The release of live genetically engineered microbes in agriculture represents an unprecedented open-air genetic experiment. The scale of release is far larger and the odds of containment far smaller than for genetically engineered crops.   

This report provides historical context for this novel technology, insight into future trends, a summary of potential risks, and policy recommendations that would ensure robust assessment and oversight as more genetically engineered microbes move from the lab to the field.  

Read the executive summary
Read the full report
Read the press release

What types of microbes are being genetically engineered for agriculture?  

Bacteria, viruses and fungi are being genetically engineered for agricultural uses with bacteria being the most common.   

Why are microbes important?  

Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us — they live in water, soil, air and plants as well as in human and other animal bodies. A handful of healthy soil contains more microbes than there are people on the planet. Microbes play a fundamental role in agriculture, making nutrients available to plants and boosting crop immunity to pests and diseases. They are also major engines of soil carbon sequestration, which gives them a significant role in the soil’s potential to help mitigate climate change, conserve water resources, and build resilience to droughts and floods. 

What genetically engineered microbes have been commercialized for agriculture?  

At least two live GE microbes are already being used on millions of acres of U.S. farmland — a nitrogen-fixing GE bacteria from Pivot Bio called Proven® and BASF’s ‘2.0’ version of its Poncho®/VOTiVO® seed treatment, which combines a GE microbe that aims to improve plant health with a neonicotinoid insecticide and a non-GE microbial nematicide. The Environmental Protection Agency’s website states that it has registered eight GE microbes as pesticides. However, the regulatory system is marked by such a profound lack of transparency that there is no publicly available information on what they are or whether they have been commercialized. 

What are biologicals? 

Genetic engineering is not needed to harness the power of microbes. Hundreds of naturally-derived microbes — known as ‘biologicals’ — are available for use in agriculture already, as biostimulants to improve plant growth, biofertilizers to improve crop nutrition, and biopesticides to manage pests and diseases. Billions of unexplored microbes can be a source of discovery and benefit for generations to come without the use of genetic engineering.

Which pesticide companies are investing in biologicals? 

The global biologicals market is expected to nearly triple in a span of eight years to $29.31 billion by 2029. A major driver is the entry of the largest agrichemical companies — Bayer, Syngenta (ChemChina), Corteva (Dow-Dupont) and BASF. These companies have spent millions acquiring biologicals companies in recent years and now offer a range of biological products. 

We urgently need a shift in agriculture from the dominant chemical paradigm to a biological paradigm. Use of toxic chemical pesticides and fertilizers continues to rise, underpinning industrial agriculture systems that have devastating impacts on ecosystems, communities and public health. Biologicals may be able to play a significant role in helping farmers transition to organic and other ecologically regenerative and resilient systems. At the same time, the entry of massive agrichemical companies into the field, and their interest in genetically engineering microbes, raises red flags. The creation and distribution of genetically engineered crops has infamously been controlled by these same corporations, which have a long track record of disregarding the massive environmental and human health impacts of their products, disenfranchising family-scale farmers, obfuscating the truth about their products and obstructing regulations.   

Why should we be concerned about genetically engineered soil microbes? 

The report details a range of ecological, human health and socioeconomic risks, from the rare but potentially disastrous risk of creating an invasive species or novel human pathogen to the potential for agrichemical corporations to use patents on GE microbes to further entrench their ownership over life and the food system.  

The gaps in our knowledge and limitations of our ability to predict or control the outcomes of this novel technology are profound and varied. Soil microbiomes are marked by incredible complexity that we are only beginning to understand. Of the billions of species of microbes that make up the living soil, only a few hundred thousand, far less than one percent, have been scientifically characterized in detail.  

Unlike plants and animals, microbes are able to share genetic material with each other far more readily, even across completely unrelated organisms in a process known as horizontal gene transfer. As a result, the genetic modifications released inside genetically engineered microbes may move across species boundaries in unpredictable ways.  

Genetic engineering, including gene editing techniques like CRISPR, can result in an array of unintended genetic consequences, including insertions, deletions, inversions and translocations that were not expected. And when we attempt to intentionally alter soil microbiomes, there is no guarantee that the outcomes will be what we intend. Releasing genetically engineered microbes in agriculture could enable new associations to form with weed or pest species with unforeseen and potentially irreparable consequences. 

What is the state of the U.S. regulatory system related to genetically engineered microbes in agriculture? 

