weather-modeling capabilities complement our current FieldScripts℠ offering by adding an additional dimension of analysis to seed prescriptions.

Source: wtfrly.com

This is Why GMOs Were Created by Monsanto

Jeffrey Smith is an expert in genetically modified foods. In this video he explains how and why the practice started and what some of the potential dangers are of GMOs. This short video explains exactly why GMOs were created by Monsanto. He explains that the Roundup Ready patent was about expire so Monsanto had to do something to keep a stranglehold on the world’s food market and protect their profits.

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on Oct 12th: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page.html

Image: iHealthTube/YouTube

Bill Maher vs GMOs Round 1

In this hilarious “New Rules” segment Bill Maher takes on GMOS and the food supply. This is a must watch.

Study: GMO Food Linked to Higher Leukemia Risk

By: Sayer Ji

A groundbreaking new study published in the current issue of the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases reveals the potential “leukemogenic” properties of the Bt toxin biopesticides engineered into the vast majority of GMO food crops already within the US food supply.

Image: http://www.realfarmacy.com

Last September, the causal link between cancer and genetically modified food was confirmed in a French study, the first independent long-term animal feeding study not commissioned by the biotech corporations themselves. The disturbing details can be found here: New Study Finds GM Corn and Roundup Causes Cancer In Rats

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Hematology & Thromboembolic Diseases indicates that the biopesticides engineered into GM crops known as Bacillus Thuringensis (Bt) or Cry-toxins, may also contribute to blood abnormalities from anemia to hematological malignancies (blood cancers) such as leukemia.[i]

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto Oct 12th: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page.html

A group of scientists from the Department of Genetics and Morphology, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Brasilia, Brasilia/DF, Brazil set out to test the purported human and environmental biosafety of GM crops, looking particularly at the role that the Bt toxin found within virtually all GM food crops plays on non-target or non-insect animal species.

The research was spurred by the Brazilian Collegiate Board of Directors of the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), who advocated in 2005 for evaluations of toxicity and pathogenicity of microbiological control agents such as Bt toxins, given that little is known about their toxicological potential in non-target organisms, including humans.

While Bacillus Thurigensis spore-crystals have been used since the late 1960′s in agriculture as a foliar insecticide, it was only after the advent of recombinant DNA biotechnology that these toxin-producing genes (known as delta endotoxins) were first inserted into the plants themselves and released into commercial production in the mid-90′s, making their presence in the US food supply and the bodies of exposed populations ubiquitous.

What the new study revealed is that various binary combinations and doses of Bt toxins are capable of targeting mammalian cells, particularly the erythroid (red blood cell) lineage, resulting in red blood cell changes indicative of significant damage, such as anemia. In addition, the study found that Bt toxins suppressed bone marrow proliferation creating abnormal lymphocyte patterns consistent with some types of leukemia.

The researchers also found that one of the prevailing myths about the selective toxicity of Bt to insects, the target species, no longer holds true:

It has been reported that Cry toxins exert their toxicity when activated at alkaline pH of the digestive tract of susceptible larvae, and, because the physiology of the mammalian digestive system does not allow their activation, and no known specific receptors in mammalian  intestinal cells have been reported, the toxicity these MCAs to mammals  would negligible [8,22,23]. However, our study demonstrated that Bt spore-crystals genetically modified to express individually Cry1Aa, Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac or Cry2A induced hematotoxicity, particularly to the erythroid lineage. This finding corroborates literature that demonstrated that alkali-solubilized  Bt spore-crystals caused in vitro hemolysis in cell lines of rat, mouse, sheep, horse, and human erythrocytes and suggested that the plasma membrane of susceptible cells (erythrocytes, in this case) may be the primary target for these toxins [33]

THE STUDY ALSO FOUND:

1) That Cry toxins are capable of exerting their adverse effects when suspended in distilled water, not requiring alkalinization via insect physiology to become activated as formerly believed.

2) That a dose of Cry1Ab as low as 27 mg/kg, their lowest tested dose, was capable of inducing hypochromic anemia in mice – the very toxin has been detected in blood of non-pregnant women, pregnant women and their fetuses in Canada, supposedly exposed through diet.

3) Whereas past reports have found that Bt toxins are generally nontoxic and do not bioaccumulate in fatty tissue or persist in the environment, the new study demonstrated that all Cry toxins tested had a more pronounced effect from 72 hours of exposure onwards, indicating the opposite is true.

4) That high-dose Cry toxin doses caused blood changes indicative of bone marrow damage (damage to “hematopoietic stem cell or bone marrow stroma”).

The authors noted their results “demonstrate leukemogenic activity for other spore-crystals not yet reported in the literature.”

Sources: realfarmacy.com & greenmedinfo.com

Top Children's Vitamin Brand Contains Aspartame, GMOs and Other Hazardous Ingredients

The #1 Children’s Vitamin Brand in the US contains ingredients that most parents would never intentionally expose their children to, so why aren’t more opting for healthier alternatives?

