Category Archives: General

Anthony Samsel debunks Golden Rice

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I was editing an audio recording of a recent talk with Dr. Anthony Samsel, independent scientist and biochemist from Cambridge, Massachusetts, that has beens studying hazardous chemicals for decades, and Glyphosate in particular for over ten years. He recently published two major papers, along with Dr. Stephanie Seneff, on how Glyphosate is likely root cause of a plethora of serious diseases that are increasing to epidemic levels all across the US and likely elsewhere too, because of our indiscriminate use of ever rising quantities of Glyphosate, the active ingredient in a highly potent herbicide behind Monsanto’s Roundup and many other branded weed killers.

 

When discussion touched Golden Rice – Dr. Samsel debunked it and came to the real issue of Vitamin-A deficiency in third world countries, especially Children. If we want to improve Vitamin-A content in people, we need to get rid of Glyphosate. It is Glyphosate that is primarily responsible for messing up our Vitamiins, among other things.

Golden Rice – is poppycock. Its Baloney.

It is – just another humbug.

[youtube p5qlqgK4yvE]

A letter to the minister of Agriculture, PEI

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Honourable George Webster,

Minister of Agriculture

Prince Edward Island

Dated: Friday, April 18, 2014

cc: Minister of health, honourable Mr. Doug W. Curie, PEI

cc: Lori Barker, Executive Director, Canadian Cancer Society, PEI division,

cc: Dr. Thierry Vrain, retired genetic engineer and spokesperson against GMO and pesticides in Agriculture.

Subject : Use of Glyphosate, 2,4-D and other pesticides/herbicides and fungicides in agriculture and cosmetic lawn use in Prince Edward Island and possible links with rise of various illness in the Province.

Dear Honorable Minister Mr. Webster

 

Good day.

I am an engineer by profession, a resident of British Columbia and a food security activist and citizen journalist on food security and food safety issues, and have a reasonably wide connection with scientists, agriculture policy analysts, NGOs, grassroots organizations, MLA and MPs from multiple continents including in Canada. I was born in India, lived for extended periods in Hong Kong, USA and now in Canada. I am a Canadian citizen.

I write this letter with some concern and questions with regard to health issues that might be of concern for residents of Prince Edward Island. There has been messages and articles and talks about rise of illnesses in Prince Edward Island which may be higher when compared to the rest of Canada. This is on top of awareness that diseases in Canada in general may also be rising rapidly in the past two decades or so. There is more reliable data and research done on the same issue across the border in the US, with Government released data, that shows an alarming rise in various chronic illness from Cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, to leaky guts, Chrone, obesity, diabetes and autism.

There is a rising awareness that some of it may be linked with a corresponding rise in the release of pesticides in the environment, as well as rise in the use of GMO (Genetically modified organisms) that entered into our food chain without any independent safety analysis by anybody within Canada or elsewhere.

Dr. Nancy Swanson had plotted a series of Graphs of rising of the chronic illnesses mentioned in my letter above, and release of Glyphosate, the active ingredient of Monsanto’s herbicide brand named Roundup. She obtained both sets of data (illness records and Glyphosate release) from the respective departments of the US Govt. It shows a striking and uncanny correlation in the rise of illness trend that seems to match to a ’T’ the rise of release of Glyphosate pesticide.

Such correlation graphs show there is a similarity in trend. it does not prove that the illness is directly attributed to the rise in pesticide level. However, such similarity does show a strong possibility that the two might be linked. Therefore, precautionary principle would demand that a serious and independent (meaning not influenced by either Government or pesticide industry) scientific tests be done, especially in labs using scientists that are not funded by the Biotech corporation in any way. Unfortunately, this has never been done by anybody.

So, back to the issue of possible rise in Cancer, obesity and various other illnesses in PEI, I tried to check on two items :

  1. If the Municipalities in PEI have, or have not, passed any bylaw banning the use of cosmetic lawn pesticides.
  2. If anybody tried to get people’s blood, or urine or mothers breast milk, tested for presence of Glyphosate.

I found out that the answer to both are in negative. I would like to get a confirmation of this from your good office.

