The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a first-time case about the risks of genetically engineered crops. Named Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, No. 09-475, the case before the high court will be yet another step in an ongoing battle waged by the Center for Food Safety to protect consumers and the environment from potentially harmful effects of genetically engineered (GE) crops.

Howdy!
It’s been sometime since I wrote on JCarrot, but I have some big news and I’m asking for your help!

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. USDA failed to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) before deregulating the crop. An EIS is a rigorous analysis of the potential significant impacts of a federal decision. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the GE plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an EIS.

In another important case against Monsanto and the USDA, the Center for Food Safety has again prevailed, demonstrating that GMOs pose serious risk of harm to organic farmers and consumers, and that the USDA is failing to sufficiently protect us from the contamination that can result from the planting of these crops – this time in Sugar beets! As lead counsel for CFS on this case, I’m excited to share the news with you!

A Federal Court ruled yesterday that the Bush USDA’s approval of genetically engineered (GE) “RoundUp Ready” sugar beets was unlawful. The Court ordered the USDA to conduct a rigorous assessment of the environmental and economic impacts of the crop on farmers and the environment.

There is a deep yearning within me and within so many souls to reconnect with the very fabric of creation. We hear the call and many of us are taking steps to move closer to her. We see this in the Jewish back-to-the-land movement, manifest in a growing number of Jewish farm education projects, in the New Jewish Food Movement fueled by Hazon, and in the blossoming of a Jewish consciousness seeking to rediscover the ancient earth-based roots of our tradition. With the world moving through a period of deep economic transformation and environmental uncertainty, now is the time for us to respond to this yearning.

The 14th of Nisan 5769 (Wednesday April 8th, 2009) is a profoundly auspicious moment to heed this call. Sunrise on the 14th of Nisan is Birkhat HaChama, the Blessing of the Sun, the once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate the birthday of the sun and the birthday of all of creation. As the Babylonian Talmud instructs, each person who witnesses the sun “in its season” – meaning when the sun arrives at the place where it was at the beginning of creation – shall bless Hashem, “Blessed is the Maker of Creation.” (Babylon Talmud, Berakhot 59b). Birkat HaChama is not simply a rare moment to celebrate creation, however. It is the deepest moment of renewal, rebirth, and new beginning for our generation.

Wow,
The conference was something incredible. I feel so blessed to be a part of this growing community and movement, and I thank those of you who joined us at Asilomar and contributed in a myriad ways to the 3rd annual Food conference. I truly look forward to witness how we all take the next steps forward, through personal choices, communal activity, public policy outreach, the development of new educational opportunities, and ….

At the conference, I was given the honor of sharing my vision for the New Jewish Food Movement, and I thought I would also share it here. So, I have shared those words below. I hope you might get some inspiration from my vision, but more importantly, I hope you will be inspired to think of how your vision fits into Hazon’s work, and even share your vision here on JCarrot.

Happy New Year
zelig

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Even as we approach Tisha B’Av and the broken, darkness this time symbolizes, a bright light is shining in our food world.

Monsanto has finally admitted defeat in a 20-year struggle to gain acceptance of its genetically engineered milk hormone, rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBST, recombinant bovine somatropin – trade name Posilac). Yesterday, Monsanto publicly gave up in the ‘milk wars,” when it announced that it was “pursuing a divestiture of its dairy product, POSILAC(R) bovine somatotropin, in the upcoming months.”

In 1994, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of Monsanto’s controversial rBGH, but gave dairies the right to label milk produced without rBGH as rBGH-free. Since its approval in 1994, rBGH has been at the center of controversy.

In this week’s parsha Be-Har (“on the mountain”) we are given the agricultural law of Shemita, a Sabbath for the land. “Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest.” (Lev. 25:2-4). In lieu of working the land, we are told to eat what the land produces without effort, and give freely of the bounty to all who are hungry.

Parsha Be-Har also gives us the jubilee – a complete release of all land ownership and release of all slaves every fifty years. (Lev. 25:8-10). “Seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years… and you shall hallow the fiftieth year…You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants.” (Lev. 25:8-10).

It’s no coincidence that we are given Shemittah and jubilee during this holy time of counting the Omer.

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an above-the-fold, front page article about our newest source of mystery meat – cloned cows.

In the article “Consumers May Not Be Able to Avoid Cloned Food,” the Chronicle reported that the Orthodox Union has publicly stated that food items derived from cloned animals are kosher. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the O.U. stated that cloned animals would be kosher as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep, and goats.

Hey Friends,

Sorry to be the bearer of scary news on Valentines Day, but if you thought GMOs in your tofu was a bummer, guess what Monsanto is bringing you next – yep, GE sugar for your Valentine!

About half of sugar produced in the U.S. comes from sugar beets (the other half is cane sugar). In the next few weeks, sugar beet farmers throughout the U.S. will be considering what type of sugar beets to plant, and food companies will have to decide what types of sugar they will accept.

