Category: Agriculture

How Farmed and Frankenfish Salmon Endanger Our Most Perfect Food

(Dr. Mercola) In November 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved AquaBounty salmon, a genetically engineered (GE) “frankenfish” that’s being touted as a way to solve overfishing and world hunger. The GE salmon are engineered to grow about twice as fast as typical farm-raised salmon, an eerie feat achieved by inserting the DNA from two other fish, a growth-promoting gene from a Chinook salmon and a “promoter” gene from the eel-like ocean pout.

This genetic tweaking results in fish with always-on growth hormone, and because they grow so much faster than other salmon, they also require less food. The fish are being grown on land and have several other supposed safeguards in place to prevent both escape and breeding with wild populations but, in nature, nothing is foolproof.

If you live in the U.S., the fish haven’t reached grocery store shelves — yet — but there’s a chance they could become the first GE animal food to be sold in the U.S. to date, with completely unknown consequences.

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GE Salmon, Already Sold in Canada, May Soon Be in US Grocery Stores

While the FDA approved AquaBounty’s salmon over two years ago, a rider attached to an Alaskan budget bill imposed an import ban, effectively blocking the FDA from allowing GE salmon into the U.S. In Canada, however, the GE fish are already being sold and eaten, to the tune of 5 tons in 2017 (none of which were labeled as such).1 Meanwhile, AquaBounty has recently acquired a fish farm in Indiana, where they’re making plans to start raising GE salmon.

“That means the company’s salmon could be on sale in the U.S. by 2019, which would make it the first genetically modified animal food ever sold and eaten in this country,” wrote Richard Martin, senior editor for energy at S&P Global Market Intelligence, for BioGraphic. “Opposition, naturally, is fierce.”2

The creation of GE salmon is anything but natural. For the last 13 generations of AquaBounty salmon, dating back to a single GE fish from 1992, every fish carries a copy of the “mutant” gene set that leads to the supergrowth and is passed down to the next generation. As such, gene splicing doesn’t take place at every AquaBounty facility, although intense breeding of the GE fish does. Martin explained:3

“At spawning time, conventional females are milked of their eggs by hand, a method that requires two fish wranglers per female — one to handle the fish and another to hold the container that collects the eggs. The technicians use the same squeeze technique to extract semen, or ‘milt,’ from the males … When combined, the eggs and milt produce fertilized eggs.

The technicians place the developing embryos in a stainless-steel tube where they are subjected to high pressure. This renders all the embryos’ cells triploid, meaning they have three sets of chromosomes instead of two, which makes the fish incapable of reproducing …

After a period of incubation at the Bay Fortune hatchery [on Prince Edward Island, Canada], the sterile, all-female transgenic embryos are flown to a rearing facility in the highlands of Panama, where the resulting salmon are grown to maturity before being reimported into Canada …

Eventually, AquaBounty plans to produce market-ready fish at a new facility under construction at Rollo Bay, on Prince Edward Island, and at the Indiana facility — an existing fish production factory that belonged to a now-defunct aquaculture company.”

Recommended: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Most Americans Say They Would Not Eat GE Fish

In the U.S., negative public opinion has been instrumental in keeping GE fish off store shelves. In 2013, a New York Times poll revealed that 75 percent of respondents would not eat GE fish and 93 percent said such foods should be labeled as such.4 Yet, as in Canada, which does not require GE seafood to be labeled, the FDA concluded that AquaBounty salmon is “not materially different from other Atlantic salmon” and thus would not require any special labeling.5

If the frakenfish does end up in U.S. stores in the next year, then, you won’t be able to distinguish it from other salmon. Further, many experts are concerned that the release of GE salmon hasn’t been thought through and could pose a risk to wild salmon species.