Further, I am told that the Government of PEI has apparently a special kind of act, or law, in force that limits the ability of the elected Municipal Governments and does not allow them to even pass bylaws banning cosmetic lawn pesticides. This is a routine bylaw passed by many municipalities across Canada. I am not aware of any special law enacted by the Government of PEI that denies this right to its own Municipalities.

I would request you to advise me if this is true, and what the text of that law or act is, and how it may be overturned to allow the PEI municipalities the same rights as the rest of Canada in fulfilling the wish of its people and pushing back at use of poisons for cosmetic purpose.

About the other item, we are a large group of organizations and concerned people in Canada that are looking towards getting the ground water, as well as human urine tested for presence of Glyphosate by a reputed lab. We are in contact with scientists across the border in USA that have helped labs in the US do such tests for people in the US. We are also looking for labs in Canada that might do similar tests without having to send the samples far away.

Based on the results, especially in Prince Edward Island, and especially from people that might be living closer to the agricultural lands and or otherwise exposed to the pesticides, as well as those who are already sick including the children – we are trying to get scientists to agree to analyze the data and come up with their comments and suggestions if there is a cause for concern and if so, what might be the likely environmental factors that are leading to this malady.

I seek your assistance, as well as that of the ministry of health and the local office of Canadian cancer society, in this endeavour. The public will likely take initiative on their own. But it would be better, and look better, if the branches of Government that should be concerned about safety of its people are also on board in this effort.

Incidentally, Dr. Thierry Vrain, retired genetic engineer and myself will be in Prince Edward Island to speak at a gathering to alert the people about potential risks in cultivating and consuming either GMO or food grown with methods that employ heavy use of pesticides. It would be an honour if you all will also attend so we could meet and shake hands.

As a last request, may I ask for data on year upon year release of various pesticides in PEI as well as total reports of diseases such as Cancer, Autism, Obesity, Parkinson’s, leaky guts, Diabetes etc from say the beginning of the 1990s till date, specifically for Prince Edward Island ?

Thanking you and hoping for a response

Tony Mitra

10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E3L7, Canada

604-649 7535

www.tonu.org

tony.mitra@gmail.com

Ukraine, Crimea and Russia – my first impression

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Ukraine has been in the news, for the past few days, but for the wrong reason.

Today I saw a video clip of Pro-Russian Soldiers patting the hand of a Pro-Ukraine counter part in a friendly gesture. This prompted me to write my first impression of the place. I remember visiting parts of Ukraine when I was 20 years old, on a ship, as a junior engineer. The ship was a general cargo vessel of 10,000 ton size and carried a variety of goods from India, to be off loaded in various Soviet Ports. My first port of call was Odessa, a black sea port, not far from the Rumanian border.

Yes, it was part of the Soviet Union at that time.

I remember the intense cold and mounds of snow everywhere. I remember visiting some of their large department stores. I remember the blast of hot air that came through the air ducts and me standing right next to it warming my hands. I was wearing a parka that I had bought just a few weeks before, in Las Palmas, which was a Spanish island at the entrance to the Mediterranean.

I remember visiting the Interclub, a sort of “foreigners club” that the Soviets set up for those that could not speak the local language. The club had an English Language Library, where there were not only English translations of Great Russian authors like Tolstoy, but also books like The Catcher in the Rye.

I had almost no money in my pocket, since the pay for a junior engineer working in an Indian shipping company was really poor those days. I had something like 5 US dollars to spend over the next ten days in Ukraine.

And yet, I had lots of fun. First of all, I got a free bus ride to the Interclub, from the port area. Since I did not know where to go, or how to get there and how much it might cost, I took the free ride.

Next, the women that attended the club, who spoke English, did help me get a booklet of transport tickets. These are actually very similar to the ones in Vancouver these days. The same passes can be used on a bus, a train, or a ferry. What was different for me, is that I got a booklet of a dozen or so tickets (forgot how many where there) without having to pay for it. Apparently, it was a present, from the Soviet Union.

So, armed with that booklet, I was free to take any bus or other transport anywhere, and it cost me absolutely nothing. This was a novel experience for me, since I had never been given a free travel pass in any other country.

I also remember few other incidences of basically meeting up young people that wished to speak with me, on the street, or in a cafe, but we could not manage much of a talk because they spoke Ukrainian, Russian or Romanian, and I spoke only Bengali, Hindi and English. Nonetheless, we smiled at each other a lot, shook hands, and I got patted on my back often.

