The Allure of Vanilla in Coffee

Vanilla is one of the most popular coffee flavorings that you can buy at Coffee Ninja webstore, and for good reason. Its subtle sweetness and aromatic quality make it a perfect match for coffee’s natural bitterness. When vanilla is added, the coffee takes on a creamy, smooth texture that’s hard to resist. Coffee flavoured drinks with caramel and vanilla benefit from this, as the vanilla balances out the deeper, richer notes of caramel, creating a harmonious blend.

The Sweetness of Caramel

Caramel, with its buttery and slightly burnt sugar taste, is another favorite when it comes to flavoring coffee. It adds a luxurious sweetness that complements the boldness of coffee beans. In a coffee drink flavoured with vanilla and caramel, the caramel brings a depth of flavor that enhances the vanilla, making the overall taste more rounded and satisfying. The result is a drink that feels both comforting and indulgent.

Perfect for Any Occasion

Whether you’re starting your day with a warm cup or enjoying a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, a coffee flavoured drink with caramel and vanilla is versatile enough for any time. Its balance of sweetness and richness makes it a great option for those who want a little more flavor in their coffee without overwhelming the taste of the beans themselves.

Coffee with caramel and vanilla flavor offers a delightful blend of sweetness and richness that enhances the natural flavors of the coffee. The creamy vanilla adds a smooth, mellow note, while the caramel brings a hint of indulgence with its buttery, slightly nutty taste. 

This combination creates a well-balanced, comforting drink perfect for those who enjoy a touch of sweetness in their coffee. Whether you’re looking to elevate your morning routine or indulge in a special treat, vanilla and caramel coffee-flavoured is a must-try for its unique and satisfying taste experience.

How to Enjoy Coffee Flavoured Drinks with Vanilla and Caramel

There are numerous ways to enjoy a caramel and vanilla-flavoured coffee beverage. You can opt for a simple brew with flavored syrups, or go all out with a latte or cappuccino, adding whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce on top. You can even try cold brews or iced versions for a refreshing twist. However you choose to enjoy it, this flavor combination is sure to satisfy your taste buds.

Wrapping It Up

Incorporating vanilla and caramel coffee flavoured drinks into your routine is a simple way to elevate your coffee experience. The blend of these two flavors brings out the best in each other, creating a drink that’s both comforting and delicious. 

Whether you’re a coffee purist or someone who enjoys experimenting with different flavors, vanilla and caramel coffee flavoured drinks offer a delightful way to enjoy your favorite beverage.

GMO-free food sales were $3 billion in 2013 increased to $8.5 billion in 2014. In addition, organic food sales are projected to grow by 14% in 2018. This estimate is on the lower end according to The United States Organic Food Market Forecast & Opportunities.

In 2012, sales in the organic foods category topped $81.3 billion. There are new methods of self-sustainability and organic farming that include hydroponics and roof-top arming in urban areas that are being built all over the country. It is possible that we could see these numbers double or triple.

It comes to no surprise that the term GMO has passed organic as the buzzword in 2014 when it comes to food sales. A study published by Progressive Grocer showed that consumers prefer Non-GMO even more than organic. This should give Monsanto, Dow, and other huge food corporations a run for their money. 80% of consumers sought out non-GMO products in the survey. The non-GMO issue has emerged as a consumer hot button.

DODAJ SLIKO

Even city-dwellers are looking at new ways of making a more gratifying living. One couple, highlighted in the latest issue of Edible magazine, dropped their high powered marketing jobs in the city and moved to a small plot of land in central Texas to start their own organic, hydroponic tomato farm.

In the first year of business, they already have enough restaurants clamoring for their product – grown without pesticides or GMO – to rake in cash for over 80 tons of juicy, red tomatoes that are reminiscent of the kind great grandmothers used to grow in their gardens. They don’t supplement with any lighting in their 6000 foot green house, use only sunlight, and 1/5 of the water it would take to grow the same amount of tomatoes on a conventional farm. They can also grow all year long.

It is actions like these, along with those of consumers, who have boycotted Kellogg’s, Gerber, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, and other GM pushing companies, that are making a difference.