Image: rawforbeauty.com

Kids vitamins are supposed to be healthy, right? Well then, what’s going on with Flintstones Vitamins, which proudly claims to be “Pediatricians’ #1 Choice”? Produced by the global pharmaceutical corporation Bayer, this wildly successful brand features a shocking list of unhealthy ingredients, including:

Aspartame

Cupric Oxide

Coal tar artificial coloring agents (FD&C Blue #2, Red #40, Yellow #6)

Zinc Oxide

Sorbitol

Ferrous Fumarate

Hydrogenated Oil (Soybean)

GMO Corn starch

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV

On Bayer Health Science’s Flintstones product page designed for healthcare professionals they lead into the product description with the following tidbit of information:

82% of kids aren’t eating all of their veggies1. Without enough vegetables, kids may not be getting all of the nutrients they need.

References: 1. Lorson BA, Melgar-Quinonez HR, Taylor CA. Correlates of fruit and vegetable intakes in US children. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109(3):474-478.

The implication? That Flintstones vitamins somehow fill this nutritional void. But let’s look a little closer at some of these presumably healthy ingredients….

ASPARTAME

Aspartame is a synthetic combination of the amino acids aspartic acid and l-phenylalanine, and is known to convert into highly toxic methanol and formaldehyde in the body. Aspartame has been linked to over 40 adverse health effects in the biomedical literature, and has been shown to exhibit both neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity [1] What business does a chemical like this have doing in a children’s vitamin, especially when non-toxic, non-synthetic non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia already exist?

CUPRIC OXIDE 

Next, let’s look closer at Cupric Oxide, 2mg of which is included in each serving of Flinstone’s Complete chewable vitamins as a presumably ‘nutritional’ source of ‘copper,’ supplying “100% of the Daily Value (Ages 4+), according to Flintstones Vitamins Web site’s Nutritional Info.[2]
But what is Cupric Oxide? A nutrient or a chemical?

According to the European Union’s Dangerous Substance Directive, one of the main EU laws concerning chemical safety, Cupric Oxide is listed as a Hazardous substance, classified as both “Harmful (XN)” and “Dangerous for the environment” (N). Consider that it has industrial applications as a pigment in ceramics, and as a chemical in the production of rayon fabric and dry cell batteries. In may be technically correct to call it a mineral, but should it be listed as a nutrient in a children’s vitamin? We think not.

COAL TAR ARTIFICIAL COLORING AGENTS

Image: rawforbeauty.com

A well-known side effect of using synthetic dyes is attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. For direct access to study abstracts on this topic view our Food Coloring research page.  There is also indication that the neurotoxicity of artificial food coloring agents increase when combined with aspartame, making the combination of ingredients in Flintstones even more concerning.

ZINC OXIDE

Each serving of Flinstones Complete Chewable vitamins contain 12 mg of zinc oxide, which the manufacturer claims delivers 75% of the Daily Value to children 2  & 3 years of age.  Widely used as a sun protection factor (SPF) in sunscreens, The EU’s Dangerous Substance Directive classifies it as an environmental Hazard, “Dangerous for the environment (N).”  How it can be dangerous to the environment, but not for humans ingesting it, escapes me.  One thing is for sure, if one is to ingest supplemental zinc, or market it for use by children, it makes much more sense using a form that is organically bound (i.e. ‘chelated’) to an amino acid like glycine, as it will be more bioavailable and less toxic.

Sources:  GREENMEDINFO.COM

rawforbeauty.com

This is how GMO foods will be eliminated

Natural Cures Not Medicine on Facebook: www.facebook.com/naturalcuresnotmedicine

By Dr. Mercola
We’re in really exciting times with regards to shifting the tide against genetically engineered (GE) foods and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV



As you know, I was a big supporter of the California GMO labeling campaign, and while we lost the vote by an incredibly narrow margin last November, Proposition 37 catalyzed an enormous amount of awareness across the US.

More people are now aware of GMOs than we could possibly have ever reached through educational efforts alone, investing the same amount of money that we invested in Prop. 37. It really marked the beginning of the end for GM foods in the US.

Jeffrey Smith, who is one of the leaders in educating people about the concerns and dangers of GMOs, has been at it for about 17 years. He believes we are now at the most critical stage in the history of GMO activism in the United States.

Image: http://www.hangthebankers.com

“We’ve now hit new stages of what I call the tipping point of consumer rejection,” he says. “And it follows very logically from Prop 37. Let me explain what I mean by a tipping point, and then I’ll explain exactly where we are in that process.

In January 1999, the biotech industry boldly predicted that within five years 95 percent of all commercial seeds in the world would be genetically modified and patented.

They did not anticipate the gag order of a scientist being lifted three weeks later in Europe. A firestorm of media reported on his results of a GMO-feeding study. Over 700 articles were written within a single month in the UK.

In 10 weeks, the tipping point of consumer rejection was achieved in Europe – heralded not by the European Commission banning GMOs, but by Unilever banning GMOs, then Nestlé, and then virtually everyone in Europe because they realized that using GM ingredients had become a marketing liability. This is what we call a tipping point.”

US Now Reaching the Tipping Point

In the US, we saw a tipping point against Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) when it got kicked out of Walmart, Starbucks, Yoplait, and Dannon.

