Hold onto your health. The USDA, one of the agencies tasked with the job of killing us all off, is just about to roll over for Big Seed.
There are two stories here. The first is about the upcoming GMO deregulation by the USDA, and the 2nd, is about a seed already on the books that set a precedent for bypassing the regs currently on the books.
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http://farmwars.info/?p=7553
USDA Conspires with Biotech Industry for Complete Deregulation of GMOs
Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
If there was any doubt whatsoever about the USDA being just another terrorist arm of the biotech industry, it has left the building. No doubt remains at all about the USDA’s intentions to cooperate with the contamination and poisoning of our food supply, planet, and every living thing on it by the chemical companies now in charge of just about everything used to formulate the food-like substances that we see lining our grocery store shelves.
Under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process. (Truth-out)
“It’s the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig.” They frankenbuild it, approve it in-house, then force us to eat it because no one is supposed to know it is there. If it is labeled, and people actually are allowed to know what they are eating, then that evidently poses a barrier to trade. In other words, if they know it is GMO they won’t eat it, so we’d better get going with the complete deregulation process now before too many people start waking up.
With 19 deregulation petitions pending with more on the way, requiring an EIS for each product would amount to a de facto moratorium on commercialization and would send an unprecedented message that USDA believes that these products do have an environmental impact, when in fact most do not. Any suggestion by USDA that biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS) would make approvals by other trading partners virtually impossible … (Truth-out)
So, it seems that even any suggestion that “biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS)” is VERBOTEN! Not even allowed to be suggested! How dare we even suggest that they be required to fill out a phony EIS! Yes, that is where this is headed. Since biotechnology plants as a category are supposed to be substantially equivalent to their non-genetically engineered counterparts, the endgame for all of this is NO REGULATION AT ALL. Not even the phony kind. Got to keep the bean counters happy by eliminating pesky court costs and EIS paperwork.
Let us not forget that the same USDA that is in charge of this phony biotech regulatory facade is the same USDA that is in charge of the National Organics Program and foods stamped with the USDA Organic label. Is it any wonder why there is NO THRESHOLD for GMOs in USDA Organics as well as NO RESTRICTIONS on nanotechnology in USDA Organics either? The USDA is not there to help us. THE USDA IS THE PROBLEM. The USDA’s job is to push GMOs worldwide, starting with US.
Here’s how it went down
The threat:
BIO warned Vilsack that the American biotech agriculture industry could be crippled if the legal precedents required the USDA to prepare an EIS for every GE crop up for deregulation. (Truth-out)
In other words:
If you insist on us going through the charade of letting you file phony environmental impact statements on our genetically engineered plants, then we will make you suffer. It’s way too time consuming, and we couldn’t be bothered with your findings anyway.
The USDA’s capitulation:
Vilsack wrote a steady-handed reply to each trade group, reassuring them that the NEPA policy would not change and the USDA would continue preparing an EA for new GE seeds and an EIS only when necessary. Vilsack also wrote that he was “pleased” to recently meet with biotech industry representatives and “discuss improving the efficiency of the biotechnology regulatory process.” Such improvements, he wrote, are “directly related” to the USDA’s “objective of ensuring the United State leads the world in sustainable crop production and biotech crop exports.” He took the opportunity to announce that the USDA would reorganize the Biotechnology Regulatory Services agency and create a new NEPA team “dedicated to creating high quality and defensible documents to better inform our regulatory decisions.” This new NEPA team would go on to develop the NEPA Pilot Project and begin streamlining the approval process. (Truth-out)
In other words:
Okay guys, we’ll let you do your own reports. That is, until we get to the point of complete deregulation, then you won’t have any more pesky paperwork to worry about. Is that okay with you?
Not a big leap, considering that “The USDA regards its own regulatory system as a rubber stamp.… At least at the upper levels, there’s always been this presumption that [GE crops] must be approved.” (Truth-out)
Yup, that’s exactly where this is headed, and quickly. Complete deregulation for all genetically engineered crops, courtesy of your good friends at the USDA and their co-conspirators, Monsanto, et. al.. Paperwork? We don’t need no stinkin’ paperwork! And don’t you dare even hint at GMOs being any different than their non-GMO counterparts, or the agricultural industry just might not be alive in the morning. You have been warned.