A young women kissed me on my cheek, which caused quite a bit of embarrassment for me. Coming fresh from India, I was not used to sudden display of affection from strangers on streets. On the whole, I came away with really nice feelings about the people of the Soviet Union.

My next stop was in Kherson, at the mouth of Dnieper River. I was there for only a few days. The place needed a different set of travel tickets. I also managed to see a sort of musical play. It was not quite the Bolshoi ballet, but it was very good, in my untrained eye. How did I afford to buy the ticket? Well, once again, I was gifted by a free pass by the Soviet Union. It was one of the best seats, in the second row from the front.

I was invited to a “chess” game. Russians were champion chess players. But the game was invented in India. So I went to play. I knew the basic rules, but was less than an average player. Consequently, I lost both the games, one as white and the next as black. The opponent was a man about twice my age.

What I remember from the game is – we were sitting on the sidewalk across a small round table with the chess board on it. I had a mug of hot Russian tea (actually the tea came from India), while the opponent had Vodka.

People stopped to watch the game. Some stood around us, and spoke among themselves in whispers – probably discussing the game, and no doubt wondering why I was not making smarter moves. Some looked at me encouragingly and even tried giving me advise, which of course I could not follow.

My last stop was in Crimea itself, a small jetty near the Naval port of Sevastopol. I had learned about the recent Russian history, about Balaclava and the Charge of the Light Brigade. About the Yalta conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. But it was while in Sevastopol that I learned that, for most of history, Crimea had been a part of Russia, and that a majority of the population in crimea were ethnic Russian. I knew by then that Russians were not exactly same as the Ukrainians. I had by then also learned a bit more about the links the place had with Tartars, Greeks and even Romans.

I did not know at the time, that I was never to return to those places again. I have had opportunity to visit the northern parts of Russia as well as parts of the former Soviet block nations by the North Sea. I was also to visit neighbouring Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia etc subsequently. But never again did I get a chance to visit Ukraine on the black sea, or Crimea.

On the whole, I only have pleasant memories of the place.

Sheryl McCumsy of Alberta and her efforts to ban lawn pesticides

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I met Sheryl in December 2013 during the GE Foods Talk event at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is among the many ordinary citizens of Canada attempting to engage in extra-ordinary work, of singly and collectively trying to wrench Canadian democracy back from the clutches of lobby power, in the field of food, health and environment.

Sheryl McCumsy

It has been my perception that this war on our soil, water and air by an unending avalanche of toxic GMO and pesticides in the name of corporate profit, will be won or lost not so much by bigwigs, famous people, NGOs, politicians, scientists or activists, but by the ordinary people like Sheryl McCumsy that are coming out of the woodwork everywhere, in their effort to do something to resist this menace.

Sheryl is a homemaker and a student with a background in microbiology. She intends to meet with the Municipality of Edmonton, Alberta, to enquire and cajole them into adopting a by-law that bans use of harmful cosmetic lawn pesticides. This is something that has been done by hundreds of Municipalities across Canada, but not so much in Alberta and not in Edmonton. She also intends to work with groups such as Albertans for food safety, to further take on the issues of Municipalities adopting resolutions to declare themselves to be GMO free.

I spoke with Sheryl on phone on December 22, 2013, to prepare this podcast of her hopes and plans. It is a 20 minute podcast. You can listen to it by directly clicking the player at the bottom of this page. You can also subscribe to it through iTunes, where my podcasts are available under my name – Tony Mitra – save it on your iPod, iPhone or other music players, and listen to them at leisure. The logo of my podcast in iTunes is shown at right.

Cartagena Protocol, GMO, and Canada

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Saturday, January 4, 2014

Bt.Eggplant, or BT-Brinjal, as it is called in the Indian subcontinent – is a Monsanto product that is banned in India for multiple reasons, the primary one being huge ground swell of resistance from the public. This was the first ever GM food being introduced into India on a commercial scale (the other product already introduced was Bt-Cotton).

The product was approved by the Agriculture Ministry. IN that sense – the ministry of Agriculture in India is very similar to that in Canada, and appear to be sharing its bed with the devil himself.

