By Crisis Boom

The fight to ban genetically modified foods has won more converts — some employees of Monsanto the company that is doing the most to promote GM products.

The Independent newspaper reports that there is a notice in the cafeteria of the Monsanto pharmaceutical factory is High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, advising customers “as far as practicable, GM soya and maize (has been removed) from all food products served in our restaurant. We have taken the steps to ensure that you, the customer, can feel confident in the food we serve.”

The notice was posted by the Sutcliffe Catering Group.

Monsanto confirms the authenticity of the notice, but company spokesman Tony Coombes says the only reason for the GM-free foods is because the company “believes in choice.” Coombes says in other Monsanto locations employees are happy to eat GM foods because they are “sprayed with fewer chemicals.”Read More…

What Bill Gates doesn’t know about GMOs
The Flip-Side: What Bill Gates Doesn’t Know About GMOs

http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/02/02/the-flip-side-what-bill-gates-doesnt-know-about-gmos

*The Pesticide Action Network explores the side of the story Gates left out last week.

If you assume that Bill Gates is so well informed about all his philanthropic targets that you take his word at face value, you would be in good company, but you might be terribly wrong. Organizations well versed in the agricultural issues facing developing nations are saying his annual letter, released last week, is completely mistaken when it asserts that a lack of support for GMO crop development is responsible, in part, for allowing world hunger to endure. We interviewed Heather Pilatic, Ph.D., co-director of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), to show us the other, important side of the story.


TakePart: In the introduction to his letter, Bill Gates cites the Green Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, saying scientists created new seed varieties for rice, wheat, and maize, and that this resulted in increased crop yield and a decrease in extreme poverty around the world. Do you agree that this is a model to use moving forward?


In contrast to these tried-and-true farming practices, “Green Revolution”-style agriculture undermines soil fertility and accelerates the pesticide treadmill. It is the opposite of the kind of knowledge-intensive, ecological agriculture described by the IAASTD. The fact that the Gates foundation has spent ten times as much on GM technologies ($214 million since 2005) as they have allocated for soil research ($20 million) indicates a profound misalignment of priorities-agronomically speaking.