The ball’s in our court, America. Save your good, clean, heirloom seeds now. Don’t wait until the tipping point occurs and the opportunity we have for finding normal seeds is going…. going…. gone. We need to act independently and create our own private seed vaults to use and share with friends and neighbors. These can be expanded to create seed sharing networks that are not centralized or easily infiltrated. We need to do this while we can. One seed at a time, one day at a time….. starting NOW. The USDA and Monsanto are not waiting one second to make sure that you have no choice. Don’t let them succeed.
© 2011 Barbara H. Peterson
-----------------------------------
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110720/full/475274a.html
Transgenic grass skirts regulators
Technological advances remove basis for government oversight of genetically modified crops.
Heidi Ledford
When the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this month that it did not have the authority to oversee a new variety of genetically modified (GM) Kentucky bluegrass, it exposed a serious weakness in the regulations governing GM crops. These are based not on a plant's GM nature but on the techniques used for its genetic modification. With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
The grass, a GM variety of Poa pratensis, is still in the early stages of development by Scotts Miracle-Gro, a lawn-care company based in Marysville, Ohio. The grass has been genetically altered to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, which would make it easier to keep a lawn weed-free. On 1 July, secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote to the company to say that the variety "is not subject" to the same regulations that govern other GM crops. The decision allows Scotts to bypass the years of environmental testing and consultation typically required by the regulators for GM plants, although the company says there are no plans to market this particular variety.
The grass can evade control because the regulations for GM plants derive from the Federal Plant Pest Act, a decades-old law intended to safeguard against plant pathogens from overseas. Previous types of GM plants are covered because they they were made using plant pathogens. The bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens — which can cause tumours on plants — shuttled foreign genes into plant genomes. Developers then used genetic control elements derived from pathogenic plant viruses such as the cauliflower mosaic virus to switch on the genes.
By revealing similar elements in plants' DNA, genome sequencing has liberated developers from having to borrow the viral sequences. And Agrobacterium is not essential either; foreign genes can be fired into plant cells on metal particles shot from a 'gene gun'. Scotts took advantage of both techniques to construct the herbicide-resistant Kentucky bluegrass that put the USDA's regulatory powers to the test.
"The Plant Pest Act was completely inappropriate for regulating biotech crops, but the USDA jury-rigged it," says Bill Freese, science-policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety in Washington DC. "Now we can foresee this loophole getting wider and wider as companies turn more to plants and away from bacteria and other plant-pest organisms." The USDA has not made public any plans to close the loophole and has also indicated that it will not broaden its definition of noxious weeds, a class of plants that falls under its regulatory purview, to facilitate the regulation of GM crops.
Nevertheless, Agrobacterium is still industry's tool of choice for shuttling in foreign genes, says Johan Botterman, head of product research at Bayer BioScience in Ghent, Belgium. The technique is well established for many crops, and particle bombardment is less predictable, often yielding multiple, fragmented insertions of the new gene.
But Agrobacterium isn't suitable for some new techniques. Many companies are developing 'mini-chromosomes' that can function in a plant cell without needing to be integrated into the plant's genome. Last summer, agribusiness giant Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, conducted the first field trials of maize (corn) containing engineered mini-chromosomes, and showed that the mini-chromosomes, which carried multiple genes for insect and herbicide resistance, were stable in the field. "I would expect that by the end of the decade, this technology will be well used by many as a way to deliver large stacks of genes to plants," says Roger Kemble, head of technology scouting for Syngenta.
Other techniques under development insert foreign genes into designated sites in the genome, unlike the near-random scattering generated by Agrobacterium. In 2009, researchers at Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Sangamo BioSciences in Richmond, California, announced that they had used enzymes called zinc-finger nucleases to insert a gene for herbicide resistance at a specific site in the maize genome (V. K. Shukla et al. Nature 459, 437-441; 2009). Bayer is interested in harnessing other enzymes called 'meganucleases' to do the same type of targeted engineering, a strategy that Botterman says may make it possible to introduce multiple new traits into existing GM crops.
Regulators need to adapt to these new techniques, or run the risk of over- or under-regulating GM plants, says Roger Beachy, a plant biologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and former head of the USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The Kentucky bluegrass decision drives this point home, he says: "It really speaks to the importance of reviewing the regulatory process periodically to ensure that it is keeping up with the advances in technology."
There are two stories here. The first is about the upcoming GMO deregulation by the USDA, and the 2nd, is about a seed already on the books that set a precedent for bypassing the regs currently on the books.
