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

New Suspicions about GMOs

Le Monde, 9 February 2006. By Hervé Kempf. Translated by Leslie Thatcher.

Do transgenic plants have a negative effect on health? Ever since their commercialization in 1996, the question has agitated circles of experts and ecologists, without any indisputable proof allowing an affirmative response. Now, several recent studies effected by credible researchers and published in scientific reviews tally with one another to throw doubt on GMOs' complete harmlessness. They don't assert that GMOs generate health problems. But at the very least they suggest that GMOs provoke biological impacts that must be more widely studied. This new questioning arises just as the Council of Ministers adopted a proposed law on GMO Wednesday, February 8, and as the World Trade Organization (WTO) handed over an interim report February 7 to the parties in a conflict that opposes the United States, Canada, and Argentina to the European Union on the issue of transgenic plants. http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/020806HB.shtml#1"

In November 2005, Australian researchers published an article in a scientific review (Vanessa Prescott et al., Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, 2005, p. 9023) explaining that the transfer of a gene that expresses an insecticide protein from a bean to a pea had provoked unexpected problems: among the mice fed the transgenic peas, CSIRO (the Australian equivalent of the French National Center for Scientific Research, CNRS) researchers observed antibody production, markers of an allergic reaction. The affair, which made headlines in the Australian and English press, led Csiro to stop development of that transgenic pea, while West Australia Minister of Agriculture Kim Chance announced that his government would finance an independent study on feeding animals with GMO: "The state government is aware of the anxiety concerning GMO safety, while most of the research in this domain is conducted or financed by the very companies promoting GMO," Mr. Chance explained in a November 2005 communique.

During the summer of 2005, it was an Italian team led by Manuela Malatesta, cellular biologist at the Histological Institute of the University of Urbino, that published intriguing results (European Journal of Histochemistry, 2005, p. 237). In prior studies, that team had already demonstrated that absorption of transgenic soy by mice induces modifications in the nuclei of their liver cells. This summer's publication proved that a return to non-transgenic food made the observed differences disappear. It also showed that several of these changes could be "induced in adult organisms in a very short time."

In Norway, Terje Traavik, scientific director of the University of Tromsso's Institute of Genetic Ecology, just published a study in European Food Research and Technology (January 2006, p. 185): he demonstrates that an element of the genetic structures used to modify a plant, the catalyst 35S CaMV, can provoke gene expression in cultured human cells. Now, according to GMO promoters, that catalyst normally only operates that way in plants.

The increase in these experiments led the FAO (the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization) to organize a seminar on the safety of transgenic food in October 2005, bringing together the best specialists on the question. "What came out of it was that we have to pay attention to this type of study," said FAO seminar coordinator Ezzedine Boutrif. "In several cases, GMOs have been put on the market when the safety issues were not very clear."

The researchers involved in these recent studies declare their neutrality. "I had no preconceived idea about GMOs when I began my research in 2000," says Manuela Malatesta. "I thought they weren't dangerous because we had been eating them for a long time. But there was virtually no scientific literature on the subject. Consequently, we thought it was useful to undertake some studies." For Terje Traavik, the initial motivation was different: "I was doing cancer research using transgenesis. My colleagues and I knew that it would pose a problem if it left the laboratory. That concern convinced us that we needed to study this type of risk."

This work attracts all the more attention in that, in the United States as well as in Europe, research on the impacts of GMO has not been encouraged by governments. Toxicological studies were effected by the companies promoting GMOs, the impartiality of which is debatable, and subsequently examined by commissions. But the latter never reproduced the experiments, which remain secret. Yet those studies sometimes also show notable biological impacts.

On April 23 2004, Le Monde revealed that experts from the Commission on Biomolecular Genetics (CGB) were divided over the effects of a Monsanto corn, MON 863. In the toxicological study that had been communicated to them, it seemed that rats fed with the GMO presented several anomalies: an increase in white blood cell count, blood sugar changes, reduction of red blood cell count, etc. A debate followed between the agencies concerned that led to a favorable CGB opinion. Although the experts re-examined the file, they did not, however, take a new look at the statistical analysis presented by Monsanto. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121504H.shtml

Associations including Greenpeace demanded publication of the toxicological file so that they can submit it to a second opinion. On June 9, 2005, the Munster, Germany, Court of Appeal ordered its publication. Greenpeace then consigned two French researchers, Gilles-Eric Séralini, of the University of Caen, and Dominique Cellier, of the University of Rouen, to prepare a statistical second opinion of the case. They are supposed to publish the results of their study in February. "Monsanto's statistical analysis of the differences observed in the rats was very superficial," observes Dominique Cellier, who is a biocomputer specialist. "They isolate the variables instead of using so-called multi-variable analysis methods, which consist of looking at the observed anomalies in a coherent way. If one uses those methods, one observes coherence between the weight, urinary tract, and hematological anomalies in the animals fed GMOs."

This study should provoke new debates. But already, official experts recognize that the toxicological evaluation procedures for GMOs are not perfect. "The discussion about MON 863 was very positive," says Jean-Michel Wal, a member of the European Authority on Food Security's GMO group. "It has allowed us to deepen our evaluation methods. In fact, 90 day toxicological studies on rats are very difficult to execute and interpret. We don't know how to study a food overall, whether it's a GMO or not; there's no norm." And the increase in questions about the biological impacts of GMOs, at the very least, calls for more open scientific debate and public research, which, at the moment, is very rare.

Biotech's Sparse Harvest

New York Times, 14 February 2006. By Andrew Pollack

At the dawn of the era of genetically engineered crops, scientists were envisioning all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fighting tomatoes, rot-resistant fruits, potatoes that would produce healthier French fries and even beans that would not cause flatulence.

But so far, most of the genetically modified crops have provided benefits mainly to farmers, by making it easier for them to control weeds and insects.

Now, millions of dollars later, the next generation of biotech crops - the first with direct benefits for consumers - is finally on the horizon. But the list does not include many of the products once envisioned.

Developing such crops has proved to be far from easy. Resistance to genetically modified foods, technical difficulties, legal and business obstacles and the ability to develop improved foods without genetic engineering have winnowed the pipeline.

"A lot of companies went into shell shock, I would say, in the past three, four years," said C. S. Prakash, director of plant biotechnology research at Tuskegee University. "Because of so much opposition, they've had to put a lot of projects on the shelf."

Developing nonallergenic products and other healthful crops has also proved to be difficult technically. "Changing the food composition is going to be far trickier than just introducing one gene to provide insect resistance," said Mr. Prakash, who has promoted agricultural biotechnology on behalf of the industry and the United States government.

In 2002, Eliot Herman and his colleagues got some attention when they engineered a soybean to make it less likely to cause an allergic reaction. But the soybean project was put aside because baby food companies, which he thought would want the soybeans for infant formula, instead are avoiding biotech crops, said Mr. Herman, a scientist with the Department of Agriculture.

In addition, he said, food companies feared lawsuits if some consumers developed allergic reactions to a product labeled as nonallergenic.

The next generation of these crops - particularly those that provide healthier or tastier food - could be important for gaining consumer acceptance of genetic engineering. The industry won a victory last week when a panel of the World Trade Organization ruled that the European Union had violated trade rules by halting approvals of new biotech crops. But the ruling is not expected to overcome the wariness of European consumers over biotech foods.

New crops are also important for the industry, which has been peddling the same two advantages - herbicide tolerance and insect resistance - for 10 years. "We haven't seen any fundamentally new traits in a while," said Michael Fernandez, executive director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a nonprofit group.

Now, some new types of crops are appearing. Monsanto just won federal approval for a type of genetically engineered corn promoted as having greater nutritional value - albeit only for pigs and poultry. The corn, possessing a bacterial gene, contains increased levels of lysine, an amino acid that is often provided to farm animals as a supplement.

Coming next, industry executives say, are soybean oils intended to yield healthier baked goods and fried foods. To keep soybean oil from turning rancid, the oil typically undergoes a process called hydrogenation. The process produces trans fatty acids, which are harmful and must be disclosed in food labels under new regulations.

Both Monsanto and DuPont, which owns the Pioneer Hi-Bred seed company, have developed soybeans with altered oil composition that, in some cases, do not require hydrogenation. Kellogg said in December that it would use the products, particularly Monsanto's, to remove trans fats from some of its products.

Monsanto's product, Vistive, and DuPont's, which is called Nutrium, were developed by conventional breeding. They are genetically engineered only in the sense that they have the gene that allows them to grow even when sprayed with the widely used herbicide Roundup.

But Monsanto and DuPont say the next generation of soybean, which would be able to eliminate trans fats in more foods, would probably require genetic engineering. Those products are expected in three to six years.

Beyond that, both companies said, would be soybeans high in omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for the heart and the brain. These are now derived largely from eating fish, which in turn get them by eating algae. Putting algae genes into soybeans could allow for soy oil that is rich in the fatty acids.

"Our hope is it is easier to formulate into food without it smelling or tasting fishy," said David M. Stark, vice president for consumer traits at Monsanto.

Other second-generation crops are also on the way. DuPont is trying to develop better tasting soy for use in products like protein bars.

Some efforts are under way to develop more nutritious crops for the world's least developed countries, led by what is termed golden rice, which contains the precursor of vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of blindness in certain poor countries.

There has been progress in crops able to withstand drought. While those would mainly benefit farmers, it would also help consumers in regions like Africa, where droughts bring famine.

Mr. Stark said Monsanto had not anticipated that use of genetic engineering would discourage food companies from using the company's soybeans. "I don't get many requests for 'Is this a G.M.O. or not?' " he said, using the abbreviation for genetically modified organism. "It's more 'Does the oil work?' "

Still, opposition by consumers and food companies has clearly forced big companies like Monsanto and DuPont to choose their projects carefully. It has also made it difficult for academic scientists and small start-ups, which typically provide much of the innovation in other fields, to obtain financing.

Avtar K. Handa, a professor at Purdue, said he had stopped work on a tomato he helped develop a few years ago that was rich in lycopene, a cancer-fighting substance. Genetically modified crops are not being brought to market and research funds have diminished, he said.

Still, opposition is not the only problem. Alan McHughen, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, said that for small companies and university researchers, the main obstacles were patent rights held by the big companies and the cost of taking a biotech crop through regulatory review. That has made it particularly difficult to apply genetic engineering to crops like fruits and vegetables, which have smaller sales than the major grain and oil crops.

Technical issues are another obstacle. While a single bacterial gene can provide herbicide resistance or insect resistance, changing the nutritional composition of crops sometimes requires several genes to alter the metabolism within a cell. That raises a greater risk of unintended effects, some experts say.

Enhanced crops must also meet the demands of farmers for high yields and of food companies for good taste and handling properties.

DuPont won approval for a soybean high in oleic acid, which could produce healthier oils, back in 1997. But instead of becoming a showcase of the consumer health benefits of genetic engineering, the crop is now used only to make industrial lubricants.

Erik Fyrwald, group vice president of DuPont's agriculture and nutrition division, said one reason the crop was not sold for use in food was that demand for healthier oils was not as great then as it is now. But other experts say there was another problem - foods made with the oil did not taste good.

"The high-oleic oils are not very well received by the consumer," said Pamela White, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Iowa State University. Further, she predicted that soy oils containing the omega-3 fatty acids would be unstable, making them hard to use in fried foods.

William Freese, a research analyst at Friends of the Earth, which opposes genetically engineered crops, said genetic engineering had been oversold. "The facts show that conventional breeding is more successful at delivering crops with 'healthy traits' than genetic manipulation, despite all the hype from Monsanto and other biotech companies," he wrote in an e-mail message.

Scientists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico have already used conventional breeding to develop corn rich in lysine, similar to the new Monsanto product, he said.

The biotech companies concede that if improvements can be made conventionally, results would come quicker because such crops do not face regulatory scrutiny. Mr. Stark of Monsanto said that if his company could develop high-oleic soybeans using breeding, the product could reach the market in three years, rather than six for the genetically engineered version.

But in some cases, scientists and executives say, it is not possible to get a trait, like the omega-3 fatty acids, without using genes from another species. "With genetic engineering you can go further," said Mr. Fyrwald of DuPont.

Mr. Fernandez of the Pew Initiative said polls have shown that consumers seem to be receptive to genetically modified products that have direct benefits for them. But whether that would be enough to win wide acceptance of genetically engineered foods remains to be seen.

One issue is whether consumers would even know what they are eating. Right now, in the United States, genetically modified and conventional crops are typically mixed together, and food made from biotech crops is not labeled.

But it is likely that crops with consumer benefits would be segregated so farmers could charge more for them. And food companies are probably going to want to label them. But the labeling is likely to proclaim that the food has healthier oil or is better for the heart, rather than mention it was the product of genetic engineering.

In Europe, food containing genetically modified ingredients has to be labeled to that effect, but it is not clear whether the health aspects would be linked to genetic engineering on the label.

Chris Somerville, chief executive of Mendel Biotechnology, a small company developing drought-resistant crops, said acceptance would depend more on big food companies than consumers. Companies, he said, would not want to risk their brands by using biotech crops if they thought there was even a slight chance of consumer rejection.

"Really, they're the gatekeepers," said Mr. Somerville, who is also head of the plant biology department at the Carnegie Institution. "The consumers aren't going to have any choice before the brand companies think it's safe to go out."

16 February 2006

Campaigners slam proposed GM potato trial in Co Meath

Irish Independent, 16 February 2006.

Environmental campaigners have expressed concern about the possibility that genetically modified potatoes being grown in Ireland.

The German company BASF has applied for a licence to conduct field trials with a blight-resistant crop in Co Meath this April.

Opponents of the move have until next Wednesday to submit their views to the Environmental Protection Agency, which will then decide whether to grant the licence.