The current U.S. regulatory system for genetically engineered microbes for use in agriculture is inadequate and outdated. Existing regulations do not account for the unique features and risks of GE microbes  — live organisms that can reproduce and quickly spread across state and national borders. And authority is split between the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, creating confusion and gaps in oversight.  

The regulatory system is also marked by an extreme lack of transparency. Companies are able to redact almost all details from public view in most regulatory filings under the self-designation of ‘Confidential Business Information.’ Even these redacted records are difficult to access and not clearly identified with the end products in which they appear. Once products are released, there is no program dedicated to surveilling the extent of their use or re-evaluating their safety over time. 

Given the serious potential risks associated with mass environmental release of genetically engineered microbes, it is imperative that civil society, farmers, and concerned scientists push for strong regulations and independent review and assessment of potential health and environmental risks. A far greater level of transparency is also fundamental to our ability to grapple, as a society, with the potential risks of this novel technology. 

Regulatory bodies should use the Precautionary Principle to guide action, meaning that precautionary measures to minimize or avoid threats to human health or the environment should be taken based on the weight of the available scientific evidence rather than waiting for full scientific certainty about cause and effect, which can take years or decades while harm accrues. The Precautionary Principle also elevates the importance of a full evaluation of safer approaches before moving ahead with a potentially risky new technology. Oversight should include independent assessment for public health and environmental safety, and long-term impacts should be assessed before products are released onto the market or into the environment. The Precautionary Principle also guides the incorporation of public input into decision-making processes, as the impacts of new technologies such as GE microbes in agriculture will be borne by society as a whole. Finally, socioeconomic concerns arising from the expansion of corporate property rights over microbes must be incorporated into decision-making before products are commercialized.

The post Genetically Engineered Soil Microbes: Risks and Concerns appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

This letter is a response to ongoing attempts by the pesticide industry to incorporate the language of HR7266, introduced last session by former Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL), into the upcoming Farm Bill. The Farm Bill conference committee rejected similar efforts by the pesticide industry during 2018 Farm Bill deliberations. Local officials are urging the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to produce a clean Farm Bill that does not undermine the authority of local communities wishing to protect public health and the environment. The letter is signed by 118 elected officials in 62 communities from 20 states and the District of Columbia.

“This fight is about more than toxic pesticides,” said Drew Toher, community resource and policy director with Beyond Pesticides. “It’s about local democracy. The letter acknowledges that not every local lawmaker may support action on pesticides, but they strongly oppose forfeiting the authority to protect their constituent’s health and wellbeing.”

“Our democratically elected leaders are keenly aware of the threat pesticides pose to our communities, while the pesticide industry wants a free pass to poison us,” said Jason Davidson, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner with Friends of the Earth. “We must not let corporations take away our right to protect ourselves. Congress must put the health of people and the planet over corporate profits and stop Big Ag’s latest power grab.”

Local officials added the following:

Mayor Daniel Biss, City of Evanston, IL: “It is critical that local governments have tools to protect the health of our residents and safeguard our environment. The federal government should not tie the hands of local lawmakers aiming to address ongoing crises relating to health, biodiversity and climate change. Congress should be expanding the authorities available to local governments to address these concerns, not limiting them.”

Mayor Aaron Brockett, City of Boulder, CO: “There is increasing scientific evidence showing that pesticides harm human health, threaten biodiversity and weaken the natural systems upon which human survival depends. Local governments need to be given the ability to make decisions about how to best protect their community, their children, and the natural world from these toxic substances.”

Councilwoman Sara Continenza, South Euclid, OH: “As Councilwoman in South Euclid Ohio, I am opposed of any sort of preemption of home rule, particularly as it relates to the ability of municipalities to regulate chemicals that are dangerous to our health, our environment, and our communities. In South Euclid, we passed an ordinance banning pesticides on public property due to the extensive evidence of the harm it causes. There are extensive options for natural products and practices that can regulate pests and fungi without causing harmful green algae blooms in our lakes or creating toxic hazards to humans and pets. Our environment is already struggling with the toxicity caused by industry, the train derailment in East Palestine, and more. We need to be doing whatever we can to clean up our environment, not further toxify it. Please oppose the federal pesticide preemption in the 2023 Farm Bill — this preemption only further damages our environment and trust in our government.”