To learn more about how your food gets a ‘non-GMO’ label, you can read up here, but in the meantime, keep voting with your dollar. It makes a difference.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/gmo-free-food-sales-explode-amid-public-awareness/#ixzz3lH0rGHOm

Why Rental of Catering Equipment is Better Than Buying

If you are in the catering business, you know all too well that having the right equipment is the secret ingredient to ensure the success of your venture. The right equipment includes all the things you need to deal with the logistics and organization necessary for your catering service.

Beginning Monday, the Mexican food chain will only serve food that is organic and devoid of genetically modified ingredients. This is something no other major restaurant chain has done before.

Becoming GMO-free is a goal that Chipotle has been working towards for many years. In 2013, the company was the first to disclose all the ingredients containing GMO on its menu.

According to CNN Money, Chipotle’s pork and chicken will continue to come from animals that eat GMO-feed. However, the chain states that it has been successful in switching out all the other GMO-containing ingredients from the menu. This is including using rice bran oil instead of soybean oil.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/26/chipotle-gmo-free-food_n_7149040.html

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in the works in developing its own GMO labeling program, according to the Associated Press.

For years activists pushed for a federal standard for foods that made with genetically modified ingredients. This means that action from the USDA is big news and worth discussing. A voluntary USDA labeling product geared at GMO-free products would be a small step towards a long battle. However, the battle of what is required in U.S. food made from genetically modified ingredients is a long way down the road.

It all seems a little peculiar but the USDA does not want you to know about the program yet.

The Associated Press learned about it from a letter that Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack sent on May 1 to department employees outlining the plan, which would be the first government program to certify foods as GMO-free. (There is a federal labeling standard for meat produced without GMO feed.) The letter was leaked to the AP, and while a USDA spokesman confirmed to the news service that the letter was authentic, he declined further comment.

The second red flag comes from Vilsack’s letter. “Recently, a leading global company asked [the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service] to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered so that the company could label the products as such,” he wrote. “AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim.”

Even without the eyebrow-raising reference to the “leading global company” that shall not be named, there’s plenty that seems suspect here. When you boil it all down, here’s what’s at the crux of the fight over how we should be labeling GMO foods: Should such labels be developed on the basis of consumer protection, in accordance with the public’s right to know what’s in the food it’s eating, and thus be required on all foods that contain GMO ingredients? Or should these labels be designed as essentially yet another marketing gimmick in the overflowing arsenal of marketing gimmicks employed by food makers, allowing companies to pick and choose which products to slap a GMO-free label on, depending on whether their marketing department thinks said label will boost sales?

According to a recent letter sent to members of Congress by a coalition of more than 300 groups that support mandatory labeling of foods containing GMO ingredients, more than a million Americans have petitioned the FDA—which has jurisdiction over the veracity of a number of food labels—to come up with a federal label identifying products that contain GMOs. So far, the FDA has failed to respond.

Compare that with when a “leading global company” asks the USDA for help developing an arguably pro-industry GMO label, and the department jumps at the chance. It’s galling, but not surprising.

A bill introduced in March by Reps. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., would make voluntary labeling the law of the land, superseding state-level mandatory labeling laws such as the one passed in Vermont and set to take effect next year. More than 370 corporations and industry groups (including biotech giants such as Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, and Monsanto, and food makers such as General Mills, ConAgra, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola)—lobbying under the banner Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food—have come out in support of the bill.

It seems there’s a reason these titans of the agri-tech food industry would prefer the USDA over the FDA to implement any type of federal GMO-labeling program.

As Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, toldEnvironment and Energy News recently, “I think [the USDA] would be better suited to deal with inputs into agricultural products than the FDA would be.” As the news site reports, “[Conaway] added that there would be ‘risks’ that FDA would not work in agriculture’s favor, but he declined to elaborate on that point.”

Apparently, another member of the committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., was a little less circumspect. Environment and Energy News reports, “Peterson is worried that popular opinion might influence FDA more than USDA.”

Heaven forbid that in a democracy, popular opinion should influence any government agency.

GMO soy plants are generally modified to be able to resist massive amounts of herbicide, specifically Roundup Ready, a solution produced by the Monsanto biotech firm. According to the World Health Organization, the main ingredient in the herbicide, glyphosate, may in fact be carcinogenic.

