NEWS ABOUT GM ISSUES • February 2006

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28 February 2006

Monsanto seeks binding arbitration

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 28 February 2006.

Monsanto Co. this week is seeking binding arbitration, rather than a jury trial, to settle a dispute filed by Texas farmers who are unhappy with the performance of its Roundup Ready cotton.

The farmers, in buying Monsanto's patented genetically modified seed, signed a technology agreement, stipulating that performance disputes would be handled through arbitration, the company said. In a case in federal court in Austin, Texas, Monsanto is asking a judge to enforce that deal.

In a separate, but related case, about 80 growers sued Monsanto in federal court in Marshall, Texas, saying the company deceptively claimed its cotton could withstand applications of Roundup herbicide. The chemical damaged their crops in the last two years, they said. This case has been stayed, pending the outcome in Austin.

Ultimately, both cases are about the weather, said Monsanto spokesman Andrew Burchett.

Are There Human Genes in Your Food?

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 24, 2006. By Trudy Bialic.

Trudy Bialic is editor of Sound Consumer, a publication of PCC Natural Markets, the largest consumer-owned natural food retailer in the United States.

Ask the people around you if they want experimental drugs and industrial chemicals in their food or beer -- without their knowledge or consent. Chances are they'll say no. Then tell them experiments that could make that happen are occurring right here in Washington state.

As you read this, a professor at Washington State University and a private Canadian company, SemBioSys, have applied for permits to turn two common food crops -- barley and safflower -- into virtual factories for synthetic drugs or chemicals.

On its Web site, SemBioSys declares its plan to inject safflower with human genes to produce experimental insulin and a drug for heart attacks and strokes. WSU confirms that it plans to grow barley, injected with human genes, to produce artificial proteins with pharmaceutical properties. Where these fields will be is secret; nearby farmers and residents won't be notified.

Proponents say that injecting human genes into plants (or animals) will provide cheaper drugs -- someday. But this so-called "biopharming" has met with considerable opposition.

In California and Missouri, farmers protested and effectively stopped outdoor cultivation of "pharma rice," concerned that the drug-plants would contaminate their food-grade crops and make them unmarketable. Food companies such as Anheuser-Busch and Kraft Foods, as well as the Grocery Manufacturers of America and the Food Products Association, concur. The risks are more than hypothetical. Several cases of cross-contamination from GE crops have cost farmers and the food industry more than a billion dollars in recalls and lost export markets.

The National Academy of Sciences, a nongovernmental body of scientists and professionals, has warned in two reports that it's virtually impossible to keep biopharms out of the food supply if food crops are used to grow them. Insects, birds, animals, wind, storms, trucks, trains and human error see to that.

Pharma crops are supposed to be rigorously regulated. But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not review biopharmaceutical crops before planting, even though many of them have toxic or anti-nutritional effects on human health or the environment.

A recent audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General found the USDA failed to inspect field trial sites as promised and didn't even know where some experiments were planted. The Inspector General also found that USDA didn't follow up to find out what happened to the biopharm harvests. Two tons of a drug-laden crop was stored for more than a year at two sites without USDA's knowledge or inspection.

What's the risk of cross-contamination from these experiments? State legislators at least should order a thorough risk assessment and allow public comment.

Washington's Barley Commission is aware that WSU is biopharming barley and is strongly opposed. Administrator Mary Sullivan says, "Once those genetically altered genes are out there, there'll be GMOs in the beer."

No one's opposed to less expensive and effective drugs, but biopharming in food crops in open fields is a bad financial risk. Several leading biopharm companies have gone bankrupt. When Large Scale Biology went bankrupt -- it was the first to conduct a field trial in 1991 -- even biotech movers and shakers contemplated the demise of the biopharming concept.

Agriculture and the food industry are the largest employers and the greatest source of revenue in Washington state -- more than Microsoft and Boeing combined. WSU and SemBioSys should not be mixing drugs and food. They should cancel these risky experiments immediately.

If they want to produce plant-based drugs, they should follow the lead of Dow AgroScience, which just announced approval of a vaccine for chickens produced by tobacco cell cultures in a contained steel tank. Cell cultures are a proven way to generate pharmaceuticals under controlled laboratory conditions -- without the risk of untested drugs in our food.

Top chefs to show Americans 'true taste of Ireland'

Irish Independent, 28 February 2006.

MANY Americans love nothing more than tucking into a Big Mac and greasy fries.

But Irish tourism chiefs are now attempting to lure them to our shores with promises of fresh herbs, organic vegetables and locally farmed meat.

Six of Ireland's top chefs are to travel to the US and run a special campaign during St Patrick's week to try and attract more tourists.

Although we may be best known for our fry-ups, they say that our raw ingredients are our best asset.

"People always think of Irish stew and bacon and cabbage when Irish food is mentioned," said Neven Maguire of MacNean House & Bistro.

"But we use the best ingredients the land produces and that's the most important thing.

"We have the best lamb, the best beef and even the best cream and butter.

"We sometimes take it for granted, but we want visitors to know that the food is locally produced and is of the finest quality."

Kevin Dundon, who runs The Harvest Room in Dunbrody House, Co Wexford, said that mass-produced, genetically modified foods means that many Americans have never tasted the true flavours of food.

"I have a restaurant in Orlando and in there some Americans are actually tasting chicken for the very first time," he said.

"Often in US restaurants they use many ingredients to give flavour of the food but we use raw ingredients."

The six chefs will travel to the US for the marketing campaign on March 12.

They will take part in a number of demonstrations, including a 'cook-off' with chefs in Boston.

Joe Byrne, vice-president of US and Canada for Tourism Ireland, said that food is an important part of their tourism marketing plan in the US this year.

EU Study Says Farmers Must Limit Sowing GMO Seeds To 0.5%

Brussels - European Union farmers must sow less than 0.5% of their fields with seeds that are genetically modified to meet E.U. rules, a new European Commission report concluded Friday.

E.U. rules require crops to include no more than 0.9% of biotech grain to avoid labeling the crops and resulting food products as containing genetically modified material. The 0.9% ceiling is also designed to stop so-called GMO pollution reaching neighboring fields.

The Commission report concludes that if farmers sow their fields with seed that includes no more than 0.5% biotech material, their harvest will remain within the legal limit.

The Commission's Joint Research Center concluded that little action is needed from farmers to keep the biotech content of their seeds to 0.5%.

The Center has been studying how to reduce the "unintended and unavoidable" presence of biotech material in non-biotech harvests.

The report will shape the ongoing debate on how GMO and non-GMO farmers can coexist - a highly divisive issue in the European Union, where consumers are notoriously suspicious of genetically modified products.

E.U. officials and experts will meet in Vienna in early April to discuss whether farming practices have to be changed to minimize the involuntary spread of genetically modified organisms across European fields.

