I'm a little late the party, I just read about this on Farm Wars this morning (http://farmwars.info/?p=5173). 

I especially liked this part (not):

Although genetic engineering cannot be used in organic agriculture, an organic farmer would not lose certification under federal rules just because some genetically engineered pollen accidentally drifted onto the farmer’s field, just as the farmer would not lose certification if pesticide drifted in from a nearby field.

We won't be able to trust anything labeled Certified Organic.

Guess its time for me to join a CSA. And a home garden..

Good ideas... but there are still problems! non-GM seeds are headed the way of the dinos, many fear; heavy use of pesticides allowed/ mandated by 95% GM crops in the US means huge amounts of residual pesticide chemistry in our soil & water; and cross-contamination of crops mean that even CSA/ home garden produce may be hard to keep unGMtampered... that's one reason all this is so disturbing: that genie ain't goin' back in the lamp...

This is incredibly upsetting to me. I buy only organic food and products, and have consistently for years. Now its all gone down the shitter. Also, the fact that the president approved this, while his wife has an organic garden...he seemed like he would know the value of organics. So not cool.

We've let megacorps & BigAg lobbies (Monsanto, Beef Products Inc, Dairy Farmers of America, et al) pretty much set national food policy for the last 50-100 years... if a mere president tries to step in now, & say now whoa there, guys, this is a bad idea!... well look, the guy got a hitler 'stache over his position that we should have health care in this country for the working poor & children with Down's (& other preixisting conditions)-- it'd just be super-*duper* SOCIALISM if 'the government tried to interfere with agricultural interests'... guy's gotta walk a line, ya know? Lotta stuff on his (pardon the pun) plate. I think the blame lies squarely on 'We the People,' for this sorry state of affairs: we allowed this to happen. Scapegoating is tempting; but, yeah, it's on the public. For most Americans, adamant apathy is still a way of life when it comes to food issues; look how quickly EU producers responded to 'no GMO' demands from the populace! (sigh) Not so here; we just care about what's on prime-time. Oh yeah, and gay marriage... *that's* a problem. (eye fuckin' ROLL!)

can someone please give me the cliff notes on this please?
i'm don't get it.

Shortish version: biotech corporations won the right to patent living things, and were given free reign to do whatever they think will be most profitable (regardless of human health or environmental safety concerns) during the admin of Bush 1... 90% of US crops are now GM, despite extremely poor (industry-conducted!) research regarding environmental/ health harm from these crops. Most of these have been modified to have genetic resistance to Roundup pesticide (made by Monsanto, of course, the same company who owns/ makes all the GM seeds)... with the result that tons more Roundup gets dumped on fields than before, and ends up in groundwater/ all over surrounding properties... Some research on the 'safety' of one Monsanto crop (if memory serves it was BT Brinjal aka GM eggplant)-- conducted by: Monsanto, of course-- was over like a 3 month period, with *10* mice. Great science, right? Meanwhile national coalitions of independent researchers around the world are saying, Hey everyone, listen, based on this and this and this and this and this, we think there are real problems with the GM paradigm! and Monsanto tries like hell to spin/ silence anything like that, and has even been caught trying to bribe gov officials (in canada) to ignore disturbing research about health & environmental safety of GM seeds. GM revolution has massacred small farmers, making them sharecroppers for Monsanto in all but name-- BT cotton crashed the farming economy of India to the point of causing a suicide epidemic among farmers (and the emergence of super-resistant parasites to the 'new improved' strain of GM cotton). There have been multiple independent studies linking GM foods to health concerns, and GM pollen is suspected of playing a large role in Colony Collapse Disorder (bee die-off) that will guarantee collapse of our food system if we don't get a handle on it... Most recently, thanks to bottomless pockets of biotech lobbies, the USDA recently decided to completely not regulate GM alfalfa; this is significant b/c it's an 'open pollinator,' guaranteed to cross-mate like crazy with non-GM grasses at the whim of the wind-- the environmental effects of which we can not predict, contain, or (once the inevitable problems occur) reverse.

In the EU, the people said 'Get the GMO outta my food, yo!' and now they're heavily regulated/ labeled with great care given to cultivation/ transport/ etc in a way that prevents cross-contamination with non-GMO crops... and they're much less prevalent. In the US, though, different story... people think GMO might be a rapper that hangs with Snoop Dogg.  It's absolutely not on the radar of most folks who eat food; and this boggles my noodle.

That's pretty long for Cliffs Notes, but it's the best I can do! There's also some good introductory info here: http://www.raw-wisdom.com/50harmful.

For more-- if you wanna get REALLY pissed off!-- watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGddgHRQyg

so what's this got to do with organic farmers?

so what's this got to do with organic farmers?

It pretty much boils down to food certified organic may actually be gentically modified. That's the super Cliffnotes version.  

Yep-- and once GM stuff contaminates an organic farmer's fields, they lose their 'organic' certification & can't sell their other stuff as organic, even produce not tested positive for GM crap-- when all of their voluntary/ deliberate actions were within an organic model. They can even be (read: are frequently and aggressively!) SUED by Monsanto et al for patent infringement, following accidental (harmful to the farmer's business) contamination of their fields, by GM crops! how's that for 'adding insult to injury'?!

Also, organic & heirloom seeds are getting harder to find/ more expensive, which disproportionately effects small scale & organic farmers, b/c Monsanto & DuPont (quick review: the pesticide manufacturers whose profit margin depends on farmers using their synthetic chemistry, who own the patents to the GM seeds that make the synthetic chemistry more in demand) do not wish to sell such a product, and have bought up virtually all of the seed-selling companies.

(Minke is better than me at Cliffnotes, haha)

Haven't seen that; will check it out, on a day when I have the emotional resources to be *more* pissed off about this issue than I already am... Thanks for the recommendation-- knowledge is power, even if it's knowledge that pisses you off. :-/

Also, this seems relevant here: http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2011/02/01/michael-pollan-and-others-sign-organic-unity-statement-against-monsantos-ge-alfalfa/