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Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS)
A Weekly News Update on Pesticides, Health and Alternatives
See PANUPS archive for complete information.
November 19, 2009
- Siddiqui stalls in Senate, food movement foments
- Congressional action begins on chemicals reform
- World Food Summit: promises & crumbs for 1 billion hungry
- Bhopal plant open for tourists?
- OMB commits to science, not chemical industry, on endocrine disruptors
- WhatsOnMyFood? iPhone App launched
Siddiqui stalls in Senate, food movement foments
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As PANUPS goes to press, we await news on Islam Siddiqui’s Senate confirmation while partners on the ground in Washington, D.C. deliver the concerns of 80-plus groups and more than 90,000 individuals to President Obama and Senate leaders. A former pesticide lobbyist and current vice president for CropLife America (the pesticide and ag biotech industry’s trade group), Siddiqui’s nomination to Chief Ag Negotiator for the U.S. Trade office has met with unprecedented opposition. Dave Murphy, a driver of last year’s Vilsack protest, and director of Food Democracy Now!, describes the Siddiqui opposition as a matter of broken political promises. “On the campaign trail Barack Obama promised that he would end business as usual in Washington; Siddiqui’s nomination is a fundamental violation of that campaign pledge.” Much like the surprisingly public opposition to biotech-friendly USDA Secretary Vilsack, this month’s rapidly mobilized resistance to a previously arcane post demonstrates the power and diversity of a growing sustainable food and farming movement.
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The fact that Siddiqui is but one in a series of “agribusiness as usual” appointments from the Obama administration indicates that this movement has more work yet to do. As Kathryn Gilje, Executive Director for Pesticide Action Network, notes, “First Vilsack, then Monsanto’s Michael Taylor, then Roger Beachy (another Monsanto man), then Siddiqui, and now philanthro-capitalist Rajiv Shah as U.S. AID administrator. The administration’s approach to global food, farming and foreign aid policy is coming into focus, and it seems to be something on the order of ‘Green Revolution 2.0 here we come.’” In urging the administration to reconsider its defacto commitment to a second Green Revolution, PAN joins a powerful set of partners: National Family Farm Coalition, Food & Water Watch, Farmworker’s Association of Florida, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, Food Democracy Now!, Greenpeace, Center for Food Safety, Organic Consumers Association, Credo, Center for Biological Diversity and Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance.
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shareMORE Press Release: “Obama’s ‘Agribusiness as Usual’ Problem” | Digg This
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Congressional action begins on chemicals reform
shareMORE Summary from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families |
World Food Summit: promises & crumbs for 1 billion hungry
Joining the chorus of criticism, Oxfam denounced the Rome summit for offering what it called “crumbs for the world’s hungry,” the Associated Press reports. Jacques Diouf, FAO Director General, concluded that despite countries taking “important steps” by pledging to increase aid to agriculture, “alas, I note that [the final] declaration does not contain any quantified objectives.” The UN’s hope was that the summit would commit to eradicating hunger by 2025.
In the run-up to the summit, 23 U.S. groups called on the administration to take leadership rather than continue to support failed approaches that have actually contributed to the global food crisis. “It’s unfortunate that the Obama administration has been joined so closely at the hip of the genetic engineering industry in responding to the global food crisis,” said Alexandra Spieldoch of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The World Summit was “an opportunity to change course and join the global consensus on a more sustainable approach that would enable countries facing hunger to feed themselves.” Groups signing the November 13 letter (PDF), including PAN North America, Food & Water Watch, Grassroots International, Food First, Greenpeace USA, World Hunger Year and the National Family Farm Coalition, again pointed to the UN’s 2008 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, declaring corporate-controlled “business as usual” is unacceptable. Another letter to Diouf, “Look Beyond Tried and Tired Strategies to People’s Solutions for Hunger and Poverty,” was coordinated by Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific and signed by 140 organizations. It appealed to the FAO to dismantle the “corporate model of agriculture that has crippled the food security of the world and to make an unequivocal move towards developing a new global food production system based on food sovereignty and environmental sustainability, with small food producers at the centre of agriculture.” The growing chorus calling for radical change was acknowledged with little more than rhetoric in Rome.
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shareMORE PAN North America on the world food crisis |
Bhopal plant open for tourists?
Rachna Dinghra, speaking for the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, responded: “Mr. Gaur is neither a scientist nor a man with common sense because there are still 24 deposits of high toxic material inside the plant.” Rasheeda Bi, a Goldman Environmental Prize winner and a Bhopal survivor who lost all of her family as a result of the explosion, is angry about the ministry’s plan, which “includes a week-long exhibition at the site to highlight government welfare measures. ‘Some 340 tonnes of toxic wastes are still out there and if Gaur is so sure that it is not harmful then why is he saying visitors must view the dumping sites from a distance of 20 feet?’” she asked. As the December 3 anniversary of the tragedy approaches, pressure is building on Dow-Carbide to clean up the site, provide just compensation to surviving victims and fund ongoing research, health monitoring and medical care. Carbide also remains an “absconder” from criminal charges for “culpable homicide” in the Indian courts. “Rather than clean-up the site, the government and the corporations are now engaged in cleaning up their image through deceit and denial,” observed Syed M. Irfan, a local Bhopal activist.
shareMORE Join in action on December 3 |
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OMB commits to science, not chemical industry, on endocrine disruptors
statement after hearing that OMB would not interfere with the EDSP, saying, “I commend the OMB’s commitment to sound science and independent regulation of endocrine disruptors by EPA to ensure that public health is appropriately protected,” said Markey. “In some previous administrations, OMB has at times been used by industry opponents to try and gut sound environmental regulations under the rubric of ‘paperwork reduction,'” Markey said, “I am encouraged by Director Orszag’s statement that he recognizes the need to have a robust testing program to determine the nature of the risks that endocrine disrupting chemicals pose to human health.”
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shareMORE OMB Watch Explains the Controversy |
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WhatsOnMyFood? iPhone App launched
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shareMORE PAN guest blog on MomsRising.org |
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