EU scientists relaunch GM-in-seeds debate

Reuters, 28 February 2006. Ý

Scientists have breathed new life into a long and difficult EU debate about how far genetically modified (GM) material should be tolerated in non-GM seeds. A team led by the European commission's Joint research centre released a report on the issue on Friday. The findings will form the basis for a conference to be held in Vienna in early April. Ý

Echoing some of the commission's first proposals of six years ago, the JRC report concludes that a GM seed threshold of 0.5% would enable the EU's legal threshold of 0.9% GM presence in food and animal feed to be met "with few or no changes" to agricultural practice. Ý

Setting a stricter seed threshold of 0.3% could be workable, but would significantly increase costs for farmers growing GM crops, the report also concludes. In some cases, the increased costs could exceed 20% of gross margin. Ý

Two years ago the commission was on the verge of proposing EU legislation setting a 0.3% threshold in maize and oilseed rape before abandoning the proposal in the face of bitter arguments. Ý

The report goes on to dismiss as "not technically feasible" an even stricter 0.1% threshold, generally taken to be the limit for detection.Ý This is a significant conclusion since political support for 0.1% has rocketed in the past two years. Ý

The JRC report focuses on maize, sugar beet and cotton.Ý It is the first such investigation to go beyond field-by-field assessment to examine the issues at regional scale, according to the European commission. Ý

It concludes that securing "coexistence" between GM and non-GM farming would be more difficult for maize than the other two crops studied. A key way to reduce the risk of cross-contamination is simply to clean shared harvesters, the report states. Ý

Follow-up: See European commission press release http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/230 and JRC report http://www.jrc.es/home/pages/eur22102enfinal.pdf.

Leaked WTO Report fails to make a decision on GM safety

GM-free Wales press release, 28 February 2006.

The leaked report published by Friends of the Earth Europe [1] today shows that the US's WTO complaint against the European Union's GM moratorium [2] has failed to resolve the debate on the testing and safety of GM crops.

The 1000 plus page WTO report does not make a judgment on the human, animal and environmental safety of GM crops or on the system of safety assessment based on GM crops being equivalent to non-GM crops.

The report only criticises the EU for undue delays on approving some GM crops and some EU member states for failure to adopt WTO risk assessment procedures before banning some GM crop imports. Several US complaints were dismissed and no action against the EU was recommended in the report.

Carrie Stebbings of GM Freeze said:

"The US has failed to get a judgment that would force the EU to change its GM policies and regulations. Having failed to get a favourable judgment, it has resorted to spin, in an attempt to intimidate the rest of the world in to accepting GM crops. The debate on GM safety and science is still unresolved and the US only gained favourable judgments on narrow procedural points.

After three years and millions of pounds the WTO has shown itself to be incapable addressing the dispute over GM. Countries around the world should resist US attempts to bully them and should be free to adopt a cautious approach to GM. The role of the WTO in dealing with complex issues cutting across scientific, technical and socio-economic fields needs to be challenged by governments and civil society across the world - very few issues can be boiled down to trade factors only".

ENDS

Calls to Carrie Stebbings a 0207 837 0642 and Pete Riley 07903 341 065.

Notes

1. www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/WTO_briefing.pdf

2. The de facto moratorium ran from 1999 to 2004.

Carrie Stebbings, Co-ordinator
GM FREEZE CAMPAIGN
94 White Lion Street
London N1 9PF
Tel: 020 7837 0642
Fax: 020 7837 1141

carrie@gmfreeze.org
www.gmfreeze.org

Leaked report: U.S. misled the world on biotech foods "victory"
WTO ruling does not prevent countries from restricting or banning GM foods

Friends of the Earth press release, 28 February 2006.

BRUSSELS (BELGIUM) / WASHINGTON DC (US) 28 February 2006 - Friends of the Earth International made available online today a confidential World Trade Organization ruling on the trade dispute on biotech, or genetically modified (GM) foods. [1]

The 1000-page report, which was distributed earlier this month only to the countries involved in the dispute, was leaked to Friends of the Earth, which published today February 28 a preliminary analysis in the briefing 'Looking behind the US spin'. [2]

The leaked report reveals that:

- despite claims of victory by the US Administration and the biotechnology industry -widely reported in the media in February 2006- the three countries that started the trade dispute against the European Union (US, Canada and Argentina) failed to win most of their arguments;

- the World Trade Organization (WTO) did not rule on two of the most important questions, namely whether GM foods are effectively the same as non-GM foods and if they are safe.

"The WTO ruling is not a victory for the US administration and the biotech giants. Countries around the world should continue to enforce tough legislation protecting their citizens and the environment from the risks of genetically modified crops," said Juan Lopez, GM Campaign Coordinator of Friends of the Earth International.

According to Friends of the Earth International the WTO is not and should not be the appropriate body to deal with conflicts between trade rules and environmental protection since it ignores the internationally recognised 'Precautionary Principle' and considers only trade principles.

The leaked WTO report argues that:

* Europe's 4-year moratorium on GM Organisms (GMOs) only broke trade rules because it caused "undue delay" in the approval of new GM foods. The WTO dismissed eight other complaints in relation to the moratorium, and did not recommend any further action, since the moratorium ended in 2004.

* There was also an "undue delay" in the EU's approval procedures for over 20 specified biotech products. However, eleven other claims of the complainants related to the product-specific EU measures were dismissed by the WTO Panel.

* National bans by EU member states broke trade rules because the risk assessments used by the countries in question did not comply with the WTO requirements;

"This is the report that the WTO didn't want the public to see. It reveals that the big corporations that stand behind the WTO failed to get the big win they were hoping for. Free trade proponents needed a clear victory in this dispute to be able to push governments in the EU and the developing world to accept genetically modified food. They failed and now is the time to build a consensus that the WTO, with its business-only agenda, is the wrong place to decide on what people eat and how we protect our environment." said Adrian Bebb, GMO campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe in Brussels.

Friends of the Earth Europe today launched a cyber action (http://www.bite-back.org/objection/our_food.php) urging the public to call on their Governments to reject the WTO as a forum to decide on environmental trade disputes and to support the right of countries to ban GMOs.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Juan Lopez, Friends of the Earth International GM coordinator, Tel: +34-6-25980582 (Spanish mobile number)

Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth Europe GMO expert, Tel: +49 1609 490 1163 (German mobile number)

David Waskow, Friends of the Earth US Tel: + 1 202 492 4660

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] The WTO report is available online in two parts at: www.foeeurope.org/biteback/WTO_decision.htm

[2] The Friends of the Earth preliminary analysis in the briefing 'Looking behind the US spin' is online at www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/WTO_briefing.pdf.

27 February 2006

GMOs may not be answer to banishing world hunger
Rite and Reason: The production of genetically-modified foodstuffs is morally irresponsible,
argues Fr Seán McDonagh

Irish Times, 27 February 2006.

A recent Teagasc survey found that the majority of Irish consumers reject genetically-modified food. The debate on GM food is also intense within the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the keynote speaker at a conference in Croke Park, Dublin, next Thursday, is one of the main proponents of GM food. He sees it as a way of tackling world hunger. An endorsement by the Vatican of genetically modified organisms would have a profound impact on global discussion of the issue, as there are more than one billion Catholics in the world.

Together with the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, the US embassy co-sponsored a seminar at Rome's Gregorian University in September 2004 entitled Feeding the World: The Moral Imperative of Biotechnology. The speakers were avid supporters of GMOs; the message of the day was that opponents of GMOs were not merely ignorant of the science involved but were driven by questionable motives.

Critics question the "feed the world" argument by pointing to the fact that the main threats to the food supply of the poor in this century will be global warming and the destruction of biodiversity. The melting of the glaciers on the Himalayas will affect the meltwater of the great rivers of Asia which supply water for one-sixth of the world's population. And President George W. Bush has repudiated the Kyoto Protocol and has refused to sign the UN Convention on Biodiversity or the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

Bishops in Asia, Latin America and Africa have been critical of GMOs. They believe that banishing hunger has more to do with changing the social and economic inequalities which create poverty than with claiming that a "magic bullet" technology will feed 850 million poor people worldwide. Brazil is the fourth-largest exporter of food in the world and yet 35 million people go to bed hungry every night in that country.