Martin quoted Anne Kapuscinski, a professor of sustainability science at Dartmouth College, and George Leonard, chief scientist at the Ocean Conservancy, who stated, “The future of GE fish farming will surely involve larger fish farms, with less confinement, in many different environments.”6

As such, no one knows what future expansion could mean for the marine environment. A lawsuit led by the Center for Food Safety, and joined by U.S. tribes in the Pacific Northwest, including the Quinault Indian Nation, is challenging the FDA’s approval of AquaBounty’s salmon, alleging the agency “has not adequately assessed the full range of potentially significant environmental and ecological effects presented by the AquaBounty application.”7

Recommended: How Farmed Fish Degrades Our Health and the Environment – Better Options Included

The lawsuit is pending, but for now the FDA continues to maintain that AquaBounty’s salmon “is as safe to eat as any nongenetically engineered … Atlantic salmon, and also as nutritious.”8 They also state the approval “would not have a significant impact on the environment of the United States,” but the Center for Food Safety sees it differently, stating:9

“Salmon is a keystone species and unique runs have been treasured by residents for thousands of years. Diverse salmon runs today sustain thousands of American fishing families, and are highly valued in domestic markets as a healthy, domestic, ‘green’ food.

When GE salmon escape or are accidentally released into the environment, the new species could threaten wild populations by mating with endangered salmon species, outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, and/or introducing new diseases.

Studies have shown that there is a high risk for GE organisms to escape into the natural environment, and that GE salmon can crossbreed with native fish. Transgenic contamination has become common in the GE plant context, where contamination episodes have cost U.S. farmers billions of dollars over the past decade. In wild organisms like fish, it could be even more damaging.”

Aquaculture’s Farmed Salmon Are Environmentally Destructive

In the U.S., farmed salmon is one of the most popular seafood choices, with many being misled to believe it is a safe choice for dinner. In reality, while farmed salmon is not genetically engineered like AquaBounty’s frankenfish, it is still one of the worst seafood choices available in terms of pollutants and the environment. One of the major problems is that farmed salmon are typically raised in pens in the ocean, where their excrement and food residues are disrupting local marine life. The potential for escape is also high.

Even land-based salmon aquaculture is problematic, according to research published in Scientific Reports, which performed an analysis of four salmon aquacultures in Chile.10

The facilities, often described as CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) of the sea, pump water from rivers into their hatcheries, then pump it back out to the river once it’s no longer clean. The researchers found the water is often contaminated with dissolved organic matter (DOM) — a mixture of liquid excrement, food residue and other salmon excretions, along with disinfectants and antibiotics.

The release of DOM into Chile’s rivers is causing significant ramifications for the entire ecosystem. Upstream of the fish farms, the researchers detected higher amounts of natural algae biofilms on rocks, which help to produce oxygen and provide food for organisms that fish later eat.

Downstream, however, biofilms had a greater abundance of bacteria, which use up oxygen and may lead to low-oxygen environments that could threaten many species. The researchers suggested that no additional fish farms should be installed on Chilean rivers, noting, “[R]ivers should not be misused as natural sewage treatment plants.”11

Viruses, Sea Lice From Farmed Salmon Threaten Wild Fish

Since farmed salmon pens are often placed along wild salmon runs, they pose a severe threat to wild salmon stocks that pass by, exposing wild fish to diseases that run rampant among the confined fish, such as sea lice, pancreas disease, infectious salmon anemia virus and piscine reovirus. Piscine reovirus is a highly contagious blood virus that causes heart disease in the affected fish.

The virus was first discovered in Norwegian salmon farms and has proven to be nearly impossible to eradicate. And, with the spread of this disease into wild populations, wild salmon may soon go extinct. Alexandra Morton, a Canadian marine biologist who has spent decades studying the impact of salmon farming on wild salmon, has also reported that sea lice from salmon farms are eating young wild salmon to death, while Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has failed to take action.

In fact, an oceanic watchdog group recently reported a sea lice outbreak in Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, located on the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Fish farms in the area had salmon lice up to 10 times higher than the rate that requires treatment, at numbers that could prove lethal to wild salmon. While DFO requires salmon farms to monitor and control sea lice via the use of chemicals in feed or hydrogen peroxide baths, the measures don’t appear to be working — and are toxic in and of themselves.

British Columbia has granted aquaculture company Cermaq Canada a permit to apply 2.3 million liters of Paramove 50, a pesticide, to 14 salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound in order to fight sea lice. Not only may the pesticide be toxic to other marine life such as Dungeness crab, prawns and herring, but it’s also known to suppress salmon immune systems, making them even more susceptible to viruses. In turn, wild salmon swimming by may be further exposed to deadly diseases.