This was not due to any action taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but occurred when mothers across the nation became aware of the cancer risks associated with milk from cows treated with bovine growth hormone.

Now, the tipping point of consumer rejection of genetically engineered foods in the US is almost here.
A clear sign of this occurred last year, when the president of Whole Foods confessed that when a product becomes verified as Non-GMO or GMO-free, sales leap by 15-30 percent. Of all the categories of health and wellness claims, such as “gluten-free,” etc, “GMO-free” products have the most rapid growth in sales.
“This shows an enormous desire and demand for non-GMO products,” Smith says. “There are now 10,000 products in our NonGMOShoppingGuide.com database that are verified as non-GMO, and that’s expanding every day.”

“It’s actually happening in a big way. The next stage of the tipping point was heralded by a New York Times article on the 27th of May. If you were to read it from the perspective of a food product manager, you would realize the absolute need to make a decision.

I call it the stage of ‘awake and scramble,’ where they wake to the fact that the GMO movement is in place. It’s not going away. And if they want to participate, they got to scramble for non-GMO ingredients now
because they may not be able to get it later.”

Signs of the Times

The article touched on a number of vital signs of progress in the movement against genetically engineered foods, including:

The March Against Monsanto in 52 countries by more than two million people

Labeling laws proposed in more than two dozen states, which subsequently passed in Connecticut and Maine. Washington State will probably pass a GMO labeling bill as well this fall

Hundreds of companies have enrolled in the Non-GMO Project, and some non-GMO companies fret they may lose their sources of non-GMO ingredients to the new-comers

Farmers now receive more non-GMO premiums

Some companies are already going overseas to get non-GMO ingredients

Besides that, Target has announced that its own brand will be non-GMO in 2014. Ben & Jerry’s will be non-GMO by the end of this year, and while Chipotle’s restaurants are working toward a non-GMO menu, they voluntarily started labeling in the meantime. There’s also been more news coverage on the dangers of GMOs.

According to Smith:“The next stage of the tipping point is coming up very soon. It is called the battle for market share.”

The Battle for Market Share—Ready, Set…

The battle for market share begins the moment a mainstream food company that is not just sold in Whole Foods or a natural food chain puts a “Non-GMO Project Verified” sticker on its package and places it on the shelf next to a popular GMO-containing counterpart.

“This could happen at any time. It’s expected as early as August. Once it happens, the stopwatch starts ticking,” Smith says. “If we can move the sales in the direction of the Non-GMO Project Verified product and the other one starts reducing market share, it becomes the sell signal for the entire industry. If there’s a delay, if there’s no change in there, then the tipping point may stall and companies may use that as an excuse to say, ‘Well, maybe this will go away or be firewalled into the natural food space.’

The Institute for Responsible Technology began a massive campaign this summer to drive the non-health conscious shopper – the Walmart and Safeway shopper – into the non-GMO product category by focusing on the following four categories:

1. Mothers. Moms may sometimes not switch their own diet for themselves but they’re dedicated when it comes to protecting their children, and there’s ample evidence showing that children are most at-risk from GE foods. An impressive 1.7 million people watched Jeffrey Smith’s film Genetic Roulette during free-showing weeks in 2012, and many of them were parents, who immediately acted on the information and saw the results for themselves.

Says Smith: “I was speaking at MIT recently and someone from the audience said, ‘We saw the film. Before that, my six-and-a-half-year old was violent and out of control. They wanted to take him out of school and actually label him retarded. After changing his diet, a month later, I had a new child. All of those problems went away.’ We’re getting that information out to the moms.”

2. The sick, and their doctors. Mounting research has linked GE foods to a number of diseases and disorders. Studies are also implicating two of the main toxins related to GE foods, Roundup and Bt toxin, to all sorts of diseases.

“I go around the country and ask audiences, ‘How many of you have significantly removed GMOs from your diet?’ And then I say, ‘Okay, tell us all what improvements you’ve noticed.’ We hear: allergies; headaches; fatigue; gastrointestinal disorders; kidney and liver problems; diabetes; high blood pressure; skin problems; aggression; depression; infertility.

Someone said, ‘My client couldn’t get pregnant for five years, switched to a non-GMO diet, and was pregnant three weeks later.’ Another woman said, ‘My four-year-old started talking.’ We hear from parents of autistic kids –even from an autistic person directly – who told me when they switched to a non-GMO diet, the symptoms alleviated. An autistic man in his 60s came up to me and said, ‘I would never be able to come to this meeting with you had I not changed my diet, because these symptoms were preventing me from this type of social interaction…’ A lot of people also lose weight when they get rid of GMOs. It’s another main feature that we have to highlight, which we haven’t done a good job at.”

3. Religious groups. The Institute is also talking to people of various religious faiths, whose scriptures tell them to respect the natural way of things.

“They realize when they look inside this technology of mixing and matching across kingdoms and species and forcing DNA into new species that have never been there before, that it is against their faith. And then when they see the evidence showing that it’s actually causing health problems, it confirms what they believe. Many of them are getting onboard to direct their congregations to avoid GMOs.”