Cardinal Napier of Durban has written that genetic engineering is an imprecise technology and that the long-term health effects of consuming GMOs have not been fully assessed. Consequently, because we do not know whether there are serious risks to human health or to the environment, to produce and market genetically-modified food is morally irresponsible.

The precautionary principle should apply here, as it does in medical research.

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace held a two-day seminar on GMOs in November 2003. The majority of those invited were pro-GMO. Nevertheless, in a subsequent press conference, the cardinal stated that the Vatican had taken no position on GMOs.

This seemed to change in 2004 with the publication of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. First of all, nine paragraphs in the document deal with biotechnology. This is surprising considering that global warming and the extinction of species only merit half a paragraph each.

The text seems to imply that, with the necessary cautions, the church is in favour of plant biotechnology. Paragraph number 473 states that, in effect, nature is not a sacred or divine reality which man must leave alone: "The human person does not commit an illicit act when, out of respect for the order, beauty and usefulness of individual living beings and their function in the ecosystem, he intervenes by modifying some of their characteristics or properties."

When these contradictions were brought to the attention of the secretary of the Council for Justice and Peace, Bishop Crepaldi, he insisted that the world does, in fact, depend on biotechnology.

Although far-fetched, the biotech companies often use this argument to claim that their technology is in conformity with natural breeding processes.

In reality, biotechnology, as currently understood, always involves the transfer of genetic material between different species. This was not possible until the mid-1970s.

The pontifical council has an obligation to clarify its position on the use of GMOs. Before it reaches a decision, it must address the issue of patenting seeds and other living organisms - 2005 was the Year of Rice, during which the rice genome was sequenced. This was a wonderful breakthrough for rice production. Almost immediately, giant agribusiness corporation Syngenta filed for 15 global patents on genes and gene sequences. Patenting is about privatising the living world for the benefit of the rich.

This is a most worrying development, as it will give a handful of global corporations control over the seeds of the staple foods of the world. And it is surely a prescription for hunger, malnutrition and death. It would also seem to be at odds with the Christian faith, which holds that a loving God created our living world and wishes it to be shared generously with all the people and creatures inhabiting it.

• Seán McDonagh is a Columban missionary priest. He is author of Patenting Life? Stop! (2003, Dominican Publications). The conference in Dublin next Thursday to which he refers is on the theme The Common Good in an Unequal World: A Conference on the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Organised by the Catholic bishops' Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs, speakers will include the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, Lord Chris Patten and Archbishops Se·n Brady and Diarmuid Martin.

The Pseudo-Science of Biotech Lobbyists:
The baseless Barfoot - Brookes claim that farmers and the environment have benefited from GMO's

Ecological Farming Association, February 27, 2006, by Dr. Vandana Shiva.

While biotech crops fail farmers, and destroy biodiversity the "global" studies of biotech lobbyists continue to cook up benefits to farmers and the environment. A recent example of such pseudo-science is a report by Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot of PG Economies Limited, U.K entitled "GM Crops : The Global Economic and Environmental Impact ‚ The First Nine Years 1996-2004". The report falsely claims environmental benefits of reduced chemical use and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It also falsely claims benefits to farmers amounting to $27 billion.

Bt Cotton is killing Indian farmers, not increasing their incomes

Brookes was in India recently and claimed $ 124 million increased in farm incomes and 54% increase in yields from Bt. Cotton. However, every study in India carried out by citizens groups and government shows that Indian farmers are loosing not just incomes but lives.

Bt. cotton was sold with the claim that it would give 15 quintals of yield per acre. However yields have been as low as 20 kgs in one acre. On average yields of Bt. cotton are 1.2 quintals per acre in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh; nowhere did Bt. cotton yield cross 4 quintals per acre at the end of the harvest. In Madhya Pradesh, in Badwani, Khargaon, Dhar and Khandwa districts, almost half the 42 farmers visited reported that their crop had failed. Khargaon farmers faced total crops failure. In the other districts only one expected a yield of 12.5 quintals, the average yield expected by the others was 4.01 quintals, as compared to the 15 quintals promised by Monsanto-Mahyco. In Karnataka, 15 of the 40 farmers visited in Bellary, Sirippupa and Haveri/Dharwad districts, expected a total failure of their crops. The average yield expected by remaining farmers was 3.82 quintals per ha.

In most of the fields visited, the Bt. cotton plants were in a stage of maturity with leaves turning red before dropping off. The non-Bt on fringes looked far healthier, taller and were greener than Bt. plants. According to Dr. Jalapathi Rao, this was probably due to the toxin gene. This means that unlike other hybrid cotton, which yields up to March, Bt. cotton farmers will not get any yield after November-December.

False Claim of higher income

The failure/drastically reduced yield of Bt cotton has devastated Bt cotton farmers, who are faced with penury. Mr. Mala Rao Krishna Rao Thakre of the Both village in Maharashtra suffered a major heart attack when he found his 27 acres of Bt cotton completely devastated by diseases and pests.

The income of Bt cotton farmers is being reduced not just because of low yields, but also because of staple size. The Monsanto-Mahyco claim a staple size ranging from 26-29 mm, in actuality, it is hardly 15-20 mm, and would fetch the rate of a short staple cotton (around Rs. 1500 per quintal) while the normal rate offered for best quality cotton is Rs. 2000 to 2200 per quintal. One of the buyers in the Warangal cotton market, Mr. Sarangapani of the K.N.R. Enterprises said that Bt. cotton staples are only 6-7 mm long while the staples of good quality cotton is 32 mm.

Warangal has seen suicides by thousands of cotton farmers since 1997. The region has become famous for distress sales not just of land, but of body parts such as kidneys. The introduction of Bt cotton heralds the death of thousands more farmers, not just in Warangal, but in other parts of the country, as they are pushed into deepening debt and penury by Monsanto-Mahyco and other genetic engineering MNCs.

For many farmers Bt. Cotton has totally failed in the 2005 season. Nander Singh, farmers lilke Sukhlal, Chamar, Shiv Charan, Prem Singh, Manohar Singh, Madan Lal, Manohar, Dhanna Lal, Shree Ram, Jhajju Bhar, Ramdhan Bhar, Laxmi Narayan in Neemad and Tulsiram, Narender Rathor, A.M. Subedar, Sudhakar Govind Rao, Sahidrao Piraji, Manhar Bhadhar, Mama Sahib Nirmal, Ashok Rao Nirmal, Sekh Navi, Sekh Biram, Dilip Kaunda, Sukhdev Thoor, Gajanand Dhage, Gyan Bhaji Supare, Namdev Rao Jhade in Vidharba lost their entire crop. Others got average yields of 3 quintals per acre at average costs of Rs. 6000 per acre.

Our surveys of earlier planting seasons showed average yields of 1.2 quintals per acre in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

A study by the Center for Sustainable Agriculture showed that Bt. Cotton farmers uses seed that cost Rs. 1600 per acre, while organic farmers used seed of Rs. 450 per acre, a 355% difference. Bt. was sprayed with pesticides like Monocrotuphos, Confidor, Trace, Avarint, Eudosulfab, Acephate, Demethoate, Imidacloprid, Quinalphos, Chlorpyriphos, Cypermethrin, etc. Average sprays were 3.5 times costing Rs. 2632 per acre. Organic farmers used ecological pest control agents like Neem, Trichoderma, Panchakavya etc. at Rs. 382 per acre. This is a difference of Rs. 2250/- or Rs. 7625/- per acre. Pest control in Bt. Cotton is thus 690% more costly than in ecological farming.