Speaking about the matter yesterday, Michael O'Halloran from the campaign group GM-Free Ireland claimed research had found that there was a high risk of the GM crop contaminating Irish potatoes.

He also claimed health risks associated with GM potatoes had not been adequately addressed, including the risk of alergies and toxic effects in humans and animals.

US, EU claim WTO victory

Irish Examiner, 16 February 2006. By Stephen Cadogan.

THE US and the EU each claimed they were favoured by last week's World Trade Organisation report on the EU's controls over imports of genetically modified foods.

The 1,050 page preliminary WTO ruling concluded the EU effectively banned biotech foods between June 1999 and August 2003. But this ban has since been lifted, and the WTO made no recommendations for action against the EU - although their report largely sided with the US, Canada and Argentina's legal complaint over EU controls on approval of new biotech foods, and ruled that individual bans in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg violated international trade rules.

The report concluded that the EU had breached its commitments with respect to 21 products. But it rejected several contentions that the EU had broken trade rules on several other products.

The US has argued that a ban on American corn exports to Europe, originally imposed by Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, is still in place.

Austria's health minister Maria Rauch-Kallat said protection of people and the environment have absolute priority, and she defiantly asserted that Austria will exhaust all possibilities to keep its agriculture GM-free and ensure consumers' safety.

14 February 2006

America's masterplan is to force GM food on the world
The reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was to prise open lucrative markets elsewhere

The Guardian, 13 February 2006. By John Vidal.

Just a few years ago, World Trade Organisation officials used to act hurt when described by social activists as irresponsible, secretive bureaucrats who trampled over national sovereignty and placed free trade over the environment or human rights. But that was when the global-trade policeman ruled on disputes that had little bearing on Europeans.

The WTO court's latest ruling will greatly increase the number of people who believe the organisation needs radical reform, if not burial. This week three judges emerged after years of secret deliberation to rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports between 1999 and 2003, violating WTO rules. The court also ruled that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg had no legal grounds to impose their own unilateral import bans. "Europe guilty!" shouted the US press. "This is glorious news for the Bush administration," said one blogger.

Actually, the judges said much more, but in true WTO style no one has been allowed to know what. A few bureaucrats in the US, EU, Argentina and Canada have reportedly seen the full 1,045-page report, and an edited summary of some of its conclusions has been leaked. But no one, it seems, will take responsibility for the ruling, which may force the EU to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate some of the world's most heavily subsidised farmers, and could change the laws of at least six countries that have imposed GM bans.

In fact the US has mostly won a lot of new enemies. Rather than going away, as the biotech companies and Washington fervently hoped, the opposition to GM foods seems to have been growing since 2004 when the case was brought to the WTO. Europe, its member states and its consumers all rejected the ruling last week, making the WTO look even more out of touch and incompetent to rule on issues about the environment, health and consumer choice.

The European commission, which has been trying to force GM crops into Europe over the heads of its member states, says the ruling is "irrelevant" because its laws have already been changed. Meanwhile, individual countries who dislike being told what to eat or grow by the EC as much as the WTO say they will resist any attempts to make them accept GM.

In the past few days Hungary has declared that it is in its economic interests to remain GM-free, and Greece and Austria have affirmed their total opposition to the crops. Italy has called the WTO ruling "unbalanced" and Poland's prime minister has pledged to keep the country GM-free. Local government is even more opposed: more than 3,500 elected councils in 170 regions of Europe have declared themselves GM-free.

There is little the WTO, the EC or the US can do in face of this coalition of the unwilling. If the US again tries to impose its GM products on Europe - as it did in the 90s, sparking the whole debacle - the attempt will backfire. Europe's biotech industry may now try to force the EC to use the WTO judgment to get the six countries with import bans to repeal anti-GM laws, but it will meet an even broader, more determined movement.

In fact, Washington and the US companies are not that bothered by Europe's predictable reaction. Europe has all but dropped off the world's GM map. The companies and the supermarkets know there is little or no demand for GM crops, and that Europe's subsidised farmers are reluctant to alienate the public further by growing them.

It is now clear that the real reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was was to make it easier for its companies to prise open regulatory doors in China, India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa, where most US exports now go. This is where millions of tonnes of US food aid heads, and where US GM companies are desperate to have access, buying up seed companies and schmoozing presidents and prime ministers.

More than two-thirds of exported US corn now goes to Asia and Africa, where once it went to Europe. As the Monsanto man said this week about the WTO ruling: "Our feeling is that it's important for countries other than the EU to have science-based regulatory frameworks."

Like the tobacco industry, GM companies are now focusing almost exclusively on developing countries. But here the industry is meeting stiff opposition from powerful unions and farming groups. Brazil has caved in, but Bolivia may shortly become the first Latin American country to fully reject GM. Some Indian states are deeply opposed, and there have been major demonstrations in the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia and elsewhere. India's largest farmers' organisation this week said the result of the WTO verdict would be that the US would become more aggressive in dumping GM food on to developing countries.

The US maintains that through the WTO it has won a great victory for free trade, and passed a significant milestone in US attempts "to have GM crops accepted throughout the world". Perhaps, but the battle is far from won, and in the meantime anyone opposing the crops is being reclassed as an enemy of America.

Within hours of the WTO decision, JosÈ BovÈ, the French farmer who has led European protests, arrived in New York to give an invited talk to Cornell students about GM food - and was immediately sent back to France by the US government.

Romania Bans Gene-Spliced Soy to Harmonise With EU

Reuters, 13 February 2006.

BUCHAREST - Romania will ban the cultivation of genetically modified soy from next year to harmonise with European Union norms as it gears up for EU entry, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.

The Black Sea state which hopes to join the EU in 2007 was Europe's biggest soy grower until 1989 and remains the continent's sole producer of gene-spliced soybeans, brought a decade ago by US biotech giants Monsanto Co and Pioneer.

Environmentalists have accused firms pioneering GMO's of using poor east European states as a back door to a reluctant EU which effectively had a moratorium on new gene crops and products between 1998 and 2004.

"The ministry decided to ban the cultivation of genetically modified soy from next year to comply with the European regulatory norms," Constantin Sin, the agriculture ministry's GMO expert told Reuters.

Monsanto officials in Bucharest were not immediately available to comment.

Biotech firms say their technology helps fight hunger and poverty but environmental groups and many Europeans oppose GMO's, which they fear might be unsafe for humans.

Romania, where there is almost no reluctance to embrace biotech foods among its 22 million population, put 61,000 ha under soy in 2004. The acreage had risen to 88,000 ha last year, or 0.6 percent of the country's total farmland.

Gene-spliced soy, which is used by Romanian farmers as animal feed, is the only GMO crop cultivated in Romania and accounts for two thirds of its overall soy output.

Sin said the ministry is also drafting legislation to ban sowing genetically modified seeds from previous years' crops in 2006. The bill will come into force later this year, he added.

"The bill aims to discourage farmers from planting (genetically modified) soy. There will be fines worth thousands of euros for those who don't comply with it," Sin said.

He said a switch to traditional soy crops would help farmers - who started growing GMO's tempted by the higher profit margins - to benefit from badly needed EU aid once the country joins the wealthy bloc.

French law passes GMO costs on to farmers, Greens protest

Reuters, 13 February 2006.

PARIS - France is proposing a new law that would effectively absolve the government of financial responsibility for contamination caused by genetically modified (GMO) crops, a move condemned by environmental groups.

In legislation put forward this week, France's research ministry suggested that farmers growing GMO crops would have to contribute to a fund to compensate for any contamination claims from neighbouring growers of traditional varieties.

"It is intolerable that the research ministry...is preparing to legalise environmental pollution, putting citizens' health at risk and sentencing French people, who are massively opposed to GMO's, to genetic contamination," Arnaud Apoteker, spokesman of Greenpeace France, said.

France's main farm unions welcomed the new laws, which are part of a larger set of proposals presented on Wednesday aimed at implementing a key 2001 European directive allowing GMO growing under certain conditions.

The World Trade Organization also ruled earlier this week that the European Union and six member states broke trade rules by barring entry to GMO foods and crops. France permits GMO maize to be grown.

Concern that GMO strains of wheat or maize could cross pollinate with traditional seeds has been one of the main focuses of environmental and anti-biotech groups who oppose foods they think may pose a health danger.

Biotech firms, such as the big seedmakers like Monsanto of the US and Swiss chemicals group Syngenta maintain their seeds are safe and can increase yields while using less pesticide.

Paris has come under pressure to further open its farms to GMO after the European Commission referred France to the EU's highest court last week over its failure to adopt biotech laws and requested a daily fine of 168,800 euros ($202,100).

But France, home to anti-globalisation campaigner Jose Bove, convicted several times for destroying test fields of GMO maize, was not obliged to immediately tackle the highly sensitive issue of cross-contamination between crops.

The current EU law states farmers finding more than 0.9 percent of GM materials in conventional crops must label the products as containing GMO's, which can lead to lower prices, but does not speak of any compensation fund or law.

Farmers Held Responsible

Environment campaigners and some growers groups protested that the proposal, which forces farmers to pay up to 100 euros per hectares of GM crops for a maximum of five years, also puts the whole responsibility of contamination on farmers' shoulders.

"The proposed legislation is planning to force farmers to carry the can. It thereby organises a total impunity for the food industry, seed makers and transporters," Greenpeace said.

But the country's main farm unions said the proposal, finally lays out a set of rules for growing GMO crops.

"It seemed indispensable to define at last a clear framework for producers, which would respect their choice and those of consumers," they said in a joint press release.

Opponents say GMO's should be banned altogether because cross-pollination is inevitable and makes it impossible for consumers to have a real choice over the food they purchase.

A large majority of French people agree.

A French poll published on Tuesday by a coalition of environmental and farming groups showed 78 percent of those questioned would like a temporary ban on GMO's to evaluate their health and environmental impact.

13 February 2006

Most Irish consumers would turn down GM foods

Irish Independent, 13 February 2006. By Aideen Sheehan, Food Correspondent.

THE majority of Irish consumers would reject genetically modified foods even if they offered specific health benefits.

A new survey shows strong hostility to GM foods, even though a sizable minority would buy GM products under certain conditions.

Around 40pc of consumers might accept certain GM foods if they offered health benefits such as protection against cancer or lowering of cholesterol, but half this group had reservations that would have to be addressed first.

Teagasc asked 300 consumers for their reaction to two hypothetical new GM foods - a yogurt and a dairy spread - to gauge public attitudes to the types of GM foods that might come on stream in the near future.

The anti-GM group tended to be better educated, more health-conscious and keener on natural ingredients, while Dubliners were more likely to accept GM food than Munster people.

Teagasc said the survey showed that GM foods were not widely accepted by Irish consumers, although a detailed analysis showed that clearly labelled GM dairy products with proven health benefits could get a share of the Irish food market.

11 February 2006

GM: Too much at stake

Irish Farmers Journal, Letter to the editor, 11 February 2006.

Dear Sir,

Your short editorial last week was certainly not a prime example of responsible journalism, actually more a contribution of an editor whose paper is largely dependent on advertising revenue.

I would strongly suggest that you and anyone else seriously interested in the topic should read the report by Prof. Joe Cummins on the release of genetically modified potatoes, expecially the serious questions raised about human and animal health, not to mention the implications to biodiversity.

Prof. Cummmin's report can be found at: www.gmfreeireland.org/potato/info/JoeCummins.pdf.

There is too much at stake for farmers and farming in Ireland in the question of growing GM crops, we deserve better than sloppy journalism.

– Richard Auler, Ballybrado, Cahir, Co. Tipperary.

Activists: U.S. violated freedoms by barring French farmer at JFK

Associated Press, 9 February 2006. By Verena Dobnik.

NEW YORK - Activists criticized the U.S. government on Thursday for stopping a French farmer - a key figure in the anti-globalization movement - from entering the country to voice his opposition to genetically engineered food.

Jose Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant in France, was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport upon arrival for an international conference on globalization and labor organized by Cornell University. His supporters were furious.

"Evidently, the Bush administration is behind this decision," said George Naylor, president of the Washington-based National Family Farm Coalition. "No one would think of fearing Jose's presence in this country except multinational corporations with a profit motive."

Bove arrived in the United States under a visa waiver program that allows citizens of certain countries, including France, to travel here for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa.

Janet Rapaport, a New York spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Bove was refused admission on Wednesday for reasons she said she could not discuss.

In a telephone interview from his farm in southern France, Bove told The Associated Press that when he arrived at the airport U.S. officials "knew exactly who I was. And they told me, 'You have to get out.'"

He said he had visited the United States last year, speaking at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"The fact that they don't want me to come in now is a new way for the Bush administration to build coalitions against us," the 52-year-old farmer said.

He noted that his trip on Wednesday coincided with a World Trade Organization ruling against European Union curbs on imports of genetically modified foods.

A key topic of the New York conference was "how people can fight (U.S. agriculture giant) Monsanto. This is an international struggle," Bove said. "The American government is fed up with this fight because such companies are losing a lot of money."

Monsanto, a St. Louis-based agriculture giant, produces genetically engineered corn, soybean and cotton seed for sale to farmers. The United States accounts for more than half of all biotech crops grown worldwide - mostly soybeans and corn.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said recently that agricultural biotechnology "provides tremendous benefits to farmers and rural communities."

Monsanto spokesman Chris Horner said farmers buy the company's seeds because "they provide real, tangible benefits - reduced costs, reduced pesticide use with insect-protected crops and more yield."

Bove had planned to attend the New York gathering of farmers, labor advocates and academics from around the world on Thursday and Friday, participating in forums titled "Fighting the Commodification of Food" and "The Struggle Against Monsanto in Europe." The conference was sponsored by Cornell's School of Labor and Industrial Relations in upstate Ithaca, N.Y., where Bove planned to address students and visit farmers.