4. Pet owners. Many pet owners will tell you, their animals are just as much part of the family as any child is. And, as with children, animals are also among the most at-risk.

“We are finding – based on the experiences of veterinarians and pet-owners – that animals that eat the byproducts of the human food supply are suffering from the same diseases and disorders that humans are suffering from. We have veterinarians saying that animals and livestock – pets and horses – are all suffering from eating GMOs and improve when they get rid of GMOs,” Smith says.

Vote Non-GMO with Every Purchase

The feedback Smith describes offers strong testimony to the fact that even though it may have looked like we lost the battle when Prop. 37 failed to pass, we really won the war because it triggered this process of rapidly mounting awareness. And with awareness, people are quickly shifting their purchasing habits.

The rapid and dramatic rise in sales of products that are Non-GMO Verified really demonstrates the power you have as a consumer. And this is how we will ultimately win, because most food companies don’t have a particular pro-GMO agenda. They’re just selling what people will buy, and by using the most inexpensive ingredients possible they can increase profits. But if their profits go down due to an undesirable ingredient, they will change it.

So, to keep the momentum going, I urge you to purchase Non-GMO Project Verified foods, and to tell your friends and relatives to do the same. Explain to them why, and point them toward resources if they’re skeptical, or they’re concerned that this is all some over-emotional response that has no basis in science.
“We know that the information that we’re presenting at the Institute for Responsible Technology has been tested to verify change in people’s diet very quickly,” Smith says.”I recommend getting involved in our materials—our free newsletter at ResponsibleTechnology.org, for example—and sharing that information with others.”

Results from Animal-Feeding Studies Correlate with Human Disease Patterns

According to Smith, there are definitive correlations between the results from animal-feeding studies and the patterns of human disease we’re now seeing. For example, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine has done a number of animal-feeding studies on GMOs and specifically enumerated the particular categories of diseases and disorders found in these controlled environments:

“You look at the three different corresponding factors: (1) what humans are getting better from, (2) what livestock is getting better from, (3) what afflictions are afflicting the lab animals fed with GMOs, and then you look at what diseases are really taking off in the United States – they’re the same categories,” Smith says.
For example, kidney problems have been demonstrated in 19 different animal-feeding studies, and kidney diseases are on the rise in the US. Could there be a connection? Smith and I both believe this to be the case.

According to Smith:

“We heard from two people at a meeting in Arizona, someone whose husband was nearly on dialysis and someone else who had three kidney transplants – both situations reversed when they changed their diet.
You see things like the animal-feeding study out of Russia where the babies were a lot smaller after being fed GE soy, and you see the incidence of low-birth-weight babies is going up in the United States… Deaths from senile dementia moved along at a certain pace, and then when GMOs or Roundup were introduced, it shot up… So, you see these correlations between these four things now: (1) the animal-feeding studies, (2) people getting better [when removing GMO], (3) livestock getting better [when removing GMO], and (4) changes in the disease rates.”

Glyphosate Toxicity—Another Hidden Danger of GE Foods

There’s also another potent toxin associated with genetically engineered foods that is unrelated to the Bt toxin or the genetic alteration itself, and that is glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide, which is used on both GE crops and many conventional crops as well. The contamination appears to be greater in GE crops however, especially in so-called Roundup Ready crops. These are genetically altered to withstand otherwise lethal doses of the herbicide, and it’s important to realize that the glyphosate permeates the entire plant. It cannot be washed off.

In June, groundbreaking research was published detailing a newfound mechanism of harm for Roundup. The finding suggests that glyphosate may actually be the most important factor in the development of a wide variety of chronic diseases, specifically because your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s mechanism of harm.

Monsanto has steadfastly claimed that Roundup is harmless to animals and humans because the mechanism of action it uses (which allows it to kill weeds), called the shikimate pathway, is absent in all animals. However, the shikimate pathway IS present in bacteria, and that’s the key to understanding how it causes such widespread systemic harm in both humans and animals. The bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by 10 to 1. For every cell in your body, you have 10 microbes of various kinds, and all of them have the shikimate pathway, so they will all respond to the presence of glyphosate!

Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of the microbe’s function and lifecycle. What’s worse, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow and take over. At that point, your body also has to contend with the toxins produced by the pathogens. Once the chronic inflammation sets in, you’re well on your way toward chronic and potentially debilitating disease…

As stated by Smith:
“Roundup is actually patented as a biocide. It’s an antibiotic, it kills bacteria. That affects not only the soil, killing the beneficial bacteria that provide the nutrients to the soil, but it also kills the beneficial bacteria in your gut… It kills the Bifidus. It kills the Lactobacillus. But it keeps alive the E.coli, salmonella, and botulism, which is not something we want to keep alive. When you kill the beneficial gut bacteria, it affects your immune system and digestive tract.”

This remarkable finding was immediately followed by tests showing that people in 18 countries across Europe have glyphosate in their bodies,per-trillion range while yet another study revealed that the chemical has estrogenic properties and drive breast cancer proliferation in the parts-per-trillion range.4 This finding might help explain why rats fed Monsanto’s maize developed massive breast tumors in the first-ever lifetime feeding study published last year.

