Nobel is not noble any more

Monsanto & Syngenta executives will soon be rewarded with The World Food Prize, a prestigious award known as “the Nobel Prize of agriculture.” Tell The World Food Prize Foundation not to reward these awful companies. Share on Facebook.

In an obscene development, a Monsanto executive is winning this year’s “Nobel Prize of agriculture” — the prestigious World Food Prize — for creating GMOs. Receiving it legitimizes the sort of rampant genetic modification Monsanto pioneered, and helps validate a ruthless business model that impoverishes farmers and monopolizes our food.

If that wasn’t baffling enough, the founder of Syngenta, the same biotech giant joining Bayer in suing Europe to keep selling bee-killing pesticides, will also win the prize — and with it, a share of the $250,000 prize money. We cannot allow this prize to legitimize frankenfoods and bee killers. The ceremony is in just over a week, so we need to act now.

Tell the World Food Prize Foundation not to reward Monsanto and bee-killer Syngenta’s outrageous practices.

Winning this prize will encourage the wider use of genetically engineered crops and be a huge obstacle to those fighting to investigate the long-term effects of its frankenseeds — which is exactly what Monsanto wants. In 2008, Monsanto made a $5 million pledge to the World Food Prize Foundation, part of its plan to buy the credibility it can’t legitimately earn. By handing its benefactor this award, the Foundation risks undermining the credibility of the most respected prize in agriculture.

In protest, 81 Councilors of the World Future Council have penned a statement blasting the World Food Prize Foundation for betraying its purpose. In the words of the esteemed authors: “GMO seeds reinforce a model of farming that undermines sustainability of cash-poor farmers, who make up most of the world’s hungry… The most dramatic impact of such dependency is in India, where 270,000 farmers, many trapped in debt for buying seeds and chemicals, committed suicide between 1995 and 2012.”

Despite the criticism, Monsanto and Syngenta executives are set to receive their prize on World Food Day, October 16 — a slap in the face to everyone harmed by their products. We don’t have much time, so we need to publicize this obscene decision — if enough of us get word of this out, and let people know the World Food Prize is threatening its reputation, we can shame it into choosing a more suitable candidate.

Genetically-modified crops do not deserve the highest praise. Don’t reward Monsanto and Syngenta.

Thanks for all that you do,
Claiborne and the rest of us.

P.S. Please share this campaign on Facebook

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More Information:

And The Winner Of The World Food Prize Is … The Man From Monsanto, NPR, 19 June 2013
Choice of Monsanto Betrays World Food Prize Purpose, Say Global Leaders , NPR, 26 June 2013

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Urgent update: Bayer is suing *Europe* for saving the bees

I know it’s less than 72 hours since we emailed you to update you on our bees campaign — but Bayer is now suing Europe to overturn the landmark ban on bee-killing pesticides! See the full story below, and let’s all sign now to stop this outrageous move! — Claiborne

Bayer has just sued the European Commission to stop the ban on its bee-killing pesticides — despite clear evidence its products are behind the massive bee die-offs. We can’t let Bayer and Syngenta get away with this blatant threat while the bees disappear. Sign the petition to tell them to drop the lawsuits now!

I know it’s less than 72 hours since we emailed you to update you on our bees campaign — but Bayer is now suing Europe to overturn the landmark ban on bee-killing pesticides! See the full story below, and let’s all sign now to stop this outrageous move! — Claiborne

Wow. Bayer has just sued the European Commission to overturn a ban on the pesticides that are killing millions of bees around the world. A huge public push won this landmark ban only months ago — and we can’t sit back and let Big Pesticide overturn it while the bees vanish.

Bayer and Syngenta, two of the world’s largest chemical corporations, claim that the ban is “unjustified” and “disproportionate.” But clear scientific evidence shows their products are behind the massive bee die-off that puts our entire food chain in peril. 

Just last month, 37 million bees were discovered dead on a single Canadian farm. And unless we act now, the bees will keep dying. We have to show Bayer now that we won’t tolerate it putting its profits ahead of our planet’s health. If this giant corporation manages to bully Europe into submission, it would spell disaster for the bees.

Sign the petition to tell Bayer and Syngenta to drop their bee-killing lawsuits now.

The dangerous chemical Bayer makes is a neonicotinoid, or neonic. Neonics are soaked into seeds, spreading through the plant and killing insects stopping by for a snack. These pesticides can easily be replaced by other chemicals which don’t have such a devastating effect on the food chain. But companies like Bayer and Syngenta make a fortune from selling neonics — so they’ll do everything they can to protect their profits.

The EU banned these bee-killers this past May, after a massive public campaign and a clear scientific finding from the European Food Safety Authority that neonics pose huge risks to bee populations. Bayer fought against the ban every step of the way, using tactics taken from Big Tobacco — pouring millions into lobbying and fake science to stop decision-makers from taking action.

Now, we have to defend this landmark ban for the bees, and our food supply. Sign the petition now to tell Bayer and Syngenta to drop their aggressive lawsuits!

We have to stand up for the European ban now, from Europe and from around the world. The current ban only lasts for two years before it’s up for review, and Bayer is now determined to stop it before it even comes into force in December 2013. If it is allowed to intimidate the European authorities with impunity, then the pressure to overturn the ban will be huge. This will be a massive victory for the poison industry, and a devastating loss for the bees, and all of us. It will make every environmental regulation more difficult, because companies that can’t win on the facts can use their enormous profits to fund expensive, baseless lawsuits.

Bayer is an enormous company with a ton of public-facing brands. Neonics are a big part of its bottom line, but it can’t afford poor publicity on a global scale. And if word gets out that Bayer is wrecking our ecosystem and threatening a creature responsible for pollinating a third of all our crops, the company will have to back down.

SumOfUs staff and members have literally just gotten of the plane from a convention in Chicago where we took the fight for a ban in the US right to the industry itself — so we know how important it is to hold the line.

Sign the petition to tell Bayer and Syngenta to drop their bee-killing lawsuit now. Let’s build on this landmark victory and take the bee-killing pesticide ban global.

Thanks for all you do,
Claiborne, Kaytee, and the team at SumOfUs

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More information:

EU insecticide ban triggers legal action, Nature News, 28 August, 2013