However, the product was banned through the Ministry of Environment, raising the issue that Genetically Modified crops are not only an subject of agriculture, but also an Environmental concern.

 There are two related court cases on this subject that is not so well known outside of India. These are :

Aruna Rodrigues versus India : An ordinary citizen of India, Ms Aruna Rodrigues, had taken the Government of India to the Supreme Court in a Public Interest Litigation, for releasing potentially harmful GMO products on the population without proper independent health and safety analysis. She has an even chance of winning her case. That case has brought lots of information to light, including how Monsanto may have been falsifying its own test records on the safety of its products. These issues strengthen the argument that asking the promoter of GM products to carry out honest safety tests produces a conflict of interest and should not be encouraged. I have spoken with Aruna myself, and created an awareness Podcast on it. You can find it here.

 The UN Convension on preservation of biological diversity is another watershed event in the sense that it encouraged individual nations to safeguard their biological diversity and prevent its contamination or theft by biotech corporations or unfair trade deals etc. The specific meeting that resulted in creating the frame work that nations could follow, happened in the town of Cartagena, and hence it is also often referred to as the Cartagena Protocol. Hundreds of countries signed into it. Canada signed it, but did not follow through. USA did not even sign it.

But, nations like India not only signed it, but created a special law following the guidelines of this UN convention. The law is called “Preservation of Biological Diversity” – an act brought into force in 2002. It stated that all organisms, be it plants, animals or micro organisms, that either lived in the land, waters of airs of the nation, whether naturally evolved or through generations of selective breeding by the people of India – are the collective intellectual property of the nation. No corporation may study, analyze, sequence, modify, tamper with, produce, patent, or aim to sell a product made from these organisms, without express agreement with the Government. Failing to do so places the offending body liable to be sued.

India versus Monsanto on Biopiracy: And then, another activist and member of an Indian NGO named Environment Support Group (ESG), Mr. Leo Saldana, found out that Monsanto had broken this law when it developed the Bt_Eggplant by “stealing” the genome of three kinds of Indian eggplant (eggplants originated in the Indian subcontinent, and India boasts 6,000 varieties of it today). So, Leo, on behalf of ESG sued the Govt of India in a provincial high-court, providing evidence that Monsanto and its partner had broken the Indian law, and therefore it was the duty of the Govt of India to sue Monsanto for “biopiracy”.

The court saw the evidence, was convinced of the misdeed, and has instructed the Govt to sue Monsanto. The Govt, wishing more to be in bed rather than estranged with Monsanto, has been dragged willy nilly by the court order and has now filed a case against Monsanto for stealing the Eggplant genome and breaking the indian .

I spoke with Leo Saldana about it and have covered it on another podcast.

I find both these court cases to be very relevant not just for India – but even for Canada. There is much to learn from these. To start with, there should be a push for Canada to enact a law like the one India has, so that Canadian biodiversity is not stolen from under Canada’s feet.

Canola is a good example. It was a Canadian invention. But now, it is owned by Monsanto. More thefts are on the way – Alfalfa, Salmon, apple, etc.

To stop all these and further thefts, Canadians should, I feel, push its Government to protect Canada’s biodiversity, instead of confusing and obfuscating the issue to promote biotech corporate interests in the name of “Development”.

Meanwhile, having failed in India, Monsanto is busy trying to introduce it in neighbouring Bangladesh. Resistance groups in Bangladesh meanwhile seem to have coined a new phrase : BT = Biological Terrorism !

Shiv Chopra on how Corruption in Canadian Govt is spoiling our food

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Dr. Shiv Chopra compliments Dr. Thierry Vrain in the joint talk tour across Canada, alerting Canadians on how their food security and sovereignty may be compromised through corruption in the Government. Not willing to bow to corporate and miniterial pressure, he refused to accept the recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone from being approved by Health Canada bypassing safety checks and Canadian law on food safety. He paid for it by losing his job in Health Canada.

Now on a talk tour, he addresses a packed hall in Squamish on November 20, 2013 at the Sea to Sky Hotel, organized by many locals and hosted by Ms Kati Palethorpe.