Other recently published studies demonstrate glyphosate’s toxicity to cell lines, aquatic life, food animals, and humans. In fact, research has shown that Roundup is toxic to human DNA even when diluted to concentrations 450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications. Liver, embryonic and placental cell lines are adversely affected by glyphosate at doses as low as 1 ppm. GMO corn can contain as much as 13 ppm of glyphosate, and Americans eat an average of 193 lbs of GMO foods annually.

The Road Ahead…

There’s every reason to be optimistic when it comes to getting GMOs out of our food supply. First of all, realize that we don’t have to affect policy change in order to take GMOs out; we can do it based on personal empowerment and individual decision making. To find out which brands and products have been Non-GMO Project Verified, see NonGMOShoppingGuide.com, or use the iPhone application ShopNoGMO – both are free. Another alternative with which you cannot go wrong is to buy organic whole foods, ditching processed fare altogether. But there’s more good news:

“We’re seeing now that it’s a movement that has its own life,” Smith says. “[At a recent event] someone said to me, ‘My dad saw the film Genetic Roulette, took GMOs out of his diet, sent us all a copy of the thing, and bought land so that he can produce food.’

What’s happening now is that there is a self-organizing and spontaneous uprising of people who have been maybe prescribed a non-GMO diet by the thousands of doctors who are doing so, or been inspired to remove it by watching our film or your materials, etc. This is a movement. The food industry now recognizes it. Those who are in a position to move quickly will take the most advantage of it. They’ll see an increase in sales in the US as happened in Europe and Australia in the early days when their tipping point happened.
Right now, in the 17 years that I’ve been working on this, when I was first alerted to the health dangers of GMOs by a genetic engineer, I have never seen a more potent window of opportunity. We know that we can’t ask the Obama administration for a bow out. We can’t wait for the FDA to become awake. We have to do it ourselves. The key is we are already doing it ourselves. There’s a momentum. Non-GMO products are growing faster than anything else right now in terms of categories, and the momentum is on our side.
The big test will be very shortly when we look inside the aisles of Safeway, Walmart, and Kroger – not the Whole Foods – to see if our message is moving the needle to win the battle for market share. If it does, every GMO-laden product, every product manager will realize it. It’ll become the industry sell signal. They will scramble to get their non-GMO products available quickly, and we will win.”

Join Us in Your Right to Know by Getting GMOs Labeled!

While California Prop. 37 failed to pass last November by a very narrow margin, the fight for GMO labeling is far from over. In the past few weeks, Connecticut and Maine have passed GMO-labeling bills, and 20 other states have pending legislation to label genetically engineered foods. So, now is the time to put the pedal to the metal and get labeling across the country—something 64 other countries already have.
I hope you will join us in this effort.

The field-of-play has now moved to the state of Washington, where the people’s initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will require food sold in retail outlets to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. Please help us win this key GMO labeling battle and continue to build momentum for GMO labeling in other states by making a donation to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA).

Remember, as with CA Prop. 37, they need support of people like YOU to succeed. Prop. 37 failed with a very narrow margin simply because we didn’t have the funds to counter the massive ad campaigns created by the No on 37 camp, led by Monsanto and other major food companies. Let’s not allow Monsanto and its allies to confuse and mislead the people of Washington and Vermont as they did in California. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can.

No matter where you live in the United States, please donate money to these labeling efforts through the Organic Consumers Fund.

Sign up to learn more about how you can get involved by visiting Yeson522.com!

For timely updates on issues relating to these and other labeling initiatives, please join the Organic Consumers Association on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the Washington initiative.

Sources: rawforbeauty.com & mercola.com

TED censors all talks about GMOs

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(NaturalNews)

It's a sure sign that you've jumped into a circle of dogma when the very act of asking intelligent questions is no longer allowed. Any speakers who might ask questions about genetically engineered foods are strictly forbidden by TED. This makes TED a source of pseudoscience because it censors and silences any dissenting views that don't align with Monsanto and the Frankenfoods biotech industry.

The TEDx letter actually claims that anyone who questions the wisdom of genetically engineering food crops grown in open fields is a quack or a hoaxer.

Read the letter yourself. It reads as if it were written by someone with the intellectual capacity of an 8th grader -- someone who is so naive that they still haven't caught on to the fact that corporations routinely lie to the world by hijacking science to push their agenda of profit and domination. And it makes you wonder just how stupid TED thinks the public really is on the subject of GMOs. Even though 90% of the public believes GMOs should be labeled on foods, TED thinks anyone who dares talk about GMOs is spewing "pseudoscience."

Does TED also think that spraying the world with glyphosate is a boon to mankind? Does TED even know what glyphosate is and how glyphosate causes cancer at concentrations of parts per billion?

Full article: naturalnews.com

Reality Check: Monsanto and It's Crony Policies

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Ben Swann takes a good look at Monsanto and their notoriously corrupt policy of infiltrating the government.