He said he would speak to the gathering from France via speaker phone on Friday.

"I'm going to talk about the struggle of farmers all over the world for seeds," he told the AP. "Big companies like Monsanto have patents on genetically modified seeds, and you have to buy those seeds each year - you can't keep the ones you have. That's how they control food in the world, by controlling what farmers put in the soil."

Bove, who raises sheep and produces cheese, shot to fame in 1999 after leading protesters who dismantled a McDonald's restaurant under construction in Millau, near his farm in southern France.

He also participated in protests during the World Trade Organization meetings held in December in Hong Kong, where he was briefly detained but eventually allowed to enter.

A month earlier, he was sentenced to four months in prison for destroying a field of genetically modified corn planted by an American seed company in southern France. Associated Press Writer Tim McCahill contributed to this report.t

10 February 2006

French law puts GMO costs on farmers

Reuters, 10 February 2006. By Sybille de La Hamaide.

PARIS (Reuters) - France is proposing a new law that would effectively absolve the government of financial responsibility for contamination caused by genetically modified (GMO) crops, a move condemned by environmental groups.

In legislation put forward this week, France's research ministry suggested that farmers growing GMO crops would have to contribute to a fund to compensate for any contamination claims from neighboring growers of traditional varieties.

"It is intolerable that the research ministry...is preparing to legalize environmental pollution, putting citizens' health at risk and sentencing French people, who are massively opposed to GMOs, to genetic contamination," Arnaud Apoteker, spokesman of Greenpeace France, said.

France's main farm unions welcomed the new laws, which are part of a larger set of proposals presented on Wednesday aimed at implementing a key 2001 European directive allowing GMO growing under certain conditions.

The World Trade Organization also ruled earlier this week that the European Union and six member states broke trade rules by barring entry to GMO foods and crops. France permits GMO maize to be grown.

Concern that GMO strains of wheat or maize could cross pollinate with traditional seeds has been one of the main focuses of environmental and anti-biotech groups who oppose foods they think may pose a health danger.

Biotech firms, such as the big seedmakers like Monsanto of the U.S. and Swiss chemicals group Syngenta maintain their seeds are safe and can increase yields while using less pesticide.

Paris has come under pressure to further open its farms to GMO after the European Commission referred France to the EU's highest court last week over its failure to adopt biotech laws and requested a daily fine of 168,800 euros ($202,100).

But France, home to anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove, convicted several times for destroying test fields of GMO maize, was not obliged to immediately tackle the highly sensitive issue of cross-contamination between crops.

The current EU law states farmers finding more than 0.9 percent of GM materials in conventional crops must label the products as containing GMOs, which can lead to lower prices, but does not speak of any compensation fund or law.

FARMERS HELD RESPONSIBLE

Environment campaigners and some growers groups protested that the proposal, which forces farmers to pay up to 100 euros per hectares of GM crops for a maximum of five years, also puts the whole responsibility of contamination on farmers' shoulders.

"The proposed legislation is planning to force farmers to carry the can. It thereby organizes a total impunity for the food industry, seed makers and transporters," Greenpeace said.

But the country's main farm unions said the proposal, finally lays out a set of rules for growing GMO crops.

"It seemed indispensable to define at last a clear framework for producers, which would respect their choice and those of consumers," they said in a joint press release.

Opponents say GMOs should be banned altogether because cross-pollination is inevitable and makes it impossible for consumers to have a real choice over the food they purchase.

A large majority of French people agree.

A French poll published on Tuesday by a coalition of environmental and farming groups showed 78 percent of those questioned would like a temporary ban on GMOs to evaluate their health and environmental impact.

ICSA concerned over proposed GM trials

Nenagh Guardian, 10 February 2006.

ICSA's new rural development chairman, John Flynn, has expressed deep concern over german chemical giant BASF's proposal to the EPA to run GM potato trials in Co. Meath this year.

"Ireland has a very marketable clean, green image, and it is essential to maintain and develop that. Trials like this are totally counterproductive, and very damaging to that image," John Flynn stated. "We will be making a submission to the EPA, arguing the case for rejecting the proposal, in the strongest possible terms. The ICSA will never allow huge commercial interests like BASF to come into Ireland and ruin the agricultural sector."

9 February 2006

Hungary to extend GMO ban

Budapest, February 9 (MTI) - Hungary will extend its ban on growing genetically modified maize, gov't officials told the press on Thursday.

Hungarian researchers have recently found evidence that maize types freely traded in the European Union represent environmental and health risks, said Environment Ministry state secretary Andras Gombos.

According to the researchers, the toxic content of these types of maize in wet weather conditions can become thousands of times higher than traditional pesticides, he added.

The ban was introduced in January last year.

Farm minister Jozsef Graf said it was in Hungary's economic interest to keep the country GMO-free. Hungary is one of Europe's biggest grain producers.

He said Hungary would try to get European ministers to uphold the ban at a meeting in the summer.

EU denies it had GMO moratorium

Reuters, Thursday, February 09, 2006 .

BRUSSELS: The European Union contests it had a moratorium on imports of genetically modified crops and foods but it is too early to say whether it will appeal against a world trade ruling on its stance, an EU official said.

The World Trade Organization ruled on Tuesday that the EU and six member states broke trade rules by barring entry to so-called GMO products between 1999 and 2003, diplomats who saw the report said.

"We dispute that a moratorium existed and contest the claim that delays (in approving imports of GMOs) were excessive," the official told reporters on Wednesday on condition of anonymity. "The system is working, the science is sound. GMO imports to the EU are rising," he said.

"Our experts will now look into the findings. We are not even talking about an appeal at this time. It is only an interim report," another EU official said. "We may or may not decide to appeal.

France adopts EU regulations on GM crop trials

PARIS, Feb. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The French government on Wednesday adopted a bill in line with EU rules on crop trials and genetically modified organisms (GMO) cultivation, despite opposition from ecologists.

"We decided not to close the door (to GMO technologies), while keeping a close watch on what is done," French junior research minister Francois Goulard said.

Under the bill, French farmers would have to officially register any plantation of modified crops, filling a legal void that allowed 1,000 hectares of GMO maize to be grown undeclared last year, out of 90 million hectares grown worldwide.

The French government hoped the law bill could be passed by the end of the year by the French parliament, which is to start debating the bill by next month.

Polls showed that sixty percent of the French are hostile to GMO crops and that 78 percent would back a temporary moratorium until their impact on health and the environment is fully explained.

Environmentalists though say that not enough time has elapsed to assess the long-term impacts of GM crops. Scientists worry that the inserted genes in GM crops contaminate other species through wind-borne pollen.

GM debate could be worse than Nitrates

Irish Farmers Monthly, February 2006. Editorial by Margaret Donnelly.

The Nitrates Directive turned into an unimaginable farce. No one would have thought all those years ago, when we were supposed to have implemented it, that relations between Teagasc and the IFA would deteriorate to the point where the IFA called on farmers across the country to withdraw their support of Teagasc.

Surely it couldn't happen again? Well, it looks like it could over GM, and on a potentially more damaging level for farmers.

In this issue we look at the inter-departmental report on co-existence of GM and non-GM crops in Ireland. Every country in Europe must devise its own set of guidelines on how GM and non-GM crops can best co-exist in their country and an inter-departmental working group published Ireland's report in December.

The IFA, ICMSA and Macra na Feirme were all approached by the working group to make a submission when the report was being compiled. However, the three largest farmers organisations in the country decided to sit on the fence.

The only farming lobby group to make a submission for the report was the ICSA, which stated that it is in favour or a GM-free island policy.

And GM is likely to become an even more contentious issue than the Nitrates Directive ever was, because the general public will have a strong interest.

Yet the three farming organisations that claim to represent the vast majority of farmers between then are opting out of laying their cards on the table now.

While the Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, has said she will take on board any considerations she receives on the report, each of these farming organisations should have made a submission to the working group. It's even more worrying to hear that the biggest farming lobby group in the country (the IFA) doesn't even have a policy on GM crops.

European consumers, rightly or wrongly, are extremely wary of GM foods. A huge part of Ireland's success as an exporting food country is the image Bord Bia has built to make Ireland a clean, green country. It's slogan is 'Ireland ‚ the Food Island'. Our food export trade is founded on natural production methods, stringent food controls at farm and processing level and a committed customer service. Our beef is marketed on the principles of being grass-fed and coming from a clean, green unspoiled landscape with a history of traditional farming.

The biggest danger with going down the GM route, in my opinion, is that there is no going back. So if we go down the GM route will Bord Bia have to consider changing its name to 'Ireland ‚ the GM Food island?'.

Ferris warns against GM crops

Irish Examimner, 9 Feburary 2006. By Ray Ryan

ANY genetically modified crop grown here will affect conventional crops of the same species, Sinn FÈin's agriculture spokesman, Martin Ferris, has claimed.

He said scientific research clearly shows that cross contamination is impossible to prevent. Given the clear opposition of consumers to GM, this will have serious and damaging consequences for the sale of Irish food.

Meanwhile, the World Trade Organisation has ruled that the European Union illegally stopped imports of genetically modified organisms from the United States. It followed a complaint from the US, Canada and Argentina that an EU moratorium on GM food crops, in place from 1998 to 2004, was about protectionism, not science.

8 February 2006

EU says WTO ruling won't change its GMO approach

Reuters, Wednesday, February 8, 2006

The European Commission said on Wednesday a WTO ruling that it broke trade rules by barring entry to genetically modified (GMO) crops and foods between 1999 and 2003 will not change how it deals with GMOs in the future.

"This interim report is largely of historical interest, as this panel will not alter the system or framework within which the EU takes decisions on GMOs," Commission trade spokesman Peter Power said in a statement.

EU shrugs off modified foods censure

Financial Times, February 8 2006. By Raphael Minder in Brussels and Edward Alden in Washington

A ruling by the World Trade Organisation against European restrictions on genetically modified foods will not force the European Union to amend its legislation, EU officials insisted on Wednesday.

Yet the WTO's interim report, released late on Tuesday, could have a profound impact on developing countries that have started or are considering switching to GM technology. This is because it will reinforce claims championed by the US that GM foods are not only safe but also enable farmers considerably to cut their production costs.

In Brussels on Wednesday, Susan Schwab, deputy US trade representative, welcomed the WTO's decision, adding: "When we are talking about biotech food, we are talking about an incredible opportunity for farmers throughout the world, particularly in the developing world.'' The complaint was filed against Europe in 2003 by the US, Canada and Argentina.

EU officials stressed the WTO's criticism was about former EU regulatory safeguards but not the Union's existing rules, which came into force after the tabling of the complaint.

A spokesman for Peter Mandelson, the European Union's trade commissioner, said: "This interim report is largely of historical interest, as this panel will not alter the system or framework within which the EU takes decisions on GMOs."

Still, the report could influence what has been a heated European debate about GMOs because of its condemnation of national curbs that have remained in place after 2004, when Brussels resumed approvals ‚ albeit on a limited scale ‚ of GM products.

Later this month the European Food Safety Authority is due to give its scientific assessment on eight national bans, which could encourage the European Commission to take another stab at lifting them.

The WTO ruling said that the trade panel reached no conclusion on whether biotech products were safe or not.

But it found that the European-wide restrictions in place until August 2003 constituted a "de facto moratorium" that violated WTO rules.

More specifically, the panel examined 27 cases in which approvals were sought for new biotech strains of cotton, maize, sugar beet and other crops and found that in 24 cases there had been "undue delay" in considering the applications.

Sarah Thorn, of the US Grocery Manufacturers Association, said: "The WTO's decision makes it clear that biotech regulations must be based on sound science and that the EU's approach to biotech crop approvals is unwarranted."

WTO ruling should benefit farmers

The Washington Post, Wednesday, February 8, 2006. By Sam Cage.

A World Trade Organization ruling against EU curbs on imports of genetically modified foods should bring great benefits to farmers and rural areas worldwide, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

"The continuing adoption of agricultural biotechnology worldwide is evidence it provides tremendous benefits to farmers and rural communities," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.

But the European Union countered that the WTO panel vindicated its current regulations on biotech products, saying that there was never a European moratorium on the imports of genetically altered crops from the United States or elsewhere.

A preliminary judgment Tuesday by a WTO panel concluded that the European Union had an effective ban on biotech foods for six years beginning in 1998, according to trade officials.

The report largely sided with a legal complaint brought by the United States, Canada and Argentina over an EU moratorium on approval of new biotech foods, ruling that individual bans in six EU member states _ Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg _ violated international trade rules.

The ruling - which runs to about 1,000 pages and is said to be one of the most complex the commerce body has issued - had been delayed several times. A final ruling is expected next month and can be appealed.

U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said agricultural biotech improves food security and helps reduce poverty worldwide.

"It's a significant and positive development," added Susan Schwab, a deputy U.S. trade representative. "The proof will be in trade flows and the transparency and ease of the approval process."

U.S. farm groups hailed the decision, as did members of the U.S. Congress from farm states. The farm groups had contended they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually in export sales of genetically modified crops to the EU. Types of corn, cotton and soybeans had all been blocked by the EU.

"This decision is an important step toward opening the European markets to American farmers," said Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat.

Sean Darragh, of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group for producers of genetically modified crops, said the ruling would be important to farmers in the United States and in 20 other countries that grow biotech crops.

"The European Union's inaction has effectively blocked up to $300 million of U.S. agricultural exports annually to the detriment of American farmers," he said.

The complainants claim there is no scientific evidence for the EU's actions and the moratorium has been an unfair barrier to producers of biotech foods who want to export to the EU.

The EU ended its moratorium in 2004 when it allowed onto the market a modified strain of sweet corn, grown mainly in the United States. Brussels says the 25-nation bloc has approved the import of nine biotech crops since 2004, but Washington has said it will continue with its WTO case until it is convinced that all applications for approval are being decided on scientific rather than political grounds.

