24 December 2024 | Zero-GMO.com | ZeroNotification.com | Image source | In a major victory for farmers, food, and environmental safety, a Federal Court struck down 2020 regulations that exempted most genetically modified (GM) crops from oversight. Represented by counsel from the Center for Food Safety, the plaintiffs in the case included the National Family Farm Coalition, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Pesticide Action Network, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Environmental Health, and the Center for Food Safety.
The ruling overturned the first Trump administration’s attempt to remove oversight and allow industry to self-regulate GM crops. In 2021 plaintiffs sued USDA to reverse this rollback citing violations including the Plant Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the Endangered Species Act.
3 December 2024 By Center for Food Safety
“Farmers do not want their farming choices to be limited to the reliance on an ever increasing volume of chemical applications onto crops that corporations have engineered precisely for the purpose of locking in the sale of their patented seeds and proprietary pesticides,” said Rob Faux, Iowa Farmer and Communications Manager at Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network (PAN) and a plaintiff in the case. “This ruling restores the basic oversight necessary to protect our water, soil, air, and communities from the corporate-driven cycle of pesticide dependence, weed resistance, pest resurgence, and reliance on ever more hazardous pesticides. That failed corporate model traps farmers on a treadmill that is catastrophic for biodiversity and human health, and it’s high time we got off it.” Source