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on 10/12/13 in a city near you: http://bit.ly/14RN9EV



Source: BenSwann.com

Image: www.lostrepublic.us

Secret Trade Deal to Kill Internet Freedom and Place Ban on Labeling GMOs

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Have you heard of the secret Trade Deal that is looming in the shadows? A new plan is in the works by the global elite that is being touted as another revolutionary “free trade” agreement. But we can all see that the free trade agreements of the past such as NAFTA and GATT have only served to benefit the global elite, and done everything to stifle actual free trade.

The ‘agreement,’ of which none of us will be given the opportunity to actually agree, is called The Trans Pacific Partnership. The world stands to lose a great deal from this ‘agreement.’ According to Nation of Change, the labeling of foods containing GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) will not be allowed. Japan currently has labeling laws for GMOs in food. Under the TPP Japan would no longer be able to label GMOs. This situation is the same for New Zealand and Australia. In the US we are just beginning to see some progress towards labeling GMOs. Under the TPP GMO labels for US food would not be allowed.
In April 2013, Peru placed a 10-year moratorium on GMO foods and plants. This prohibits the import, production and use of GMOs in foods and GMO plants and is aimed at safeguarding Peru’s agricultural diversity. The hope is to prevent cross-pollination with non-GMO crops and to ban GMO crops like Bt corn. What will become of Peru’s moratorium if the TPP is passed?

The TPP will also implement new levels of internet tyranny, outlawing the “Fair Use” of material and turn your ISP into a government enforcement arm as they will face heavy fines for allowing anything that violates the TPP.

According to naturalnews.com details of the TPP are so secret that even members of Congress are not allowed to review them or disclose them. What we know about the TPP has only come from leaks, as the full text of the entire agreement is being kept not only from Congress but also the American people. Yet over 600 corporate CEOs — including CEOs of companies that have been repeatedly found guilty of felony crimes in America — have been allowed to influence the details of the TPP agreements. Monsanto, Wal-Mart and Big Pharma corporations are reportedly given top influence positions in this super-secret Obama organization that hands the future of the world over to the most evil corporations of all time.

We must expose these globalists for who they are. If you’d like to help please visit, www.nationofchange.org, http://www.exposethetpp.org/, and http://www.citizen.org/TPP.

by Matt Agorist, REALfarmacy.com

Source: RealFarmacy.com

Costa Rica Joins the Growing List of Countries Banning GMOs

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In a unanimous vote the Municipal Council of San Jose passed a motion banning transgenic food from the region. The new measure prohibits the sale, consumption and growth of genetically modified food within the municipality.

Image: www.ticotimes.net

The municipality’s decision comes less than a month following the decision from Costa Rica’s National Biosecurity Technical Commission to allow multinational company Monsanto to grow genetically modified corn in the country.

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on October 12th

More than half of Costa Rica’s local authorities or cantons have voted to ban GM crops in protest against Monsanto gaining a foothold in the country.

Over 2/3rds of Costa Rica has banned GM

Latest reports are that 56 of the 81 cantons have outlawed GM crops in support of popular demonstrations against Monsanto using Costa Rica as a nursery to grow GM seed for export.

The backlash against GMs began in late 2012 when a Monsanto subsidiary, Delta & Pine Land, asked for permission to plant about five acres of maize with four GM seed varieties giving herbicide tolerance and insect resistance.

This sparked a rash of protests across the country, and hundreds of people massed in front of the National Technical Commission of Biosafety (CTNBio) headquarters, the body in charge of the applications for the release of GMOs. CTNBio has been heavily criticised for limiting access to information and participation in discussions about GM seeds.

Eventually, CTNBio said Monsanto could go ahead. Protesters were furious that the decision followed others allowing GM cotton, soybeans, bananas, and pineapples to grow in the country. The acreage is small but the symbolism is huge: allowing Monsanto in could increase large scale commercial exploitation of Costa Rica’s extraordinary environment.

Read the full article

Source: realfarmacy.com

GMO Soy Linked to Sterility and Mortality in Hamsters

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“This study was just routine,” said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov, in what could end up as the understatement of this century. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. What he discovered may uproot a multi-billion dollar industry.

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

And if this isn’t shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths–a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.

Related: Join the March Against Monsanto on October 12th

The study, jointly conducted by Surov’s Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Association for Gene Security, is expected to be published in three months (July 2010)–so the technical details will have to wait. But Surov sketched out the basic set up for me in an email.
He used Campbell hamsters, with a fast reproduction rate, divided into 4 groups. All were fed a normal diet, but one was without any soy, another had non-GM soy, a third used GM soy, and a fourth contained higher amounts of GM soy. They used 5 pairs of hamsters per group, each of which produced 7-8 litters, totally 140 animals.

Surov told The Voice of Russia,
“Originally, everything went smoothly. However, we noticed quite a serious effect when we selected new pairs from their cubs and continued to feed them as before. These pairs’ growth rate was slower and reached their sexual maturity slowly.”

He selected new pairs from each group, which generated another 39 litters. There were 52 pups born to the control group and 78 to the non-GM soy group. In the GM soy group, however, only 40 pups were born. And of these, 25% died. This was a fivefold higher death rate than the 5% seen among the controls. Of the hamsters that ate high GM soy content, only a single female hamster gave birth. She had 16 pups; about 20% died.