"The panel found that there were delays in approving the products, which might be said to constitute a de facto moratorium during that period," said an EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a confidential report.

"We dispute that a moratorium existed and we contest the claim that delays in the past were excessive. The panel clearly said that no moratorium currently exists," the official added.

The ruling will open the door to more European customers for U.S. businesses but also will set an example for other world markets, said Leon Corzine, chairman of the National Corn Grower's Association, based in suburban St. Louis.

But environmental group Friends of the Earth says the case undermines the right of governments to decide what is safe for their citizens, and pressures other countries - especially developing nations - to accept genetically modified foods against their will.

The panel "has ruled that free trade should take precedence over the precautionary principle and the democratic right to regulate for the protection of either health or the environment," said Caroline Lucas, a European lawmaker representing the British Green Party.

EU loses global trade dispute over gene crops

The EU breached global trade rules when it failed to grant market approval for a string of genetically modified crops for almost six years between 1998 and 2004, the World trade organisation has declared.Ý In a confidential interim ruling expected to be confirmed in the spring, the global trade body backs complaints levelled by the USA, Canada and Argentina in 2003. Ý

The ruling imposes no sanctions and will have little practical impact since the EU has overhauled its GM licensing rules, and ended its de facto moratorium almost two years ago.Ý It has since approved nine crop varieties for the EU market. Ý

"It is clear beyond any doubt that the EU will not have to modify its GMO legislation and authorisation procedures" as a result of the verdict, an EU official said.Ý "It never was clear why the complaining parties brought this case forward." Ý

The three complainants were "pleased with the outcome" of the case, an American trade official told Reuters.Ý The WTO ruling was a "significant milestone" in their continuing battle with the EU over GMOs the official said. Ý

The decision will put pressure on the determined group of anti-GM member states that have refused to endorse the applications.Ý Their opposition has forced the European commission to push through approvals unilaterally. Ý

The ruling also apparently criticises as scientifically unfounded the national "safeguard" bans subsequently adopted by some of this group on EU-approved crops.Ý This part of the ruling will help the commission, which has repeatedly challenged the bans and is currently seeking further scientific advice on them. Ý

Environmentalists reacted angrily to the WTO ruling:Ý Greenpeace called it "irrelevant" while Friends of the Earth urged a "deep-rooted reform of the international trade system".Ý EU biotech trade lobby EuropaBio said it was too early to comment on the interim ruling, which has not been made public.

Ý Follow-up: WTO http://www.wto.org/index.htm,
Ý

European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm,
and briefing on EU GMO rules http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/58
and the WTO case http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/61;
ÝUS trade department http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Sectors/Agriculture/Biotechnology/Section_Index.html
and briefing
http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Trade_Sectors/Agriculture/Biotechnology/asset_upload_file962_8903.pdf.

Groups publish conclusions of WTO dispute
IATP, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace: WTO secrecy an outrage

Geneva/Brussels - 8th February 2006

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace have made the conclusions of the WTO dispute on genetically modified organisms public [1] in order to allow the whole world to engage in the debate on the future of our food.

The groups condemned the secrecy of the WTO and called on governments to ensure that complex health and environmental decisions are taken in a transparent manner by bodies qualified to do so.

"This verdict only proves that the WTO is unqualified to deal with complex scientific and environmental issues. They even say so themselves, claiming that "the panel did not examine ... whether biotech products in general are safe or not". The US administration and agro-chemical companies brought the case in a desperate attempt to force-feed markets with GMOs. But consumers, citizens and farmers around the world do not want GMOs and this ruling will change none of that," said Daniel Mittler, Trade Policy Advisor at Greenpeace International.

"The WTO is keeping its draft ruling secret. This sums up everything that is wrong with the WTO. It is secretive, undemocratic and biased towards business interests. The WTO should be the last institution to decide what people eat and grow in the fields," said Alexandra Wandel, Trade Coordinator at Friends of the Earth Europe.

"The WTO dispute panel is set up to view regulations strictly in a framework designed to facilitate trade, not to realize public or environmental health objectives," said Steve Suppan, Senior Trade Associate at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "The U.S. government and the biotech companies may claim that the ruling proves that GE crops are safe for human consumption and the use of GE seeds is an environmentally beneficial agricultural practice. But the case covers no such thing: much less does it support the profoundly flawed U.S. regulation of GE crops." said Steve Suppan, IATP Research Director and author of a backgrounder on the case.

Notes:

[1] The conclusions and recommendations of the WTO panel report are available at: http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=78475

Backgrounders are available at:

IATP: http://www.tradeobservatory.org
FoE: www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_interim_briefing_Feb2006.pdf
Greenpeace: http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/WTObriefing0602.pdf

For further comment contact:

IATP: Ben Lilliston, IATP, +1 612-870-3416
Greenpeace: Daniel Mittler, +49 171 876 5345
Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth WTO expert, +49 172 748 3953
Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth GMO expert, +49 1609 490 1163

Europe bridles at WTO view on national biotech bans

Reuters, 8 February 2006. By Jeremy Smith.

BRUSSELS, Feb 8 (Reuters) - European countries bristled on Wednesday at a world trade ruling that touches on national sovereignty over genetically modified (GMO) foods, with some saying they would do their level best to keep farming GMO-free.

Europe's consumers are well known for their scepticism, if not hostility, to GMO crops, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods". The biotech industry insists its products are perfectly safe, however, and no different to conventional foods.

Late on Tuesday, a World Trade Organisation panel ruled that various EU countries -- Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg -- had broken international trade rules by imposing national bans on marketing and growing specific GMOs.

Some of those countries reacted angrily to the WTO ruling, saying they would defend their legal right to block EU-approved products if they wanted, since this was the will of consumers. EU law dictates that such bans must be scientifically justified.

Austria, one of the EU's staunchest biotech sceptics, has banned imports of three GMO maize types and is considering a ban on growing a GMO rapeseed. Government officials say they will continue to be as restrictive as possible for the time being.

"The protection of people and the environment have absolute priority, and the most recent scientific research vindicates our cautious approach in this matter," said Austrian Health Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat, responsible for national GMO policy.

"We will exhaust all possibilities to keep Austria's agriculture GM-free and ensure consumers' safety."

Greece, also traditionally opposed to biotech foods, agreed.

"Greece is against genetically modified foods. All prefectures have declared their area GMO-free. We need to discuss with Brussels and scientists safeguards before we lift the ban," a Greek agriculture ministry source told Reuters.

Last June, EU governments rebuffed attempts by the European Commission to order the five countries to lift their national GMO bans -- the first time that the bloc has managed to agree anything on biotech policy since 1998.

The Commission did not think the bans were justified, and nor did the WTO in its ruling on the case filed by Argentina, Canada and the United States. It also said the EU's de facto GMO moratorium between 1999 and 2003 broke world trade rules.

FRANCE STILL SCEPTICAL

France, home to anti-GMO and free trade firebrand Jose Bove, has a long-standing consumer opposition to biotech food. Europe's agricultural powerhouse, France bans two types of GMO rapeseed but has allowed some small-scale growing of GMO maize.

French consumer and farming groups deplored the WTO ruling, insisting that a large majority of consumers firmly opposed GMOs and that the EU's temporary approvals ban was correct.

A poll published in France this week showed that 78 percent of those questioned would like a temporary ban on GMO products in order to evaluate their health and environmental impact.

In Italy, Agriculture Minister Giovanni Alemanno said it was very serious for the WTO to take an "unbalanced stance" against European norms on GMO products.

"We would not want this verdict to represent an attempt to undermine the legislative sovereignty of the European Union," he said in a statement.

"In the past few months, there are many products that have been authorised by the European Commission and no country has maintained a protectionist moratorium on these products."

Green groups said consumer resistance to GMOs has increased in Europe since the three major GMO growers filed their WTO complaint in 2003. The ruling will not encourage consumers to buy more GMOs, they say, and maybe make the opposition stronger.

"The WTO has bluntly ruled that European safeguards (bans) should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations," said Adrian Bebb, GMO campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

"This will backfire and lead to even greater opposition to genetically modified food and crops. Consumers worldwide will not be bullied into eating GM foods."

U.S. officials regretted there was a level of misinformation in Europe about the benefits of biotech crops but hoped that the WTO ruling would let the EU open its doors more to GMO imports.

"It is unfortunate the extent to which certain groups have decided to demagogue the issue and mischaracterise the quality ... and environmental implications of biotechnology," Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters.

"The proof will be in trade flows and transparency and ease of approval processes. Time will tell," she said in Brussels. (Additional reporting by Boris Groendahl in Vienna, Silvia Aloisi in Rome, William Schomberg in Brussels, Foo Yun Chee in Athens, Sybille de La Hamaide and David Evans in Paris)

Minister Cannot Evade Responsibility Over GM - Ferris

Sinn Féin press release, 8 February, 2006

Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Agriculture, Martin Ferris TD has said that the Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan cannot be allowed to evade responsibility over the consequences for Irish farming of introducing genetically modified crops. Deputy Ferris was speaking in response to a reply from the Minister to a question he tabled regarding the decision to allow the growing of genetically modified potatoes in County Meath.

Deputy Ferris said: "In her reply, the Minister states that she has 'no function' in the decision-making process with regard to genetically modified crops. While this is technically true, it does not obviate her patent responsibility for the reputation and safety of Irish farming which will be undermined if GM crops are permitted here. I specifically asked the Minister to make a statement on the dangers which GM potatoes will present to conventional crops, and she refused to answer."

"Scientific research from other countries clearly shows that cross-contamination is impossible to prevent. Therefore, any GM crop grown here will be certain to affect conventional crops of the same species. Given the clear opposition of consumers to GM this will have serious and damaging consequences for the sale of Irish food. If the Minister feels that this is not her responsibility it raises serious questions regarding what her role is."

WTO trade war on GMOs: Europe must fight ruling
Friends of the Earth calls for a new world trade system

Friends of the Earth media advisory, Brussels/Geneva, 8 February 2006

Friends of the Earth Europe today urged the European Union to take the global lead and work for a new international system that, in contrast to World Trade Organisation (WTO), prioritises human health and environmental safety over free trade rules.

The call comes following yesterdays draft ruling by the WTO in Geneva that Europe's precautionary stance on genetically modified (GM) foods and crops "violates" trade rules. The WTO believes that national safety bans on GM products and Europe's de facto moratorium on new GM foods between 1999 and 2004 were barriers to trade. The ruling on the transatlantic trade dispute over GM foods was sent to the EU on one side, and to the United States, Canada and Argentina on the other.

Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth Europe's Trade Co-ordinator in Brussels, said: "Europe should fight this decision and lead the calls for a new global trading system that protects people and the environment from the worst excesses of industry. The WTO undermines democracy and puts business interests before the welfare of the public. It should not be allowed to rule on what we eat or what our farmers grow."

Adrian Bebb, GM Food Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: "The WTO has bluntly ruled that European safeguards should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations. This will backfire and lead to even greater opposition to genetically modified food and crops. Consumers worldwide will not be bullied into eating GM foods."

Wandel noted: "The WTO is keeping its draft ruling secret. This sums up everything that is wrong with the WTO. It is secretive, undemocratic and biased towards business interests. The WTO should be the last institution to decide what people eat and grow in the fields."

In its defence during the WTO dispute the EU Commission had questioned whether the WTO was the right place to solve such disputes. "There is a serious question as to whether the WTO is the appropriate international forum for resolving all the GMO issues that the Complainants have raised in these case," it said. (1)

Friends of the Earth believes that an alternative dispute settlement procedure is needed to solve trade and environmental conflicts and that international environment agreements need to be strengthened. This could be the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Additionally, the UN Biosafety Protocol is an international agreement already in place that deals with trade in GMOs. (2)

Two new opinion polls highlighted again Europeans' opposition to GM foods. A French poll by BVA reports that 78% of French people want a temporary ban on GM crops. Similarly a Europe-wide poll published yesterday by the European Food Safety Authority states that 62% of Europeans are worried about GM products in food. (3)

An international campaign against the WTO dispute called "Bite-back - WTO: Hands off our food!" - is supported by 750 organisations representing some 60 million people (see www.bite-back.org). The coalition states that the industry-friendly WTO is not the right place to decide what food Europeans should eat. (2)

The "Bite Back" citizens' objection was initiated by Friends of the Earth International with the support of consumer, development and farmers' groups, trade unions, research institutes and citizens from over 100 countries.

NOTES TO EDITORS

(1) EU first written submission:
http://www.foeeurope.org/biteback/download/Second_EU_Submission_to_WTO.pdf

(2) Is the WTO the only way? Safeguarding Multilateral Environmental Agreements from international trade rules and settling trade and environment disputes outside the WTO. A briefing paper by Adelphi Consult, Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace. Available at http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2005/alternatives_wto.pdf

(3) See http://www.efsa.eu.int and http://www.agirpourlenvironnement.org

A special media briefing on the GM trade dispute is available at : www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_interim_briefing_Feb2006.pdf as well as a fact sheet on GMOs and the WTO, see www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_QA_Feb2006.pdf

En FranÁais:

Briefing pour la presse sur le conflit commercial transatlantique sur les aliments modifiÈs gÈnÈtiquement: www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_et_WTO_briefing_intermediaire_Feb200 6_FR.pdf

Les OGM en Europe et l'OMC - Questions rÈponses www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_et_WTO_QR_Feb2006_FR.pdf

FOE report: Who benefits from GM crops, January 2006-02-07 http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/who_benefits_from_gm_crops_Jan_20 06.pdf

CONTACT:

Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth WTO expert, +49 172 748 3953
Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth GMO expert, +49 1609 490 1163

Greenpeace dismisses WTO ruling and predicts Europe will stay closed to GMOs

Greenpeace Press Release, Brussels, 7 February 2006 - Greenpeace tonight dismissed as irrelevant a WTO ruling that reportedly backs the US, Canada and Argentina in their efforts to force Europe to accept genetically modified organisms (GMOs); according to first press reports, the WTO decided that EU national bans contravened trade rules. The environmental organisation considers that just as the WTO case did not challenge EU laws designed to protect the environment, it could not be used to undermine existing international agreements on biosafety.

