The Gaia Reports

By Theodora Filis Mars chocolate manufacturer, the 5th largest privately held company in the US, is funding research to genetically modify 70 percent of the global cocoa supply. Funding for this project comes from Mars, involving scientists based at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the US Department of Agriculture and Science in addition to researchers working at IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center. Cacao production provides a livelihood for over 6.5 million farmers in Africa, South America and Asia and ranks as one of the top ten agriculture commodities in the world. Although chocolate is mostly consumed by the industrialized world, it is grown in developing countries. The US, France, and Germany consume more than half of the world's cocoa supply. The first use of cocoa appears to have occurred around 1100 BC. In the Americas, this crop has been cultivated for at least three millenniums. So the question arises if humans have been growing coc...

By Theodora Filis Monsanto, the multinational agricultural biotech giant, is also the world’s largest producer of genetically engineered seeds. Notorious for its aggressive and heavy-handed business tactics, and questionable ethics, Monsanto is deeply entrenched in our political system, having spent $2 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. The policy Justice Thomas oversaw claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that GMO crops were no different in any meaningful or uniform way, and therefore didn’t need testing. However, 44,000 FDA internal documents made public from a lawsuit showed that this was a complete lie. The overwhelming consensus among the FDA’s own scientists was that GMO foods were quite different and could lead to unpredictable and hard-to-detect allergens, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional problems. They suggested long-term studies but were ignored. Last week, WikiLeaks released new diplomatic cables presenting more facts ...