Is It Time To Occupy Cargill?

“[The Occupy movement] is about the corporate takeover of democracy of our lives in every way. The food movement is inherently anti-corporate and it is inherently about rebuilding a real economy… Occupy Wall Street is not just about banking legislation…  It’s all connected.” – Author and activist Naomi Klein Cargill Inc., a multi-national corporation worth [...]

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Girl Scouts USA Announces Palm Oil Plan for Thin Mints: Greenwash or Game-Changer?

After four years of savvy campaigning by Girl Scout activists Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has finally acknowledged its role in rainforest destruction by releasing a commitment regarding its use of palm oil in its iconic cookies. Unfortunately, the statement on palm oil just released is a small step in the [...]

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Cargill & ADM Support Community Conflict in Indonesia

Do you remember in 2009 when the World Bank’s lending arm, the International Finance Corp. (IFC), came under fire from human rights and environmental organizations lobbying to halt its funding of destructive palm oil development in Indonesia and Malaysia? The 18-month global moratorium on lending for new palm oil investments that followed was a direct [...]

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What’s YOUR Connection To Rainforest Destruction?

What would you do if you knew that rainforest destruction could be found in nearly every room of your home? Rainforest destroying palm oil is an ingredient in roughly 50% of all packaged goods sold on grocery store shelves. It is used to make a wide variety of food products from cookies to breakfast cereals [...]

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Palm Oil’s Dirty Secret: The Many Ingredient Names For Palm Oil

Did you see the palm oil infographic we released today? I hope so! If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. Were you shocked to find out that palm oil is in half of the products in your pantry? Yep, that’s right, palm oil is in roughly 50% of all packaged goods, from cookies, [...]

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Justice Begins With Seeds

Bringing together an inspiring array of speakers including Vandana Shiva, Ignacio Chapela, Andrew Kimbrell, and Miguel Altieri, the Justice Begins with Seeds conference in San Francisco provided an important platform to reignite the struggle against the ongoing genetic modification of our food and food systems. The California Biosafety Alliance, an organization that works to create [...]

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Cargill Losing Minnesota Community Support Over Rainforest Destruction

If a place exists where Cargill has spent the time and resources to look as proper as the front row of a church on Sunday, it’s in the wealthy Minnesota suburbs where the quiet giant is headquartered. Unfortunately for everyone else, Minnesota is also the only place (besides the Internet) where Cargill bothers to try [...]

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Illegal Orangutan Skulls Found On Palm Oil Plantations

An article in yesterday’s Jakarta Post identifies the role of palm oil plantations in the illegal souvenir trade of the skulls of endangered orangutans. Indonesia-based Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) has reported four orangutan skulls found on a palm oil plantation in Central Kalimantan and another orangutan corpse buried on a palm oil plantation in [...]

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Cargill Exposed: A Trail Of Human Rights Abuses

Much like the story with palm oil suppliers IOI and KLK, Cargill is again implicated in serious human rights abuses through it’s palm oil supplier Wilmar. News of yet another case of heated social conflict on an oil palm plantation is breaking in Indonesia, and meanwhile Cargill continues to traffic this controversial palm oil into [...]

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Join the Race to Save Rainforests And Orangutans: Earn a Renegade Merit Badge!

This post is by Girl Scouts Madison Vorva (age 16) and Rhiannon Tomtishen (age 15), who have been campaigning to get palm oil out of Girl Scout Cookies for the past few years. Five years ago, while doing research for our Girl Scout Bronze Award, we learned that the cultivation of palm oil and palm [...]

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