“So just as the young salmon are passing by the farms, we could shock these farmed fish into getting PRV or that becoming HSMI (heart and skeletal muscle inflammation disease) which is deadly to wild salmon,” watchdog group Clayoquot Action Campaigns director Bonny Glambeck told The Narwhal.12 She continued in a news release:13

“This outbreak is an environmental disaster — we are seeing wild juvenile salmon carrying lethal loads of salmon lice … These fish have been given a death sentence … We don’t expect the new pesticides that they want to use will work. It’s not working in Norway right now. Studies show there is no way these fish will survive to spawn and reproduce … Basically the industry is unable to control sea lice. So that’s why we want to see these farms come out of the oceans.”

Tire Chemicals, PCBs Common in Farmed Salmon

Nutritionally speaking, farmed salmon are also a far inferior choice to the wild variety. For starters, their pens are often placed near shore, which means they’re close to land-based sources of pollutant runoff. In addition, they’re fed a diet of ground-up fishmeal, which may lead to concentrated levels of PCBs.

In a global assessment of farmed salmon published in the journal Science, PCB concentrations in farmed salmon were found to be eight times higher than in wild salmon.14 Similarly, when the Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested farmed salmon from U.S. grocery stores, they found farmed salmon had, on average:15

  • 16 times more PCBs than wild salmon
  • 4 times more PCBs than beef
  • 3.4 times more PCBs than other seafood

Further, ethoxyquin, developed by Monsanto in the 1950s, is a rubber stabilizer (used in the production of tires), pesticide, preservative and antioxidant all in one that’s often added to farmed salmon feed. While it doesn’t have the health benefits normally associated with dietary antioxidants, it does prevent oxidation of fats, which is why it’s used in different types of animal feed, including fish feed and pet food.16

But studies have also shown ethoxyquin adversely affects cell metabolism, especially the metabolic pathways of renal and hepatic cells in rats, and the mitochondria in bovine hearts and kidneys. Due to its potential toxicity, the EU has strict limits for ethoxyquin levels in fruits, nuts, vegetables and meat. However, since it was never intended for use in fish, and fish feed manufacturers never informed health authorities that they were using it, there are no limits on how much of the chemical is allowed in seafood.

On top of more toxins, farmed salmon lack the correct ratio of healthy fats that many people are seeking when eating a “healthy” fish meal. Half a fillet of wild Atlantic salmon contains about 3,996 milligrams (mg) of omega-3 and 341 mg of omega-6.17 Half a fillet of farmed salmon from the Atlantic contains just a bit more omega-3 — 4,961 mg — but an astounding 1,944 mg of omega-6;18 more than 5.5 times more than wild salmon.

While you need both omega-3 and omega-6 fats, the ratio between the two is important and should ideally be about 1-to-1. The standard American diet is already heavily skewed toward omega-6, thanks to the prevalence of processed foods, and with farmed salmon, that unhealthy imbalance is further magnified rather than corrected.

Choose Wild Salmon for Your Health — and the Environment

If you’re wondering how can you tell whether salmon is wild or farm-raised, the flesh of wild sockeye salmon is bright red, courtesy of its natural astaxanthin content. It’s also very lean, so the fat marks, those white stripes you see in the meat, are very thin. If the fish is pale pink with wide fat marks, the salmon is farmed. Avoid Atlantic salmon, as typically salmon labeled “Atlantic Salmon” currently comes from fish farms.

The two designations you want to look for are “Alaskan salmon” and “sockeye salmon,” as Alaskan sockeye is not allowed to be farmed. So canned salmon labeled “Alaskan Salmon” is a good bet, and if you find sockeye salmon, it’s bound to be wild. As for GE salmon, if it comes to your grocery store it’s not currently slated to be labeled as such, but it’s another variety of Atlantic salmon, so steering clear of Atlantic salmon in favor of wild varieties will help you steer clear of adding this frankenfish to your dinner plate.

Survey Claiming Millennials Like GMOs Ridiculously Biased And Manipulated

(Natural Blaze by Heather Callaghan) Millennials lead the charge against GMOs and have more in common with their grandparents than their parents’ generation. Millennials are reviving the art of gardening, local food, and food preservation so it shouldn’t be surprising to find thousands of them at the March Against Monsanto. Yet a new survey is attempting to influence the public that it is millennials who love GMOs.

