The Obama administration love affair with GMOs is selling America down the river to agricultural ruin

Sunday, August 21, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: Obama, GMOs, health news

(NaturalNews) The freedom to grow one's own food is a foundational pillar of civilization, and one that absolutely must persist if humanity itself is to exist. But this freedom is rapidly disintegrating in the US, as multinational corporations like Monsanto seize control of the American food supply through the widespread propagation of patented, genetically-modified (GM) seeds and crops. And the Obama administration is currently at the helm of orchestrating this hostile takeover, as it continues to openly support any and all efforts to spread GMOs far and wide, whether it be on private farmland or public wildlife refuges.

The American landscape is quickly becoming nothing but a giant patchwork of corporately-controlled biotechnology farms, with individual landowners biting hook, line, and sinker at the bait by willingly tilling their fields with "frankenseeds," and collectively dousing them in millions of tons of chemical herbicides and pesticides like Monsanto's Roundup formula. And now the US government wants to plant GMOs in national wildlife refuges, where the crops' easily-transmissible transgenic traits are sure to permanently pollute pristine ecosystems all across the US (https://www.naturalnews.com/032726_GMOs_natio...).

The Obama administration's stance on GMOs is just like the Bush administration's, except on steroids

During the time George W. Bush held presidential office, his administration took quite a bit of flack from organic and consumer groups over its open support for GMOs. And rather than reverse any of that administration's corrupt policies, the Obama administration has since taken them to a whole new level, with an accelerated push to spread GMOs wherever it possibly can.

Almost immediately after being declared the winner of the US presidential election in 2008, Barack Obama began rapidly packing his administration with GMO apologists like current US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, former Iowa governor and long-time supporter of GMOs (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/art...), and Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Michael Taylor, who had formerly served as Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/art...), just to name a few.

You can view a more extensive list of the GMO shills that Obama has appointed within his administration here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/art...

Obama lied about supporting mandatory labeling for GMOs

Many people have probably already forgotten this, but Obama actually promised while he was on the campaign trail that he would support mandatory labeling for GMOs. Now that he sits as president, not only has he failed to fulfill this promise, but he and his administration's continued actions are a blatant contradiction to this promise in practically every way (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/art...).

According to a recent report from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national alliance of local, state, and federal resource professionals, the Obama administration has actually entered into an alliance with the biotechnology industry to remove all current legal and procedural barriers that prevent the open spread of GMOs. This includes the USDA's recently announced "hands-off" policy that GMOs are essentially exempt from the agency's regulatory jurisdiction (http://www.anh-usa.org/the-wheels-come-off-t...).

The Obama administration formed an "Agriculture Biotech Working Group" in 2010 as well that consists of 35 officials from ten different federal agencies. The purpose of the group is to advocate for GM agriculture, and establish legal protection for GMOs that will allow their further propagation without obstruction. This illegitimate partnership between industry and government serves no public benefit, of course -- it only serves to enrich the coffers of Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, and other key players in the industry that are effectively seizing control of agriculture, one seed at a time (https://www.naturalnews.com/033148_seed_compa...).

Obama has provided no real change, just more of the same

Obama's legacy thus far is one that has not only continued the dismal policies inherited by the Bush administration, but also one that has made them far, far worse. And yet very few seem to be concerned about holding the administration responsible for blatantly lying to the public about GMOs, or for following in the footsteps of previous administrations that served as "revolving doors" for key players to move easily between biotechnology industry positions and high political positions.

However, PEER is attempting to bring about some real change with its recent lawsuit against the administration's Working Group. Several agencies continue to conceal important documents that may eventually reveal the true extent to which the US government is colluding with the biotechnology industry to promote its interests. You can read more about this lawsuit here:
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm...

"It is frankly depressing that the top White House official for ecosystem recovery is hustling genetically altered soybeans on slivers of land set aside for wildlife," said PEER Staff Counsel Kathryn Douglass concerning the GMO wildlife proposals in a recent statement. "One thing we do know is this Biotech Working Group exhibits the opposite of the transparent, science-based decision-making we were promised from this administration."

Sources for this story include:

http://www.anh-usa.org/the-wheels-come-off-t...