“By introducing preemptive statewide legislation, we can shift the battle away from the community level back to the state legislatures where we are on stronger ground,” SourceWatch claims a Philip Morris employee said.
As PRWatch’s “Sowing Seeds of Discontent” <a href="reveals, that’s just what the American Legislative Exchange Council launched in May 2004 to deny local communities’ control over food:
“Close to 100 New England towns have passed resolutions opposing the unregulated use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms); nearly a quarter of these have called for local moratoria on the planting of GMO seeds. In 2004, three California counties, Mendocino, Trinity and Marin, passed ordinances banning the raising of genetically engineered crops and livestock.”
In response, “fifteen states recently have introduced legislation removing local control of plants and seeds. Eleven of these states have already passed the provisions into law.”
Bastards!
Are Iraqi farmers still under that stupid new law that forces them to buy seeds, and not use the seeds they’ve saved for generations?
Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”:
The organic industry continues to grow worldwide. Here are some statistics regarding this burgeoning market.
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Organic farming is practiced in approximately 100 countries throughout the world, with more than 24 million hectares (59 million acres) now under organic management.
–The World of Organic Agriculture 2004-Statistics and Future Prospects, February 2004.
PLEASE fight the locals! You’re helping to literally grow an agricultural revolution. One more fight they will definitely lose:
The genesis of the current fear and loathing was the Reagan Brown Shirt/Red Ribbon campaign. Sheesh. Talk about the baby and the bathwater. Remember that industrial hemp is what they used to make all things textile – rope, sails – out of. (For those poor freaks on the road in Nebraska: don’t bother harvesting stupid, it’s rope, not smoke).
The funniest damn part of this is the predictable backlash giving rise to an organized opposition. All great movements start with an entrenched power structure, eager to maintain control, finally placing that proverbial straw on the camel’s back. Oops.
And the dumb bastards never see it coming.