Contacts:

Drew Toher, Beyond Pesticides, dtoher@beyondpesticides.org, (202) 543-5450

Jason Davidson, Friends of the Earth, jdavidson@foe.org, (202) 222-0738

Shaye Skiff, Friends of the Earth, kskiff@foe.org, (202) 222-0723

The post Over 115 Local Officials Ask Congress to Reject Federal Preemption of Local Authority on Pesticides in the Farm Bill appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

The report breaks down the pitfalls of private programs that pay farmers to generate carbon offsets for corporate buyers. Polluters can buy credits from projects that overestimate their carbon sequestration or fail to store carbon long-term, running the risk of increasing emissions while worsening pollution hot-spots in low-wealth and Black and Brown communities.  

Read the Executive Summary
Read the Full Report
Read the Press Release 

Introduction
Agriculture, Climate Change, and Soil Carbon
What Are “Carbon Markets” And Do They Work?
How Voluntary Carbon Payment Programs Entrench Big Ag
Conclusion and Recommendations 

 There is no scientific consensus on how long carbon remains in the soil. It can be released by changing land management practices or severe weather events. Selling and buying soil-based offsets is little more than speculation.  

Current sequestration verification programs allow major corporations like Bayer and Corteva to collect and monetize farm data by driving farmers to their digital platforms. These platforms further incentivize and promote their seed and pesticide products like RoundUp, entrenching corporate power and chemical-intensive monocultures.  

These programs are often not designed for smaller and ecologically regenerative farms. Generally, the largest farms have the most to gain from carbon payments, threatening to further consolidation in farm land. In order to participate, farmers must contractually commit to years or even decades of more expensive practices to produce credits for Big Ag with minimal guarantees of return on investment.  

Congress and USDA should invest in real solutions by increasing funding and improving existing conservation programs rather than relying on harmful offset schemes.  

Related Resources  

Bayer-Monsanto Merger: Big Data, Big Agriculture, Big Problems
Carbon Markets and Offsets: Unjust, Ineffective Distractions from Real Solutions
222 Organizations Reject “Growing Climate Solutions Act”
Soil Health and Pesticides Study
Congress Encourages Corporate Sponsorship of USDA Conservation Programs
Following $10 Billion Roundup Settlement, Bayer Uses Climate Program as Front to Lock in Control of Farmer Data and Sell More Roundup  

The post Agricultural Carbon Markets, Payments, and Data: Big Ag’s Latest Power Grab appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

The report, Agricultural Carbon Markets, Payments and Data: Big Ag’s Latest Power Grab by Open Markets Institute and Friends of the Earth, breaks down the scientific, economic, social and environmental pitfalls of private programs that pay farmers to generate carbon offset credits for corporate buyers. Polluters can buy credits from projects that overestimate carbon sequestration or fail to store carbon in the long term, running the risk of increasing carbon emissions while worsening pollution hotspots in low-wealth, Black and Brown communities.

Reliably and consistently measuring or modeling soil carbon is very challenging. Coupled with varied or inconsistent standards for verification, selling and buying carbon offsets is little more than speculation. The report found that some of the world’s largest agribusinesses, including Bayer (OTCMKTS: BAYRY), Cargill, Nutrien (NYSE: NTR) and Corteva (NYSE:CTVA), are launching carbon payment programs that depend on the companies’ proprietary technologies or require farmers to use their digital agriculture platforms. These programs allow corporate giants to define climate-smart agriculture, capture valuable farmer data, and promote the use of their products in destructive chemical-intensive monocultures, further entrenching their market power.

Despite a decades-long track record of failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support for carbon markets has gained momentum among U.S. policymakers. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 included two key carbon market provisions, the Growing Climate Solutions Act and the SUSTAINS Act, which will support and lend government legitimacy to corporate carbon market programs. The USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities pilot programs, announced last fall, offered grants of tens of millions of dollars to some of the largest agribusiness corporations to evaluate the efficacy of various carbon sequestration and carbon payment schemes.

“Carbon markets have become a top strategy for agriculture and climate, despite a history of fraud, failure to reduce emissions and corporate greenwashing,” said Jason Davidson, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner with Friends of the Earth. “Such corporate schemes will strengthen the power of the largest agribusinesses, hand over private farm data, and fail to address the climate crisis. Instead of another handout to Big Ag, the Biden Administration and Congress must support farmers in pursuing proven climate solutions like ecologically regenerative agriculture.”

