The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ignoring more than 60 members of Congress and a half a million citizens, late yesterday approved a deadly new herbicide, Dow’s Enlist Duo, made from a combination of Monsanto’s Roundup and Dow’s “Agent Orange” 2,4-D.
The new herbicide will be used on Dow’s newly approved corn and soy crops, engineered to withstand massive doses of the new “Deadly Duo” herbicide.
Where will the vast percentage of these new crops go? To feed animals on factory farms.
Take Action: Take the Factory Farm Free Friday Pledge!
Better yet? Pledge to boycott factory farms forever!
With yesterday’s approval of Dow’s Enlist crops and Deadly Duo herbicide, the EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which also signed off on the crops, have signaled that they have no intention of ending the rampant escalation of the use of increasingly toxic poisons by industrial agriculture.
The only way we will stop them is by shutting down demand for GMO crops. That will take millions of consumers switching to organic, non-GMO food at the supermarket—and that means boycotting meat, eggs and dairy from factory farms.
Every time you sit down in a restaurant, or grill a steak, scramble an egg, or drink a glass of milk at home, you’re undermining your health, and contributing to environmental contamination, global warming and animal torture.
You’re also fattening Monsanto’s bottom line—because 90 percent of America’s non-organic animal feed comes from genetically engineered crops.
Unless, of course, you choose meat, egg and dairy products that were not produced on a factory farm, or you eat a vegan diet.
You can help end industrial agriculture’s cruel and unsustainable GMO-fueled factory farm system. Start today by Taking the 4F “Factory Farm Free Friday” Pledge!
Today’s factory farm model is a disaster. And the premise on which it was founded—cheap food—has proven false.
A system that dumps tons of untreated waste into waterways, that puts the public at risk of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” that contributes to poor personal health, that pollutes entire communities (usually poor and rural), that makes workers sick, that is fueled by unsustainable GMO crops that can only be grown using increasingly toxic chemicals, and that contributes more greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere than the entire transportation industry, is not cheap.
Someone is paying for the environmental cleanup. The healthcare costs. The government (taxpayer)-subsidized GMO crops. The extreme droughts, floods, hurricanes and temperatures caused by global warming.
That somebody is you, the consumer.
Thanks to the deep pockets of companies like Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson, Dow and others, and their influence over local, state and federal lawmakers, only you, the consumer, will be able to bring down the factory farm system.
The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a 2008 report, said that our current method of producing food animals in the U.S. “presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health and damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food.”
It’s time for consumers to boycott meat, egg and dairy products from factory farms. And create more demand for [organic and pastured meat, egg and dairy products produced responsibly and sustainably by farmers whose farming techniques have the power to actually reverse global warming.
We can do this.
Let’s make the “Factory Farm Free Friday” Pledge a household name!
Now, more than ever, it’s time to fight back.
Take Action: Take the Factory Farm Free Friday Pledge!
– Katherine and Melinda for the OCA team
