Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
Protecting Food. Empowering Whistleblowers.
In 2014, how many times have you gone grocery shopping or went out to eat at a restaurant? This week, consider the countless workers who grow, harvest, process, label, inspect, and ship food before it ends up on your dinner plate throughout the year. The Food Integrity Campaign is joining the Food Chain Workers Alliance […]
FIC joins Kauai residents in expressing outrage over a judge’s ruling yesterday regarding a lawsuit to block implementation of the County’s pesticide transparency law. Magistrate Judge Barry M. Kurren ruled that Ordinance 960, which requires chemical companies to disclose pesticide use information and create buffer zones around sensitive areas, is pre-empted by state law. The […]
If you’re concerned about genetically engineered (GE) food and their impact, then you should be concerned about what’s happening in Kauai. Get this: the giant chemical companies in Kauai – the ones that spray pesticides year-round on their GE crops – are now actually playing the victim card. Really, biotechs? Everybody knows it’s the local […]
When most people think of Hawaii, they picture a beautiful and pristine tropical paradise. That’s what the FIC team thought too, until concerned citizen activists sought our help in exposing the improper influence of biotech companies on state legislators and officials. As it turns out, major biotech companies like BASF and Syngenta have taken an […]
Animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to our most serious environmental problems, producing 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. FIC works with whistleblowers who reveal horrific stories of contamination due to routine factory farm practices. Just last week, the Environmental Protection Agency fined a meat processing plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania $40,000 […]
Several biotech/pesticide companies kept their word by filing a lawsuit on Friday against the County of Kauai to block implementation of the recently passed pesticide disclosure bill (now Ordinance 960). This news is very disappointing, but not entirely surprising, as the industry shows where its real priorities lie – certainly not with public health. FIC […]
(LIHUE) – The Government Accountability Project (GAP) submitted several information requests to Hawaii state and county officials about meetings and communications with large biotech companies during the debate over Kauai’s pesticide and disclosure legislation, Bill 2491. The bill, now law, requires biotech companies to disclose pesticide use information and establish buffer zones between their fields […]
The Government Accountability Project is probing whether biotech companies exerted improper influence over Hawaii government officials while the Kauai County Council debated GMO and pesticide disclosure legislation this year. The Washington D.C.-based government watchdog group has submitted several information requests to Hawaii state and county officials asking them to disclose meetings and communications with biotech […]
What seemed like a basic information request seems to have been too much for factory farms that prefer to keep things under wraps. The EPA originally planned to issue a final rule this month that would require the owners of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) to report certain data, such as the amount of waste […]
Water contamination from factory farm waste and agricultural pesticides is a growing problem and usually lacks a media spotlight. This week, however, two separate studies illustrating how big of a problem we face received decent attention. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report paints a bleak picture of the billions of dollars spent around […]