Opponents of GE-corn designed to resist the potent herbicide 2,4 D have flooded the USDA with letters of protest this week.

The majority of US corn has been engineered to be RoundUp ready. But RoundUp treated fields are producing super weeds that are overrunning the fields. Enter Dow Chemical with 2,4 D resistant corn. (Photo: GreenRightNow.)

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The FDA’s call to the livestock industry to voluntarily limit its routine use of antibiotics is tantamount to taking no action, say critics of the FDA’s plan, announced Wednesday.
The agency “is pretending to act while barely acting at all,” said Avinash Kar, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was among several public health advocates who scoffed at the idea that pharmaceutical and livestock companies would change their ways in response to government advice that carries no penalties.

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A federal ruling that the Food and Drug Administration must act to control the overuse of antibiotics in animal feed has raised hopes that new stricter rules for these drugs could help preserve them for fighting human diseases.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by environmental and public health groups that have pleaded with the FDA to address antibiotic overuse in the livestock industry. The groups cited studies showing that the routine and daily administration of antibiotics to animals is triggering “super bugs” resistant to antibiotics.

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Fair Trade USA, a major third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the US, reported today that sales of Fair Trade certified goods grew by about 75 between the first and last quarters of 2011. Mainstream grocery, food and drug items grew even faster, recording a 95 percent increase in fair trade sales, a boom that was largely driven by the adoption of Fair Trade labels by major food brands like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Honest Tea, which have increased their Fair Trade commitments.

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B Corps, or benefit corporations, have arrived in the state of New York.
Earlier this month, the legislature passed, and Gov. Cuomo signed, a bill (S.79-A) approving this new type of corporate structure in which companies promise to have a positive impact on the environment and watch out for the rights of workers and communities.
State officials then immediately registered 13 companies as B Corps on Feb 10, the same day the law was enacted.

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American businesses consume between one and two pounds of paper per employee every day.
That’s because in many workplaces printed forms remain the norm.

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A lawsuit against Monsanto filed on behalf of 33 organic farmers and 14 independent seed businesses went before a judge Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, as Monsanto sought to dismiss the case.
The suit, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association (OSGTA) et al. v. Monsanto, asks the court for relief from Monsanto’s tactic of suing organic farmers whose fields become contaminated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) seeds.

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In the brave new world of bio-tech agriculture, the big pesticide/herbicide makers have argued for years that their genetic seed inventions would reduce the use of chemicals.
It made sense, to argue for that. Almost everyone agrees that our health and the environment would benefit from reduced pesticide use. And Americans react strongly when they find their food has been compromised by chemicals. Think of the Alar apple scare, or the more recent outcry over strawberries doused with methyl iodide, a fumigant suspected of causing cancer.

Chemical companies tapped into citizen concern about pesticides by promising they could engineer corn and soybeans to resist certain “safer” chemicals, such as Monsanto’s Roundup. That would reduce environmental harm and give farmers a break, because they could use Roundup whenever they wanted without fear of harming their crops. They’d get higher yields with little downside, because the Roundup would biodegrade, and America would feed the world….

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In an effort to salvage the effectiveness of a certain antibiotic for use in treating human illnesses, the US Food and Drug Administration issued an order today prohibiting certain off-label uses of cephalosporin in cattle, swine, chickens and turkeys.
The new rules, set to take effect, April 5, 2012, will still allow the livestock industry to use the drug, but only as prescribed.
The FDA’s action comes after collecting extensive public comment on this issue in 2008.

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Suntech, the Chinese solar panel maker with operations in the US and Europe, has won the Gigaton Prize for helping reduce carbon emissions worldwide through its solar installations.
Suntech, the world’s largest producer of silicon solar modules, was recognized for helping its customers and business partners save on carbon-pollution by using solar power. In October, the company reached a benchmark of 5 Gigawatts of cumulative installed solar power.

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The U.S. International Trade Commission has agreed with SolarWorld Industries America that Chinese imports are hurting the U.S. solar manufacturing industry, and will continue to investigate this issue.

The commission announced its ruling on Thursday/Friday, to the delight of SolarWorld Industries America Inc., which had asked for an inquiry into alleged Chinese dumping of solar panels and modules into the U.S. market.

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is forever. Got milk? Just do it. Eat mor chikin!

Bo Muller-Moore, independent T-shirt shop owner.

There are a few choice ad phrases that rise to the top and become part of the common consciousness. Headline writers and jokesters come up with variations. Sometimes, the companies or causes that started the ditty get whiplashed with a new version. Got Milk morphed into a series of headlines about the dangers of Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, used to make cows produce more milk, in the early 2000s. Got rBGH?

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