It’s the kind of farfetched plot you’d expect to see in a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie. You know, where the bad guys are found to be secretly coercing governments – and even entire countries – to aid corporate global domination, and where good old Felix from the CIA saves the day and helps Mr. Bond defeat the evildoers.
But in a bizarre twist to the plot, it now looks like the real-life U.S. Government officials have actually been working for the likes of Monsanto and the Big Ag lobby all along. A devastating new report by Food & Water Watch – entitled Biotech Ambassadors: How the US State Department Promotes the Seed Industry’s Global Agenda – reveals that the U.S. State Department has been aggressively pursuing foreign food and agricultural policies that seek to benefit the vested interests of the largest biotech seed corporations – often collaborating directly with representatives from Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience and Dow Agrochemical.
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Andrew | April 30, 2013
Maybe it’s time we demanded a health warning on intensively produced meat products. Because when it comes to the link between modern so-called science-based industrial livestock farming and the rise of life-threatening antibiotic resistant bacteria, the evidence just keeps on coming.
Hot on the heels of a damning report by the Environmental Working Group, which revealed high levels of potentially life-threatening antibiotic-resistant bacteria on raw supermarket meat, the respected Consumer Reports has found potential disease-causing organisms in 90 percent of ground turkey samples purchased from stores nationwide. What’s more, many of the bacteria they identified were resistant to more than three antibiotic drug classes.
We can be pretty certain that in the coming days we will hear this message over and over again “So what if most of the meat on our supermarket shelves is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria? If you handle and cook your meat properly then a few bacteria shouldn’t be a problem; and if you get sick with an untreatable disease then it’s your own fault.’
This is the kind of contemptible retort we can expect from the intensive meat industry lobby and its many trolls in response to new research by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which reveals high levels of life-threatening antibiotic-resistant bacteria on raw supermarket meat. Yet the “cook it properly and everything will be OK” spin is just Big Ag’s latest attempt to absolve itself of any responsibility for squandering one of the most important medical innovations of our time– and putting American lives at risk.
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Andrew | April 1, 2013
The use and misuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture is a hot topic. Only earlier this month, the UK Government’s Chief Medical Officer weighed into the debate and said that the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria risks a global health catastrophe that ranks alongside the threat of climate change or terrorism. It’s serious stuff.
Harral Livestock Company has been in operation for over 173 years. Situated near Fort Stockton, Texas, the enterprise began in 1840 and has been taken over by each successive generation in the Harral family ever since. Today, the Harrals proudly manage the family business just as their ancestors did back in the 19th Century, producing a quality, wholesome product, and employing reliable, sustainable business practices.
Jason Butler and his family raise AWA-certified beef cattle and sheep in the Coastal region of North Carolina. Jason has been farming since 1996, when his father purchased the family farm after serving in the Army. The Butlers – including Jason’s father, Billy, his wife, Crystal, his grandfather, Mearl, and his brother-in-law, James Spivey – now raise 140 Black Angus cattle and a flock of Katahdin sheep on approximately 500 acres of pasture. Jason says that the benefits of pasture-based management are that the farm is more sustainable: “We’re not over-utilizing acres somewhere else to grow grain for our animals. We’re using what we have here.”
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Animal Welfare Approved | February 27, 2013
In 2006, Brad and Margaret Buchanan and their two children, Will and Grace, moved from Denver, CO, to a ranch near Stasburg, about 40 miles east of their old home. A year later, the family bought a small herd of 22 beef cattle and established Flying B Bar Ranch, a high-welfare operation producing grassfed beef.
In 2004, Kevin and Debi Bredeson moved to Kiowa, Colorado (about 40 miles southeast of Denver), after Kevin retired from a corporate career. Establishing KDL Ranch on the high plains of Colorado has allowed them both to pursue their dreams: Kevin became a cattle rancher and Debi has been able to dedicate herself to gardening.
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Animal Welfare Approved | February 20, 2013
John and Kris Gosney both inherited Oklahoma centennial farms from their families who came to the state in the 1893 Oklahoma Land Rush. They like to say that their “roots go deep into the soil of Oklahoma,” where they raise between 250 and 300 head of AWA-certified, and OKDFF/USDA organic certified Angus cross cattle on 3,000 acres of pasture in northwest Oklahoma on John’s Farm.
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Andrew | February 6, 2013
It’s a well-known PR tactic to release bad or potentially unpopular news during the Holiday Season. So I always keep my eyes peeled to catch any news releases that might otherwise slip the net. I didn’t have to wait long.
On December 21, when most people were focusing on their upcoming festivities, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly released its draft environmental assessment on the highly controversial genetically engineered (GE) salmon, created by AquaBounty Technologies Inc.