"U.S agro-chemical giants will not sell a bushel more of their GM grain as a result of the WTO ruling. European consumers, farmers and a growing number of governments remain opposed to GMOs, and this will not change - in Europe or globally," said Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International trade advisor. "The $300 million lost exports for US GM maize growers per year (1) will continue, and remain a warning to exporting countries that GMOs are not wanted in Europe."

"This verdict only proves that the WTO puts trade interests above all others and is unqualified to deal with complex scientific and environmental issues. The US administration and agro-chemical companies brought the case in a desperate attempt to force-feed markets with GMOs, but will continue to be frustrated," said Daniel Mittler.

In August 2003, the US, Canada and Argentina took the EU to the WTO for suspending approvals for biotech products, and for six member states' national bans on EU-approved GMOs.

Despite the ongoing case in Geneva, European governments voted with a clear majority in 2005 to retain existing national bans on GMOs (2) and individual countries continue to reject GMOs. Greece last week announced an extension of its ban on seeds from a type of GM maize produced by Monsanto. Austria also recently announced its intention to ban the import of a GM oilseed rape. These bans, in addition to those imposed last year by Hungary and Poland, 172 regions in Europe which have declared themselves GMO-free zones, and a Swiss moratorium decided by public referendum, show that Europe is steadfast in rejecting GMOs.

EU legislation on the approval and labelling of GMOs is not at stake and will remain unaffected by the outcome of the WTO case.

Contacts: Daniel Mittler, Greenpeace International WTO expert +49 171 876 5345
Eric Gall, Greenpeace EU Unit, GE expert, +32 496 161 582

Notes

1. The US claims $200 million lost sales for corn products alone, $300 million for corn and soy products. See "European Commission Opts Not To Push For End of GMO Moratorium," INSIDE U.S. TRADE, January 25, 2002 ; or http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/wrs984/wrs984e.pdf

2. The EU Commission tried to use the WTO case to force five European countries (Greece, France, Austria, Luxembourg and Germany) attacked by the US to lift their national bans (Italy, the sixth, lifted its ban two years ago). When the EU Commission put its proposals aimed at the lifting of bans to a vote at the EU Council of Environment ministers on 24 June 2005, 22 countries out of 25 voted against the Commission's proposals and decided that the bans were justified and should remain in place. This forced the EU Commission to withdraw its proposals. Greenpeace briefing on national safeguard clauses ('bans'):

http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/NationalBans0507.pdfk

3. A Greenpeace briefing on the WTO dispute on GMOs is available at

http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/WTObriefing0602.pdf

Michael Kessler
International Communications
Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldingstaraat 5, 1066 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 718 2000
Fax: +31 20 514 8151
Mobile: +34 660 637 053
Email: michael.kessler@int.greenpeace.org - www.greenpeace.org

Biotech industry hails WTO ruling

Reuters, 8 February 2006. By Jeremy Smith

US biotech industry groups have hailed a world trade ruling condemning the European Union over its policy on genetically modified (GMO) crops and foods.

Green groups have blasted it as a direct attack on democracy.

In a keenly awaited confidential judgment, the World Trade Organisation said the EU applied an effective moratorium on GMO imports for six years from 1998 - illegal under WTO rules.

Six EU countries also broke trade rules by slapping their own bans on marketing and importing GMO products that had already won EU-wide approval, according to diplomats who had seen the finding issued by the Geneva-based trade body.

"If confirmed, the verdict seems to be pretty unambiguous," said Christian Verschueren, director-general of CropLife International, representing the global plant science industry.

"It seems to send a clear signal that any measures to protect animal, human and plant health have to be based on sound science," he told Reuters.

"We hope that ... we gradually gain more political clarity within the EU, and get the regulatory machine working more effectively than it has done."

The complaint was filed against the EU in 2003 by Argentina, Canada and the United States - all major growers of GMO crops such as soy and maize.

US farmers say the EU ban cost them $US300 million ($A404.8 million) a year in lost sales while it was in effect since many US agricultural products, including most US corn, were effectively barred from entering EU markets.

Europe's shoppers are known for their wariness towards GMO products, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods" or "Frankenfoods".

But the biotech industry insists that its products are perfectly safe and say Europe's hostility is unfounded.

Green groups were disappointed by the findings, saying the months of waiting, and many delays, in the WTO biotech case had already made Europe take a much more proactive stance on approving GMOs than warranted by the poor consumer demand for modified foods.

"US agro-chemical giants will not sell a bushel more of their GM grain as a result of the WTO ruling," said Daniel Mittler, trade adviser at Greenpeace International.

"European consumers, farmers and a growing number of governments remain opposed to GMOs, and this will not change in Europe or globally," he said in a statement.

7 February 2006

Syngenta Not Seen Impacted By WTO Ruling

Dow Jones Newswires, Tuesday, February 07, 2006. ]--Syngenta's (SYT) business is not expected to be impacted by the World Trade Organization's ruling on whether the EU's ban on genetically-modified crops is illegal or not, says Bank Sarasin analyst Bernd Pomrehn. Even if the WTO's ruling lifts the moratorium on GMO-based food products in the EU, the European consumer won't easily change its aversion toward GMO food, says Pomrehn, which is the real reason that holds back further spread of GMO in Europe.

7 February 2006

Europe's rules on GMOs and the WTO
There is a need for strong regulatory oversight of GM technology

There is a general consensus between scientists that GMOs are not inherently unsafe, but that their safety for the environment, human health and animal health needs to be assessed on a case by case basis before marketing. This approach is supported by international organisations such as the World Health Organisation, the Codex Alimentarius, the FAO or the OECD. The EU legislation follows strictly the internationally recommended approach and reflects the requirements of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, to which the EU is a signatory.

The EU regulatory framework also provides for strict monitoring of GM products after their initial release to market through the implementation of mandatory labelling and traceability rules. The EU believes that such regulatory oversight is of utmost importance to address any potential failure of the regulatory system, such as those that have been experienced in the US in the recent past when non-approved GMOs such as Starlink GM maize, or Bt 10 GM maize entered the US food chain.

The EU has no ban on safe GM products

In the EU, GMOs can only be placed on the market after having undergone a stringent science-based risk assessment on a case by case basis. This approach is fully in line with international standards, in particular with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety as well as with the relevant Guidelines adopted by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 2003 and by the International Conventional on Plant Protection.

So far, more than 30 GMOs or derived food and feed products have been approved for marketing in the EU. As an example, in early January 2006, the EU granted approvals to three new GM maize products after a rigorous safety assessment.

Contrary to US claims, the EU is one of the largest importers of GMOs and derived food and feed. The EU is the largest soybean and soy meal importer and the fact is that soy imports consist largely of Monsanto "Round-Up Ready" soybean, which is cultivated in all the main soybean global producers, i.e. the US, Brazil and Argentina. The claim that the there is a moratorium on approval of GM products in Europe is self-evidently untrue.

The EU approval process may appear to be lengthy for some countries which adopt a more lenient approach towards food and environmental safety issues. The longer times to assess the safety of GMOs in the EU are due to the complexity of the science involved as well as to delays incurred by biotech companies to provide suitable data demonstrating the safety of the products.

The WTO challenge on GMOs is unhelpful and unfounded

In May 2003, the US, supported by Canada and Argentina, launched a WTO case against the EU concerning the EU authorisation regime for GMOs. Whilst the three complainants publicly argue that the WTO case is straightforward and clear, the panel has taken a number of years to reach final conclusions on the dispute. This shows that the matters at stake are far more complex than claimed by the US, Argentina and Canada.

Indeed, against the arguments of all three complainants, the WTO panel agreed with the EU that it would be unwise to rule on such a complex topic without hearing the views of scientists. The panel eventually decided to gather the views of independent and highly reputable scientists from different parts of the world, including Europe and America. That consultation process confirmed the legitimacy of the health and environmental issues addressed in EU regulations and procedures. The US has explicitly said that it does not challenge the EU's legal framework for clearing GMOs for import and distribution.

10 years after the first commercial release, 90% of GMOs remain cultivated in 4 countries : USA (55%), Argentina (19%), Brazil (10%), Canada (6%).

The EU remains confident that its regulatory regime over GMOs and GM food and feed is fully compatible with its international commitments including those under the WTO. The US has not at any stage challenged the EU's legal framework.

What are the US's real concerns with the EU system?

The US appears not to like the EU authorisation regime, which it considers to be too stringent, simply because it takes longer to approve a GMO in Europe than in the US. The US appears to believe that GMOs that are considered to be safe in the US should be de facto deemed to be safe for the rest of the world. The EU has argued that a sovereign body like the EU and its Member States, or indeed any country in the world, has the right to enact its own regulations on the food that its citizens would eat, providing that the measures are compatible with existing international rules and based on clear scientific evidence.

The US also opposes GMO traceability rules because it considers that they constitute an obstacle to US commodity exports, despite the fact that US traders can in fact meet those requirements without difficulties.

The US is also adamantly opposed to labelling rules for food products produced from GMOs, even though these rules are designed to help ensure that customers are well-informed about what they are buying.

US soybean and soy meal exports have steadily declined over the last ten years because of a decline of competitiveness of US agriculture on the global market. The trends in EU maize imports further confirm that US farmers are no longer low-cost producers and are less and less able to compete with emerging countries such as Brazil or Argentina on global commodity markets. EU trade data show clearly that EU rules on GM are not affecting the imports of more competitive GMO exporters.

Getting the rules on GMOs right.

The EU has always acknowledged that biotechnology offers promising avenues to develop agricultural production, in particular for developing countries, and it can contribute to the fight against food insecurity.

The EU has always made it clear that every country has the sovereign right to make its own decisions on GMOs in accordance with the values prevailing in its society. This principle obviously applies to both developed and developing countries. It is the legitimate right of developing countries' governments to fix their own level of protection and to take the decisions they deem appropriate to prevent unintentional dissemination of GM seeds. This right is fully recognised in international agreements such as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which the EU considers to be the key international agreement governing the transboundary movements of GMOs.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety provides an international forum for the international governance of GMOs. So far more than 130 countries actively participate to it. However, the US, Canada and Argentina have refused to ratify it.

The EU considers that major GMO producers such as the US should adopt a co-operative approach to the development of a sound international legal framework for these products, instead of taking hostile steps at the WTO.

For more information on the EU regulatory framework covering GMOs, GM food and feed is available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/food/biotechnology/index_en.htm

WTO condemns EU over GMO moratorium : diplomats

Reuters, Tue Feb 7, 2006. By Richard Waddington.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization, in a closely watched ruling, decreed on Tuesday that the European Union and six member states had broken trade rules by barring entry to genetically modified crops and foods, diplomats said.

The preliminary finding, contained in a confidential verdict sent to the parties to the dispute, addressed a complaint brought against the EU by the United States, Argentina and Canada.

In a 1,000-page report, which diplomats said that they were still seeking to digest, WTO trade judges found that the EU had applied an effective moratorium on GMO imports for six years from 1998. Moratoriums are barred under WTO rules.

"The panel confirmed that there was a moratorium, and that is not allowed," said one diplomat who had seen the verdict.

"Members' safeguard measures have also been condemned," he said in reference to the complaint against individual market and import bans imposed by France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg and Greece.

Diplomats said that other parts of the WTO ruling, which also covered individual crops and foods, were more mixed, although they were still wading through the detail.

The decision, which still needs to be confirmed in a final ruling in a month's time, and can be appealed, came as little surprise to diplomats and industry watchers who had forecast that the EU could come off worst in the long-running case.

"NOT BASED ON SCIENCE"

The EU's opponents asserted that the moratorium, which Brussels argued was never officially declared, hurt their exports and was not based on science.

The ruling had been keenly awaited by the world's biotech industry, which would like to ship far more GMOs to Europe.

Although Brussels began once again authorizing imports of GMOs in May 2004, only seven crops and foods have been given the green light, and a number of member states have maintained individual bans.

Europe's shoppers are known for their wariness toward GMO products, often dubbed "Frankenstein foods" by European media.

Opposition is estimated at more than 70 percent, a stark contrast to the United States where the products are far more widely accepted.

But trade sources said the ruling would send a message to other WTO members, including some in Africa, which have been taking, or are considering taking, a similar line to that of the EU, that they could face legal action.

U.S. farmers say the EU ban cost them some $300 million a year in lost sales while it was in effect since many U.S. agricultural products, including most U.S. corn, were effectively barred from entering EU markets.

"Biotechnology produces safe food ... we believe it will help reduce poverty in poor countries. We believe it enhances development and it provides important environmental benefits," said United States Trade Representative Rob Portman before the ruling's release.

The EU says its cautious approach to GMOs is in line with scientific opinion which, it says, has concluded that GMOs must be assessed on a case-by-case basis even if they are not intrinsically unsafe.

WTO draft ruling on EU-US biotech food war expected shortly
Friends of the Earth calls for a new world trade system

Brussels/Geneva, 7 February 2006 - Friends of the Earth Europe today called for a deep-rooted reform of the international trade system if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over-rules European Union attempts to protect its people and environment from genetically modified (GM) foods and crops.

In a draft ruling expected shortly on the transatlantic trade dispute over GM foods, the WTO will inform the countries involved whether national bans on GM products are a barrier to free trade and should be lifted. It is also likely to show whether Europe's de facto moratorium between 1998 and 2004 on new GM foods was also a barrier to trade.