High costs of cultivation, and low returns have trapped Indian peasants in a debt trap, from which they are escaping by taking their lives. More than 40,000 farmers suicides have taken place over the past decade in India. However, these are not suicides ‚ this is homicide, it is genocide. More than 90% of farmers who died in Andhra Pradesh and Vidharbha in the 2005 cotton season had planted Bt. Cotton. Genetic Engineering is killing Indian farmers.

Yet biotech lobbyists like Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot manipulate data to cover up this genocide. In a recent visit to India Brookes claimed Indian farmers had gained by Rs. 5 billion by having cost saving of Rs. 2000 per hectare. In reality, farmers had an additional burden of Rs. 2250 per acre or Rs. 7625 per acre.

The Brookes and Barfoot study is not based on primary empirical data but extrapolations from false assumptions and manipulated studies. For the U.S, the lobbyists claim $66.59 per ha of additional benefits for Herbicide Resistant Cotton. Yet 90 Texas Cotton farmers have sued Monsanto claiming they suffered widespread crop losses because Monsanto failed to warn of a defect in its genetically engineered cotton. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against what it calls a "longstanding campaign of deception" (The Hindu Business Line, February 26, 2006, p.4 "Cotton Farmers Sue Monsanto").

GM crops have increased use of chemicals

The environmental benefits are also a false claim. Friends of the Earth recently released a report showing that GM crops had increased use of chemicals. The Indian experience also shows increase of pesticide use as new pests attach Bt Cotton and the bollworm evolves resistance to the Bt. Gene.

GM crops reduce Carbon Sequestration

The claim of reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing five million cars from the roads is also totally false and fraudulent. Brookes and Barfoot refer to herbicide resistant crops as "no till" systems. This is not true. Herbicide resistant crops avoid one tillage for weeding. Further, since they are part of industrial agriculture systems based on fossil fuels not ecological agriculture based on renewable animal and human energy, they inevitably use more fossil fuels than small-scale biodiverse ecological farms. Finally, since herbicides destroy all plants except the genetically engineered herbicide resistant plant. Genetically engineered crops like Herbicide Resistant soya beans reduce carbon sequestration by reducing biodiversity and hence reducing carbon uptake by plants and soils.

The following is the description of Round-up Ready Soyabean by Monsanto,

Figure showing How Herbicide Resistant Crops destroy Biodiversity, Increase Soil erosion and Increase herbicide Use

Broad spectrum herbicides like Round-up are directly aimed at Biodiversity destruction. The total destruction of biodiversity is however promoted as ecologically friendly by Monsanto.

It is also argued that Round-up Ready crops contribute to soil conservation. This false claim is based on comparing a large monoculture Iowa farm using other herbicides and a similar farm using Round Up.

However, the expansion of Round up Ready crops will also be introduced in biodiversity rich agroecosystems of the Third World. The direct destruction of biodiversity will in fact lead to more rapid soil and water erosion since without cover crops, there will be no protection against the tropical sun and rain.

The benefits are fictitious and illusionary when Round-up Ready technology is applied to polyculture systems. Round up Ready crops will lead to increased use of round up and hence destruction of both cultivated and wild biodiversity.

In Indian agriculture women can use up to 150 different species of plants (which are called weeds) as medicine, food, or fodder.

In West Bengal, 124 'weed' species collected from rich fields have economic importance for local farmers. In a Tanzanian village, over 80% of vegetable dishes are prepared from uncultivated plant.

Round up therefore destroys the economies of the poorest especially women. What is a weed for Monsnato is a medicinal plant or food for the rural people. Round-up Ready crops will therefore destroy biodiversity in biodiversity rich areas and with it, the economy of the poorest.

Rodney Garrison was among the U.S farmers who believed in Monsanto's miracle Round-up Ready cotton a cotton variety meant to be resistant to Monsanto herbicide "Round-up". However, in the Mississipi delta where Rodney farms, the revolution has produced such casualties that officials are warning farmers to hold off until further testing. Dozens of farmers are seeking millions of dollars in damages from Monsanto and its partner Delta-Pine. The genetically engineered cotton plants have started to shed their bolls. Farmers have lost upto 40% of their crop failing in almost 30,000 acres.

Case Studies of Impact of Round-Up on Biodiversity

Case Study A

For the study of destruction that can be caused due to the use of Round Up even in degraded ecosystems three plots measuring 10 metres x 10 metres were selected in different areas. One plot was on farmland which had not been cultivated season. The other was by the roadside in a rural area and the third was on the roadside in an urban area. The rural area is Panchgaon which is about 70 kms from Delhi on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. The urban area is near Dilshad Garden, New Delhi.

First a survey was done of three plots to determine the types of plants, herbs, grasses and weeds growing in them. Application of Round-up destroyed all plants in each sample. Extrapolated to the fields and farms of Third World countries the introduction of Round up Ready crops becomes a major source of biodiversity destruction, especially when Roundup will be applied to the fields and commons fear where the poorest people derive their livelihoods.

The result of the survey is :

Plot 1, Farmland in Panchgaon

The list of plants growing in the first plot and their properties are:
Plant No. Properties

Parthaneum 24 A Weed
Sharpunkha 13 Used for treating liver disorders
Bhuiamla (Patented) 60 Treatment of jaundice and liver disorders
Punarnawa 44 Treatment of urinary tract infections, blood pressure, anti-inflammation
Sadahari 18 Cuts, burns and dysentery
Aak 5 Innumerable uses including appetizer and treatment of piles
Sarkanda 6 Root is used for medicine and the plant is used for making modas
Cokharu (patented) 15 Diuretic and anti-inflammatory drug
Apamarg 21 Used for treating children's diseases and spleen and liver disorders
Various grasses Good source of nutritious fodder for the animals


Plot 2, by the Roadside (Panchgaon)

The list of plants growing in the second plot and their properties are:
Plant No. Properties

Parthaneum 35 A Weed
Sharpunkha 6 Used for treating liver disorders
Ban Tulsi 20 Treatment of cough and cold
Punarnawa 22 Treatment of urinary tract infections, blood pressure, anti-inflammation
Chakramand 5 Treatment of gastro intestinal disorders and liver disorders
Aak 6 Innumerable uses including appetizer and treatment of piles
Apamarg 100 Used for treating children's diseases and spleen and liver disorders
Various grasses Good source of nutritious fodder for the animals
Wild Berries Source of food for a variety of birds
Arhar Highly priced lentil which when it grows in the wild is a very good source of nutrition for birds and animals

Plot 3, by the Road Side (East Delhi)
The list of plants growing in the third plot and their properties are:
Plant No. Properties


Parthaneum 50 A Weed
Sadahari 35 Cuts, burns and dysentery
Ban Tulsi 5 Treatment of cough and cold
Aak 4 Innumerable uses including appetizer and treatment of piles
Apamarg 15 Used for treating children's diseases and spleen and liver disorders
Kaner 8 Has a number of medicinal properties
Ashwagandha (Patented) 4 Rejuvenator
Dudhi (Patented) 12 Treatment of diarrhoea and dysentery
Castor (Patented) 3 Laxative
Gokhru (Patented) 11 Diuretic and anti-inflammatory drug
Bathua Food and good source of iron
Various grasses Good source of nutritious fodder for the animals
Wild Berries Source of food for a variety of birds


Case Study B

Genetic engineering focuses on single gene, single function manipulation of complex traits of single crops. When compared to polycultures, this is both non-sustainable and unproductive. If herbicide tolerant crop monocultures are compared to the complex mixed farming systems still prevalent in large parts of the world, genetic engineering strategies are less productive and more wasteful of resources.