A new survey, according to the Telegraph, declared that “Millennials ‘have no qualms about GM crops’ unlike older generation”. Most people read headlines and headlines like this cast a major influence. All the propaganda is right in the title. First, it is falsely claiming that millennials have embraced genetic engineering of their food. Second, by mentioning the “older generation” and claiming they are against GMOs, the survey casts a subtle message that if you don’t accept GMOs you are stodgy and archaic, instead of hip and open-minded like the supposed millennials.

But is that what the survey was about at all??

Must Read: How to Avoid GMOs in 2018 – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

GM Watch reports on the survey commissioned by the GM industry body, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC), carried out by the polling firm Populus. At first, the actual survey wasn’t made available with any links, which means journalists wrote articles without even checking. But then….:

…perhaps in response to queries from skeptical members of the public, Populus put the survey tables online, under “New Farming Techniques“.

It turns out that the skeptics were right. The questions were appallingly biased.

All the questions in the poll were preceded by some information: “Technology is increasingly being developed to tackle the challenges of 21st century farming and food security. Innovative techniques have been designed to provide the best possible data collection and management to allow greater precision across the food production process. The benefits of these techniques include: allowing more targeted weed, pest and disease control, reducing energy usage, delivering higher yields and overall allowing for more sustainable and productive farming. To what extent would you support or oppose the following farming techniques?”

This clearly is intended to suggest that all of the techniques people were then asked about deliver some or all of these benefits, but in the case of GM and gene editing, that is a matter of huge public controversy. So the introduction cannot by any stretch of the imagination be seen as a neutral piece of information.

Only after being given this information were people asked, in the GM question, what they thought about “Plant breeding using gene editing to make crops more nutritious, pest and disease resistant”.

Not only is the question biased but it is strange that the answers are interpreted as sweeping, uncritical support for GMO crops among millennials. “No qualms?” There was no room for qualms in the survey!

GM Watch says that Populus – a member of the British Polling Council – violated rules for conducting polls. A Council stipulation states that complete wording of the question asked must be made public the same time the survey results come out – not several days later, in this instance.

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The Council says that a reputable organization ideally would not contain any serious bias in their questionnaire and “introduce bias into a survey by means of question-wording.”

By these standards, the survey should be held to the light for what appears to be some sneaky info maneuvering.

What would have happened if a decidedly anti-gmo group had manipulated data and presented it to the media the way that Populus has done?

USDA Wants Deceptively Cute Images For GMO Labels, But Cuts The Phrase “Genetically Modified”

(Natural Blaze) The public comment period is now open on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s just unveiled proposal for food labeling of products using GMOs—a plan that would have labels without the words “genetically modified” or “genetically engineered,” but instead adorned with cheerful images.

The images are just as insulting to consumers as the law, which the chemical and junk food industry lobbyists spent $400 million to pass.” –Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association

According to Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, the proposal represents “a gift to industry from our now Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who authored the legislation to squash the Vermont GMO labeling law and mandatory labels.”

The proposal follows President Barack Obama’s 2016 signature on an industry-approved bill—dubbed the DARK Act—that required national labeling standard rules, and which critics blasted for having loopholees and lacking a mandate for adequate GMO labels. That law, which pre-empted Vermont’s first-of-its-kind labeling law, also required a deadline for the final rules by July 29, 2018, hence the USDA’s rollout this week.

Among the problems with the proposal, says Hauter, is that the “rule refers to GMOs as ‘bioengineered,’ or BE foods. This is a deceptive strategy because most consumers don’t know what that means.”

Andrew Kimbrell, executive director at Center for Food Safety, agreed, saying, “USDA’s exclusion of the well-established terms, GE and GMO, as options will confuse and mislead consumers, and the agency must instead allow the use of those terms.”

As for the images that will bear the acronym BE—”Wait ’till you see them,” writes Katherine Paul, associate director of the Organic Consumers Association. “All bright and cheery, with sunburst and smiley-faced images—but without ‘GMO’ appearing anywhere on the labels.”

“The images are just as insulting to consumers as the law, which the chemical and junk food industry lobbyists spent $400 million to pass—under the specious name of the ‘Safe and Affordable Food Labeling Act,’” Paul said.

The problems go beyond the symbol, say food safety groups.