“We can’t trust the very corporations that got us into this climate crisis to get us out of it on their terms and timeline,” said Claire Kelloway, Food Program Manager for the Open Markets Institute. “Corporations are designed to serve their investors, not the public, and that’s exactly what these carbon offsetting schemes will do by locking farmers into their networks, protecting product sales, and stalling meaningful regulation.”

Key takeaways of the report:

• Agricultural carbon markets are jumping ahead of the science to commodify something that cannot be reliably measured. There is no scientific consensus on how long carbon remains in the soil or under what conditions. Carbon sequestered in the soil can be released by changing land management practices or through severe weather events, which fails to sequester carbon on a meaningful timescale to address climate change. Without basic market fundamentals of information exchange and consistent commodities, selling and buying offsets is little more than speculation.

• Carbon-sequestration verification programs allow agribusinesses to collect and monetize detailed agronomic data and drive new users to their digital agriculture platforms. This further incentivizes and promotes their products, such as Bayer’s Roundup and genetically engineered seeds, entrenching corporate market power and destructive chemical-intensive industrial monocultures. Yet, use of agrichemicals kills soil organisms that support carbon sequestration.

• By controlling the same private, unregulated carbon-offset markets in which corporations trade on their own accounts and set their own prices, they are subject to massive conflicts of interest.

• Carbon payment programs, especially those run by seed and chemical companies, are not designed for smaller and ecologically regenerative farms. Generally, the largest farms stand to profit the most from carbon payments, further marginalizing family-scale farms and driving consolidation. Farmers contractually commit to years, even decades, of more expensive practices that produce credits for Big Ag with minimal payment guarantees.

• Congress and the USDA should not waste time and resources promoting this questionable and harmful approach. Policymakers already have far more effective and proven tools to promote climate-friendly farming methods that do not exacerbate the liabilities and harms of private carbon-trading schemes.

Contact: Shaye Skiff, kskiff@foe.org, 202-222-0723

The post Report: Big Ag Plans to Use Carbon Markets, Farmer Data to Tighten Stranglehold on Food System appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

For immediate release: Monday 19 December 2022

MONTREAL – The new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) announced today fails to lay the groundwork for the transformational change needed to address the biodiversity crisis. The Chinese presidency adopted the text despite clear opposition from the Democratic Republic of Congo, ignoring a process the COP15 president himself had laid out.

Friends of the Earth International is deeply concerned about the way in which the GBF was adopted. The environmental federation warns that the corporate capture of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) blocked the pathways that lead to the system change needed to protect biodiversity.

“The text does not stipulate any regulation on corporations and instead promotes greenwashing measures such as ‘Nature-Based Solutions,’ which allow for offsetting for environmental destruction,” says Nele Marien, Forests & Biodiversity Coordinator.

The new GBF does not stop the destructive advance of agribusiness, the main driver of biodiversity loss. Rather, it promotes agribusiness through concepts such as “sustainable intensification” and “innovation.”

Hemantha Withanage, Friends of the Earth International’s Chair, says:

We welcome that the new framework to protect biodiversity does not mention ‘Nature Positive,’ one of the proposed greenwashing measures that opened up new possibilities for offsetting biodiversity destruction, rather than halting it. However, the same ideas are still there implicitly. There are also problematic references to biodiversity offsets and credits.

Fortunately, the text recognises environmental defenders, and there is a recognition of indigenous and traditional territories. However, it is a pity that the document does not recognise them as a specific category for the fulfilment of the objective on protected areas.

Friends of the Earth International will continue to work alongside local communities around the world and Indigenous Peoples, who are building the system change we need to protect biodiversity.

Contacts:

In Montreal: SP & ENG: José Elosegui, jelosegui@gmail.com, +598 98 846 967

ENG: Shaye Skiff, kskiff@foe.org, +1 202 222 0723

FR & ENG: Caroline Prak,caroline@foei.org

The post Friends of the Earth finds the new global biodiversity framework ‘not fit for purpose’ appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

MONTREAL/TIOHTIÀ:KE/UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE KANIEN’KEHÁ:KA NATION – Climber-activists today dropped 80-foot banners reading, “Biodiversity versus Billionaires,” visible from Montreal’s Palais des Congres where world leaders are meeting at the UN’s landmark Biodiversity COP15.

