Food

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Food

Make a quick submission to AVPMA about Roundup being found to be a potential carcinogen by the WHO

December 24, 2016

Please make a brief email submission to the APVMA Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority asking them to take notice of the World Health Organisations findings that glyphosate (Roundup) is a potential carcinogen. This is being organised by Friends of the Earth Melbourne.

Link to make an easy submission here

Roundup is widely used for weed control around the world, especially in home gardens and by councils. It is also used on GM crops and to help non GM crops around harvest time.

From the FOE Melbourne website:

Last year the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – declared glyphosate – the main ingredient in the herbicide RoundUp – a probable carcinogen. We hoped that the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) – would intervene to protect our health. It hasn’t.

The APVMA has decided not to review its current approval for glyphosate because it claims to know better than the specialised cancer agency of the World Health Organisation. Why so? Because it has access to unpublished industry data that has never been subject to peer review and that regulators refuse to make public!

Who trusts the word of giant chemical companies over the World Health Organisation?

Monsanto has made enormous profits from virtually unrestricted use of glyphosate and now the truth has come out. Monsanto has lied to us again – and the APVMA must stop supporting an industry that is putting all of us at unnecessary risk.

Contact us if you need help with your submission adelaide.office@foe.org.au

Actions, Environmental Law, FoE, Food, Old_Notes

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Important petition: Block the TPP legislation in the Senate

September 24, 2016

We don’t normally share petitions but this is an exception, calling on Labor, the Greens and Cross Benchers to block the TPP legislation in the Senate.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (or TPP) is a dangerous trade deal with the potential to destroy thousands of Australian jobs.

The deal was negotiated by Malcolm Turnbull behind closed doors and allows corporations to sue our government just for making laws in the public interest. The TPP risks our jobs, our health and our democracy.

We have to defeat the TPP because:

it allows corporations to sue Australia just for making laws in the public interest (like lowering the cost of medicines for the sick).
it will force Australia to take even more workers on dodgy visas, undermining our wages and conditions and allowing corporations to make a killing off the backs of exploited foreign workers.
it says it will protect workers and the environment but is vague and almost unenforceable.
We have to stop this corporate power grab –and we can.

Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have the votes to ratify this dangerous deal if Labor, the Greens and the crossbench Senators unite to block it.

Sign the petition calling for all parties to vote down the TPP and to stand with Australians.

Environmental Law, Food, Mining, Old_Notes

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Seed Freedom Food Festival 24 September

September 15, 2016

SEED FREEDOM FOOD FESTIVAL is returning 2016!
Saturday 24 September, 10am – 4pm.
@ 1 Holland St, Adelaide 5000
(in ‘The Market Shed’ space).
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SFFF2016 is your festival for celebration, inspiration and information on organic food, local food, growing your own food and the need to save seed!
‘Lettuce’ offer you all the tools for how, and why, to grow your own organic food, save your own seeds and support those in your local community doing the same.

$4 entry (children free) gains you access to 3 stages of 20 FREE WORKSHOPS & SPEAKERS (no need to book, Program will be released soon) plus an all day music stage.
As well as our infamous huge SEED SWAP, FOOD SWAP and GARDEN GEAR SWAP, local gardening stalls, lush organic food stalls, community group stalls, a KIDS SPROUT SPACE and kids workshops, seed displays, seed mandala co-creation and a whole lot of heart right in the middle of the city.

So start gathering your seeds and gardening goodies to swap and look forward to growing & thriving with you soon.

CONFIRMED WORKSHOPS:
* Native seed collection and propagation – Neville Bonney
* Knowing, growing, eating Edible Native Bush Foods – Neville Bonney
* Making and using compost! – Tim Marshall
* Plant Propagation, success with seeds & more – Karen Montgomery
* Fermentation, get cultured! – Remedy Bliss
* The unexpected uses of cottage plants – Bev Lane
* Ethical Foraging – Bev Lane
* Seed Saving how to – Steven Hoepfner
* Building healthy soils for healthy plants and people – Nat Wiseman
* Getting to know the Heart and Soul of Australian Natives – Edmund Gooden

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
* Gardening Woes 101 with Sophie Thomson!
* Growing for the Future – Annemarie Brookman
* Native Bees in your garden – Jenny Deans
* Why Biodynamics & organic health – Dr.… Read more >>

Food, Old_Notes

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Petition: No New GMOs through to back door

May 4, 2016

Please sign Friends of the Earth’s petition to Fiona Nash Assistant Minister for Health against ‘new’ GMO techniques. Include your street address and ask for a written reply.

https://friendsoftheearthmelbourne.good.do/whatpartofnogmosdonttheyunderstand/tellfionanashtoreinintheregulators/

Big agrochemical chemical companies are trying to sneak crops derived from a range of new genetic modification (GM) techniques into our food chain without safety testing or labelling. And our regulators – Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) – seem only too happy to help them!

New GM techniques such as oligo-directed mutagenesis, zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR pose the same risks as older GM techniques and need to be assessed for safety before they are allowed in our food. They should also be labelled to protect choice for farmers, food producers and consumers.

Most Australians don’t want to eat GM food and it’s high time our regulators stopped letting industry write the rules for them.

FoE, Food, Old_Notes

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