In the mountain farming systems of the Garhwal Himalaya, a particular cropping pattern takes place called Baranaja ‚ which means, literally twelve seeds. The seeds of twelve different crops (so often more than twelve, never less than 12) are mixed an then randomly sown in a field which is fertilized by cow dung and farm year manure. The twelve crops are :

1 Phaphra Fagophrum tataricum/esculentum
2 Mandua Eleusine coracana
3 Marsha Amaranthus frumentaceous
4 Bhat Glycine soja
5 Lobia Vigna catiang
6 Moong Phaseolus mungo
7 Gahath Dolichios bilorus
8 Rajma Phaseolus vulgaris
9 Jakhia
10 Navrangi
11 Jowar Sorghum vulgare
12 Urad Phaseolus mungo


Mandua and Marsha are the primary crops int his 12 crop selection. Care is taken to balance the distribution of the 12 crops in each area of the field. Thus, after sowing the farmer is required to transplant crops from one area of the field to another area in order to maintain an even distribution of the crops. As in other cultivation practices, constant weeding is necessary. The crops are all sown in May, but are harvested at different times, from late August (Jakhia) to early November and beyond. The 12 different crops have been selected by the farmers over the ages by observing certain relationships between plant and plant, and between plant and soil. For example, the rajma creeper will climb only on the marsha plant and on no other plant in the field.

Relationship between different plants leads to symbiosis, which contributes to increased productivity of the crops. Assessments made show that if farmers cultivate baranaja, they get higher yields, diverse outputs, and better market price for their produce than the soya bean monoculture which is being propagated by agricultural agencies. Soyabean sells for only Rs. 5/- kg, whereas jakhia, one of the baranaja crops that matures earliest, is selling for Rs. 60/- kg. Phapra is another high value crop in the baranaja family, which has always been cultivated as a cash crop by Garhwal farmers, which used to be traditionally exchanged for salt.

Cultivating diversity can therefore be part of a farming strategy for high yields and high comes. Since these yields and incomes are of diverse crops, centralized commercial interests are not interested in them. For them uniformity and monocultures are an imperative. However, from the point of view of small farmers, diversity is both highly productive and sustainable.

Monsanto Round Up Ready Soya bean introduced in these regions would destroy the 'baranaja' biodiversity, undermine food production and the income of small farming households.

More importantly, destruction of biodiversity translates into reducing the capacity of agro ecosystems to sequester carbon. GMO's are in fact adding the equivalent of millions of cars by reducing the capacity of farm crop diversity and farm soils to absorb carbon.

It should come as no surprise that Brookes and Barfoot are manufacuturing false data to make GMOs appear beneficial to farmers and the environment. They have come from the biotech industry. Barfoot worked for 12 years with the Agricultural genetics company, which eventually led onto Axis genetics which aimed to produce pharmaceuticals from plants. Axis's GM potatoes were found to have damaging effects on rats in research carried out by Arpad Putzai. Axis failed, Barfoot continued to sell biotech failures as miracles. Brookes speaks on Monsanto's website to promote GMO crops. Peter Barfoot and Graham Brookes are now Directors of PG Economics who claim to be "independent and objective consultants". The studies of PG Economies are funded by big biotech firms. Their pseudo science and close links to industry show that they are neither independent nor objective. Their "study" should be viewed as part of the PR arsenal of the biotech industry.

24 February 2006

Cotton farmers sue Monsanto, others, for crop loss

Reuters, 24 February 2006. By Carey Gillam.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - More than 90 Texas cotton farmers have sued Monsanto Co. and two affiliated companies, claiming they suffered widespread crop losses because Monsanto failed to warn them of a defect in its genetically altered cotton product.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Marshall, Texas, seeks an injunction against what it calls a "longstanding campaign of deception," and asks the court to award both actual and punitive damages.

In addition to Monsanto, the suit names Delta & Pine Land Co. and Bayer CropScience L.P., producers and retailers of Monsanto's biotech cotton. A Delta & Pine Land spokeswoman said the company had no comment and no one for Bayer, a unit of Bayer AG, returned phone calls seeking comment.

Monsanto, which denies the allegations, wants the complaints removed from the court system and handled through arbitration. About half of the farmers agreed this week to enter into arbitration, but others have not. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Monday in Austin.

The farmers' essential claim is that Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" cotton did not tolerate applications of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer as it has been genetically altered to do.

The farmers claim there is evidence that the promoter gene inserted into the cotton seeds in the genetic modification process does not work as designed in extreme high heat and drought conditions, allowing herbicide to eat into plant tissue, leading to boll deformity, shedding and reduced yields.

The plaintiffs claim Monsanto knew this but did not disclose it so the farmers would continue to buy and use Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

"We feel like Monsanto's been lying to us all along," said B.B. Krenek, a Wharton, Texas cotton consultant who is working with a number of affected farmers.

Monsanto spokesman Andrew Berchet said there is no evidence that anything other than the weather is to blame for the technology that caused the crop losses.

"As far as we can tell this is weather related. The month of June was one of the driest and hottest in more than a century," said Berchet. "We don't see evidence that this is related to our product."

But farmer Alan Stasney said he has evidence in his fields. A strip of cotton four rows across and 3,000 feet long that inadvertently was not treated with Roundup yielded 1,051 pounds of lint per acre at harvest, while on either side of those rows, cotton that was treated with Roundup yielded only 675 pounds per acre.

Stasney said the lost yield cost him more than $250,000 in sales and forced him to refinance his farm.

"It is just a real sad situation," said Stasney. "There are a lot of people in a world of hurt because of that."

New report considers co-existence of GM and non-GM crops and seeds

Finfacts Ireland, Feb 24, 2006, 13:01

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre is publishing case studies to identify how farmers can reduce the "adventitious" ‚ unintended and unavoidable ‚ presence of GM material in non-GM harvests. The objective of the report is to provide a science-based reference to support any future design and implementation of coexistence measures within the EU. The case studies covered crop and seed production of maize, sugar-beet and cotton.

The report also examined the feasibility of producing conventional seeds in Europe under different thresholds for the presence of GM seeds. The study examines the issue at a regional scale through simulations using data on European agricultural landscapes, weather conditions and agricultural practices, rather than just the field-to-field analyses that have been done so far. It concludes that crop production at the 0.9 % threshold set by the EU is feasible, with few or no changes in agricultural practices, if adventitious GM presence in seeds does not exceed 0.5 %. The production of seed up to 0.5% GM seed would be possible with little or no change in current seed production practices.

The research carried out by a consortium [1] led by the Commission's in-house scientific service, DG Joint Research Centre, examined the issue of adventitious presence of GM material in non-GM crops. The term adventitious refers to an unintended and unavoidable presence under current farming practices. The EU legal framework for traceability and labelling of GMOs and GMO-derived products defines a threshold of 0.9 % for the adventitious presence of GM material in non-GM food and feed and provides a baseline for coexistence measures in agriculture. Based on simulations and expert opinions, the report finds that coexistence in crop production at the 0.9% threshold is feasible with few or no changes in agricultural practices. For maize, additional measures are needed for some fields particularly affected by cross-pollination due to their shape, size and relative position with respect to winds and neighbouring GM fields. The report looks in detail into the effectiveness and feasibility of such measures, for example the introduction of isolation distances between GM and non-GM fields; sowing a non-GM maize buffer strip around GM fields; and using GM varieties with different flowering dates compared to non-GM varieties.