The European Commission has already today issued a memo which clearly exposes what is at stake. Should the world follow the de-regulation, business-driven approach of the US or should it follow the regulatory, safety-first approach of the European Union? The number of GM accidents in the US strongly suggests that the EU model is better to protect people and their environment. (1)

Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth Europe's Trade Co-ordinator, said: "Protecting wildlife, farmers and consumers from the threat of genetically modified crops is far more important than enforcing free trade rules. The World Trade Organisation with its secretive decision-making processes is unfit to decide what we should eat or what farmers should grow. The WTO is undemocratic, and unfairly favours big business. A new global trading system is needed that protects people and the environment from the worst excesses of industry."

Adrian Bebb, GM Food Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: "Opposition to genetically modified foods is likely to increase if the WTO decides that European safeguards should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations. Consumers worldwide will not be bullied into eating GM foods. European governments must stand up to the WTO and protect the food chain and the environment from the threat of genetically modified crops."

Friends of the Earth points out that:

* Opposition to GM foods and crops in Europe has increased since the beginning of the trade dispute. There are now over 170 regions and 4,500 smaller areas that want to be GM-free.

* An alternative dispute settlement procedure is needed to solve trade and environmental conflicts. This could be the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Additionally, the UN Biosafety Protocol is an international agreement already in place that deals with trade in GMOs.

* The first ten years of GM crops have failed to deliver the benefits promised by the biotech industry and have played no role in tackling poverty and hunger (2).

An international campaign against the WTO dispute called "Bite-back - WTO: Hands off our food!" - is supported by 750 organisations representing some 60 million people (see www.bite-back.org). The coalition states that the industry-friendly WTO is not the right place to decide what food Europeans should eat. (3)

The "Bite Back" citizens' objection was initiated by Friends of the Earth International with the support of consumer, development and farmers' groups, trade unions, research institutes and citizens from over 100 countries.

[1] European Commission Press Release: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/61&type= HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

[2] A special media briefing on the GM trade dispute is available at : www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_interim_briefing_Feb2006.pdf as well as a fact sheet on GMOs and the WTO, see www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_QA_Feb2006.pdf

En FranÁais:

Briefing pour la presse sur le conflit commercial transatlantique sur les aliments modifiÈs gÈnÈtiquement: www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_et_WTO_briefing_intermediaire_Feb200 6_FR.pdf

Les OGM en Europe et l'OMC - Questions rÈponses www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_et_WTO_QR_Feb2006_FR.pdf

FOE report: Who benefits from GM crops, January 2006-02-07 http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/who_benefits_from_gm_crops_Jan_20 06.pdf

[3] Is the WTO the only way? Safeguarding Multilateral Environmental Agreements from international trade rules and settling trade and environment disputes outside the WTO. A briefing paper by Adelphi Consult, Friends of the Earth Europe and Greenpeace. Available at http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2005/alternatives_wto.pdf

CONTACT:

Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth WTO expert, +49 172 748 3953
Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth GMO expert, +49 1609 490 1163

Nasz Dziennik on gov't plans on GMO products

EuroPAP, 7 February 2006.

Warsaw- On Tuesday the government will discuss a draft law introducing a ban on the production of GMO food in Poland, wrote the Nasz Dziennik daily on Monday.

According to the draft, GMO food would not be produced in Poland, Environment Minister Jan Szyszko said. "After it is passed, the law will be sent to the European Commission to decide if it is compatible with the European Union law. We are still seeking allies who will support us," he added.

The daily said Poland had already found one ally and added it was Austria which was holding the EU rotating presidency now.

Organic produce, animal welfare

Irish Independent, 7 January 2006.

MAIN proposals under the general heading of animal welfare centred around calf weaning guidelines, minimum stocking rate density and extra grants for cow mats.

Organic production attracted a number of proposals which on the day were met with enthusiasm from Department Assistant Secretary John Fox who said we should not be importing all our organic foods from abroad.

Proposals included:

* Review of the area allowed for payment.

* General increase in overall payments for those involved in organics.

* Public access to organic farms.

* GMO ban on all REPS farms.

* REPS measure that would cover small-scale horticulture.

* Expansion of the definition of organics to cover Christmas trees, wreaths and bouquets.

WTO GMO descision expected tomorrow

Polilics.co.uk: GeneWatch UK press release, 7 February 2006.

Evidence shows the US's desperate efforts unlikely to succeed in forcing GM food acceptance

Today, GeneWatch UK is publishing a summary of public attitudes research from around the world that has been collected since the WTO GMO dispute began in 2003. It shows public hostility to GM crops remains widespread and indicates that the tactics of the US and biotechnology industry are unlikely to succeed in opening markets for GM [1]. The opinion poll and research findings come from a wide spread of countries, including South Africa, China, Japan, Mali, Canada and Europe. They demonstrate that people remain unconvinced about GM crops and foods and, even in the US, the great majority want the choice through mandatory labelling.

In 2003, the USA, Argentina and Canada made a complaint to the WTO that Europe's handling of GM crops was a barrier to free trade [2]. This followed the 1998 decision by Europe, arising from public concern, to take a more precautionary approach to GM food, revising and tightening its legislation so no new approvals for GM crops were made for a period of six years. This angered the GM crop exporting countries who, in desperation and unable to win the public debate, turned to the secretive and undemocratic processes of the WTO's trade dispute process in an effort to force acceptance both in Europe and the rest of the world.

Tomorrow, it is expected that the parties will hear the WTO's Dispute Panel's interim findings. The publication of the interim decision is a year behind schedule and, despite the importance of the case, the public will only see the decision if it is leaked. Rather than allowing for an informed view to emerge, a scramble to 'spin' the story will start.

Everyone is likely to claim to have won, even though the outcome will inevitably be mixed. The USA in particular will want to spin the decision as a victory to 'persuade' other countries not to place restrictions on GM foods.

However, will the biotech industry inspired tactic of a WTO dispute to drive GM foods around the world prove successful? The evidence from public attitudes research suggests that scepticism about GM has extended globally and the market will continue to reject GM foods when given the choice. There is also a danger that the tactics will back fire and opposition intensify.

"The US and biotech industry hoped that by bringing a WTO dispute they would be able to bully countries into accepting GM food. The public around the world continues to show they are not convinced and any US 'victory' is likely to be hollow,' said Dr Sue Mayer GeneWatch UK's Director. "The USA and the biotech industry has shown itself unable to judge this issue well from the very beginning when it first exported GM soya mixed with non-GM soya in 1996 and started the whole controversy. Falling back on the WTO when faced with a desperate situation, seems similarly misjudged."

GeneWatch UK was one of fourteen international organisations that submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) submission to the WTO dispute panel arguing that countries should be able to establish rules for GM crops and foods according to their public wishes.

GeneWatch web site: http://www.genewatch.org

EU braces for landmark WTO ruling on biotech ban

Reuters, 6 February 2006. By Jeremy Smith.

BRUSSELS - The European Union could be forced to open itself to more genetically modified products this week when a world trade panel rules whether its strict policy on biotech foods and crops amounts to protectionism.

Diplomats and industry watchers say the EU may come off worst in the case brought by Argentina, Canada and the United States, where they claim its unofficial 1998-2004 moratorium on GMO approvals hurt their exports and was not based on science.

The World Trade Organization verdict, keenly awaited on Tuesday by the world's biotech industry which would like to ship far more GMOs to Europe, is expected to run to some 800 pages.

Already delayed several times, the ruling may be the WTO's longest and certainly one of the most complex to decipher.

Europe's shoppers are known for their wariness towards GMO products, often dubbed as "Frankenstein foods". Opposition is estimated at more than 70 percent, a stark contrast to the United States where they are far more widely accepted.

U.S. farmers say the EU ban cost them some $300 million a year in lost sales while it was in effect since many U.S. agricultural products, including most U.S. corn, were effectively barred from entering EU markets.

Despite the moratorium ending in May 2004 with a rubberstamp EU approval of a canned modified sweetcorn, plus a trickle of authorisations since then, the three complainants say Europe's biotech approvals process is still not working properly.

EUROPE SCEPTICAL

While the WTO is unlikely to issue a clear-cut condemnation of EU policy, it may well criticise areas like the string of national bans on specific GMO products in several EU countries.

These products had already won EU-wide approval but several governments used a legal exemption clause to enact national bans -- a particular annoyance for the three complainants and specifically cited in their original WTO complaint in 2003.

Most observers believe the EU will come in for criticism.

"It's unlikely the WTO would tell the EU that it should be more restrictive on GMOs," one EU diplomat said. "Irrespective of the way the WTO rules, it will be a reminder that the EU has to make its decisions on the basis of evidence."

Green groups said the pressure of the WTO case was making Europe take a much more pro-active stance on GMOs than warranted by its poor consumer demand for the foods. A ruling against Europe would merely increase that scepticism, they say.

"Opposition to genetically modified foods is likely to increase if the WTO decides that European safeguards (national bans) should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations," said Adrian Bebb, GMO Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

"The WTO, the U.S. administration and biotech firms should stop their bullying and let Europeans decide what food we eat."

TOUGH LAWS

The European Commission, which administers and instigates legislation for the EU-25, says the EU has put in place tough but fair laws since 1998 to ensure a smooth approvals process, so there is no reason to change them -- whatever the WTO says.

It insists that the case is not about Europe's GMO policy as such but what happened between 1998 and 2004. All applications for GMO approvals will continue to be processed and approved on a case-by-case basis using scientific criteria, it says.

"Whatever happens in the panel, our system aims to guarantee the unity of the internal market and complete safety for human health and the environment," a Commission official said.

Italy's Greens Hope Italians Vote 'No' in April

Reuters, 6 February 2006. By Robin Pomeroy.

ROME - No nuclear! No GM food! No to an alpine high-speed rail link and no to plans for the world's longest bridge! In the run-up to an April election, Italy's Greens have earned a reputation as the 'no' party.

The party's leader, who is in line for a cabinet post if the opposition wins in April, resents the negative image, but is happy to receive protest votes from Italians disillusioned with five years of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"It is a caricature, but there is a value in 'no' - no to corruption, no to war, no to swindles - it's a healthy 'no'," Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio told Reuters in an interview.

"We also defend saying 'no' to the disastrous things that some people want to do to this country."

The Greens, like other parties in the centre-left coalition headed by Romano Prodi, oppose Berlusconi's plan for a 4-billion-euro ($4.83 billion) bridge between Sicily and the mainland. The longest suspension bridge in the world would be a waste of money and an environmental hazard, they say.

But the environmentalists also oppose many plans on which others parties in Prodi's "Union" group are either unsure - such as nuclear power - or heartily in favour - such as a high-speed rail link through the Alps.

How much sway the 46-year-old will have on these issues in a future Prodi government will depend on how many votes he can bring to the coalition and which ministries will go to the Greens.

GREEN CUISINE

Pecoraro Scanio has set his sights high. "If the Greens do very well we would ask for the Economy Ministry," he says.

Opinion polls suggest the Greens will maintain the 2 percent they polled in 2001, making it unlikely the party would take such an important seat.

Transport, environment or agriculture - the latter of which Pecoraro Scanio headed in 2000-2001 - are more likely candidates for a Green minister, he said.

Pecoraro Scanio admits the Greens in Italy have nothing like the voter appeal they do in countries like Germany, as Italians tend to vote along more traditional lines of left or right wing.

But high profile issues, such as the debate over whether energy-poor Italy should lift its ban on nuclear power or the struggle against genetically modified organisms (GMO's), have raised awareness of environmental issues, he said.

"There's a need to fuse environmental issues with Italian traditions, for example defending quality agriculture and traditional food against GMO's. If you leverage the fact that Italy has a great culinary tradition people understand the argument better.

"So there is a growth in (environmental) awareness but that doesn't always get translated into votes," he said, acknowledging that April's election will be won or lost largely on the economy.

But as many Italians voting for the Union will do so because they do not accept Berlusconi's claim that he has improved the economy, Pecoraro Scanio believes some of those votes will go to the 'no' party.

"If we were to put on our logo 'no to swindles' we would win more votes. Italians are tired of saying yes to the idiocies of the government of the right."

6 February 2006

Trade Ruling Is Expected to Favor Biotech Food

New York Times, 6 February 2006. By Andrew Pollack.

The battle over agricultural biotechnology could reach a tipping point this week, when the World Trade Organization is expected to render its verdict on charges by the United States that Europe is illegally restricting imports of genetically modified crops.

Even if the United States wins ó that is the prevailing rumor ó genetically modified foods would not flood Europe because citizens there remain wary of them. But the American government and the biotechnology industry hope a ruling in their favor would sound a warning to other nations not to follow Europe's lead in restricting farm biotechnology.

"It's pretty clear the U.S. had to draw the line so it didn't get worse around the world," said Craig Thorn, an agricultural trade consultant in Washington whose clients have included the biotechnology industry.

An American victory could help developers of genetically modified crops, including Monsanto, DuPont and Dow Chemical, as well as the European companies Syngenta and Bayer. American farmers growing genetically modified crops might also benefit from increased exports. Trade officials in Washington say they expect a preliminary decision from the three-person panel tomorrow. But the decision has been put off numerous times since the complaint was first filed in 2003, so another delay is possible.

In its complaint, the United States, joined by Canada and Argentina, said that European officials placed a moratorium on approving new biotech varieties in 1998. That violated a global treaty on standards for food, which requires governments to act without "undue delay" and to base decisions on scientific risk assessments, not political expediency.

Europe counters that there was no moratorium. Decisions just took time, it said, because it needed data from the biotech companies and because it was revising its regulations.

Europe said the crops posed legitimate risks to health and the environment that had to be weighed with "a prudent and precautionary approach."

