Biotech violence against humanity: GMO industry kills and maims innocent people for profit

(NaturalNews) At least eight people were injured and one killed during a recent scuffle in Brazil over the use of agricultural land for genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). A peasant movement known as "Via Campesina" had been protesting a 304-acre farm owned by biotechnology giant Syngenta Ag when a small bus filled with armed gunmen opened fire on them.

Reports indicate that Via Campesina had been pressing for the GMO-occupied land to be converted into a non-GMO center for sustainable agriculture when things turned ugly. Security forces hired by Syngenta initially abandoned their post out of fear only to send in armed reinforcements that took to shooting the peasants.

According to the Associated Press (AP), one peasant farmer, 32-year-old Valmir Motta, was shot in the chest and killed by the armed GMO mob, while at least eight others were injured. Following the horrific incident, the state government of Parana, where the farm is located, issued a statement saying the perpetrators had been arrested and would be facing charges of homicide and gang formation.

This blatant act of violence against peasants had been brewing for several years after the same farm was occupied by peasant families as far back as 2006. Protesters were outraged that Syngenta was being allowed to illegally reproduce GM soy and maize (corn) throughout the area, prompting Syngenta to file a lawsuit.

Reports indicate that Syngenta ultimately won the case and had the peasant families evicted. But the state government still worked towards confiscating the farm from Syngenta, maintaining that it was conducting illegal research and that the property should be transformed into something actually useful like a sustainable, organic farm.

"While industry pursues legal and institutional battles to further control and monopolize global seed supplies, the evidence is growing in support of diversified peasant seeds and agroecology as fundamental to producing healthy food while mitigating environmental and climate impacts," says Via Campesina.

Chemical pesticides are weapons of mass destruction targeting humans and the environment

The Monsanto herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), which is sprayed to the tune of hundreds of tons annually on GMO and conventional food crops, is of major concern for its toxic effects on humans and the environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared through its cancer research arm that glyphosate, the primary active ingredient in Roundup, is probably carcinogenic to humans.

This noxious substance is turning up everywhere these days, including in water, air and food. The people of Colombia know particularly firsthand how damaging glyphosate can be, as their government has been spraying it indiscriminately in a failed attempt to combat the growing of coca and cannabis plants, harming entire communities in the process.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos recently called on his country to stop aerial fumigation of crops and forests with glyphosate, despite intense opposition by American biotech interests. But the chemical war still wages on in many other parts of the world, including in the U.S. and in many developing countries like India, where GMO cotton has sparked a wave of farmer suicides.

"War and agriculture came together when the chemicals that were produced for chemical warfare lost their markets in war, and the industry organized itself to sell those chemicals as agrochemicals," says Dr. Vandana Shiva, a physicist and environmental activist about the chemical violence imposed on the world by GMOs and biotechnology, as quoted by TruthOut.

"The techniques themselves are militarized, come from war, including the fact that the only way you can move a gene that doesn't belong to an organism and you have to cross the species barrier -- which can't be crossed by reproduction -- you can only do it by using a gene gun, which is war at the genetic level, or infecting a plant with cancer, which is biological warfare. So the war mentality is at the heart of the technology."

By the way, you can find other great articles like this one that cover topics such as the militarization of food at GMOfood.news.

Sources:

non-gmoreport.com

viacampesina.org

nytimes.com

truth-out.org