Researchers attributed the slow growth of goat kids to the milk they received from their GMO-fed mothers, which they found was “significantly less nutritious and contained less of the IgG antibodies important for early growth.”

Goat mothers fed GM soy during pregnancy birthed kids 20 percent smaller in size

They also observed a difference in the colostrum (a form of milk produced by mammals in late pregnancy) of goat mothers fed GM soy. Their milk contained less fat and less protein than milk produced by goats fed non-GM soy.

Dr. Judy Carman, Director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Australia, was not involved in the study but commented on the researcher’s findings:

The differences in the composition of the colostrum between the mothers fed the GE [genetically engineered] soy and the non-GE soy were particularly striking. The colostrum from the GE-fed mothers contained only 2/3 of the fat, 1/3 of the protein and close to half of the IgG of the mothers fed the non-GM soy.

Scientists reached their conclusions after dividing pregnant female Cilentana goats into four groups, 60 days before kidding.

“Two of the groups were fed goat food containing GE Roundup Ready soybeans (at two different concentrations). The other two groups were fed conventional (non-GE) soybeans, also at two different concentrations,” reports Independent Science News.

“After the mothers gave birth all offspring were fed only with their mother’s milk for sixty days. The growth of these kids was measured twice. After both thirty days and sixty days the kids of GE-fed mothers were approximately 20% lower in weight and shorter in stature. Both these differences were statistically significant.”

Unsurprising: Baby Goats Fare Better When Their Food Contains No Glyphosate

In addition to the reduced growth, there were other negative effects. The macronutrient content of goats’ milk was significantly affected, seeing a change from 18% protein content in non-GMO fed groups to 6% protein in those who were fed with GMO crops. However, this only lasted for a small number of weeks after the offspring’s birth, and the milk slowly recovered its protein content over time.

The mother goats had notable deficiencies in IgG antibodies in their milk, which negatively affected the growth of their offspring’s immune systems.

In addition, the researchers noticed transgenic DNA present in almost 63% of goats given GMO soy. By comparison, there was no trace of transgenic DNA detected in milk secreted by non-GMO fed goats.

Transgenic DNA consists of genes that are acquired through horizontal gene transfer (as opposed to sexual reproduction) from one organism to a sometimes completely different one, and is a naturally-occurring phenomenon that can also be induced artificially. These genes can in turn be inherited by the animal’s offspring.

The scientists stated that the situation was not unique, and that they had discovered transgenic DNA in the milk of livestock before.

This result is the strongest demonstration so far of altered growth and development in offspring of GE-fed mothers”

Another interesting finding that scientists observed was that all of the baby goats were the same size at birth regardless of whether or not their moms ate GM soy or non-GM soy, indicating that the offspring’s stunted growth was result a of a milk deficiency.

“The authors noted that low IgG antibody levels in colostrum are correlated in other ruminants with slower growth and also that IgG antibodies are known to have a role in nutrient absorption because they promote gut development in newborns.

“The researchers did not discuss whether the transgene DNA fragments found in the milk played a role in altering kid development.

“The same researchers in 2010 showed altered activity of the lactic dehydrogenase enzyme in kids fed milk from mothers that ate GE Roundup Ready soybeans. In that previous study however, no additional effects on goat offspring were detected (Tudisco et al., 2010).”

Featured Image: GMO.news

Resources:

GMO.news

MedicineNet.com

IndependentScienceNews.org

GMWatch.org

TheGuardian.com

The survey, conducted by HealthFocus International, sought the opinions of consumers across sixteen different nations.

Respondents considered GMOs to be among the top 5 sources of worry when it came to food, ranked above salt, sugars, and even artificial additives. Those who have some kind of awareness of GMO products tended to view them as less safe and not as healthy compared to foods that had not been modified genetically. Generally, they viewed GMOs as more of a food safety concern than a larger environmental concern. Most consumers also believed that it was possible to grow crops without the use of genetic modification altogether and still feed the world population adequately. In addition, nearly 50% of consumers around the world indicated a high level of concern over GMO foods, and almost 90% agreed that such foods should be labeled.

Notably, one of these chemicals was glyphosate, a substance that is the main active ingredient in Roundup, the brand name for Monsanto’s ubiquitous herbicide that is used all over the world. The U.S. alone uses millions of pounds of the substance every year.