The banners were unfurled to warn delegates that mega-billionaires such as Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon.com) and Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) are perversely influencing global decisions about biotechnology and  conservation including restructuring global biodiversity financing in unaccountable ways. At last week’s CBD COP15 opening ceremony , UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had already told  delegates to “forget the deluded dreams of billionaires – there is no planet B.”

This action comes as the ‘Bezos Earth Fund’ is expected to announce further billions of dollars in funds toward securing the controversial “30×30” policy that has been branded ‘the biggest land grab in history.’ Although best known for his Amazon.com web business, Bezos also boasts a ‘Blue Origin’ space business to build the ‘road to space.’ His stated aim is to move most human beings off the planet into future space colonies. With typical hubris, Mr Bezos recently told an audience in New York, “I’ve always wanted to turn the earth into a sort of national park.”

“We are alarmed to see  biodiversity megabucks being bestowed by yet another big tech billionaire, known for his ruthless disregard of human rights and ecology,” explains Jim Thomas of ETC Group, an international watchdog that tracks behavior of tech giants. “If Bezos gave a damn about a  future in  harmony with nature, he would begin by properly paying taxes, properly paying his workers and also making reparations for the enormous harm to nature already caused by the resource extraction for his commercial activities.”

But Bezos is not the first: In the last six years, civil society groups active at the CBD have denounced the impact of funding by tech billionaires such as Bill Gates and Dustin Moscovitz (Facebook founder) on genetic technologies such as gene drives and geoengineering. Gates-sponsored lobbyists, science groups and public relations firms like the Alliance for Science, Emerging Ag Inc. and the African Network of Biosafety Experts have attempted to influence official UN expert groups, influence negotiation text, and coordinate with the African Union to advocate for gene drive experiments in Africa. Gates has also invested millions to promote geoengineering (i.e. climate-altering) technologies to attempt to undo a hard-won moratorium at the CBD. Gates invested heavily in Target Malaria Project, which is developing gene drive mosquitoes for release in Africa.

“Africans refuse to be the guinea pigs of gene drives! The solution to malaria lies in biodiversity, hygiene and sanitation,” says Ali Tapsoba, président of Terre à Vie an NGO based in Burkina Faso, attending COP15.

‘’Billionaires and the corporate lobby should not influence the decision making when there is an urgent need to save us from the biodiversity crisis,‘’ adds Thibault Rehn, from Quebec-based Vigilance OGM. “Early this week, we denounced Croplife, the major biotech lobby that heavily promoted the use of GMO and pesticides, despite their destructive impacts on biodiversity.’’

“These massive infusions of billionaire philanthropic cash into the UN CBD are perpetuating the financialisation and corporate takeover of nature through approaches such as ‘blended finance,’ private financing, and the imminent establishment of markets in ecosystem services,” says Helena Paul of EcoNexus and the Global Forest Coalition.

“Billionaire funds exist as a result of corporate exploitation of workers and the environment. Their donations are yet another way in which they skew the outcomes of the biodiversity conference away from real regulation, replacing them with greenwashing measures,” says Hemantha Withanage, Chair of Friends of the Earth International.

Contacts:

English Contact: Laura DunnJim Thomas, ETC Group, laurajbd@gmail.com, jim@etcgroup.org  +1 514 607 99795145165759

French Contact: Laure Mabileau , Vigilance OGM , local Québec NGO, +1 438 395 61215145821674

The post Banners to Bezos and Gates: Back Off of Biodiversity! appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

The report also reveals the astroturf operations as well as front groups, professors, journalists, and others that Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) relied on to protect its profits from glyphosate despite decades of science linking the toxic chemical to cancer, reproductive impacts, and other serious health concerns. 

The analysis draws from thousands of pages of internal corporate documents released during lawsuits brought by farmers, groundskeepers, and everyday gardeners suing Monsanto over allegations that exposure to Roundup caused them to develop cancer; as well as documents obtained through public records requests in a years-long investigation by U.S. Right to Know, a public interest research group. 

“The pesticide industry is not just following in the footsteps of Big Tobacco and Big Oil, they co-wrote the playbook — from their attacks on Silent Spring author Rachel Carson 60 years ago to the recent Monsanto-led assault on the cancer researchers of the World Health Organization,” said Stacy Malkan, lead author of the report and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know. 