-------
http://farmwars.info/?p=7553
USDA Conspires with Biotech Industry for Complete Deregulation of GMOs
Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
If there was any doubt whatsoever about the USDA being just another terrorist arm of the biotech industry, it has left the building. No doubt remains at all about the USDA’s intentions to cooperate with the contamination and poisoning of our food supply, planet, and every living thing on it by the chemical companies now in charge of just about everything used to formulate the food-like substances that we see lining our grocery store shelves.
Under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental reviews of their own transgenic seed products as part of the government’s deregulation process. (Truth-out)
“It’s the equivalent of letting BP do their own Environmental Assessment of a new rig.” They frankenbuild it, approve it in-house, then force us to eat it because no one is supposed to know it is there. If it is labeled, and people actually are allowed to know what they are eating, then that evidently poses a barrier to trade. In other words, if they know it is GMO they won’t eat it, so we’d better get going with the complete deregulation process now before too many people start waking up.
With 19 deregulation petitions pending with more on the way, requiring an EIS for each product would amount to a de facto moratorium on commercialization and would send an unprecedented message that USDA believes that these products do have an environmental impact, when in fact most do not. Any suggestion by USDA that biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS) would make approvals by other trading partners virtually impossible … (Truth-out)
So, it seems that even any suggestion that “biotechnology plants as a category are likely to cause significant adverse effects on the quality of the human environment (i.e., require an EIS)” is VERBOTEN! Not even allowed to be suggested! How dare we even suggest that they be required to fill out a phony EIS! Yes, that is where this is headed. Since biotechnology plants as a category are supposed to be substantially equivalent to their non-genetically engineered counterparts, the endgame for all of this is NO REGULATION AT ALL. Not even the phony kind. Got to keep the bean counters happy by eliminating pesky court costs and EIS paperwork.
Let us not forget that the same USDA that is in charge of this phony biotech regulatory facade is the same USDA that is in charge of the National Organics Program and foods stamped with the USDA Organic label. Is it any wonder why there is NO THRESHOLD for GMOs in USDA Organics as well as NO RESTRICTIONS on nanotechnology in USDA Organics either? The USDA is not there to help us. THE USDA IS THE PROBLEM. The USDA’s job is to push GMOs worldwide, starting with US.
Here’s how it went down
The threat:
BIO warned Vilsack that the American biotech agriculture industry could be crippled if the legal precedents required the USDA to prepare an EIS for every GE crop up for deregulation. (Truth-out)
In other words:
If you insist on us going through the charade of letting you file phony environmental impact statements on our genetically engineered plants, then we will make you suffer. It’s way too time consuming, and we couldn’t be bothered with your findings anyway.
The USDA’s capitulation:
Vilsack wrote a steady-handed reply to each trade group, reassuring them that the NEPA policy would not change and the USDA would continue preparing an EA for new GE seeds and an EIS only when necessary. Vilsack also wrote that he was “pleased” to recently meet with biotech industry representatives and “discuss improving the efficiency of the biotechnology regulatory process.” Such improvements, he wrote, are “directly related” to the USDA’s “objective of ensuring the United State leads the world in sustainable crop production and biotech crop exports.” He took the opportunity to announce that the USDA would reorganize the Biotechnology Regulatory Services agency and create a new NEPA team “dedicated to creating high quality and defensible documents to better inform our regulatory decisions.” This new NEPA team would go on to develop the NEPA Pilot Project and begin streamlining the approval process. (Truth-out)
In other words:
Okay guys, we’ll let you do your own reports. That is, until we get to the point of complete deregulation, then you won’t have any more pesky paperwork to worry about. Is that okay with you?
Not a big leap, considering that “The USDA regards its own regulatory system as a rubber stamp.… At least at the upper levels, there’s always been this presumption that [GE crops] must be approved.” (Truth-out)
Yup, that’s exactly where this is headed, and quickly. Complete deregulation for all genetically engineered crops, courtesy of your good friends at the USDA and their co-conspirators, Monsanto, et. al.. Paperwork? We don’t need no stinkin’ paperwork! And don’t you dare even hint at GMOs being any different than their non-GMO counterparts, or the agricultural industry just might not be alive in the morning. You have been warned.