It has been a controversial year for glyphosate, as early this March, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the substance a possible cancer-causing agent, much to the shock of the agricultural industry. A sigh of relief for the business came later, when the EPA determined after some research that there was no compelling evidence that glyphosate disrupts endocrine processes in the body.

As Sharon Lerner revealed over at The Intercept , of the 32 studies the EPA used to make its determination that there is “no convincing evidence” that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor, 27 were either conducted or funded by the agrichemical industry. “Most of the studies were sponsored by Monsanto or an industry group called the Joint Glyphosate Task Force,” Lerner wrote. “One study was by Syngenta, which sells its own glyphosate-containing herbicide, Touchdown.”

More telling, when Lerner reviewed the paltry five independently funded studies the EPA relied on for its determination, three of them concluded glyphosate could very well pose a danger to the endocrine system.

“Yet, of the 27 industry studies, none concluded that glyphosate caused harm,” Lerner added, even though “many of the industry-funded studies contained data that suggested that exposure to glyphosate had serious effects.” No less worrisome is that a majority of the studies were more than two decades old—thereby predating the existence of the term “endocrine disruption.”

Recently, a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture filed allegations that he was harassed after publicly voicing concerns about another popular class of pesticides. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder just how “independent” and “rigorous” our federal regulatory agencies are when it comes to evaluating the risks posed by all those agrichemicals out there coating all those amber waves of grain.

Source: Takepart

Because there were no possible accidental ignition sources at the scene, officials believe that the fire was a deliberate crime. Up until now, no European Monsanto facilities had been subjected to such violence, and the event could set a new precedence.

The fire apparently erupted from two separate locations within the facility, fueling speculation that it was unlikely to have been the result of some natural or accidental occurrence. In addition, officials encountered the distinct odor of a gasoline-based accelerant on the premises. Luckily, the fire started at approximately 1:00 AM, and no employees were present in the building.

France: The Core Of The GMO Controversy

France is one of the central locations where the controversy over GMO foods has played out. In June, the French government enacted a nation-wide ban of the herbicide Roundup, over fears that the main ingredient, glyphosate, could possibly cause cancer in the populace.

In addition, the chemical could be leading to a decimation of the bee population, which could indirectly result in a collapse of the food supply due to a lack of pollinating insects. In response to this, the French government indicated last September that they would begin to implement a ban on GMO crops, using a possible new plan in the EU that would allow states to individually choose to ban the growing of modified plants.

However, the Parliament in fact chose to not enact the plan, as it would require further approval before it could be passed into law. In addition, the plan would be difficult to enforce in individual states due to the possibility of GMO products passing freely through borders from non-banning states anyway.

Some politicians argue that having a mechanism to ban GMOs in some states, but not in others, would be impractical and introduce unnecessary complications. Much of the EU imports GMO feed for their own domestic herds. In response to this hesitation, members of anti-GMO groups decided to take it upon themselves to make a statement.

In practice, such a plan might very well be unenforceable. Were imported GMO products to arrive at the port of a neighboring state that had no such ban, there are currently no measures in place to prevent a shipment from easily arriving in France via land.

It could be that the Parliament’s decision triggered the possible arson, but, for now, the fire is only one of a multitude of set-backs that Monsanto faces in France.

The downfall of Monsanto in France

Monsanto has approximately nine facilities sprinkled throughout France, three of which were recently shut down because of declining profits. Monsanto research centers located in Middleton, Wisconsin, Mystic, Connecticut and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina will be closed soon because of financial cutbacks, as well.

In August, Monsanto announced that it would cut 2,600 jobs, or 12 percent of its workforce, in order to lower costs. The company stated it lost 19 cents per share in the most recent quarter. Profits are expected to stay low for the remainder of the year.

According to the Associated Press, Monsanto lost a whopping $156 million in the last quarter of last year. The last quarter of this year is expected to be worse than the last quarter in 2014. The recent fire serves as a reminder for how heated the GMO debate really is in France.

Featured image: GMO.news

Sources:

GMO.news

TheAntiMedia.org

EUObserver.com

But for some years back, the billion dollar pest with a new resistance has started firing back against Monsanto’s BT seed. And the American corn farmers who planted on a record close to 97.3 million acres this year are fighting back with the only weapon in their arsenal by gradually cutting down on the use of pesticide.