And this year, there is something new for farmers and the sugar cooperatives to choose from — Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered to survive direct application of the weed killer, Roundup.

In addition to the specter of eating GE sugar, the sugar that comes from these novel plants will also have much heavier loads of pesticides on them. At the request of Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased the allowable amount of glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup that kills plants) residues on sugar beetroots by a whopping 5000% at the time USDA permitted the growing us GE sugar beets. The inevitable result is more glyphosate pesticide in our sugar.

Hey friends,

Back again with my lawyer hat on – watching Monsanto in its state by state quest to prevent consumers from knowing what is really in our milk. We beat this back at the Federal FDA, we beat them back at the Federal Trade Commission, we beat them back in Pennsylvania…

Now they are going for Indiana.

A bill introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives by Bill Friend, a rep from the tiny town of Macy, Indiana, would make his state the first to prevent consumers from knowing how their milk was produced.
HB. 1300, which could be voted on any day, is couched as legislation to protect consumers from mislabeling. But it would prevent dairy labels that contain a “compositional or production-related claim that is supported solely by sworn statements, affidavits, or testimonials.” In other words, anything related to the moral or ethical dimensions of the product would be off-limits.

The Potrero Hill Community Center in San Francisco is still ringing with the laughter, song, and meditative silence of 160 young adults who came together from across the Bay Area last night in an unprecedented Tu B’shvat gathering. It was really a blast!

We packed into the Community beyond its capacity (the event beyond sold-out), we drank wine from the four worlds (local, organic, kosher wine from Santa Cruz, CA) and we ate a bounty of fruits from the four directions (literally from all around the world). Even in this room packed wall to wall with tables and chairs, Josh Miller who co-lead the Seder, got everyone on their feet dancing to Tzadik Katimar.

As a staff attorney for the Center for Food Safety, I was appalled that the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cloned animals for use in our food today. I have to ask, “who does our federal government protect? How can they allow this into the food system without facts showing it is safe and without any labeling or public disclosure requirements?” As a Jew, it makes me ask other questions: “Will this be allowed in kosher milk? Kosher meat? What do our rabbis think? What about the eco-kosher movement?”

FDA Approves Cloned Animals for Our Food

Today’s FDA decision was a long-awaited regulatory assessment of cloned animals, proclaiming that food from cloned animals are just as safe as food from naturally raised animals. (See FDA on Cloning) And while the FDA did not address whether cloned milk and meat is kosher, they did decide today that it is safe for Americans to eat.

The FDA made this decision in the worst way possible. FDA based its decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force this cloning technology on American consumers. Biotechnology companies such as ViaGen provided FDA with the “science” in this case. There are no peer reviewed studies showing that this stuff is safe for us to eat.

In Va-Yechi, our creation story culminates with Jacob on his deathbed blessing his sons. (Gen. 49.) He highlights characteristics that are unique to each of his twelve sons, the fathers of our twelve tribes. According to Rashi, five of these blessings focus on the agricultural specificity of each tribe’s territory in the Land of Israel.

For Zevulun, Jacob promises that he “shall dwell at the edge of the sea. His will be a shore for ships…” (Gen. 49:13.) The Talmud Megillah tells how the beaches of Zevulun were home to the molluscs from which techelet dye (for the blue tallis thread) could be extracted. (Talmud Bavli Megillah 6b.) His territory was agriculturally poor but a lucrative resource for snail-farming.

Jacob’s blessing of Judah describes a land of vines and garments dyed with wines. (Gen. 49: 11.) For Issachar, “He saw a resting place, that it was good, and the land that it was pleasant,” (Gen. 49:15.) Rashi writes, “He saw that his part of the land was blessed and would produce good fruit.” (Rashi, Gen. 49:15, s.v. vayar minucha ki tov) Issachar, whose tribe’s destiny was immersion in Torah learning, was bestowed a place where fruits grew in abundance, making the food life easy and devotion to study practical.

In this month of Tammuz, we confront a great paradox.  The sun is passing through its highest point in the sky.  Flowers are blooming, tomatoes are just starting to burst from the vine, and berries – mmm, the berries – this is the time of greatest abundance.  Dipping into cool waters at this time is one of life’s greatest joys.

Yet in our tradition, we are moving through a time of deep reflection and mourning for loss.  On the 9th of Tammuz, the first exile of the Jews began as the Judean King abandoned the Temple and the Babylonians breached the outer walls of the Temple.  (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 26a-b.)  Today, on the 17th of Tamuz, Jews traditionally fast from sun-up to sun-down, mourning the destruction of the Temple.  This is also recognized as the day when Moses dashed the first set of Tablets from Sinai in response to our worship of the Golden calf.  (Exodus 32:19.)