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This article summarizes the huge problem we face from the takeover of agriculture by Cabal corporations. Monsanto leads the pack, but there are thousands of agricultural industry dogs ready to devour your future to make a buck. Correcting these excesses will be a big job and we will begin emphasizing the use of Permaculture as a way of life for every land holding resident on Earth. Rolling back the toxic contamination will take contributions from all of us.
It's in big trouble because the global agritech/agribusiness sector is poisoning it, us and the environment with its pesticides, herbicides, GMOs and various other chemical inputs.
The Rockefeller clan exported the
petrochemical
intensive 'green revolution'
around the world with the aim of ripping up indigenous agriculture
to cement its hegemony over global agriculture and to help the US
create food deficit regions and thus use agriculture as a tool of
foreign policy.
Nelson writes that
Commission sources say that the paper was buried by top EU officials
under pressure from big chemical firms which use EDCs in toiletries,
pesticides, plastics and cosmetics, despite an annual health cost
that studies peg at hundreds of millions of Euros.
According to The Guardian, Commission officials say that under pressure from major chemical industry players (acting via SANCO), such as Bayer and BASF, the criteria were blocked.
In their place, less stringent
options emerged, along with a plan for an impact assessment that is
not expected to be finalized until 2016.
Lisette van Vliet, a senior policy adviser to the Health and Environment Alliance, blamed pressure from the UK and German ministries and industry for delaying public protection from chronic diseases and environmental damage:
A new study by Sebastian Stehle and Ralph Schultz of the University of Koblenz-Landau explains that prior to authorization, a highly elaborate environmental risk assessment is mandatory according to EU pesticide legislation.
However, no field data-based evaluation of the regulatory acceptable concentrations (RACs), and therefore of the overall protectiveness of EU pesticide regulations exists.
Based on a comprehensive
meta-analysis using peer-reviewed literature on agricultural
insecticide concentrations in EU surface waters and evaluated
associated risks using the RACs derived from official European
pesticide registration documents, the review found that 44.7 % of
the 1,566 cases of measured insecticide concentrations (MICs)
in EU surface waters exceeded their respective RACs.
Industrial agriculture
(75% of all land used in the US to grow food or raise animals)
relies on these chemicals to grow food.
Illnesses are on the rise too, including,
Sarich says that their connection to pesticide exposure becomes more evident with every new study conducted.
Moreover, pollinating insects have been decimated by chemical herbicides and pesticides, which are also stripping the soil of nutrients.
As a result, for example, there has been a 41.1 to 100% decrease in vitamin A in 6 foods:
Both onion and potato saw
a 100% loss of vitamin A between 1951 and 1999.
For agriculture, the Commission had a one-sided relationship with agribusiness on GMOs and pesticides.
Far from shifting Europe
to a more sustainable food and agriculture system, the opposite had
happened, as agribusiness and its lobbyists continued to dominate
the Brussels scene.
The authors noted links between these concerns and
the top echelons of the Commission.
The report noted that the industry had also been exerting strong pressure to prevent action by the EU on endocrine disruptors and pesticides. These problems are not confined to Europe and the US; they are global.
Spiraling cancer rates in Argentina linked to the use of glyphosate spring to mind.
In Punjab, India, pesticides have turned the state into a 'cancer epicenter'. Moreover, Indian soils are being depleted as a result of the application of 'green revolution' ideology and chemical inputs.
India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility.
As smallholders the world
over are being
driven from their land and the
chemical-industrial farming model takes over, the problems continue
to mount.
The solution involves a shift to organic farming and investment in and reaffirmation of indigenous models of agriculture as advocated by the International Assessmentof Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology (IAASTD) report.
Ordinary people want officials to uphold the public interest and be independent from commercial influence. They do not want them to serve and profit from commercial interests at cost to the public's health and safety.
However, what they too often get are massive conflicts of interest,
...and governing bodies that are beholden to massive corporate lobbying, Regulators turn a blind eye to the deleterious effects of products that pose a serious systemic risk to the public, ...and also give the nod to products based not on independent research but a company's statements or secretive studies taken at face value and then deliberately keep the public in the dark (see 'Roundup and birth defects').
What people get are public institutions that serve a corporate agenda (see 'the black book on the corporate agenda of the EC' and about the conflicts of interest that beset decision making and regulatory bodies in India concerning GMOs) and which appear to be setting the stage for the further extension of 'green revolution' ideology via the acceptance of corporate-patented GMOs, which spell disaster for soil, environment and health.
As Western junk food and the chemical-intensive agriculture and food processing model that accompanies it destroys health across the planet (see the impact of NAFTA in Mexico), it is worth bearing in mind what Stuart Newton says (in the report in the link, read from page 9 onwards).
Although discussing India, his concerns apply as much to the US, Europe and elsewhere as they do to the subcontinent:
Newton provides a wealth of referenced data and detailed insight into the importance of soils and their mineral compositions and links their depletion to the 'green revolution'.
In turn, these depleted soils cannot help but lead to mass malnourishment. This in itself it quite revealing given that proponents of the green revolution claim it helped reduced malnutrition.
Newton advocates a
well-thought out approach to agriculture based on agro-ecology, a
sound understanding of soil and the eradication of poisonous
chemical inputs.
Failure to do so will result in the continued destruction of soils, environment, food and human health.
And failure to expose and
challenge the corruption, lobbying, back-room 'free trade' deals and
revolving door that exists between agribusiness and
decision-making/regulatory bodies will result in these corporations
continuing to prosper at everyone else's expense.
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