Any downward movement on the use of pesticide now looks historic. Year 2011 and 2012 appeared to be extraordinary years when acres were dedicated to corn farming and it yielded $77 and $80 billion respectively while the prices of corn per bushel at the said years were $6.22 and $7.40, farmers continued to grow corn and pesticides have now become one of their big “inputs” in the corn production.

In 2005, $2 corn became a reality; they see too many products competing to use their product as raw materials, which might bring about a depression into the future. Beverages, starch, high fructose corn syrup, cereals and sweeteners are some of the products competing to use corn for processing. Corn-fed beef, pork, poultry and dairy are principal corn users. Talking about the fuel front ethanol, it requires around 500 million bushels of corn for its processing.

According to Benbrook and Gray, buying more pesticide as a means of controlling another break-out of the western corn rootworm is just a little more insurance for corn growers. After discovering a severe rootworm injury in a Cass County, IL cornfield in June 2012, Gray says most growers’ decisions on the use of pesticide this year is a function of their harvest experience during the last fall.

At the wake of 2013, Gray contacted Illinois corn and soybean growers at five different locations in the state. He surveyed growers with hand-held “clickers” and discovered that while an average of 92% of the growers are planning to plant BT hybrid corn as protection against corn rootworm, others amounting to an average of 46.66% planned to use insecticides for planting.

More pesticide bought to control another break-out of the western corn rootworm is seen by most growers as just a little more insurance, according to both Gray and Benbrook. Gray, who discovered severe rootworm injury in a Cass County, IL cornfield in June 2012, says most growers made decisions about pesticide use this year based on their harvest experiences last fall.

Earlier in 2013, Gray meet with Illinois corn and soybean growers at five locations in the state. He used hand-held “clickers’ to survey growers, finding on average 92 percent planned to plant a Bt hybrid for corn rootworm protection in 2013, but on average 46.66 percent also plan to apply insecticides at planting.

After his meetings with almost 600 Illinois growers, Gray predicted the sharp increase in planting-time soil insecticides with corn rootworm Bt hybrids. Last week, that prediction was verified with the Wall Street Journal reporting surging insecticide sales for companies like American Vanguard Corp. and Syngenta AG.

Corn growers, according to Gray, are “covering their bets” by upping their pesticide use while sticking with a Bt hybrid for corn rootworm. Benbrook agrees growers are “all in in their bet on corn.”

Gray’s work with Illinois corn growers even brought a response from Monsanto last year. The giant agri-business suggested growers using their product should rotate their crops and traits, and buy their dual of mode action products. At this point, Monsanto’s dominance in America’s cornfields is not threatened. That could change if one of its topline products is breaking down.

For 2013, more acres have been planted with genetically modified corn than ever, and its being planted with more pesticides than in more than a decade. USDA’s current forecast for harvest time is for corn selling for around $4.50 a bushel.

That would be enough to cover the “inputs” and clear a profit. Droughts or disease that reduce yields could increase prices. Memories of last fall’s corn futures of $8.50 continue to dance in the heads of growers.

With more than 40 states contributing to the U.S, corn crop, growers continue to have significant political clout. They no longer get direct payment from the USDA if prices go south, but the taxpayer-subsidized crop insurance program takes up the slack.

Source: FoodSafetyNews.com

The myths were referred to as Tobacco Strategy by book Merchants of Doubt. Pesticide companies organized public relations and legal campaigns to disagree with the evidence, often using untruthful scientists to create controversial premises around the so-called junk science ranging from second-hand smoke resulting into cancer, global warming and dangers of DDT.

Myth no1: That Pesticides Are Not So Harmful

In reality, pesticides are harmful by nature. They are formulated to cause death and troubles to human health, putting children, especially, at risk. Facts on the evils of pesticides are well documented, below are some of the deadly facts about pesticides extracted from the news;

– A complete class of pesticides (organophosphates) has been discovered responsible for children’s higher rates of ADHD.
– Our water supply contains 94% of the herbicide also called atrazine, and this is connected to birth deficiency, infertility and cancer.
– Pregnant women exposed to the pesticide called endosulfan are more likely to give birth to autistic children.
– Girls who are yet to get to puberty stage are five times more likely to develop breast cancer when exposed to DDT.
– Lately, the World Health Organization (WHO) tagged the active ingredient in the commonly used herbicide called Roundup as a “probable human carcinogen”

A substantial number of jointly-revised, scientific studies have proven that pesticides are detrimental to human health. The glaring environmental havocs caused by pesticides include but not limited to; male frogs turning into females after being exposed to it and reduced populations of bats and honeybees.