“One of the many loopholes,” Hauter added, is that it “would allow a company that knowingly sells canned GMO sweetcorn to use a label that says ‘may be bioengineered’ because less than 85 percent of sweetcorn grown is genetically engineered.”

In addition, it would allow companies to use electronic QR codes, instead of a clear symbol, which would necessitate consumers having a clear internet connection, a smart phone, and the time for the hassle it would take to scan them.

“USDA should not allow QR codes,” Kimbrell said bluntly. “USDA’s own study found that QR codes are inherently discriminatory against one third of Americans who do not own smartphones, and even more so against rural, low income, and elderly populations or those without access to the internet. USDA should mandate on-package text or symbol labeling as the only fair and effective means of disclosure for GE foods.”

In sum, the groups say, the proposal leaves consumers in the dark.

“This is a ‘Call to Action’ to all Americans who have waited for decades to finally have GE foods labeled,” says Kimbrell. “Now is the time to tell the Trump administration to do the right thing and meaningfully label these foods.”

This article (USDA Wants Deceptively Cute Images for GMO Labels, But Cuts the Phrase Genetically Modified) appeared first at Common Dreams and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. (Image: Organic Consumers Association)

Organic Agriculture Is Going Mainstream, But Not The Way You Think It Is

(The Conversation) One of the biggest knocks against the organics movement is that it has begun to ape conventional agriculture, adopting the latter’s monocultures, reliance on purchased inputs and industrial processes.

“Big Organics” is often derided by advocates of sustainable agriculture. The American food authors Michael Pollan and Julie Guthman, for example, argue that as organic agriculture has scaled up and gone mainstream it has lost its commitment to building an alternative system for providing food, instead “replicating what it set out to oppose.”

New research, however, suggests that the relationship between organic and conventional farming is more complex. The flow of influence is starting to reverse course.

Practitioners of conventional agriculture are now borrowing “organic” techniques to reduce the use of pesticides, artificial fertilizers and excessive tillage, and to increase on-farm biodiversity, beneficial insects and soil conservation.

All of a sudden, many conventional vegetable farms are starting to look organic.

Organic goes mainstream

Next to nothing has been written on this subject. A rare exception is a 2016 article in the New York Times that profiled conventional farmers in Indiana who had started to use “cover crops.”

These non-commercial crops build organic matter into the soil, fix atmospheric nitrogen and add biodiversity to an agroecosystem, while allowing farmers to reduce artificial fertilizer inputs.

As organic agriculture has scaled up, it has gained credibility in the marketplace as well as on the farm. Organic farming has roots in market gardens and smaller farms, but there is nothing that prohibits organic production at larger scales.

That often means bigger farms, hundreds — or thousands — of acres in size.

This move toward the mainstream has caught the eye of many conventional farmers, who have either transitioned to certified organic production or begun to integrate organic practices on conventional plots.

Market share not the whole story

Even with the upscaling, the market position of organic agriculture remains limited.

In Canada, organic sales grow by nearly 10 per cent per year, and the total value of the organic market is around $5.4 billion. Yet the reality is that the industry is still dwarfed by conventional agriculture.

There are more than 4,000 certified organic farms in Canada, totalling 2.43 million acres. But this accounts for only 1.5 per cent of the country’s total agricultural land.

Also, aside from the two organic heavyweights — coffee (imported) and mixed greens (mostly imported) — the market share of organic groceries is pretty small, at around three per cent.

Yet the influence of organics is felt well beyond its own limited market.

Testing the market

Many growers divide their farms into separate conventional and certified organic zones. This “split production” is a way to learn organic growing, test the market and hedge one’s bets against yield issues.

In 2017, as part of a research project on organic transition funded by the Canadian Organic Growers (COG), I travelled across the country and conducted in-depth interviews at farms that had recently transitioned from conventional to organic farming.

Half of the 12 farms I visited practised split production. What’s significant (and totally unanticipated) is that all of the farms in split production had also introduced organic techniques to the conventional portions of the operation.

With familiarity came trust.

Adopting organic techniques

These are not mom-and-pop operations. The list includes Canada’s biggest organic vegetable operation — Kroeker Farms/PoplarGrove in Winkler, Manitoba — and many other large vegetable farms across the country.

They used compost, manure and/or cover crops, had cut back on toxic and persistent pesticides, reduced tillage and embraced longer and more biodiverse crop rotations. In the process, they had also protected and promoted pollinators and beneficial insect predators.