Dr. Chopra explains five pillars of food safety – which are illegally into our food, each of which is harmful to health. These are :

  • Hormones
  • Antibiotics
  • Slaughterhouse waste recycled as animal feed
  • GMO
  • Pesticide.

All are used into the food cycle without independent testing. All are harmful to health. Europe, for example, bans or regulates at least four out of these five products. But Canada does not. As a result, Dr. Chopra argues, Canadian food has gotten to be among the most toxic in the entire planet. IF we can remove these ingredients, all food will be organic, and there would be no need for labelling.

Dr. Chopra with local volunteers and organizers

With the story of his struggle within Health Canada to protect Canada’s food and health, he often brought the house to thunderous applause, and Squamish was no different.

Not happy with only explaining how GMO is harming Canadian health, security and environment – he goes on to ask British Columbians what they are prepared to do about it – and how the people can snatch democracy back at the ground level from clutches of corporatocracy. Drawing examples of what Hudson, Quebec did twenty years ago, and what BC has done through UBCM more recently, he envisions a new dawn spearheaded by the people of the nation – to exert their divine and constitutional right – to feed themselves and their family with what nature makes. No corporation or Govt can force onto the people food that are considered harmful. And that is the reason Shiv Chopra started his second national pilgrimage from British Columbia.

Here we offer the video recording of his speech.

[youtube zhX_WXphQCg]

We also have Thierry Vrain speaking to the crowd, presenting his “Gene Revolution“.

Letter to a mayor

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A letter to a Mayor: We are writing letters to all mayors and councillors of all municipalities of British Columbia, requesting them to vote favourably towards declaring the province as GE/GMO free in the Annual General Meeting of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) come september.

I personally have written to six municipalities, one email to each mayor and each councillor of these places. I intend to send many more. There are other volunteers also engaged similarly. We sometimes get a response from them, sometimes not.

Here is a sample:

Dear xxxx,

This letter requests your support for the resolution on genetically engineered (GE, also known as GMO) crops and animals at the 2013 UBCM Convention. The resolution reads:

that UBCM ask the British Columbia government to legislate the prohibition of importing, exporting and growing plants and seeds containing genetically engineered DNA, and raising GE animals within BC, and to declare, through legislation, that BC is a GE Free area in respect to all plant and animal species.

Serious concern has been expressed across BC about genetically engineered crops and animals. To date: 12 municipalities have passed individual resolutions declaring themselves a GE Free zone (Powell River, Salt Spring Island, Denman Island, Nelson, Kaslo, New Denver, Rossland, Richmond, Saanich, Metchosin, Telkwa, City of North Vancouver). At the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities meeting in April 2013, the same resolution as above was adopted by 51 municipalities.  In addition the UBCM has endorsed four resolutions expressing concern about genetically engineered crops in 1999 concerning monopolization of our food supply, 20006 and 2009 concerning mandatory labeling, and 2012 concerning the GE apple.  

My concerns about genetically engineered crops and animals are as follows:

Safety Questions

  • GE crops are not an extension of traditional breeding methods (or hybridization), they are created by inserting new gene sequences into organisms, often from unrelated species. 
  • GE crops have not been demonstrated to be safe; the standards for judgment by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada are lax. When the CFIA reviews an application for a novel food, its “evidence” comes from the corporation making the application and this data is kept secret. There is no independent testing of GE crops or animals in Canada, so the bottom line is we don’t know if these crops are safe or not. 
  • Unlike 166 other countries, Canada, has not ratified nor put into effect the articles of the Cartagena Protocol which provides guidelines to be adopted for placing rigorous safety checks before GMO is introduced into a region and an environment. As a result, there are insufficient safeguards at the federal level against damage to health and environment through GMO.

Corporate control

  • GE crops are about making profits for companies, often large multinationals. Five agricultural biotechnology corporations now control most of the technology needed to develop GM crops, as well as the agrochemicals and crop germplasm and seeds.  
  • GE seeds are patented which allows companies to take control over living organisms. 