Myth no2: Poison Is In The Dose

In reality, whoever is exposed to a very little quantity of one ingredient from one single pesticide at a time, and if it happened to be a chemical having fairly low toxic concentration; and exposure took place outside the region of any biological vulnerability, it’s likely to cause little danger. Sad enough, this is likely to be an unreal situation.
I know you will be interested to know the following fact;

First and foremost, pesticide products usually contain lots of powerful harmful ingredients including the so-called inerts not written on the label.

Secondly, we all have contact with a cocktail of pesticides in the air we breathe in, water we drink and foods we eat and on every surface we touch. The mixture of these chemicals can be more harmful than any of them working alone.

The third fact is that, many pesticides are endocrine disorder and even the very smallest dose can obstruct the activities of delicate human hormone system and may cause costly damage for life.

Finally, it is also important to note that the timing of exposure works the same as (if not more than) the dose. Making contact with the very smallest amount pesticides can cause irreparable, harm, making lives miserable, if they happen at apoint when organs or other systems are still growing. One good example from a just concluded study using the MRI technology demonstrates the point. Children in utero exposed to the neurotoxic insecticide chlorpyrifos suffered prolonged changes in their brain frame work.

It’s important as well to know that research used to discover the safety of a pesticide is solely funded and carried out by the corporations helping to market the product, which most times leads to false information.

Myth no3: That GMOs reduce Usage of Pesticides

Reality: Genetically modified organisms are encouraging the use of pesticide, and do not be surprised to know that the biggest GMO seed sellers happen to be the same pesticide companies themselves. The aim of introducing GMO seed is to boost corporate control of global agriculture, which is easy to understand. Over 80% of the GMO crops cultivated worldwide are created to endure the increase in the use of herbicide, and not to reduce its usage.
Monsanto, the world’s leading patented engineered seed, would want us to believe that its GMOs will boost yields, decrease environmental impact and moderate climate change; and that farmers only need to use little quantity of pesticides whenever they plant the corporation’s seeds. All of these are blatant lies!

On the average, Monsanto’s biotech seeds do not boost yields. In 2009, Monsanto made a declaration that its Boll guard GMO cotton caused the presence of pink bollworm (the particular pest it was meant to control in the regions of Gujarat- India’s predominant cotton-growing state. With its introduction in 1996, Monsanto’s Boll guard seeds, which contain poisonous traits from the soil bacterium called Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT), now constitute about 50% of the total number of cotton grown worldwide. In India, the efficiency of BT cotton has reduced while pesticide costs have increased by almost 25 percent, being part of the cause of the tragic suicide epidemic among India’s bankrupt farmers.

In 2009, it was revealed that 93% of U.S. GMO soybeans and 80% of GMO corns were grown from Monsanto’s patented seeds. Roundup ready-to-use corn and soybeans, produced to eradicate weeds with the use of Monsanto’s weed killer were mostly used to feed animals and cars instead of people. Now that Roundup no longer work on weeds, Dow and Monsanto are lunching GMO corn that contains tolerance of dicamba and 2,4-D, obsolete and hazardous herbicides capable of spreading from where they’re used on neighboring non-GMO fields into neighboring communities.

Myth no4: That we’re weaning ourselves off of Pesticides

Reality: After 20 years of market stagnation, the pesticide business entered a period of serious growth in 2004 after 20 years no sales. The worth of the global pesticide market was valued at approximately $46 billion in 2012 and still growing. It is anticipated to reach $65 billion by 2017, with the U.S. making use of about 53% of total global figure.

About 80% of the total market usage is meant for agriculture, but sales from non- agriculture and profit margins are rapidly growing, driven by the emergence of a global middle class using chemically dependent lawns and landscapes. In addition, the industry’s policy for promoting GMO seeds, which most of them are engineered to withstand higher applications of herbicides, has caused an increase in the sales of weed killers.