The report concludes that conventional (non-GM) seed production in Europe with adventitious GM presence not exceeding 0.5% [2] is feasible with few (maize) or no changes (sugar-beet and cotton) of current seed production practices. For maize seed production, such changes would build on existing practices (namely the implementation of larger isolation distances than those currently used to separate maize seed and maize crop production fields). In addition, lowering the seed threshold to 0.3 % would require additional measures (for example arranging GM and non-GM seed plots in the farm in a way that takes into account dominant winds). Finally, guaranteeing that maize seeds will contain no more than 0.1 % adventitious GM presence is not possible if co-existence measures are limited to action on individual farms or coordination between neighbouring farms.

While previous studies looking at the coexistence of GM and non-GM harvests were based on field-to-field analysis of cross-pollination, this new report moves the study of coexistence to a regional level. This has been made possible by running novel models, designed to address the spread of genes from GM crops to non-GM crops, with digitalised versions of actual European agricultural landscapes, regional meteorological conditions and agricultural practices. This has allowed the estimation of levels of adventitious GM presence in non-GM harvest resulting from cross-pollination from multiple fields and other sources, and over extended time periods.

In July 2003, the Commission published guidelines to help Member States develop strategies to ensure the effective co-existence of GM crops with conventional and organic crops. A number of Member States have since notified legislation on co-existence.

The Commission will shortly publish a report on the measures taken across the EU, which will be fed into a conference to discuss the issue, co-hosted with the Austrian presidency, to be held in Vienna on 5-6 April. Following the conference, the Commission will decide if any further action needs to be taken at EU level.

The full version of today's report is available at the following website:
http://www.jrc.es/home/pages/eur22102enfinal.pdf (4.3MB pdf file)

ENDNOTES:

[1] Consortium formed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC)-Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS); Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA, France); University of Applied Sciences of Weihenstephan (Germany); Desarrollo Agrario y Pesquero (DAP; Spain)

[2] Thresholds for the adventitious presence of GM seeds in conventional seed lots may be defined in accordance with Directive 2001/18/EC as well as with the crop specific Directives on the marketing of seeds. However, such thresholds have not yet been set and are still under discussion. This implies that currently all seed lots containing detectable traces of GM seeds have to be labelled as GM.

Argentina seeks EU intervention in soy row with Monsanto

Reuters, Friday, February 24,2006

BUENOS AIRES - The Argentine government will lobby the European Commission next week to intervene in the soybean royalties dispute with U.S. biotech company Monsanto Co., an official said on Thursday.

Monsanto has sued European importers of Argentine soymeal in three European countries and halted four shipments to try to enforce patents there on its Roundup Ready gene technology, which was never patented in Argentina but is widely used.

"We want to notify the European Union about the inconveniences of halting shipments and teil it about the additional costs and losses they are generating for European feed processors," Gustavo Idigoras, the Argentine agricultural attachÈ in Brussels, told Reuters.

Argentina is the biggest exporter of soymeal in the world and Europe its No. 1 client, with nearly $2 billion in sales annually.

Argentina wants the commission to investigate and end the legal actions presented by Monsanto on the grounds that the St. Louis-based company does not have the right to present lawsuits in Europe.

In recent weeks, Monsanto has halted Argentine soy shipments in three Spanish ports and in Liverpool, England, testing for Roundup Ready technology in a prelude to lawsuits. The company has filed patent infringement suits in Denmark, the Netherlands, and, most recently, Spain.

23 February 2006

The chips are down for GM potato crops

Irish Independent, 23 February 2006. By Aideen Sheehan.

THE growing of genetically modified crops in Ireland was described at a protest yesterday as "evil" and "the biggest rip-off in the history of the State".

These patented crops will inevitably contaminate ordinary ones, causing farmers to lose ownership of their crops and putting them in the hands of multinationals, said Michael O'Callaghan of lobby group GM-Free Ireland.

Fr Seán McDonagh of the lobby group said he believed patenting living organisms was fundamentally wrong.

"This is the corporations taking over your life and it's evil. It's time we stood up and said no," he said.

Around 150 opponents of GM crops protested outside Leinster House against an application by German chemical giant BASF to carry out a five-year field trial of blight-resistant GM potatoes at a farm in Arudstown, Summerhill, Co Meath.

The Environmental Protection Agency said they had received around 91 submissions about the BASF potatoes with more being hand-delivered right up to when the deadline for objections ran out last night.

They will now review these submissions and possibly seek further information from BASF before making a decision on the application towards the end of April.

If approved, the potatoes would be the first new GM crop grown in Ireland since the controversial Monsanto sugar beet trials in the late 1990s.

There were concerns about the possible health effects of GM food as animal trials had given "serious cause for concern", said Dr Elizabeth Cullen of the Irish Doctors Environmental Association.

The Irish potato industry, already suffering from the impact of the Atkins low-carb diet, could be further damaged if news of GM potatoes being grown here reached our overseas markets which don't want GM food, said Green Party leader Trevor Sargent.

Steve Humphreys' picture (above) shows Alana Geoghegan (8) from Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim at the protest.

Monsanto link to trade talks delegation denied

Irish times, 23 February 2006. By Seán MacConnell

The Department of Agriculture yesterday denied a claim by Independent Senator David Norris that a representative of the chemical company, Monsanto was on the official Irish delegation to the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong last December.

The allegation was made during a press conference called by the GM-free Ireland Network, to protest over an application by BASF, the German chemical company, to grow genetically modified (GM) blight resistant potatoes at an experimental farm in Grange, Co Meath.

Sixteen speakers told the press conference of their opposition to the proposed five-year trial for which the company has applied for a licence to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Speakers for farming groups such as the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association and Irish Organic Farmers said they opposed the move because it would damage Ireland's clean, green image.

Environmentalists Dr Elizabeth Cullen, of the Irish Doctors' Environmental Association, and Kathryn Marsh, of the EPA's GM advisory committee, objected on the grounds that not enough was known about the impact on human health from consuming GM products or animals fed GM products.

Fr Seán McDonagh, author and environmentalist, said GM production was a moral issue because corporate greed was forcing people to eat genetically engineered food.

The politicians who attended, Marian Harkin MEP and Mr Norris, agreed and said Ireland was being forced into doing something that was unnecessary.

Ms Harkin said the chemical company's plans were the "ugly face of globalisation" and Mr Norris said to allow GM production here would be an obscenity.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said there was no demand from either farmers or consumers for GM-produced potatoes. This was a German company and it should carry out trials there, not in Ireland, because there were many cases of GM crops infecting native plants and crops and that danger could not be minimised, he said.

Irish Senate, transcript of Order of Business discussion, 23 February 2006

Senator David Norris:

I wish to raise a matter that I hope many Members of the House will be interested in, genetically modified food and experiments that are proposed for County Meath involving a German potato crop. It is of no relevance to Irish agriculture. I ask for a debate on the issue, and I would like the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Coughlan, to be present. I stated at a press conference yesterday that a senior representative of Monsanto was included in the Irish delegation to talks in both Hong Kong and Cancun. This representative was given full accreditation. A representative of The Irish Times telephoned the Department about the matter and was told this was not true. The Cathaoirleach would not allow me to name the person and I will not do so. I have a photograph of her as part of the delegation. She had access as a delegate to areas to which she should not have had access. Her title is the director of government affairs, Europe-Africa, Monsanto Services International. She is based in Belgium and I have a hard copy of the list of delegates.

An Cathaoirleach: We will have a debate on the matter.

Mr. Norris: She was brought in under the cloak of IBEC.

An Cathaoirleach: They will be very important points in the debate. We cannot have a debate during the Order of Business.

Mr. Norris: We must get the truth, not more obfuscation and bluster.

