http://www.winvian.com/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwur2eBRDtvMS0gIuS-dYBEiQANBPMR40DcLEnGs5umiVS06tXIaWQj8YFDThEGfxdmRZGCbMaAtPs8P8HAQ
On July 19, 2014, The CT NOFA Conference, A Summer Gatheing, took place at the beautiful Winvian Resort in Morris Connecticut.
It was humbling to be a keynote speaker with three incredible people, including Taylor Cocalis Suarez, Joan Dye Gussow, and Richard McCarthy.
Taylor, founder of the website GOODFOODJOBS.com, spoke about how her life, education, and career plans led her to create a website which now has 55,000 followers and helps thousands of people find jobs in the food industry, particularly the wholesome/healthy/real food industry. Her website, to date, has posted 15,000 jobs.
Joan Dye Gussow, an 86 year old professor, author, food policy expert, environmentalist and gardener, has been called the "matriarch of the eat-locally-think-globally food movement." One thing that she mentioned that really impacted the audience was how truly terrible water bottles are for our world. She described plastic boulders accumulating on the ocean's floor, destroying our world as we know it.
Richard McCarthy, executive director of Slow Food
The final talk (mine) is detailed here:
Activism,
Glyphosate, and GMOs
Native American Women/MOTHERS chose their leaders, monitored their leaders’ performance, and removed leaders that weren't working for their people. This is a quote from the
The point is: PARENTS need to take our government back. The American Government is supposed to be for and by the PEOPLE - NOT Corporations. Using our fierce protective instinct and love for our children, we need to take back our government and our food. Seeds should not be owned and sold by chemical companies, period. If we use our voices with intelligence, integrity, and intuition, we can heal the world, one step at a time.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round Up, is used on 160 foods as a dessicant - to ripen or dry out - things like tea, wheat, sugar, beans and potatoes. To avoid GMOs, sugar, listed on the label, must be "100% cane sugar.” To avoid glyphosate, 100% cane sugar must be “organic.” Avoid tea that is not organic. Bread, and other wheat containing products should be organic. Unfortunately, organic food is an expensive suggestion, and this is not fair. But as more people demand chemical free food, manufacturers will start to provide it, and purchasing organic may not be as necessary. (Organic food is what our grandparents called “Food.”) Progress will be going back to growing food without dangerous chemicals.
In May, 2014, the EPA - employees paid with our tax dollars- doubled the amount of glyphosate allowed on/in our food. They were petitioned by big ag and big biotech to increase allowable levels, and they did. Now soybean oil can contain 40 parts per million of glyphosate. Recently, a scientist named Monika Krueger, from
Promoting biotechnology has been more important than the health of US Citizens since George H. W. Bush. President Obama has appointed many people connected with the biotech industry into high level government positions. These include Michael Taylor, second in command at the FDA, in charge of Food Safety, who previously served as Monsanto’s Vice President and before that Monsanto’s attorney. Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture (leader of the USDA,) also has ties to biotechnology.
Are GMOs
going to save the world and its growing population? No. Better and more
equitable distribution will. We throw away approximately 1/3 of the food
produced in the United States . There
is not a food shortage; there is a distribution problem. This is not something
that can be fixed by genetically modifying every food seed. We don’t
need food made in a laboratory, and made to withstand chemical
contamination to feed the
world. We need to figure out a way to stop letting real food go to waste.
Readily available
and inexpensive processed food is contributing substantially to the obesity
epidemic. EVERY FAMILY SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO CLEAN, HEALTHY, SAFE FOOD. Not
just those who can afford organic. This economic discrepancy is a
human rights issue; it is wrong.
Our tax
dollars subsidize and support the huge factory farms, which treat their crops
with chemicals and grow genetically engineered food.
Organic
farmers, on the other hand, can’t use GMOs and chemicals –yet they must PAY fees to
label them as organic and PAY
fees to prove that they are safe.
This just seems so backwards.
Why don't
we in the United States
have the same rights as citizens in 64 other countries in the world do - where
GMOs are either banned or labeled? Is it because illness is a commodity? We spend significantly
more on healthcare in the US
as they do in other countries. This is depressing for those of us who love
our country. It is also depressing for anyone who gets sick. Do they
wonder what caused the illness, and/or wonder if all the drugs they are prescribed
will just make them sicker, while making the medical industry richer?
On a happy note, in 2013, CT passed the first GMO labeling law in the nation. Then
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