Since biotech crops were first planted widely 10 years ago, their use has increased steadily. Last year, 8.5 million farmers in 21 countries grew the crops on 222 million acres, although the United States accounted for more than half the total acreage, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications. The crops are mainly soybeans, corn or cotton containing bacterial genes that provide resistance to either herbicides or insects.

But consumer opposition and restrictions by various governments have clearly slowed the adoption of the technology and its application to other crops like wheat, rice and potatoes. In the United States, where most soy and half the corn crop is genetically engineered, most processed food, from corn flakes to salad dressing, has an ingredient in it from a biotech crop. But in Europe, genetically engineered foods are hardly found.

The direct economic impact of the halt in approvals has been fairly small. American farm interests say that about $300 million a year in corn exports to Europe have dried up since 1998. In contrast, W.T.O. cases involving American steel tariffs and tax subsidies to exporters, both of which the United States lost, involved billions of dollars a year.

Even before approvals stopped, Europe accounted for only 4 percent of American corn exports. Soybeans are still exported to Europe because the only genetically engineered bean was approved before 1998.

Even if Europe loses, it will argue that the findings are moot because it resumed approving biotech crops in 2004.

American officials say those recent approvals are a grudging response to the trade complaint and that decisions are still not coming fast enough. Even if approvals do accelerate, specialists do not expect large exports to Europe of either genetically modified corn or food containing biotech ingredients.

Europe approved new rules in 2003 that require foods with genetically modified ingredients to be labeled and the ingredients to be traceable to the farm on which they were grown. Food companies in Europe and America, worried that such a label will turn away consumers, avoid biotech ingredients.

"The traceability and labeling scheme puts a black mark on any biotech product," said Stephanie Childs, spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, which represents big food companies like Kraft and Kellogg. The grocery manufacturers and other American industry groups are urging the government to file a new W.T.O. complaint against the labeling and traceability rules. United States officials say that is under consideration.

Opponents of biotech food say that a ruling in favor of the United States need not dissuade other countries from regulating genetically modified crops, because the American complaint was not against Europe's regulations per se, but rather about delays in applying the regulations.

Still, Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at the Consumers Union, based in Yonkers, said such a ruling would set a bad precedent. "Safety and health regulations should not be second-guessed by trade officials," she said.

5 February 2006

Beef bid to save local farming

Sunday Business Post, 5 February 2006.

Developing a unique brand of beef meat in the Burren region in Co Clare could save the future of farming in the area, it emerged today.

Livestock herds that have traditionally grazed the vegetation are dwindling in the face of profit-driven, intensive agriculture.

Now a local EU-funded initiative aims to produce and market a high-quality brand of beef to conserve the natural habitat and make farming more viable.

The BurrenLIFE Project was established last year to develop a new model for sustainable agriculture in the limestone region known for its rich diversity of plants and flowers.

Project leader Dr Brendan Dunford said: "In terms of delivering a branded product from the region, beef looks like the best bet, as other sectors like sheep or dairy are not sufficiently strong.

"Livestock feeding on vegetation rich in nutrients and minerals and drinking from natural springs will create conditions even more unique than organic farming," he said.

"If enough farmers are involved, a steady stream of quality product can be delivered." Like other organic meat products, the Burren beef will be juicy and full-flavoured with less fat and cholesterol.

There will be no chemical fertilisers, pesticides or hormones used along the production chain.

It is envisaged that the beef will be stocked in local restaurants, guest houses and shops as well as exported to national and international markets.

There are about 400 farmers in the Burren region who struggle to run small beef and dairy herds of Shorthorn, Angus and Hereford breeds.

But less herds are grazing the uplands where they traditionally kept down vegetation so that delicate species of flora could survive.

BurrenLIFE is also exploring the potential for developing and marketing other branded products from the region like milk and cheese.

The Burren's limestone landscape spans 160 square kilometres and nurtures plants and flowers only found in Arctic, Mediterranean and Alpine regions.

"It contains 70% of Ireland's native flora such as orchids, foxgloves, rock roses and several herbs," noted Dr Dunford.

Environmentalists have called for the area to be designated a Unesco World Heritage Site like Newgrange and the Giant's Causeway.

It is a designated area under the EU Habitats Directive and contains five Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) covering 47,000 hectares.

The BurrenLIFE project is supported by the National Parks and Wildlife Service in partnership with Teagasc and Burren IFA.

4 February 2006

GM-foods are a hot potato

Irish Independent, letter to the Editor, 4 February 2005.

If he is right that there is no demand in Ireland for GM-potatoes (January 28), then Mr O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland has nothing to fear.

Farmers are not looking for losses on their businesses. if nobody is willing to buy their produce, they will not grow it.

More to the point, Mr Callaghan may well be wrong and there will be a market.

In that case, he "would not be surprised if someone attempted to damage them" although that it is not something he would support.

Who are the people who, in a democratic country, take upon themselves the right to determine the conduct of others within the law? Does not that same democratic country have at least as great a right to protect its population from such actions?

Biotechnology raises a number of very pressing issues, not all of them scientific and technical.

Prof. V. Moses, Chairman, CropGen, London SW1A 1WE

[Note: CropGen is a biotech industry-funded lobby group led by a scientific panel whose aim is to 'make a case for GM crops' worldwide. Cropgen describes itself as, 'An education and information initiative for consumers and the media on the subject of crop biotechnology'. Until the end of 2003CropGen was run by PR company Countrywide Porter Novelli. Since then it has been run by Lexington Communications which also represents the UK biotechnology industry funded lobby group the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC), as well as Monsanto, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Syngenta, and the Crop Protection Association.]

Commission admits: GM foods bring no benefits to consumers

Press Notice from GM Free Cymru, 3rd February 2006.

In a dramatic new development that could have lethal consequences for the GM industry worldwide, the European Commission has admitted that GM foods bring no benefits whatsoever to those who buy them and eat them (1).

Watchdog organization GM Free Cymru has been pressing the Commission for many months for answers to a simple series of questions, including the following: "How will GM foods enhance food safety? How will they enhance the quality, taste and nutritional character of food? How will they enhance public health? How will they hold food prices down? How will they help to create a "healthy living environment"?

Since these matters are the responsibility of Markos Kyprianou (Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection) GM Free Cymru has been pressing him for answers to these questions. After much prompting in the autumn of 2005, it has now received his carefully considered reply, which fails to produce a positive response to any of the questions posed (2). This is a tacit admission that no benefits have been identified.

GM Free Cymru spokesman Dr Brian John says: "This is dynamite. It means that the Commissioner who has access to all of the Commission research on GM crops and foods, having been given the opportunity to itemise the benefits that they might bring to the consumer, cannot find a single reason why we should buy them or eat them. So after ten years or more of pro-GM marketing by the Commission and the GM industry, after a prolonged and acrimonious debate about GM food within Europe, and after the expenditure of many millions of euros on GM research and GM legislation, the Commission cannot find a single positive attribute which might encourage us to put GM food on our plates. The incompetence and waste of public funds is mind-boggling."

The EC justifies its support for GM crops and foods on the grounds that it is "facilitating customer choice". However, in correspondence with other Commissioners, including trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, GM Free Cymru has also asked for evidence that there is an identifiable demand for GM foods among consumers (3). No such evidence has been forthcoming, and the best the Commission can do is to cite evidence from opinion polls and public attitude surveys to demonstrate that a minority of consumers are apathetic about GM foods or might consume them if they are convinced that they are safe (4). "That is a long way from demonstrating that some people actually want GM foods," says Dr John.

GM Free Cymru alleges that the Commission is involved in a conspiracy with the GM industry to force-feed European consumers with GM foods and food components, in spite of the fact that nobody wants to eat them and in spite of the fact that they bring absolutely no benefits in terms of cost, nutrition, taste, or health. "On the contrary," says Dr John, "evidence is already in the public domain which shows that some, if not all, GM foods are unsafe (5), and that their production involves measurable environmental damage (6). Labelling legislation will not protect consumers. GM crops and foods cannot be contained or controlled, and the GM industry is determined to contaminate the whole of the food supply in pursuit of its commercial aspirations (7). This has already happened in the USA. The Commission knows this, and yet it still connives with the multinationals, wilfully and systematically seeking to suppress "uncomfortable" evidence, and directly placing at risk the health of EU consumers (8).

"We therefore charge the EC with a failure to recognize the human rights of EU consumers, with a failure to recognize its own duty of care with respect to public health, and with the abandonment of the precautionary principle which is enshrined in its own GM legislation. This adds up to criminal negligence, and it is high time that the Commission was called to account by the EU Parliament."

ENDS

(1) Letter from Commissioner Kyprianu to GM Free Cymru, undated, in response to communications from GM Free Cymru on 3rd October 2005 and 3rd November 2005.

(2) Since the Commissioner refused to answer the questions posed, GM Free Cymru wrote to him and posed the questions again, on 21st January. The letter has not even been acknowledged, and the matter has now been placed with the European Ombudsman.

(3) Correspondence with Commissioner Mandelson on 3rd October and 18th October has also failed to elicit replies to questions posed, and in view of the breach of Commission rules a complaint has now been entered with the European Ombudsman. http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/who_benefits_from_gm_crops_Jan_2006.pdf

To quote from the FoE publication "Who benefits from GM Crops?":

"The European feed industry stated in 2005 that there is "no direct advantage from the presence of residues of herbicide resistant genes in the products they buy. The industry is therefore not prepared to pay for the use of this technology." GM products also do not offer advantages to consumers, as they are neither cheaper nor better quality. Even the French biotech industry has stated that the GM crops currently available in the market do not benefit consumers." (p 12)

(4) See, for example, the following:

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4286
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/gm-food/dn4191
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PublicSayNo.php
http://www.agbioforum.org/v3n23/v3n23a04-gaskell.htm
http://www.mori.com/polls/2003/gmfood.shtml
http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=newsletter&topic_id=3&subtopic_id=15&doc_id=10223

(5) According to a letter received 24.11.05 from Arpad Pusztai, "A consistent feature of all the studies done, published or unpublished, including MON863, indicates major problems with changes in the immune status of animals fed on various GM crops/foods, the latest example of this coming from the GM pea research in Australia."

See also: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5989
http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/Genetically_Modified_Peas_Caused_Dangerous_Immune_Response_in_Mice.shtml

Genetically Modified Peas Caused Dangerous Immune Response in Mice Other GM Foods are Not Tested for This and May Be Harmful, By Jeffrey M. Smith, Dec 22, 2005, 14:16

(6) The UK Farm-scale trials showed without a doubt that GM crops are harmful to the environment and damage biodiversity. See these:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmenvaud/90/9002.htm
Report by the Environmental Audit Committee http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/gm/fse/
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/cynical.php
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5015

and on the link with increased pesticide use, see these:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCIPU.php
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0108-05.htm

(7) The GM multinationals, and scientists working on seed dispersal etc, are aware that GM contamination is effectively impossible to prevent once GM crops are planted in an area. See:

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5309
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6146
http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/who_benefits_from_gm_crops_Jan_2006.pdf
http://www.gmfreecymru.org/documents.htm

At a GM "Science Debate" in Aberystwyth on 16 April 2003 Dr Jeremy Sweet said: "We do have to accept the fact that once GM oil seed rape is commercialised it will be everywhere and that is inevitable, because conventional rape is everywhere. There is no reason why its going to behave differently from conventional rape. So once we start growing GM rape it will become as widely dispersed as conventional rape."

(8) See this: http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5073
http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/press/release?item_id=745983&campaign_id=

WTO: Hands off our food!
Draft ruling imminent on trade dispute between EU and US

Friends of the Earth media advisory, 3 February 2006.

A special media briefing on the GM trade dispute is available at http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_interim_briefing_F eb2006.pdf
as well as a fact sheet on GMOs and the WTO, see http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_QA_Feb2006.pdf

Brussels / Geneva, - Opposition to genetically modified (GM) foods) is likely to increase if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules in favour of a US-led complaint against European GM policy, Friends of the Earth Europe warned today. A draft final WTO ruling is expected next week.

The international environmental group accused the WTO of being secretive, undemocratic and biased towards business interests, and charged that it is the wrong institution to settle disputes of this kind.

The United States, Canada and Argentina launched a trade dispute with the EU through the WTO in May 2003. They have been arguing that Europe's reluctance to embrace GM foods damaged their farmers and was a barrier to trade. In line with WTO secrecy, the draft ruling will only be sent to the countries in the dispute. A final ruling is expected later in the year.

Friends of the Earth Europe's Trade Co-ordinator Alexandra Wandel said: "The World Trade Organisation should keep its hands off our food. Protecting Europe's wildlife, farmers and consumers from the threat of genetically modified crops is far more important than free trade rules. The WTO is secretive, undemocratic and unfair. It should not decide what the public eats and how we protect our environment."

Adrian Bebb, GM Food Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, said: 'Opposition to genetically modified foods is likely to increase if the WTO decides that European safeguards should be sacrificed to benefit biotech corporations. The number of bans by countries in Europe against GM foods is increasing, and the number of regions declaring themselves GM Free has soared. The WTO, the US administration and biotech firms should stop their bullying and let Europeans decide what food we eat.'

Friends of the Earth has published a fact sheet and briefing on the dispute today [1] which highlight:

- Opposition to GM foods and crops in Europe has increased since the beginning of the trade dispute. There are now over 170 regions and 4,500 smaller areas that want to be GM-free.

- An alternative dispute settlement procedure is needed to solve trade and environmental conflicts. This could be the International Court of Justice or the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Additionally, the UN Biosafety Protocol is an international agreement already in place that deals with trade in GMOs. Unfortunately, the US has refused to sign it.

- The first ten years of GM crops have failed to deliver the benefits promised by the biotech industry and have played no role in tackling poverty and hunger [2].

An international campaign against the WTO dispute called "Bite-back - WTO: Hands off our food!" is supported by 750 organisations representing some 60 million people (see http://www.bite-back.org. The coalition states that the industry-friendly WTO is not the right place to decide what food Europeans should eat.