A Senator: Name her.

Mr. Norris: It is incumbent on newspapers of record such as The Irish Times to probe and not just accept the prevarication of the Department of Agriculture and Food.

Protestors demand hald to genetic trial on potatoes
Let's make Ireland GM-free zone now

Daily Mail (Ireland), 23 February 2006. By John Breslin.

Hundreds of protestors descended on Leinster House yesterday to insist that Ireland should become a GM-free country.

Politicians, farmers' representatives, environmentalists and chefs were among those voicing their opposition to proposed five-year trials near the Hill of Tara in Co. Meath.

They say the Government is sleepwalking the country into a GM future with little debate and claim there is a real risk the open air trials by German biotech company BASF will contaminate conventional crops nearby.

The protest was held on the deadline day set by the Environmental Protection Agency for submissions on the proposal.

Government policy on genetically modified crops, based on advice given more than five years ago, is that there are downsides and benefits to the crops.

But, to the dismay of those who oppose their introduction, the Government, unlike other European countries, have consistently supported an EU-wide loosening of controls on GM products and crops.

Protesters believe the Irish Sea should be a buffer zone to guard against cross-contamination of crops.

They say there are sound business and health reasons for doing so, while arguing that to open the door to GM crops will lead to Ireland's ability to freely market its produce across the world being compromised.

BASF argues that the trials could lead to the production of strains of potatoes resistant to blight and claim Ireland is an ideal location to carry these trials out.

But those who oppose the trials argue that there is no reason for them to be held here because they will be produced for the global market.

'Maximum number of consumers'

Eddie Punch, the general secretary of the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, said "We are against GM because we believe our clean, green image must be protected. It would compromise irrevocably our ability to fill premium European markets and reach a maximum number of consumers.

Mr Punch added that his members have huge concerns about the patenting of food production which could end up being controlled by a small number of companies.

MEP Marian Harkin condemned Ireland's record in Europe on GM crops, amid claims the Government's representatives have consistently voted in favour of lifting restrictions. "We have no influence on what happens even though most people do not want GM foods."

Senator David Norris claimed there was an employee from the multi-national biotech company Monsanto, which is leading the way on the development of GM products, on an Irish delegation to world trade talks.

However, she was there as a representative of the Irish Bioindustry Association and that delegation also included environmentalists from non-governmental organisations.

BASF wants to begin trials in the Boyne Valley in April and continue them until 2010.

While small-scale trials have taken place, they did not involve crops widely grown in Ireland and were highly controlled.

Restaurateur Evan Doyle, of Euro-Toques Ireland, which represents more than 100 of the country's top chefs, said the proposed potato trials are in a different league.

Keep those Frankenstein potatoes out!
As a German company bids to test GM crops here, a top chef warns we're sowing seeds of our own destruction.

Daily Mail (Ireland), 23 February 2006. By Evan Doyle.

At school, we were always told it was hard to make a living from a 30-acre farm. Yet two organic farmers in Wicklow grow most of the vegetables I use in my organic hotel and restaurant on less than ten acres set aside for me.

Their six-figure annual bill proves they are making a good living. These farmers are, like me, business people.

Which is why they both attended yesterday's rally against GM trials proposed for Summerhill, Co. Meath.

The German firm BASF Plant Science wants to grow potatoes genetically modified to be resistant to blight.

Why do we have a company from Germany coming into Ireland to grow GM potatoes? Germany is a big place - why not have the trials there?

BASF is doing it because, first, we have had problems with blight in the past. Yet strains have already been developed - gently over a long period - that are 99.9 per cent resistant to the disease.

Second, the internationally recognised link between Ireland and the potato will give the company extra publicity.

But claiming that organic or conventional farming can co-exist alongside GM farming is wrong.

The only sure way to avoid contamination is to declare the island GM-free and make the Irish Sea the buffer zone.

Last year, my Brook Lodge Hotel and Strawberry Tree restaurant, which employs 104 people, served 25,000 organic dinners and 29,000 organic breakfasts.

We bought € 1 million worth of organic produce, including 20 tons of potatoes.

My organic license is not a food fad. This is back to basics - back to real food. It's what we had 50 years ago.

Let's say I cannot buy organic produce because of cross-contamination of potatoes.

If I bring non-organic alternatives into my kitchen, I will lose my license. But if I stop buying potatoes - a staple of the Irish diet - I will lose my customers.

The rest of Europe is heading towards the widespread cultivation of crops by orgnic methods and using less chemicals.

Withness the debate over nitrates. In Germany, new legislation penalises companies that pollute the water. Chemical use has plummetted.

This is the way we are moving. Unless, unless... something comes in the side door and contaminates all our crops.

The proposed trial is for five years. The potatoes will be grown in the open and there is nothing to guarantee that organic and conventional crops will not be contaminated.

This is a serious possibility - there are lots of debates about GM, but no-one is disputing the fact that cross-contamination occurs.

It has been proven that pollen can be carries up to 2km by the wind. Some studies have shown spores travelling up to 30km.

There there was the case of a canola [oilseed rape] farmer in Canada. As he quietly went about his business a farmer next door decided to plant GM crops.

The first farmer's canola crop became contaminated without prior knowledge or permission. But he was not able to sue - instead, the GM giant Monsanto sued him for using crops without their permission. He was fined € 73,000 and had all his crops taken from him.

Permission

At the moment anyone can sell and grow the Setanta potato. But let's say a biotech company produces a seedling similar to Setanta. The new variety can be grown, but only on behalf of and with the approval of the company. Those who grow it without permssion risk being sued.

We used to save our seeds and use them for the following year's crop. We may not do that so much anymore, but all farmers in the developing world put a percentage of their crop seed aside for next year's growth.

With "terminator" seeds, they will no longer be able to do that.

The terminator seed becomes sterile and will not reproduce. Every year, the farmer will have to return to the seed supplier, which is owned by a multinational, to restock.

Scientists may argue that every year, the seeds could be redeveloped to take on the fight against new diseases.

They may argue that the new potato, becuse of this terminator gene, will not contaminate neighbouring crops. But they will, because batches will always contain some seeds that are not completely sterile.

I cannot understand why the World Trade Organisation or governments can decide that a company owns the rights to living things. Companies are being allowed to patent discoveries, not creations.

An argument made for GM crops is that they can be genetically modified to be resistant to weeds and bugs.

But nature tells us that those same weeds and bugs will develop a resistance over the years, continued modification will have to take place. Where does it end?

You can be sure that if you need to use herbicides or insecticides in the future, the only ones that will work will be those developed by the company you bought the seed from. This is happening already.

Nature has either looked after us or not. That's the gamble down through the millennia.

Some things in nature are not beneficial to us as a species, some are, but there is always time to resolve issues, to grow accustomed to changes or not. What we are trying to do is fast-forward this evolution.

Yes, in the past, we have been able to crossbreed two potatoes to produce one that would better combat blight. It's a genetic road down a particular path.

But GM is different. It comes from a laboratory and is done en masse.

It will give us a situation where we have a genetically modified seed out there on this planet. How can you destroy pollen, microbes? One gust of wind is all that is needed ad the genie will not fit back into the bottle.

There is also the claim that GM food will feed the world.

But this planet can produce enough food for us all. The reason there are people starving on this earth is purely down to politics and business and nothing else.

There will also be health effects, without a shadow of a doubt. When you go tampering and cross-breeding genes, the outcome is not known.

Ten years of trials is not enough time to evaluate the long-term health effects of crossing genes that nature never intended to be crossed.

