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Highlights: The Second International Day to Ban Fracking

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Food

By Mark Schlosberg

Food & Water Watch staff in Brussels.

Across the world last weekend, communities rose up and came together to call for a ban on fracking in the second Global Frackdown. From France to Argentina, Australia to South Africa, India to Mexico and all across the United States, actions took place opposing fracking and related projects like frac sand mining, pipelines and other infrastructure projects. It was a beautiful and powerful day for the anti-fracking movement and shows our movement stronger and more unified than ever.

The largest rallies were in Europe, where 3500 people rallied in Montelimar, and 2500 people gathered in Saint-Claude to say no to fracking. France’s high court recently upheld the country’s ban on fracking, but organizers are concerned that experimentation is still possible. These were the two largest of several actions happening across France.

In eastern Romania, a thousand people demonstrated in Pungesti and 700 people took to the streets in Barlad to protest against Chevron’s attempts to explore and develop shale gas. Actions in solidarity with these local communities took place in the capital Bucharest. Resistance has been growing, since the government has failed to be transparent about the licenses that were given to Chevron in 2012.

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The Struggle Against Fracking: The View from Spain

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Food

By Samuel Martín-Sosa Rodríguez 

It’s impressive to see how resistance to fracking has raced around the world like a spark travelling along a gunpowder trail. To me, this powerful struggle is in certain ways reminiscent of the global anti-nuclear movement of the 1970’s (in many ways, the forbearer of the modern-day ecological movement.) The sheer number of citizen groups, alliances and critical voices that have arisen to speak out against the practice of fracking continues to multiply. It is a struggle spearheaded by people, rather than organizations, many of whom have no background in organized activism, but who have been able to envision what is at stake – and have taken their opposition beyond NIMBYist objections, understanding that a change in our energy system is in order.

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Cows with TB Must Die (but the Government can Sell the Meat to Hospitals at a Profit?)

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Food

By Eve Mitchell

You think you’ve heard everything. Then you get a surprise.

Back in June a story broke here in the UK that our Government sells the meat from cattle culled for testing positive for bovine tuberculosis to feed people in schools, hospitals and the military. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) does not tell buyers the meat came from TB infected animals, and it turns a tidy profit from the trade (about £10 million/US$15.5 million a year). In a world full of industrial food “yuck factor”, this is more like a “Wow. Really?” factor.

For readers unfamiliar with the emotional tinderbox this sets alight, the UK is gripped in a row over bovine TB that some argue could bring down the government. Badgers are said to spread the disease to cattle and vice versa. Farmers must test their animals regularly for TB, the law requires that all animals that react to the test must be shot, and positive test results affect a farmer’s ability to sell or move remaining cattle before a period of clear test results expires. Defra policy is to pilot two badger culls to see if this reduces TB in cattle – an extraordinary measure given badgers are a protected species. The culls began during the night of 27 August, but controversy 

rages over whether it will work and not just spread frightened infectious badgers further afield, what baseline data are being used to determine success, if it is even necessary or economically efficient, why other options like vaccines are not deployed instead and why we are not also viewing this as farmed cattle infecting wild, protected badgers.

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If You Thought What ALEC and the Koch Brothers Are Doing Was Bad…

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Food

By Mitch Jones

We’ve all seen the results in states across the country of the influence that ALEC and the Koch Brothers have amassed. And if you think the results of their agenda to hand more and more power to corporations at your expense are bad, you should really hate the new “trade” deals being negotiated to hand even more power to corporations at our expense.

The Transpacific Partnership (TPP) is being secretly negotiated by 12 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and Brunei. The Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) includes the 27 nations of the European Union. Both of these proposed trade agreements threaten U.S. food safety rules, infringe upon public and private land with an increased push for fracking, undermine efforts to develop local food systems and increase the privatization of water systems.