Kroeker Farms, a megafarm that has 4,800 acres under organic production and another 20,000 or so in conventional production, is leading the trend toward a more organic-like conventional system.

“We try really, really hard to use organic-type pesticides or biological [control agents] in our conventional because once you spray with a more lethal spray that’s a broad spectrum [pesticide], the pests flare up after that,” the CEO of the company, Wayne Rempel, told me.

Trending nationally

Similar trends are found across the country.

In Prince Edward Island, Red Soil Organics has begun to plant fall rye — a classic organic cover crop — as part of the rotation on its conventional side, a bit like those farmers in Indiana.

Another PEI farm, Square One Organics, uses cover crops, manure and tine weeding (a common, low-impact, mechanical weeding technique used on organic farms) on their conventional plots.

The cover crops and manure have allowed the farm to reduce its use of nitrogen fertilizer by about 10 per cent. This reduces nitrogen runoff into waterways, which can cause algae blooms and kill aquatic species.

The combination of tine weeding and perennial cover crops has also allowed the farm to reduce or eliminate herbicide use on the conventional side of the farm. “We’re managing our soil organic matter in totally different ways,” says owner Matt Ramsay.

It’s impossible to know the cumulative ecological benefits of this growing trend. Organic techniques, such as composting and the use of cover crops, are not tracked closely by Statistics Canada. With more research, we might have a better sense of the benefits.

Grounds for action

The motivations are easier to define. Farmers have made it clear that organic techniques work well, organic inputs are generally cheaper than conventional ones, and organic practices have a beneficial impact on the agroecosystem.

Yet until a conventional farmer begins the transition to certified organic growing, he or she often knows or cares little about organic practices. Right now, the best way for a farmer to learn about organic growing is by reading handbooks, attending conferences and taking courses.

The ConversationIt might be the case that Big Organics has begun to look like conventional farming. But it appears to be the case that, at least on some Canadian farms, Big Conventional is starting to look like organic.

Jeremy Lawrence Caradonna, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria

Merger From Hell Approved By DOJ, Warnings Of Agrichemical Chokehold On Food System

(NaturalBlaze by Andrea Germanos) Watchdog groups sounded alarms on Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the proposed mega-merger of Bayer and Monsanto has cleared its final regulatory hurdle in the United States.

The reported approval from the Justice Department came “after the companies pledged to sell off additional assets,” the Journalreported, and despite concerns raised by hundreds of food and farm groups. It also comes weeks after the European Commission gave its thumbs up.

Related: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

“The approval of the third supersized seed merger, after ChemChina-Syngenta and Dow-DuPont,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, “leaves farmers vulnerable to price gouging for seeds and other supplies and strengthens the hold a few dominant corporations have over the entire food system.”

“The Justice Department’s rubber stamping of these three seed mega-mergers transforms the already concentrated agrichemical and seed market, effectively reducing the number of competitors from six to three,” she added.

Because it will make it harder for farmers to acquire non-genetically modified seeds to plant, it “makes it harder for agriculture to get off the GMO-chemical treadmill that just keeps increasing in speed,” she said.

With its reported stamp of approval, the pending merger shows that “the federal government is not taking the impact of corporate control of our food supply seriously. It’s time for Congress to establish a moratorium on mega-mergers in the food system,” Hauter argued.

Related: Foods That Are GMO

Jason Davidson, food and technology campaign associate with Friends of the Earth, was equally critical in his reaction to the development.

“The Department of Justice has decided that corporate profits matter more than the interests consumers and farmers. This decision will massively increase the power of major agrichemical companies that already have a stranglehold on our food system,” he declared in a statement.

He went on to lament that “American farmers will see increased seed prices, fewer options, and decreased bargaining power.” Echoing Hauter’s warning, he argued. “This merger from hell will further entrench the failing model of toxic, chemical-intensive agriculture, which is poisoning people and the planet.”

Related: Doctors Against GMOs – Hear From Those Who Have Done the Research

A recent poll found that nearly 94 percent of farmers expressed concern that a Bayer-Monsanto merger would have a negative impact on independent farmers and their communities. It also found that 89 percent of farmers said they believe the merger would lead to increased pressure for chemically-dependent farming.