Food scares arrive on a daily basis - that's what 50 years of industrialisation of the food supply has brought. We are only beginning to find out connections between various cancers and what we eat. Can we afford to take the same attitude to GM foods? I don't think so.

The Irish Government is substantially influenced by companies that deal in bio-products.

I think it's appalling that, as a large island of Western Europe, we are not pushing the fact that we are GM-free.

Surveys show consumers, both here and abroad, do not want GM products.

We have this image of a green isle. It's changed slightly in recent years, ut we should capitalise on it, not shuffle along towards a GM world.

The Government uses New Zealand as an example of what can be done here.

Well, I was sent a postcard from a friend in New Zealand and printed on the bottom was "No to GM and 100 per cent organics by the year 2030."

Business

This makes huge business sense. Its produce will be in huge demand as consumers will know for sure that everything from New Zealand is organic.

As more and more GM crops are introduced on a trial basis, cross-contamination becomes much more likely and there's no going back then. All we will be able to do is bow to the big companies.

The best thing we could do for our food exports is tll the world that the island of Ireland is 100 per cent GM-free.

It will be of huge benefit, for the consumer, for business, and for our health and that of our children and grandchildren.

GM science – supported by a tissue of lies
Revealed – how the GM industry kills off "uncomfortable" research

Fact: Two years ago, when Prof Bela Darvas and his colleagues in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences revealed a massive buildup of toxins associated with plantings of a GM maize called MON810, and indicated that they wanted to repeat and extend their research, Monsanto immediately shut off supplies of seeds and effectively killed off the research project.

Fact: In 2005, when Dr Judy Carman asked Bayer CropScience for 100g of GM InVigor canola seeds for field tests in Australia, the company simply ignored her request and made the research impossible.

These cases are by no means unique (1).

----------------------------

Within the GM science community there has been concern for several years about the "corporate control" of the scientific agenda and about the difficulties encountered by independent researchers who have discovered "uncomfortable" things about the health and environmental impacts of GM crops and foods (2).

There is also concern about the manner in which the regulatory authorities have comprehensively ditched the precautionary principle, and about the vast list of "junk science" articles in the literature based upon the nonsensical concept of "substantial equivalence" (3).

Genuinely independent GM research is made extremely difficult because of lack of funding; because of the hostility of regulatory and advisory bodies such as ACNFP, FSA, ACRE and EFSA and indeed of Government Departments like DEFRA; because august scientific institutions like the Royal Society are robustly pro-GM; because the GM lobby is well practiced in the dark arts of obfuscation and spin; and because scientists who question the safety of GM are routinely personally vilified by the industry. Dr Arpad Pusztai, Dr Mae-wan Ho and Dr Ignacio Chapela have been knocked over and have come up fighting (4), but there are many others who have simply been silenced and subdued by the hired hit-men of the GM industry (5).

It has now been revealed that the GM industry routinely refuses to supply GM seed and other GM "reference material" to bona fide scientists who ask for it, citing as justification patent protection and "commercial in confidence" rules (6). In the case of the Bt10 fiasco, Syngenta even refused to send to the EC reference materials needed by research laboratories for the development of a testing and monitoring programme (7).

"This means that one of the fundamental principles of science has now been abandoned, with the apparent connivance of certain governments," says Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru. "Science has always operated on the assumption that experiments must be replicable in order that results may be verified or falsified. But if the GM multinationals refuse to allow their GM seeds and reference materials to be examined by anybody other than their own scientists, there is no way that anybody should trust their results, whether or not they have been through a peer review process. Integrity is immediately swept away, and corruption takes its place."

GM Free Cymru has therefore made the following demands:

1. We demand that all owners of GM seed and reference materials who have submitted experimental results in support of their applications for GM consents must state unequivocally, in writing, that identical materials are available to bona fide researchers who wish to repeat the published experiments.

2. We demand that the regulatory bodies which have issued "opinions" or given consents for GM crops and foods should immediately revoke those decisions pending the receipt of assurances as in (1) above.

3. We demand that all applications in the regulatory pipeline should be placed on hold until (a) the applicants have given assurances that every single experiment described in supporting dossiers may be repeated by independent researchers without let or hindrance, and (b) all published results are verified independently.

4. We call upon all journals which publish GM-related papers (whether or not peer-reviewed) to refuse to publish unless and until they have a written commitment from the seed owners that they will freely provide identical GM materials for the conduct of repeat experiments by independent researchers.

5. We call upon all scientists working in the GM field, no matter what their affiliations may be, to support these demands so that integrity and respect for scientific principles may be restored.

"These are minimum demands," says Dr John. "The on-going refusal by GM multinationals to provide GM materials to independent researchers is a scientific outrage. Until the demands are met, we have to assume that GM crops and foods are dangerous, that industry-sponsored published research is untrustworthy, and that the GM approval process is supported by a flimsy tissue of lies." (8)

ENDS

Contact:

Brian John
Tel +44 1239 820470


NOTES

1. See this for example: http://www.gefreemaine.org/index.php?page=13

GM Free Cymru is building a dossier of cases involving refusals by the GM seed owners to supply seed and other materials to respected scientists and research laboratories. Check for updates here: http://www.gmfreecymru.org/

2. There is a large literature on the vilification of dissenting scientists, the use of personal attacks as a diversionary tactic, and of the use of spinning and dissembling techniques whenever the GM industry needs to deal with "uncomfortable" evidence of harm relating to GFM food and crops. See Jeffrey Smith's book "Seeds of Deception" (2004), Green Books, or see the following: http://www.seedsofdeception.com/
http://www.gmwatch.org/
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/appeal.php
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5989
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/ cmsctech/286/9030804.htm

3. On the Precautionary Principle: http://www.biotech-info.net/in_defense.html
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/prec.php
http://www.mindfully.org/Precaution/2003/Science-Based-Precaution4apr03.htm

On Substantial equivalence:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1050
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1050

Prof Janet Bainbridge: "The presumption of safety of novel GM plants on the basis of substantial equivalence lacks scientific credibility, given modern expectations of standards of evidence http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/substequiv.cfm

"Beyond Substantial equivalence", Oct. 7, 1999, Nature, by Erik Millstone, Eric Brunner and Sue Mayer "Showing that a genetically modified food is chemically similar to its natural counterpart is not adequate evidence that it is safe for human consumption."

4. When confronted with uncomfortable evidence, the first instinct of the GM industry is to "shoot the messenger." See the following: http://counterpunch.org/tonak06262004.html
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2005/Chapela-State-Enemy19jan05.htm
http://www.healthcoalition.ca/pusztai.html
http://www.psrast.org/pusztai.htm

5. See Jeffrey Smith, "Seeds of Deception". During the Nazi era in Germany "....... far from being subjected to force, many scientists voluntarily oriented their work to fit government policies - as a way of getting money and of exploiting the new resources that Nazi policies made available ......... Most researchers, it turns out, seem to have regarded the regime not as a threat, but as an opportunity for their research ambitions." (Nature, 7 April 2005) Encouraging the people of Britain to stand up to Hitler, Winston Churchill said this: "....... if we fail, the whole world, including the Unites States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." (June 18th, 1940)

6. http://www.gefreemaine.org/index.php?page=13 Date: 25 May 2005

7. Syngenta Dodgy Dossier -- GM Free Cymru:
a href="http://www.gmfreecymru.org/news/Press_Notice8December2005.htm" target=winshow>http://www.gmfreecymru.org/news/Press_Notice8December2005.htm

8. For an example of the "dodgy science" used in support of GM applications for approval, see this: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=66&page=1