 

Pollen drift

  • Contamination of non-GE crops by GE crops is inevitable
  • Some species, such as canola, cross-pollinate more easily than others. If you are next to a farm growing GE canola it is impossible to grow non-GE canola because of contamination from GE pollen.  
  • The same is likely with some of the GE crops that have recently been approved or are now being developed, for example the GE alfafa (recently approved) GE apple (under development). This will lead to significant economic loss for organic farmers, who use alfalfa as a rotational crop.
  • Now GE alfalfa has been approved it will make growing conventional and organic alfalfa impossible over the long term.

There is consensus across British Columbia that we urgently need to consider other possibilities than GE crops, and to support farmers transitioning away from growing GE crops to sustainable farming practices.

May I recommend three important sources of information on GE crops and animals?

  1. The first is GMO Myths and Truths, a synthesis of 600 scientific studies carried out by three geneticists, and published in 2012. http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/58
  2. The second is a TED talk given by geneticist Dr. Thierry Vrain, who formerly worked as a Federal spokesperson for GE crops but, after analysis of recent studies, is seriously concerned about their health and environmental impact, which can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQkQXyiynYs
  3. The third is an expert panel report prepared by the Royal Society of Canada on request received from Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Environment Canada, on the future of Food Biotechnology. The report stresses on the need for precaution and conducting rigorous and independent testing of GMO for health and environmental effects before they are to be approved. These recommendations are not being followed. http://rsc-src.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/GMreportEN.pdf

I hope I can count on your support in this crucial matter. Should you have further questions, I shall be more than happy to answer them on phone or face to face.

Sincerely,

Tony Mitra

No need to follow USA on GMO issues:

I have been observing the unfolding situation in Canada with regard to GMO for some years now. Initially, I used to sign petitions and consider that as the discharge of my civic duty. I have seen how those discharge of our civic duty failed to stem the rot.

Of late, I have been questioning myself, ourselves, and the methods used so far to keep the Canadian environment clean and our food healthy and our lives less contaminated by unnatural substances. Along with that, I have come to question the deep link Canadians have with Americans, on the issue of GMO.

I used to live in the US for many years before I migrated to Canada. While being fond of both, I have one critical comment to make about the US when it comes to GMO. By far the majority of the corporations producing GMO and agricultural toxins are from the US. US has, again, by far the most number of GMO being grown there. US has been feeding GMO to its people for the longest time and in the widest scope. Americans have been exposed to GMO more than any other nation on the planet. USA has not yet allowed GMO to be labelled in the food stores, nor set up mandatory independent tests on the safety of GMO. USA has systematically refused to sign or ratify any of the international conventions of protocols when it comes to GMO and its potential hazards.

For all these reasons – USA is the very worst place to be in this entire planet, if one wishes to keep GMO away from his/her dinner plate.

And, American people, with all due respect, have not been able to do anything worth bragging about – when it comes to pushing back at the corporations that enjoy total control of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of the Government as well as the media.

And Canada of late has been busy trying to swallow the “Copy Americans” pill in many ways, particularly on GMO.

In the process, Canada has tarnished its stellar image of the past of being environmentally and socially conscious nation. Things have gone so bad that the rest of the world now laughs at Canada as an insignificant poodle of USA when it comes to GMO, climate change and such.

Therefore, taking example from USA, in my mind, is trying to reproduce the failures of the American people of keeping their lands free of dangerous chemicals and transgene crops.

The solution cannot be found by copying somebody. The solution has to be found by sitting outside of the box and thinking Canadians. Americans cannot solve Canada’s problem, not that the US is at all interested in it. Likewise, Europe, or even Ottawa, cannot solve these problems. It is a problem that needs involvement of the people, and novel methods to deal with.

I often hear, in Canada, with regard to motions to label GMO – about waiting for Americans to first label it. Without that, Canada has no chance of getting its GMO labelled. I find this statement not only unacceptable, but tantamount to capitulation to American hegemony.

If labeling is desired by the people – they must follow this up with their respective governments regardless of what the people of US do.

Canada does not, and should not, wait for the US, or any other country, to take the lead in food security.

Canada is supposed to be a free and independent country. Its people need to mull over the definition of “independence”.

Think outside the box. Observe what is happening in the US, but give much more weightage to other nations that are doing a whole lot better than the US on this issue.

If you have to follow examples – at least try to find the best example to follow, instead of the worst one.

This is not to disrespect either American or Canadian or any other people.

