GMW: They're working for Monsanto

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GMW: They're working for Monsanto

" GM WATCH " <info

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 08:51:15 +0100

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.They're working for Monsanto

2.More on the Farm Bureau

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1.They're working for Monsanto

Record Bee, 23 Aug 2005

http://www.record-bee.com/Stories/0,1413,255~33813~3022371,00.html

 

Got a good chuckle out of the Farm Bureau response to the proposed

regulation of Roundup ready Alfalfa in Lake County. It was truly classic!

Instead of attempting to refute the multitude of reasons put forth to

justify the proposed ordinance, the main tactic employed was to change

the subject to the much broader issue of all biotechnology.

 

They can't say this new alfalfa won't mean more poison being used here,

because it will. They can't say that contamination of other growers'

crops isn't a real problem because Monsanto's own studies show it is.

They can't say that the increase in herbicide use won't lead to

poison-resistant weeds sooner because they know it will. They can't

say that the

main active ingredient in Roundup is safe because there are piles of

evidence to the contrary.

 

The Farm Bureau does say that " not a single person or animal has gotten

sick from eating biotech food or feeds, " though recently revealed

studies done by Monsanto show that rats fed their genetically modified

corn

had liver and thyroid cancer, along with blood cell abnormalities.

 

The Farm Bureau is also quoted in the Record-Bee as saying, " This is

just a technological way to increase production using less pesticides, "

an absurd statement that turns reality on its head. Of course our local

Farm Bureau is against regulation of a genetically modified crop, since

their positions are handed down from the state Farm Bureau where

support of the biotech companies is automatic due to their financial

interdependence.

 

That's why our own Farm Bureau urges us to support an Assembly bill

that would take control away from Lake County and give it to Sacramento

when it comes to genetically modified crops. Another case of them working

for Monsanto, while local growers and environmentalists work for Lake

County.

 

Philip Murphy

Lakeport

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2.More on the Farm Bureau

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=267

(for links to sources)

 

With nearly five million members the AFBF is the nation's largest farm

organization and is said to be among the most powerful special interest

groups in Washington, DC. But many, if not most, of its members are not

farmers at all, having become members simply by buying its products,

such as insurance, via a Farm Bureau company.

 

It was founded originally in the early 1900s by the New York Chamber of

Commerce. Today, while posing as a nonprofit organization whose

tax-subsidised activities are intended to improve the lot of American

Farmers,

the Farm Bureau is a gigantic agribusiness and insurance conglomerate.

It has a stock portfolio that includes such agribusiness giants as

Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, Monsanto, Phillip Morris, Dupont,

Novartis

and Dow. (Rightwing business in farm overalls)

 

The Farm Bureau's massive financial interests are said to help it

promote a self-serving and extreme political agenda. In 1968

Representative

Joseph Resnick of New York, a member of the House Agriculture

Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Rural Development, famously

described the Farm Bureau in this way: 'What might once have been a

conservative, business-oriented organization is now considerably more.

By my

calculations, the Farm Bureau is the most efficient conduit now in

existence for the dissemination of right-wing propaganda.' Resnick also

declared the Bureau to be 'a perfect sewer-line for transporting

right-wing

ideology, particularly to our young people.'

 

The Farm Bureau has passed resolutions opposing, amongst other things,

the Voting Rights Act - the cornerstone of US civil rights protection,

the Equal Rights Amendment, gun control and an increase in the minimum

wage. The anti-civil rights resolution was approved while Dean Kleckner

was AFBF President (Farm Bureau is a Front). Kleckner went on to head

the GM-promoting Truth about Trade and Technology lobby group.

 

In recent years Farm Bureau leaders have expressed increasing

antagonism towards environmentalism. Some Farm Bureaus have been

notable amongst

those who have formed alliances with the so-called Wise Use movement to

lobby against environmental regulations. (The war against the greens)

 

In 2000 the Farm Bureau leadership, including Kleckner who then headed

the organisation after heading the Farm Bureau in Iowa, was the subject

of an investigative 'Sixty Minutes' report by CBS news. Among the

issues CBS investigated were some of the Iowa Farm Bureau agribusiness

financial ties, including $3.5 billion in FBL Financial Services - a Farm

Bureau related company that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. FBL

Financial Group has given thousands of stock options to its directors,

including the presidents of 14 state Farm Bureaus. According to the CBS

report, Ed Wiederstein, when president of the Iowa Farm Bureau,

received a 'couple of hundred thousand bucks from stock options' that he

cashed in in 1998, a year of severe economic hardship for Iowa farmers.

 

According to farmers quoted in the CBS programme, the Farm Bureau's

investments have placed them in the pocket of corporate America. 'All

[the

Farm Bureau's] decisions are made for corporate America because they

own part of it, " Iowa farmer Linus Solberg told CBS.

 

According to Mississippi Farm Bureau farmer, Fred Stokes, 'Farm Bureau

has the same relationship to its members as Sears and Roebuck does to

its customers'. When it was discovered that American Farm Bureau's

Washington lobbyists had sent a letter opposing a moratorium on

agribusiness

mergers to all Congressional members, the Mississippi Farm Bureau

passed a resolution 'rebuking' the Farm Bureau's national leadership for

'conflicts of interests.'

 

According to Stokes, 'The national Farm Bureau policy book is full of

statements expressing concern about concentration of market power and

monopoly in agribusiness. Yet AFBF president Dean Kleckner and the

national staff consistently sell out their members and jump in bed with

agribusiness.' (Lords of the Land)

 

According to John Hansen, when president of the Nebraska Farmers Union,

'I've been working on farming concerns for 30 years and I can't think

of a major issue where the Farm Bureau didn't have the same position as

the grain and meat processors. It's impossible to represent the

interests of food producers (farmers) as well as food processors like

ConAgra,

IBP and ADM. The two groups' economic interests are almost always at

odds.'

 

This kind of dissatisfaction within AFBF's membership, along with the

worsening farming crisis, is said to have resulted in Dean Kleckner

being removed as AFBF president. Kleckner subsequently developed his role

as Chairman of Truth about Trade.

 

 

 

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