The "Bite Back" citizens' objection was initiated by Friends of the Earth International with the support of consumer, development and Farmers' groups, trade unions, research institutes and citizens from over 100 countries.

[1] A special media briefing on the GM trade dispute is available at http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_interim_briefing_F eb2006.pdf as well as a fact sheet on GMOs and the WTO, see http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/GMO_and_WTO_QA_Feb2006.pdf

[2] Who benefits from GM crops http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/who_benefits_from_gm_crops_Jan _2006.pdf

CONTACT: Alexandra Wandel, Friends of the Earth WTO expert, +49 172 748 3953

Adrian Bebb, Friends of the Earth GMO expert, +49 1609 490 1163

NGOs hit out at Australia, Canada and New Zealand for opening the door to GM Terminator Technology

UK Campaigning Group on Terminator Technology Press release, 2 February 2006

An alliance of leading environment and development organisations has condemned Australia, Canada and New Zealand for attempting to open the door to Terminator technology, a form of genetic-modification that would make seeds sterile and threaten the livelihoods of small-scale farmers.

The alliance, which is known as the UK Campaigning Group on Terminator technology, has sent letters of protest to the High Commissioners of all three countries to raise concerns over proposals to weaken the global moratorium on Terminator technology, which would effectively give Terminator the green light.

The alliance's response follows a meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Spain from 23 to 27 January, which was attended by representatives from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, among others. The meeting reaffirmed the CBD moratorium on Terminator technology, but recommendations were made for case-by-case risk assessment. This would ignore the serious concerns raised globally by Indigenous peoples and small-scale farmers on the negative potential impacts of Terminator. Instead, these recommendations would mark a move towards assessing applications of Terminator on a country-by-country basis.

The alliance is also concerned about the influence of the US on decisions around Terminator. The US refused to sign the Convention on Biodiversity but works through other countries to influence decision-making at crucial meetings. The alliance fears that the governments of Australia, Canada and New Zealand are working in collusion with the US administration and the biotechnology industry.

Elisabet Lopez from the UK Campaigning Group on Terminator Technology, said today:

'We are deeply concerned that the US can still influence the result of CBD meetings despite not being Party to the Treaty. The recommendations coming from last week's meeting open the door for Terminator to be introduced. As signatories to the first Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, Australia, Canada and New Zealand cannot justify their support for Terminator technology in the face of massive opposition from Southern countries and farmers around the world.'

Terminator technology is a technology designed to make seeds sterile. As a result, it would prevent farmers from saving seeds from their own crops each year. This would threaten global food security and the livelihoods of 1.4 billion small-scale farmers who depend on seeds they save or exchange with neighbours and other communities. This traditional practice of seed saving has the twin benefits that seeds are adapted to local conditions and are free of charge.

Terminator is being developed to stop farmers from saving seeds and to ensure that biotech companies can gather royalty payments and technology fees from farmers each year. The US Department of Agriculture is a joint patent holder for one type of Terminator patented in the US, Europe and Canada. The major biotechnology corporations have also obtained patents for their versions of Terminator technology.

The issue now moves to the major CBD meeting in Brazil from 20 to 31 March.

Notes to editors

1. The UK Campaigning Group on Terminator Technology includes UK Food Group, Progressio (formerly CIIR), Friends of the Earth, GM Freeze, GeneWatch UK, The Gaia Foundation, Econexus and Munlochy GM Vigil. Link to www.eco-matters.org for free copies of a leaflet on Terminator Technology.

2. The global moratorium is CBD Decision V/5 section III agreed in 2000. This decision states that products incorporating Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs) should not be approved for field-testing or commercial use.

3. The fourth meeting of the Working Group on the implementation of Article 8j of the CBD (concerning the preservation and use of Traditional Knowledge for the conservation of biodiversity in indigenous and local communities) was held in Granada on 23-27 January.

4. The official name for Terminator is Varietal Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (V-GURTs). Terminator prevents seeds forming embryos and therefore they fail to germinate. Seeds are soaked in particular chemicals to switch on the Terminator gene before they are sold to farmers.

5. Terminator is a biological way to protect patents on GM crops "The goal of (the Terminator technology) is to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries," Willard Phelps, USDA spokesperson, March 1998.

6. The US Department of Agriculture jointly holds the patent for one version of Terminator technology with the US corporation Delta & Pine Land in the USA (1998) and Europe and Canada (October 2005).

7. On Tuesday 14 February (3:30-4:45pm) Joan Ruddock will chair a parliamentary briefing on Terminator technology in the House of Commons (Committee Room 6). For invitations see contact details below.

8. Cross party Early Day Motion 1300 Terminator technology has to date been signed by 57 MPs from all major parties.

Press enquiries to: Finola Robinson, Progressio's Press Officer, on 0207 354 0883 or via email at: finola@progressio.org.uk

South Africa: portal for GMOs slipping into Africa?

Reuters, 3 February 2006. By Ed Stoddard. JOHANNESBURG - Much of Africa has reservations about genetically modified foods and seeds (GMOs) and few countries allow them legally, but that may not prevent their spread.

South Africa, which embraces GMOs and is the regional economic powerhouse, could be the portal for them entering the rest of the continent -- no matter what individual nations may do, industry watchers and activists say.

"South Africa is seen as the GMO gateway to Africa because of its sophisticated economy and infrastructure," Melody Emmett of the African Centre for Biosafety told Reuters this week.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and environmental activist Wangari Maathai of Kenya told Reuters that poor African governments could be lured to accept GMOs by the pull of cash.

"It is important to appreciate that in Africa many governments are desperate for money and they can easily be persuaded by unscrupulous international organisations to embrace a technology whose impacts they cannot control or may not even fully understand, and therefore put their people in jeopardy."

"That is my concern. We have seen how, if you come with money as a carrot, governments will embrace," she said.

Opposition to GMOs in Africa stems in part from fears that the continent's farmers could lose market access to Europe.

European consumers widely oppose what many see as "Frankenstein foods", despite industry claims they are safe.

If Africa turns to GMO seeds and foods, Europe may not buy them.

African countries also have concerns about possible unknown side effects -- real fears on a continent already racked by the lethal curses of AIDS and malaria.

Those who support GMOs say that Africa, which experiences frequent food shortages, would benefit from the higher yields they say are associated with the technology.

"I hope that Africa drops its opposition to GMOs," a senior official with a major aid agency said.

The agencies say they will not send GMO foods into African countries which don't want them.

"We don't take GMO foods into countries that have bans on the technology. In that case we only source non-GMO or mill it depending on the restrictions," said Mike Huggins, a spokesman for the World Food Programme.

SCANT REASSURANCE

Despite such assurances, the anti-GMO camp is worried by the unregulated movement of foodstuffs by informal trade networks across Africa's porous borders, which differs from the monitored shipment and trucking of food for commercial or aid purposes.

South Africa's Department of Agriculture says registered exports such as commercial maize are tested and certified for their GMO content, although some countries outside of Africa, such as Korea, say the checks are not sufficiently stringent.

And there is a large informal trade which is not regulated.

"South African borders are porous and people take food home with them for sale or for consumption," Leslie Liddell, director of NGO Biowatch South Africa, said.

Millions of people from neighbouring countries come to South Africa to work and there is huge movement across borders.

The South African office of agricultural products provider U.S.-based Monsanto , one of the main developers of GMO seeds, says GMO made up 40 to 50 percent of miaze seeds it sold in South Africa this growing season, double the previous season.

The office declined to disclose turnover or market share.

By some estimates, close to 20 percent of South Africa's maize crop is GMO, making it almost a given that some crosses the borders in informal trade.

If unmilled maize is taken across borders, the seed can easily find its way into the ground of African states which have banned GMO imports. The southern African states of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi all ban or restrict GMO imports.

-- Additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi

Vatican Views Are Under Delicate Strain

Financial Times, 2 February 2006. By Tony Barber. If the Vatican were to endorse genetically modified organisms, it would have a profound impact on global discussion of the issue. With a flock of 1.1bn faithful, the Roman Catholic church's ethical messages penetrate the whole world.

But GMOs are a divisive issue in the church, pitting clergymen sympathetic to their use (who have enthusiastic support from the US embassy to the Holy See) against others who express opposition.

Perhaps for this reason, the Vatican under Benedict XVI, who was elected Pope last April, has yet to take a definitive stance.

Some African and South American bishops have doubts about GMOs because they worry that control of world food supplies will rest with a few giant companies. GM crop use in developing countries may exacerbate the poverty and vulnerability of poor farmers, they say.

But advocates of GMOs in the church contend that there is a moral obligation to eradicate hunger if the technology exists to do so. By 2025, half the world's population will be living in regions with severe water shortages, so higher-yield crops that need less water must be developed, they argue.

The most authoritative Vatican statement on GMOs appeared in a 2004 publication, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, prepared by the Holy See's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. In a passage devoted to safeguarding man's environment, the council pleased supporters of GMOs by stating: "In effect, nature is not a sacred or divine reality that 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."

However, opponents seized on another pair of sentences in the compendium that said: "The authorities called to make decisions concerning health and environmental risks sometimes find themselves facing a situation in which available scientific data are contradictory or quantitatively scarce. It may then be appropriate to base evaluations on the precautionary principle."

In other words, the jury is still out as far as the Vatican is concerned. This conclusion seems reinforced by the fact that the compendium was reviewed before publication by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the Vatican organ that enforces theological discipline and that Benedict ran for 24 years before he became Pope.

Cardinal Renato Martino, the 73-year-old Italian prelate who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, is seen as one of the Vatican's highest-level supporters of GMOs. He organised a scientific conference on the matter in 2003, describing the stakes involved as "high and delicate" but stressing the Vatican's view that it was a field of inquiry "subject to evolving research".

On one point, the Vatican seems certain not to budge. Those who support contraception as a way of limiting families and thereby improving access to food find no support at all at the Holy See..

3 February 2006

ICSA deeply concerned over proposed GM trials in Trim

The Meath Chronicle, 2 February 2006.

THE ICSA's new rural development chairman, John Flynn, has expressed deep concern over German chemical giant BASF's proposal to the EPA to run GM potato trials in Summerhill, Co Meath

, this year. "Ireland has a very marketable clean, green image, and it is essential to maintain and develop that. Trials like this are totally counterproductive and very damaging to that image," said Mr Flynn.

"We will be making a submission to the EPA, arguing the case for rejecting the proposal, in the strongest possible terms. The ICSA will never allow huge commercial interests like BASF to come into Ireland and ruin the agricultural sector."

Meanwhile, another call on the Minister for Agriculture to prevent the granting the licence has been made by Sinn Fein Colr Joe Reilly.

He called on Minister Mary Coughlan to prevent the granting of a license to BASF to grow the trial crop.

He said: "Minister Coughlan will no doubt give her usual response that this is somehow not her responsibility and that the relevant authorities will assess the application on scientific and safety grounds.

"However, as the minister with responsibility for the reputation and health of Irish farming, [she] has a duty to intervene.

"If GM crops are grown here, they will inevitably contaminate traditional and organic crops. There is no doubt about that from research that has been conducted.

"Three years ago, I placed a motion before Navan Town Council rejecting the idea of GM foods been produced in Ireland and the council fully supported my motion."

Colr Reilly also called on the farming and consumer organisations to resist attempts to grow GM food in Meath.

"The introduction of GM crops here will benefit no one other than the companies which are attempting to control the food system. There is no demand from Irish farmers for GM crops and no evidence that it will benefit either them or Irish consumers," he said.

Sargent seeks adjournment of D·il to discuss GM potatoes in Co. Meath

Green party press release, 2 February 2006. Green Party leader Trevor Sargent TD will today seek an urgent adjournment of the D·il, so that German chemical giant BASF's intention to grow Genetically Modified potatoes in Co. Meath can be discussed.

"The long-term effects of GM crops on both our conventional and organic food industries could be disastrous," said Deputy Sargent.

Sargent said that the Irish government needs to explain why it is failing to protect Irish agriculture. He also called on the Government to explain exactly the recent attempted importation of GM maize through the port at Greenore, and what has become of the material.

The TD for Dublin North, Ireland's principal market gardening region, said: "The most practical ways to protect the market for Irish food products is to keep Ireland GM-free, and to expand the organic sector."

Deputy Sargent called on members of the public to express their concerns about GM contamination, to the Environmental Protection Agency, P.O. Box 3000, Johnstown Castle Estate, Co Wexford, before 22nd February. Sargent criticised the policy of the EPA that requires a €10 fee per letter of concern, however, "I feel certain that many objections will be lodged, not withstanding this obstacle."

2 February 2006

France hauled back to court over GMO controls

Environment Daily. 1 February 2006. The European court of justice has been asked to impose massive financial penalties on France for persistently flouting EU rules on the contained use of genetically modified organisms in research and industry.Ý On Wednesday the European commission announced a repeat court action against Paris, which it said had failed to comply with he rules despite being condemned by the court in 2003.Ý In the event of a second ruling in its favour it asked the court to fine the government € 168,800 per day until the matter is resolved - on e of the highest ever such requests.Ý See press release http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/109

1 February 2006

Japanese pay premier price for GM free canola

Australian Broadcasting Company, Wednesday, 01/02/2006

Grain growers on Kangaroo Island are receiving a premium price for their genetically-modified (GM) free canola after signing a deal with a Japanese company.

After four years of negotiations, 18 growers on the island are exporting a trial shipment of 2,000 tonnes this month and hope to double the tonnage next year.

Derrick Johnson from the Kangaroo Island Canola Company says the Japanese approached growers because of the island's GM free status.

"The idea is that the canola be GM-free which, flies in the face of all GM proponents which say there's no premium for non-GMO products," he said.

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