England did not end slavery by making the slave trade illegal. The English ban on slavery was led by a commoner, William Wilberforce, whose family made their money in business. He knew that to change things you don’t need to make it illegal, you simply have to make it unprofitable.
Currently, the only way to avoid eating GMOs is to eat organic or GMO Free certified food. This is literally putting your money where your mouth is. The problem is that many of the healthy brands you have come to trust are now owned by the big food companies which are using profits from their organic divisions to fight GMO labeling.
And they are afraid that their customers will find out and spend their money elsewhere. So when I-522 went on the ballot in Washington State, many ran their donations through the Grocery Manufacturers Association instead of transparently donating the money. Some of the companies who donated this way are what I would call “the usual suspects” and they are known to object to labeling, but others surprised me (Bumble Bee was a stunner).
Here is a link to the list
http://www.storyleak.com/wash-state-lawsuit-reveals-corporations-laundered-money-fight-gmo-labeling/
Now the list just tells you who the corporations are. It doesn’t tell you what brands they own or have. For example, Naked Juice is a Pepsi product. Odwalla, Simply Orange, and Honest Tea are owned by Coca-Cola. Kelloggs owns Gardenburger and Morningstar Farms and General Mills owns Cascadian Farms, Larabar, and Muir Glen. R.W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organics are owned by Smucker.
Now the vast majority of organic brands are genuine players in the marketplace who support your right to know. But if you want to know who is really supporting these initiatives and who is not, this infographic from the Cornucopia Institute shows who donated to support Prop 37 last year and who donated to defeat it.
http://www.cornucopia.org/2012/08/prop37/
This one shows who donated to support or kill I-522 in Washington State
http://www.cornucopia.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/I-522.poster.1101.jpg
You can use these graphics to help you decide where you want your money to go. Well some of it anyway.
There is a new urgency this year. This year the monarch butterflies did not migrate effectively because of the lack of milkweed. That lack of milkweed is largely due to the effectiveness of glycosphate also known as Round Up. This is not an issue of safety, the issue here is that the product does what it says it does all too well. It works as designed and kills weeds. All of them. No weeds, no butterflies.
If you love butterflies you can and should plant milkweed in your yard, but the fact is that the butterflies need a lot of milkweed and an alternative is simply to avoid supporting businesses that rely on Roundup Ready monoculture. Instead of Muir Glen tomatoes you can simply buy Eden Organics instead.
Maybe then the butterflies will come back.