The ball’s in our court, America. Save your good, clean, heirloom seeds now. Don’t wait until the tipping point occurs and the opportunity we have for finding normal seeds is going…. going…. gone. We need to act independently and create our own private seed vaults to use and share with friends and neighbors. These can be expanded to create seed sharing networks that are not centralized or easily infiltrated. We need to do this while we can. One seed at a time, one day at a time….. starting NOW. The USDA and Monsanto are not waiting one second to make sure that you have no choice. Don’t let them succeed.
© 2011 Barbara H. Peterson
-----------------------------------
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110720/full/475274a.html
Transgenic grass skirts regulators
Technological advances remove basis for government oversight of genetically modified crops.
Heidi Ledford
When the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this month that it did not have the authority to oversee a new variety of genetically modified (GM) Kentucky bluegrass, it exposed a serious weakness in the regulations governing GM crops. These are based not on a plant's GM nature but on the techniques used for its genetic modification. With changing technologies, the department says that it lacks the authority to regulate newly created transgenic crops.
The grass, a GM variety of Poa pratensis, is still in the early stages of development by Scotts Miracle-Gro, a lawn-care company based in Marysville, Ohio. The grass has been genetically altered to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, which would make it easier to keep a lawn weed-free. On 1 July, secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote to the company to say that the variety "is not subject" to the same regulations that govern other GM crops. The decision allows Scotts to bypass the years of environmental testing and consultation typically required by the regulators for GM plants, although the company says there are no plans to market this particular variety.
The grass can evade control because the regulations for GM plants derive from the Federal Plant Pest Act, a decades-old law intended to safeguard against plant pathogens from overseas. Previous types of GM plants are covered because they they were made using plant pathogens. The bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens — which can cause tumours on plants — shuttled foreign genes into plant genomes. Developers then used genetic control elements derived from pathogenic plant viruses such as the cauliflower mosaic virus to switch on the genes.
By revealing similar elements in plants' DNA, genome sequencing has liberated developers from having to borrow the viral sequences. And Agrobacterium is not essential either; foreign genes can be fired into plant cells on metal particles shot from a 'gene gun'. Scotts took advantage of both techniques to construct the herbicide-resistant Kentucky bluegrass that put the USDA's regulatory powers to the test.
"The Plant Pest Act was completely inappropriate for regulating biotech crops, but the USDA jury-rigged it," says Bill Freese, science-policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety in Washington DC. "Now we can foresee this loophole getting wider and wider as companies turn more to plants and away from bacteria and other plant-pest organisms." The USDA has not made public any plans to close the loophole and has also indicated that it will not broaden its definition of noxious weeds, a class of plants that falls under its regulatory purview, to facilitate the regulation of GM crops.
Nevertheless, Agrobacterium is still industry's tool of choice for shuttling in foreign genes, says Johan Botterman, head of product research at Bayer BioScience in Ghent, Belgium. The technique is well established for many crops, and particle bombardment is less predictable, often yielding multiple, fragmented insertions of the new gene.
But Agrobacterium isn't suitable for some new techniques. Many companies are developing 'mini-chromosomes' that can function in a plant cell without needing to be integrated into the plant's genome. Last summer, agribusiness giant Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, conducted the first field trials of maize (corn) containing engineered mini-chromosomes, and showed that the mini-chromosomes, which carried multiple genes for insect and herbicide resistance, were stable in the field. "I would expect that by the end of the decade, this technology will be well used by many as a way to deliver large stacks of genes to plants," says Roger Kemble, head of technology scouting for Syngenta.
Other techniques under development insert foreign genes into designated sites in the genome, unlike the near-random scattering generated by Agrobacterium. In 2009, researchers at Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Sangamo BioSciences in Richmond, California, announced that they had used enzymes called zinc-finger nucleases to insert a gene for herbicide resistance at a specific site in the maize genome (V. K. Shukla et al. Nature 459, 437-441; 2009). Bayer is interested in harnessing other enzymes called 'meganucleases' to do the same type of targeted engineering, a strategy that Botterman says may make it possible to introduce multiple new traits into existing GM crops.
Regulators need to adapt to these new techniques, or run the risk of over- or under-regulating GM plants, says Roger Beachy, a plant biologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and former head of the USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The Kentucky bluegrass decision drives this point home, he says: "It really speaks to the importance of reviewing the regulatory process periodically to ensure that it is keeping up with the advances in technology."
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