“This case study provides an important window into how one company worked with many partners across the pesticide and processed food industries, academia, PR firms, and various front groups to sell the world on a toxic pesticide. These disinformation tactics are critical to understand because they have been used to push the entwined myths that we need pesticides to ‘feed the world’ and that they are totally safe,” said author and advocate Anna Lappé who contributed to the report. 

Key takeaways include: 

• Monsanto employees ghostwrote scientific papers on the safety of glyphosate and strategized how to discredit journalists raising concerns about the pesticide.
• Major universities, including UC Davis and University of Florida, played a significant role in legitimizing and amplifying pesticide industry product-defense efforts. 
• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cornell University, and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s most prestigious scientific organizations, also provided essential aid and cover for pesticide industry propaganda.
• Key Monsanto-connected front groups that led attacks on scientists and journalists (Genetic Literacy Project and American Council on Science and Health) frequently push industry messaging to the top of the Google News search. 
• Pesticide industry propaganda is a huge business: 
  • Seven of the front groups named in Monsanto’s documents spent $76 million over a five-year period to push corporate disinformation, including attacks on scientists.
  • Six industry trade groups named in Monsanto’s PR documents spent more than $1.3 billion over the same five year period, including for PR and lobbying to influence regulation over glyphosate. 

“Pesticide companies fight tooth and nail to keep their toxic products on the market, and the public pays for their deceit with our health and our lives,” said Kendra Klein, PhD, Deputy Director of Science with Friends of the Earth who also contributed to the report. “Meanwhile, the rampant use of toxic pesticides is unraveling the web of life as bees, birds, and other critical biodiversity face increasing threats of extinction. The ‘silent spring’ that Rachel Carson warned of six decades ago is here.”

Media contact: Haven Bourque, haven@havenbmedia.com, 415-505-3473
Expert contact: Stacy Malkan, stacy@usrtk.org, 510-542-9224

The post New Report Reveals Pesticide Industry’s Disinformation and Science Denial Playbook appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Merchants of Poison, a report from U.S. Right to Know in collaboration with Friends of the Earth and Real Food Media, uncovers the disinformation strategies that allow pesticide companies like Bayer-Monsanto to keep profiting off of toxic products even while evidence mounts that these chemicals are costing people their lives, damaging children’s developing brains, threatening endangered species, and more.    

Like Big Oil and Big Tobacco, pesticide companies spend millions on deceitful strategies to keep their hazardous products unregulated. In fact, the report reveals that, in some cases, the very same people and organizations are spreading disinformation for the pesticide, tobacco and fossil fuel industries. 

Read the full report
Read the press release

What’s at Stake: Health, Climate and Biodiversity
Tactic 1: Corrupting Science
Tactic 2: Co-opting Academica
Tactic 3: Cultivating Third Party Allies
Tactic 4: Tracking and Attacking Scientists, Journalists and Influencers
Tactic 5: Weaponizing the Web
Debunking the Myth That Pesticides Are Safe and Necessary
What Can We Do? 

Merchants of Poison details how pesticide giant Monsanto spent millions on deceptive communications strategies to convince the public that the world’s most widely used herbicide, Roundup, is “as safe as table salt.” Yet its main ingredient, glyphosate, was flagged as having the potential to cause cancer as far back as 1984 by a scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

The story of Roundup is not unique. It is just one of dozens of toxic pesticides that the pesticide industry has effectively kept on the market despite clear scientific evidence of harm. In fact, the EPA has approved use of over 80 pesticides that are banned in other countries.  

As research reveals ever more about the serious threats pesticides pose to biodiversity and public health — and also shows how pesticides lead to resistant weeds and pests that plague farmers and reduce crop yields — the industry’s spin efforts have become increasingly brazen.  

 When we dissipate the industry fog around claims that we need pesticides to “feed the world,” we see that expert consensus around the globe shows that we need to rapidly transition away from pesticide-intensive agriculture to organic and other agroecological approaches in order to feed all people now and into the future. That is because pesticides pose a grave threat to the soil, water, climate, pollinators and other biodiversity we depend on to grow food. As one example, commonly used pesticides have made U.S. agriculture 48 times more toxic to pollinators and other beneficial insects in the past two decades. 

We all have the right to food that is free of toxic pesticides. The farmers and farmworkers who grow our nation’s food, and their communities, have a right to not be exposed day in and day out to chemicals linked to cancer, asthma, reproductive and developmental harm and other serious health problems. And the way we grow food should protect rather than harm the ecosystems that sustain all life. 

