Europe Dropping GMOs; Walsanto (Walmart & Monsanto) Watch Launched; & Local Food Producers Get USDA Support

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1. The big food news of the week comes to us via sister site Eat Drink Better: apparently, GMO crops are being pulled out of Europe! “BASF and Monsanto (large agribusiness companies) pulled GMO crops from Europe and have announced they will only sell them in the United States and Asia,” Becky Streipe writes. For more details and to take action in support of such a move in the U.S., check out the Eat Drink Better post linked above.

Some other big food news of the past week:

walmart monsanto watch

2. A scuffle is a brewing between anti-GMO advocates and Monsanto. “Food & Water Watch has been working for a while on a campaign to keep … unlabeled frankencorn off of Walmart’s shelves, and now they’ve launched a new arm of the campaign: Walsanto Watch,” Becky writes again. “Walmart and Monsanto are the new ‘it’ couple to watch, if you’re concerned about unlabeled genetically engineered food on grocery store shelves.”

3. USDA helping out local food movement! Big time. “On Friday, as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food effort, USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced the largest allotment of grants for value-added producers in recent history: nearly 300 grants across 44 states and Puerto Rico — to the tune of $44 million,” Grist wrote a few days ago. “Merrigan announced the grants at The Many Faces of Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, a one-day conference hosted at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The event focused on ‘successful models, resources, strategies and opportunities for supporting, cultivating and growing local/regional food systems in the Midwest.’”

Good news; good action; and good news—good week for lovers of clean and healthy local food!

More good food stories of the week? Drop us a note.

Field of potatoes photo via Shutterstock; Walsanto Watch via Food & Water Watch



Zachary Shahan (1978 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.


  • Ridgely

    For more on the importance of food choices, check out the movie THRIVE: What on Earth Will it Take?

    (you can watch it for free at http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_movie).

    GMOs are a tool used to dumb down and sterilize the population. Inform yourselves and make informed choices for you and your family.
    There is a treasure trove of information about this and other important topics such as the suppression of new energy technologies at Thrive’s website:

    http://www.thrivemovement.com/codex

  • Steve and Cynthia Bova

    Testing and consumption limits for seafood
    We live on the coast in the state of Washington where Japanese eel grass has recently been classified as a class ‘c’ weed. This allows for even more spraying of the chemicals imazapyr and glyphosate (ROUNDUP) on commercial shellfish beds to control this grass, along with spartina grass, which has been sprayed since 1996.
    A new chemical – imadicloprid – is being tested to replace carbaryl (SEVIN) for mud shrimp control on these same beds. SEVIN use started in 1964 and, after 48 years, was outlawed in 2012, more than likely after scientists figured out the long-term effects.
    There are numerous independent university and research facility studies on the potential dangers of these chemicals to humans. “The EPA, FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should immediately order more extensive and unbiased testing for all chemicals in these products — sprayed or otherwise — and, if appropriate, set consumption limits especially for pregnant women and children as they do on many foods like freshwater fish and other seafood.
    Please tell all your family members and friends of the potential dangers of eating chemical/water filtering shellfish that have been exposed to these chemicals. Don’t be the guinea pigs for the next new and improved poison.
    Whales are dying and autism is becoming epidemic. Could there be a connection?

  • lewis

    These people are criminals!
    And to think that Obama appointed the V.P. of Monsanto to the head of the EPA & Agricultural Department proving to all of us just how corrupt he really is!
    Wake up people, the FDA & Monsanto is the enemy of the world! Their crimes know no limits that they won’t stoop too! Their food is poisoning the world and their pollen spreads to their neighbors crops and contaiminates them and then Monsanto goes in and sues the farmers and takes their crops and their lands once the contaimination occurs!
    Then the state department refuses to do any safety studies on their Round-Up pesticides that are showing up in your blood streams! But when a company figures out that their foods actually fight cancer, the FDA comes in and shuts them down for selling an unregulated drug for making the claim, regardless of whether or not it’s true!
    Monsanto = The enemy of the world!