LINKS:

Monsanto’s GMO Killer Seeds: Profits Above Human Health. This is a recent article from Global Research, dated May 26, 2013. Click on the image for the link.

The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit organization committed to preserving and building sources of non-GMO products, educating consumers, and providing verified non-GMO choices. Shared belief is that everyone deserves an informed choice about whether or not to consume genetically modified organisms.

Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops:

  • Are an extension of natural breeding and do not pose different risks from naturally bred crops
  • Are safe to eat and can be more nutritious than naturally bred crops
  • Are strictly regulated for safety
  • Increase crop yields
  • Reduce pesticide use
  • Benefit farmers and make their lives easier
  • Bring economic benefits
  • Benefit the environment
  • Can help solve problems caused by climate change
  • Reduce energy use
  • Will help feed the world.

All these are false claims – as explained in GMO Myths and Truths.

Thanks.

Women of Comox valley – Peggy Carswell 2

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During our three days of stay at Kel & Peggy’s home, there was time to listen to their relationships with people of the tea growing region of North East India, in the province of Assam, and their work towards teaching the locals on the forgotten methods of sustainable chemical free farming, and same time their attempt to set up a fair trade system for the small tea growers of the region.

Peggy

Peggy

In this second video clip, a mere 7 minute episode, she describes how they managed to get Dr. Debal Deb to Assam for a few days, to teach folks the art and the need for seed preservation, and to interact with school children about same. Apparently, it was the children rather than the grown ups that recharged Dr. Deb’s optimism about the future. Like they said – child is the father of man.

What makes this video more interesting for me is that Debal is a personal friend of mine, apart from being a unique zero carbon footprint scientist and a mystic. There is a sizzling noise from the background, as something was cooking in the attached kitchen, and we apologize if folks find it disconcerting.

[youtube ab9wkcFoFrw]

The 7 minute talk is converted here as a podcast. You can either listen to it directly from this page by clicking the play button at the bottom of this page. For those that wish to store the audio and listen at leisure through their iPod, iPhone or iPad etc, can do so from Apple iTunes. Type “Tony Mitra” in the iTune Store search field, and the podcast should show up. One can subscribe to the podcast (its free) and listen to the episodes later. All the episodes are almost exclusively related to GMO.

Women of Comox valley – Peggy Carswell 1

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Peggy Carswell

Peggy Carswell

Last month, I had the privilege of meeting up with a number of remarkable women in Comox valley, Vancouver Island, in British Columbia. All of them were self employed, all engaged in running organic farms, and all of them unique in their own way. This blog is prepared and dedicated to them, through a video for each of them. The story starts with Peggy Carswell. How we came to know each other itself is a story, and is linked with her connection with the tea growing regions of north east India, in the province of Assam.

This blog will be expanding in the coming days. But for now, we have a ten minute video of Peggy talking about how a bunch of school kids in the town of Jorhat in the Indian province of Assam, influenced their parents, and eventually the community, to go organic. Its a remarkable story.

Peggy Carswell speaks about children in Assam ushering a real green revolution.

[youtube z76DYG-RvPY]

Thierry Vrain – part six

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This sixth and last part of the interview with Dr. Theirry Vrain at his Innisfree farm in the Comox Valley covers the closing statement from Thierry regarding a seeming contradiction with regard to Genetically Modified organisms. On one side, these GMO are not being subjected to safety test by food and health administrations of Canada or the US because these organisms are supposedly substantially equivalent to the non GMO counterparts. But on the other side, the patent office has granted patents for these GM products on the basis that these organisms are uniquely different from any other out there.

In the second part of the video, Thierry answers the question not directly related to GMO, but a very important aspect of soil-plant-bacteria relationship, that of nitrogen fixing.

Thierry Vrain – Part 6: Closing statement from Dr. Vrain on the contradiction of substantial equivalence and substantial uniqueness of patented GM products, and also about the issue of Nitrogen Fixing by soil bacteria.

[youtube G5_dT5ZFUwY]

The previous parts are also available in earlier posts on this blog. For convenience, we are including those links here:

Thierry Vrain, Part 1,2,3,4

Thierry Vrain, Part 1,2,3,4

Thierry Vrain, Part 5

Thierry Vrain, Part 5