Myth no5: Pesticides are the Solution to Global Climate Change

Reality: Multinational corporations are working tirelessly to increase their market share by using climate change as their major opportunity to make sales. As of 2008, Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, BASF, BASF and others had filed 532 patents for climate-related genes, advertising the impending arrival of the new generation seeds engineered to tolerate heat and dryness. Their approach will further limit the obsolete practice of farmers safeguarding seeds with desirable traits (a practice that may prove more useful as the climate change occurs in irregular trend and demands for nothing less than farm-scale diversity.

In fact, it is evident that long lasting farming provides vital solutions to climate change, with resilient systems that generate very smaller amount of greenhouse gases, encourage on-farm biodiversity and produce carbon sinks to offset warming.

Despite the invention of this latest gene-grab, not even one of these companies has been able to manufacture any kind of seed to have high yield or withstand climate change. Their promises to eradicate hunger from the world by producing drought-heat- and salt-tolerant seeds and crops that will give maximum nutritional values have failed.

Myth no6: “Pesticides Are Necessary to Feed the World”

Reality: The most comprehensive analysis of world agriculture to date tells us that what can feed the world—and what feeds most of the world now, in fact—is small-scale agriculture that does not rely on pesticides.

Dow, Monsanto, Syngenta and other pesticide producers have marketed their products as necessary to feed the world. Yet as insecticide use increased in the U.S. by a factor of 10 in the 50 years following World War II, crop losses almost doubled. Corn is illustrative: in place of crop rotations, most acreage was planted year after year only with corn. Despite more than a 1,000-fold increase in use of organophosphate insecticides, crop losses to insects has risen from three-and-a-half percent to 12 percent (D. Pimental and M. Pimental, 2008).

More to the point, hunger in an age of plenty isn’t a problem of production (or yields, as the pesticide industry claims), efficiency or even distribution. It is a matter of priorities. If we were serious about feeding people,  we wouldn’t grow enough extra grain to feed one-third of the world’s hungry—and then pour it into gas tanks.

Myth no7: “The Government is Protecting Us”

Reality: Our regulatory system is not doing its job. More than one billion pounds of pesticides are applied every year on U.S. farms, forests, golf courses and lawns. Farmworkers and rural communities suffer illness throughout the spray season and beyond, and infants around the world are born with a mixture of pesticides and other chemicals in their bodies.

As as the President’s cancer panel concluded in 2010:

The prevailing regulatory approach in the U.S. is reactionary rather than precautionary. Instead of requiring industry to prove their safety, the public bears the burden of proving that a given environmental exposure is harmful.

The cornerstone of pesticide regulation is a fundamentally flawed process of “risk assessment” that cannot begin to capture the realities of pesticide exposure and the health hazards they pose. Environmental Protection Agency officials remain reliant on research data submitted by pesticide manufacturers, who do everything they can to drag out reviews of their products, often for decades. Lawsuits are pending to force theEnvironmental Protection Agency to abide by the law and speed up their reviews.

A better, common sense precautionary approach to protecting us would assess alternatives to highly hazardous pesticides rather than accepting public exposure to pesticides as a necessary evil. Such a shift will require fundamental federal policy reform. Meanwhile, state and local authorities are pressing for rules that better protect their communities.

Myth no8: “We Need DDT to End Malaria, Combat Bedbugs, etc.”

Reality: The resurgence of bedbugs in recent years has nothing to do with the 1972 ban of DDT. Bedbugs, like many mosquitos, are resistant to DDT—and they were decades ago, when DDT was still in use. In some cases DDT even makes bedbug infestations worse, since instead of killing them, it just irritates them, making them more active.

Resistance is also an issue for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. DDT had been abandoned as a solution to malaria in the U.S. long before it was banned for agriculture use.

Around the world, practitioners battling the deadly disease on the ground report that DDT is less effective in controlling malaria than many other tools. A small cadre of chemical advocates continue to aggressively promote widespread use of DDT to combat malaria, bedbugs—even West Nile Virus—despite its lack of effectiveness and growing evidence of damage to human health, even at low levels of exposure.

Source: panna.org