Related Resources 

Spinning Food: How food industry front groups and covert communications are shaping the story of food
Follow the Honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits
Buzz Kill: How industry is clipping the wings of bee protection efforts across the U.S.
Farming for the Future: Organic and agroecological solutions to feed the world 

The post Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Jason Davison, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth issued the following statement:

The Biden Administration is right to focus on mitigating climate change, and many of the projects announced today seem worthy of support. Unfortunately, several of them will funnel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to some of the most egregious climate offenders — Big Ag corporations like JBS, Cargill, and ADM.

USDA handing $60 million taxpayer dollars to Tyson Foods to create “climate-smart” beef would be like EPA giving a $60 million grant to Exxon to create “green” gasoline. It’s a massive corporate giveaway, and it’s unacceptable.

These grants fly in the face of President Biden’s executive order calling for USDA to combat consolidation in agriculture. They lay the groundwork for giant agribusinesses to use these projects to greenwash their own emissions and collect tremendous amounts of farm data.

Many of these corporations and trade associations have historically fought climate mitigation measures, refusing to report data on their emissions and other pollution. Going forward, Congress and USDA must ensure transparency and accountability for these projects. Taxpayers deserve to know who benefits from this funding and the outcomes for GHG emissions and other environmental impacts, for consumers, and for impacted rural communities, farmers, and farmworkers.

Communications contact: Haven Bourque, haven@havenbmedia.com

The post Friends of the Earth Statement in Response to USDA’s Climate-Smart Commodities Announcement appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Heitkamp, the former U.S. Senator from North Dakota (2013-2018), has been campaigning for the top post at USDA and is considered among the frontrunners for the position.

In the letter, the groups argue that “Heitkamp is the wrong choice for the USDA because she has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, supports fossil fuel interests, and holds views that are out of step with the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans.”

The letter also points out that there are “many other highly qualified candidates ––including several women candidates and candidates of color.” Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), a longtime member of the House Agriculture Committee and chair of the nutrition subcommittee, has also indicated her interest in the position. She would be the first African American woman to become USDA Secretary.

“With her terrible environmental record and deep ties to agribusiness and the fossil fuel industry, Heitkamp is the wrong person to lead the USDA,” says Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth. “We need to steer today’s agriculture away from energy-intensive industrial monoculture and factory farming toward diversified regenerative farming. If President-elect Biden is serious about meeting his climate goals, he cannot name Heitkamp as USDA Secretary.” 

“Heitkamp’s track record speaks for itself: she cares more about corporations than communities,” added Navina Khanna, Executive Director of the HEAL Food Alliance, a coalition of organizations representing over two million rural and urban farmers, ranchers, fishermen, food chain workers, indigenous groups, scientists, public health advocates and community organizers across the United States. “Farmers and families across the U.S. deserve leaders who will prioritize their needs over those of corporations. We strongly urge the Biden-Harris administration to name a USDA Secretary who understands the urgency of the moment and will think and act with that in mind – with care for independent farmers, the food system’s essential workers, and families all over that are struggling to make ends meet.”

Joe Maxwell, President of Family Farm Action explained, “Facing excessive monopoly control of their markets and climate change, our farmers and ranchers need a USDA leader who has the experience and the vision to build a new resilient food system that works for farmers, workers, and local and regional businesses throughout the food system. During her tenure in the U.S. Senate, Heidi Heitkamp has proven she is not that leader; she is part of the problem, not the solution.”

“People’s Action had 10,000 conversations with rural voters, and when asked what they saw as the cause of declining conditions in their community, the number one answer was a government that repeatedly chose the needs of big corporations over everyday people,” People’s Action Director George Goehl said. “Senator Heitkamp, is in the pocket of corporate ag, fossil. fuels and the health insurance industry, and appointing her would confirm people’s fears that Democrats are controlled by the same corporate puppet strings as Republicans. If Democrats want to start winning a larger share of the rural vote, they have to cut the puppet strings and stand with everyday people.”

Contact: Erin Jensen, (202) 222-0722, ejensen@foe.org

The post 160+ Organizations Urge President-Elect Biden to Withdraw Heidi Heitkamp from Consideration for USDA Secretary appeared first on Friends of the Earth.