Tech talents trying to rethink farming

Nevermind kids’ games like “Farmville”, the folks who brought you the computer revolution have set their sights on transforming agriculture. They might make a lot of money doing it, but how much do they care about food quality, the sustainability of ecosystems, and decentralized politics of production? Perhaps only time will tell.

By Heather Somerville, San Jose Mercury News (TNS)

“TRACY, Calif. — Investors and entrepreneurs behind some of the world’s newest industries have started to put their money and tech talents into farming — the world’s oldest industry — with an audacious agenda: to make sure there is enough food for the 10 billion people expected to inhabit the planet by 2100, do it without destroying the world and make a pretty penny along the way.

Silicon Valley is pushing its way into every stage of the food-growing process, from tech tycoons buying up farmland to startups selling robots that work the fields to hackathons dedicated to building the next farming app.

Will a token Federal GMO labeling law pre-empt more stringent state level GMO labeling initiatives in the US?

Although the hubbub around California’s Proposition 37 to require GMO labeling may have died down, following it’s supposed defeat at the polls, concerns about GMOs have by no means gone away. The latest big story in the march to label GMOs is out of Hawaii, where an initiative to require labeling is being trumpeted, at least in the alternative media. Here’s a report from Anne Sewell on Digital Journal:

Toronto’s First GMO Kids Right To Know Walk, Nov 3 2012 Photos (Photos BY Sam Truax). Click image to see more from this event. Photo via http://www.gmo-news.com

“Honolulu – Hawaii might have cause to celebrate, as lawmakers have passed a new measure in the House Committee on Agriculture, requiring labeling on genetically modified food. But is the final bill everything it was hoped to be?

Prop 37 (on GMO labeling) vote fraud?

From Food Democracy Now:

Right now the votes for Prop 37 to label genetically engineered foods are still being counted. On Tuesday morning, Dec 4th, Prop 37 hit 6,004,628 voteson the California Secretary of State’s website, but this tally was quickly reversed within an hour of being publicized by Food Democracy Now!

Since November 6th, the vote count in California has been updated daily until December 4th, when the vote count hit 6 million for the first time. When contacted, the Secretary of State’s office stated there would be no further updates to the vote totals until Dec 14th when state law requires the election results to be certified. County elected officials only have until COB Dec 7th to submit final results so we need your help now!

Rawsome’s James Stewart out of jail

From David E. Gumpert, on the Complete Patient blog:

“You wonder what sitting in jail for four months–all for running a private food club–does to a guy. You wonder what it does to the people around him who were supposedly watching his back.

I’ve certainly wondered, especially with James Stewart finally being released after four months in a Ventura County jail, capped off by five days at the notorious Los Angeles County jail (known as the Twin Towers).  (He was jailed last July after missing a couple court appearances in Los Angeles and Ventura County.) 

It looks like a “NO” on California proposition 37 re GMO labeling

From Natural News.com

Composite image from Gov’t website. Click image to go to source for latest updates

(NaturalNews) Proposition 37 appears to have failed at the ballot box in California, according to the California Secretary of State ballot measures results. The GMO labeling ballot measure, which would have required food companies to label the GM content of foods, was defeated with the use of over $45 million in fraudulent advertising and dirty tricks funded by Monsanto, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, DuPont, Bayer and other food and pesticide companies.

California’s Proposition 37 for GMO labeling makes the news in Britain

Californians vote today on whether they want GMO-containing foods labeled as such.

From Suzanne Goldenberg in The Guardian (UK):

“Monsanto and other agribusiness and food companies have spent more than $45m (£28m) to defeat a California ballot measure that would require labelling of some GM foods.

The measure, proposition 37, is one of the most contentious initiatives on California‘s election ballot on Tuesday.

If it passes, it would require labels on GM food sold in supermarkets, but would not cover restaurants. It also has a number of gaping loopholes. For example, the law would not require labels on meat from animals that were fed GM corn.

Michael Pollan talks GMO labeling in NY Times: “Vote for the Dinner Party”

Michael Pollan, in the New York Times:

“…Big Food is also feeling beleaguered by its increasingly skeptical and skittish consumers. Earlier this year the industry was rocked when a blogger in Houston started an online petition to ban the use of “pink slime” in the hamburger served in the federal school-lunch program. Pink slime — so-called by a U.S. Department of Agriculture microbiologist — is a kind of industrial-strength hamburger helper made from a purée of slaughterhouse scraps treated with ammonia.

We have apparently been ingesting this material for years in hamburger patties, but when word got out, the eating public went ballistic. Within days, the U.S.D.A. allowed schools to drop the product, and several supermarket chains stopped carrying it, shuttering several of the plants that produce it. Shortly after this episode, I received a panicky phone call from someone in the food industry, a buyer for one of the big food-service companies. After venting about the “irrationality” of the American consumer, he then demanded to know: “Who’s going to be hit next? It could be any of us.”

Label those GMOs — Proposition 37

Via Facebook:

Big tobacco shills now trying to stop GMO labeling initiative in California

From Michelle Simon, on Appetite for Profit:

Modified frame grab from Michelle Simon’s Appetite for Profit website.

“The food industry really hates it when you compare them to Big Tobacco. They try to deny the negative association by claiming that food is different than tobacco. Of course that’s true, but why are the same consultants that have worked for the tobacco industry now shilling for Big Food, opposing the ballot initiative that would require labeling of all foods containing GMO ingredients?

GMO labeling fight in California

From the Organic Consumers Association:

“In recent weeks, several public interest groups, including the Organic Consumers Association, Cornucopia Institute, Mercola.com, and Natural News, have pointed out the gross hypocrisy and greed of large food and beverage corporations which profit from the sale of billions of dollars of their proprietary organic and “natural” food brands while at the same time funneling large sums of money to the Monsanto-led campaign to defeat the November 6th GMO labeling ballot initiative (Proposition 37) in California.

These organic and “natural” traitor companies and brands include: Kellogg’s (Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms); General Mills (Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar); Dean Foods (Horizon, Silk, White Wave); Smucker’s (R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic); Coca-Cola (Honest Tea, Odwalla); Safeway (“O” Organics); Kraft (Boca Burgers and Back to Nature); Con-Agra (Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife); and PepsiCo (Naked Juice, Tostito’s Organic, Tropicana Organic).