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24ahead

Your Monsanto, Tom Vilsack, GMO food assignment

I'm not up-to-date on farming matters and I let McDonald's handle the food side of things. So, I'm turning making some sense of the issue of GMO food and seeds ("genetically-modified organism") over to you, especially as regards the links between Monsanto Corporation - one of the leading promoters of GMO seeds - and our new Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack.

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Natural Health News

Stop Vilsack

... Vilsack is very closely entwined with Monsanto and genetically engineered food. And for those who do not know about the hazard of GMO food to health and food supplies, I would encourage you to do more research. ...

... Vilsack is one of us "folks" with deep Iowa roots. The question is: Does Vilsack get marching orders from common, concerned citizens or the four horsemen of the Big Ag gravy wagon: Dupont, Monsanto, ADM, Cargill? We are in an era of rapidly diminishing returns from factory farming. New ways of thinking, new ways of farming, novel economic solutions are necessary.

The petrochemical-powered agriculture juggernaut rolls on roughshod to deplete once-fertile soil, poison our waters and churn out unhealthy, nutrient-depleted factory food. Our children are the first generation in history that will have a shorter life span than their elders as a direct result of our wrong choices.

Big Ag has the carbon footprint of a 900-pound gorilla. Vilsack joins Sens. Tom Harkin, Charles Grassley and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey to defend the ag empire. They all answer to the ag-biz lobby. Our children deserve the quality of water and soil that our grandparents stewarded into our present generation. Future generations have no lobby in Washington.

If we continue with Big Ag and business as usual, Iowa family farms have no viable future. Half of our rich, vital top soil has already been extracted and sloughed down the Mississippi River along with a toxic soup of petrochemical runoff. The dead zone now extends into the Gulf 500 miles beyond the river delta. At the present rate of soil depletion, the Midwest Dust Bowl is only one generation away. ...

DemConWatch

Tom Vilsack: A Different Kind of Agriculture Tie

Already unhinged as I am over Rick Warren (see Quick Hits) and Ray LaHood (see post below), now comes word that Tom Vilsack has received over $40, 000 in farm subsidies. Not to mention this Politico item: "Vilsack is a partner at a lobbying law firm that trumpeted his advice to clients on agribusiness development and renewable energy -- a job that appears to bump up against Obama's promise to bar appointees from working on issues related to their employment for two years."

It's hard to know what to say.