Surov said “The low numbers in F2 [third generation] showed that many animals were sterile.”
The published paper will also include measurements of organ size for the third generation animals, including testes, spleen, uterus, etc. And if the team can raise sufficient funds, they will also analyze hormone levels in collected blood samples.

Hair Growing in the Mouth

Earlier this year, Surov co-authored a paper in Doklady Biological Sciences showing that in rare instances, hair grows inside recessed pouches in the mouths of hamsters.

“Some of these pouches contained single hairs; others, thick bundles of colorless or pigmented hairs reaching as high as the chewing surface of the teeth. Sometimes, the tooth row was surrounded with a regular brush of hair bundles on both sides. The hairs grew vertically and had sharp ends, often covered with lumps of a mucous.”

(The photos of these hair bundles are truly disgusting. Trust me, or look for yourself.)
At the conclusion of the study, the authors surmise that such an astounding defect may be due to the diet of hamsters raised in the laboratory. They write, “This pathology may be exacerbated by elements of the food that are absent in natural food, such as genetically modified (GM) ingredients (GM soybean or maize meal) or contaminants (pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, etc.).” Indeed, the number of hairy mouthed hamsters was much higher among the third generation of GM soy fed animals than anywhere Surov had seen before.
Preliminary, but Ominous

Surov warns against jumping to early conclusions. He said, “It is quite possible that the GMO does not cause these effects by itself.” Surov wants to make the analysis of the feed components a priority, to discover just what is causing the effect and how.

In addition to the GMOs, it could be contaminants, he said, or higher herbicide residues, such as Roundup. There is in fact much higher levels of Roundup on these beans; they’re called “Roundup Ready.” Bacterial genes are forced into their DNA so that the plants can tolerate Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. Therefore, GM soy always carries the double threat of higher herbicide content, couple with any side effects of genetic engineering.

Years of Reproductive Disorders from GMO-Feed

Surov’s hamsters are just the latest animals to suffer from reproductive disorders after consuming GMOs. In 2005, Irina Ermakova, also with the Russian National Academy of Sciences, reported that more than half the babies from mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks. This was also five times higher than the 10% death rate of the non-GMO soy group. The babies in the GM group were also smaller (see photo) and could not reproduce.

In a telling coincidence, after Ermakova’s feeding trials, her laboratory started feeding allthe rats in the facility a commercial rat chow using GM soy. Within two months, the infant mortality facility-wide reached 55%.
When Ermakova fed male rats GM soy, their testicles changed from the normal pink to dark blue! Italian scientists similarly found changes in mice testes (PDF), including damaged young sperm cells. Furthermore, the DNA of embryos from parent mice fed GM soy functioned differently.

An Austrian government study published in November 2008 showed that the more GM corn was fed to mice, the fewer the babies they had (PDF), and the smaller the babies were.

Central Iowa Farmer Jerry Rosman also had trouble with pigs and cows becoming sterile. Some of his pigs even had false pregnancies or gave birth to bags of water. After months of investigations and testing, he finally traced the problem to GM corn feed. Every time a newspaper, magazine, or TV show reported Jerry’s problems, he would receive calls from more farmers complaining of livestock sterility on their farm, linked to GM corn.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine accidentally discovered that rats raised on corncob bedding “neither breed nor exhibit reproductive behavior.” Tests on the corn material revealed two compounds that stopped the sexual cycle in females “at concentrations approximately two-hundredfold lower than classical phytoestrogens.” One compound also curtailed male sexual behavior and both substances contributed to the growth of breast and prostate cancer cell cultures. Researchers found that the amount of the substances varied with GM corn varieties. The crushed corncob used at Baylor was likely shipped from central Iowa, near the farm of Jerry Rosman and others complaining of sterile livestock.

In Haryana, India, a team of investigating veterinarians report that buffalo consuming GM cottonseed suffer from infertility, as well as frequent abortions, premature deliveries, and prolapsed uteruses. Many adult and young buffalo have also died mysteriously.

Denial, Attack and Canceled Follow-up

Scientists who discover adverse findings from GMOs are regularly attacked, ridiculed, denied funding, and even fired. When Ermakova reported the high infant mortality among GM soy fed offspring, for example, she appealed to the scientific community to repeat and verify her preliminary results. She also sought additional funds to analyze preserved organs. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Samples were stolen from her lab, papers were burnt on her desk, and she said that her boss, under pressure from his boss, told her to stop doing any more GMO research. No one has yet repeated Ermakova’s simple, inexpensive studies.
In an attempt to offer her sympathy, one of her colleagues suggested that maybe the GM soy will solve the over population problem!

Surov reports that so far, he has not been under any pressure.

Opting Out of the Massive GMO Feeding Experiment

Without detailed tests, no one can pinpoint exactly what is causing the reproductive travesties in Russian hamsters and rats, Italian and Austrian mice, and livestock in India and America. And we can only speculate about the relationship between the introduction of genetically modified foods in 1996, and the corresponding upsurge in low birth weight babies, infertility, and other problems among the US population. But many scientists, physicians, and concerned citizens don’t think that the public should remain the lab animals for the biotech industry’s massive uncontrolled experiment.