While its supporters talk about them as “trade” deals, in reality the TPP and TAFTA would be a permanent power grab by corporations and their financers that would make it impossible for future generations to choose what laws and rules they want to live under. They would permanently enshrine the very economic system that has lead to greater imbalances in income and wealth and increasing economic crises. These deals would also allow foreign corporations to sue the federal, state and local governments over laws and policies that violate the “trade” deal, but protect us from unsafe food, dirty water and dangerous fracking. It’s outrageous!

How do we know that these deals will give more power to corporations and leave our children, our air and water, and our food safety at greater risk? Because while the American people aren’t being told what’s in the deal, and while members of Congress are being shut out of the negotiations, representatives from more than 600 corporations and corporate interests are able not only to see the text of the agreement, but also are able to help influence what goes into it.

We need to stop these trade deals before they give even more power to corporations!

Read our new fact sheet: Don’t Fast Track Fracking and Unsafe Food

And tell your senator and representatives to oppose these corporate give-aways.

GM Crops – Can We Get a Grip Now Please?

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Food

By Eve Mitchell

I don’t know about you, but I have an old, broken screwdriver in the bottom of my toolbox. I used to use it to stir paint until the handle came off. Now it’s not even any good for that. I can’t get a good grip on it anymore and keep getting my hands covered in paint, which pretty much defeats the purpose.

Still, I can’t quite bring myself to chuck the thing out. It was a surprise gift from a rich friend at a time I was strapped for cash, and some combination of nostalgia and fading hope that it might just come in handy someday (not to mention it was jolly expensive, so I’m rather cross it’s broken) just about manages to keep the bits of it hanging around in the bottom of my toolbox. 

So it is with genetically modified (GM) crops.

UK Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Owen Paterson gave a speech today announcing, once again, that the UK must embrace GM food and crops or be “left behind” in the “global race” (we’re a bit worried about what the prize is if you win), and that EU rules on GM must be “relaxed” to facilitate this. It was hard to miss – the speech has been trailed in the media for ages, and Paterson, the Minister for Science and even the Prime Minister himself have all made public statements in the past several days supporting a renewed UK dive into technology.

Yet the arguments underpinning the Government’s new round of GM promotion don’t really hang together. We’re told Paterson’s speech “explains” the benefits of GM and that we need to use “all the tools in the box” to feed the world. This is a well trodden path claiming GM helps the environment by requiring lower pesticide use and benefits consumers and farmers with higher yields leading to cheaper food. It would be nice if it were true. In reality this is much more about naked UK industrial ambition than feeding the world, and this speech is meant to tell consumers we need to learn to like it.

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Why the Fuss Over China?

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Food

For the Presss: High Resolution Image of Wenonah Hauter
Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch Executive Director

By Wenonah Hauter

Last week, some people questioned our opposition to China’s largest meat company purchasing Smithfield, suggesting that it could be construed as xenophobia. But prejudice against a particular country has nothing to do with our concern. The globalized food system poses real food safety risks and free trade deals with global partners encourage a race-to-the bottom in food safety standards, leaving U.S. consumers at the mercy of inadequate foreign food safety systems like China’s.

We should all be leery of deals like this that further consolidate our food system; especially when they involve companies with a history of food safety problems and countries with abysmal track records for food and worker safety. The horrendous Chinese poultry plant fire currently making headlines provides another powerful example of how the factory farm model endangers lives.

As I explain in this 2011 blog when we released our report, A Decade of Dangerous Food Imports from China, putting profits above people is a cross-cultural problem. Besides, many of the companies and investors profiting from Chinese exports are U.S. companies or investors (Goldman Sachs own part of Shuanghui International).

Anyone who’s paying attention knows that risky food from China has become all too common. Last month, Food & Water Watch Assistant Director Patty Lovera testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats to discuss China as the leading producer of many foods Americans eat: apples, tomatoes, peaches, potatoes, garlic, seafood, processed food and food ingredients like xylitol and vitamin C.

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