Alexey Surov says, “We have no right to use GMOs until we understand the possible adverse effects, not only to ourselves but to future generations as well. We definitely need fully detailed studies to clarify this. Any type of contamination has to be tested before we consume it, and GMO is just one of them.”

Source: Huffington Post

Organic Farmers Are Suing Monsanto Over Genetic Patents

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PRESS RELEASE 9/5/2013 For Immediate Release Contact: Jim Gerritsen (207) 429-9765 Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association

American Farmers Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court to Seek Protection from Genetic Contamination and Invalidate Monsanto's Patents on Genetically Engineered Crops New York - September 5, 2013 - A group of 73 American organic and conventional family farmers, seed businesses and public advocacy groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to hear their case against Monsanto Company challenging the chemical and biotech seed giant's patents on genetically engineered seed. In Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto, the plaintiffs have been forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their fields ever become contaminated by Monsanto's genetically engineered seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past. In a June 10th ruling earlier this year, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a group of organic and otherwise non-GMO farmer and seed company plaintiffs are not entitled to bring a lawsuit to protect themselves from Monsanto's transgenic seed patents "because Monsanto has made binding assurances that it will not 'take legal action against growers whose crops might inadvertently contain traces of Monsanto biotech genes (because, for example, some transgenic seed or pollen blew onto the grower's land).'" "While the Court of Appeals correctly found that the farmers and seed sellers had standing to challenge Monsanto's invalid patents, it incorrectly found that statements made by Monsanto's lawyers during the lawsuit mooted the case," said Daniel Ravicher, Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) and lead counsel to the plaintiffs in OSGATA et al v. Monsanto. "As a result, we have asked the Supreme Court to take the case and reinstate the right of the plaintiffs to seek full protection from Monsanto's invalid transgenic seed patents." The Petition filed today by lawyers for the family farmers may be found here. The plaintiffs brought the pre-emptive case against Monsanto in March 2011 and specifically seek to defend themselves from nearly two dozen of Monsanto's most aggressively asserted patents on GMO seed. They were forced to act pre-emptively to protect themselves from Monsanto's abusive lawsuits, fearing that if GMO seed contaminates their property despite their efforts to prevent such contamination, Monsanto will sue them for patent infringement. "We have been farming for almost forty years and we have never wanted anything to do with Monsanto," said Jim Gerritsen, an organic seed farmer in Maine and President of lead PlaintiffOSGATA.  "We believe we have the right to farm and grow good food the way we choose.  We don't think it's fair that Monsanto can trespass onto our farm, contaminate and ruin our crops and then sue us for infringing on their patent rights.  We don't want one penny from Monsanto. American farmers deserve their day in Court so we can prove to the world Monsanto's genetically engineered patents are invalid and that farmers deserve protection from Monsanto's abuse." In the case, the plaintiffs are asking the courts to declare that if organic farmers are ever contaminated by Monsanto's genetically engineered seed, they need not fear also being accused of patent infringement. One reason justifying this result is that Monsanto's patents on genetically engineered seed are invalid because they don't meet the "usefulness" requirement of patent law, according to Ravicher. Evidence cited in the plaintiffs' court filings proves that genetically engineered seed has negative economic and health effects, while the promised benefits of genetically engineered seed - increased production and decreased herbicide use - are false. As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in 1817, to be patentable, an invention must not be "injurious to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society," and "a new invention to poison people ... is not a patentable invention."  Because transgenic seed, and in particular Monsanto's transgenic seed, is "injurious to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society" and threatens to "poison people," Monsanto's transgenic seed patents are all invalid. With the rapid adoption of Monsanto's genetically engineered seed technology, America's farmers have been faced with a rampant rise in superweeds, with more than 49% of U.S. farmers reporting glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm in 2012, up from 34% that farmers reported in 2011. In addition, scientists are reporting the growing failures of Monsanto's genetically engineered insecticide-corn, with reports from scientists in the Midwestern corn belt states detailing the rise of super insects becoming resistant to the genetically engineered Bt toxin, leaving farmers vulnerable to the voracious corn rootworm, the number one threat to corn farmers. "For the past twenty years, Monsanto has used its political and financial power to foist a deeply flawed technology on America's farmers, consistently underestimating the real risks of genetic engineering while putting America's farmers, the environment and the public in harm's way simply in the name of profit," said Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, a grassroots movement of more than 650,000 farmers and citizens. "As the leading arbiters of justice in the U.S., it behooves the Supreme Court to hear this important case to protect America's farmers from abusive patent infringement lawsuits and invalidate Monsanto's flawed patents as their products have been shown to be damaging to human health and the environment and failed to live up to the marketing hype." Complete background on the OSGATA et al v. Monsanto lawsuit is available here. About OSGATA: The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association is a not-for-profit agricultural organization comprised of organic farmers, seed growers, seed businesses and supporters. OSGATA is committed to developing, promoting, and protecting organic seed and it's growers in order to ensure the organic community has access to excellent quality organic seed free of contaminants and adapted to the diverse needs of local organic agriculture. www.osgata.org  Source: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs122/1104248386985/archive/1114774940086.html