NEWS ABOUT GM ISSUES • August 2007

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31 August 2007

Australia: GM companies refuse to supply seed for trials

Farm Weekly, 31 August 2007

WA's first broad-scale field trial of genetically modified canola has been placed on hold after becoming entangled in a political battle between the State Government and the seed companies which own the technology.

State Agriculture Minister Kim Chance advised his Ministerial GM Reference Group meeting last Friday that the GM trials, scheduled for Esperance next year, were now in grave danger of not going ahead.

Mr Chance confirmed that the South East Premium Wheat Growers Association (SEPWA), which he approved to conduct the trials, has hit a brick wall in its attempts to source GM seed from Monsanto and Bayer, the companies who own the plant breeding rights to the controversial technology.

Network of Concerned Farmers WA spokesperson, Julie Newman, claimed the lack of seed availability was an admission from GM crop supporters that the Esperance trials would reveal GM canola offered nothing better than the varieties already used by WA growers.

"At last those pushing GM crops have admitted that GM canola cannot out-perform the canola we already grow," Ms Newman said.

"And the GM companies are obviously afraid that the truth would be revealed with independence performance trials.

"It is obvious that those pushing GM crops would prefer that farmers rely on misleading hype because farmers would not be supporting GM crops if they knew the facts."

Ms Newman said the GM companies' reluctance to provide seed for the trials would now raise serious doubts from those farmers and farming groups who were hoping that the SEPWA trials would provide clear and independent evidence that GM performed better than conventional varieties.

SEPWA vice president, Andrew Fowler, said the indications from Monsanto and Bayer were that they did not see the up-side to releasing the GM seed for the trial.

Mr Fowler said the companies saw little value in investing in WA, and envisioned that they would soon see commercial action in NSW, Victoria and maybe NSW, if the moratoria on GM commercial crop production were lifted, as soon as next year.

USA: Healthy eating means no GMOs

Food Consumer.org. By Jeffrey M. Smith.

[Extracts only. See full article at http://foodconsumer.org/7777/8888/G_eneral_H_ealth_34/083010292007_Healthy_Eating_Means_No_GMOs.shtml

You may have heard that genetically modified (GM) foods are safe, properly tested, and necessary to feed a hungry world. UNTRUE! Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), introduced into our food supply in the mid-1990s, are one of history's most dangerous and radical changes in our diet. These largely unregulated ingredients are in 60-70% of the foods in theÝUS, but are well worth efforts to avoid them.

Fortunately, health-conscious retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and growers are now participating in The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, which will eliminate GMOs from thousands of products. This will make it easier for you to feed your family a healthier Ïnon-GMOÓ diet and may even end the genetic engineering of the entireÝUS food supply. This industry-wide rejection of GMOs can be achieved by a "tipping point," in which a sufficient number of shoppers in the US avoiding GM ingredients force the major food companies to stop using them.

Informed European Shoppers Say No to GMOs

EuropeÝreached the tipping point in April 1999 and within a single week, virtually all major manufacturers publicly committed to stop using GM ingredients in their European brands. This consumer-led revolt against GMOs in the EU was generated by a February 1999 media firestorm after a top GMO safety researcher, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, was "ungagged by Parliament" and able to tell this alarming story to the press.

India: PestÝattack: Punjab Bt cotton crop may be set back by 25%

The Wall Street Journal, 31 August 2007. By Padmaparna Ghosh.

After a bumper cotton crop last year, this year has come has a shock to Punjab farmers, especially since 80% of the cotton acreage in Punjab falls under Bt crop

New Delhi: The cotton crop in Punjab, grown from the Bt cotton seed, has suffered a setback following attacks by a pest known as the mealy bug.

"According to the (Punjab) agriculture department, even though more area is under the cotton crop this year, production will be approximately 20-25% less," says a government official who did not wish to be identified.

After a bumper cotton crop last year, this year has come has a shock to Punjab farmers, especially since 80% of the cotton acreage in Punjab falls under Bt crop. Bt cotton seed is genetically modified to repel attacks by bollworms, a common cotton pest.

The districts of Mansa, Bhatinda, Muktsar and Ferozepur are the worst-hit by this pinhead sized insect, which feeds on plant sap. The last major attack of mealy bug was in 1978 with few and sporadic attacks since then.

Meanwhile, many of the farmers who didnÇt plant Bt crop this year appear to be unaffected.

"The reason has nothing to do with Bt or non-Bt crop," said A.K. Dhawan, cotton expert at the Punjab Agricultural University. "The reason is organic farmers (those who use indigenous seed varieties) practice multi-cropping. Mealy bugs donÇt fly. They attack row after row of cotton crop. In multi-cropping, various vegetables and cereals are sown in rows next to each other so mealy bugs die when they hit another crop row."

Some organic farmers are glad. "I have five acres and I sow maize, lobia, soybean, cotton and vegetables. Though my neighbourÇs crop (also five acres) has been badly affected by the insect, my crop is intact," says Amarjeet Sharma, an organic farmer.

Agricultural experts agree that when the focus is on controlling one pest, secondary pests can take over. "There have been numerous cases in China of such attacks on Bt cotton," says Kavitha Kuruganti of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, a lobby group for organic farmers. "In Gujarat, the agriculture department has even set up a committee to look into the matter of attacks of mealy bugs and other pests on Bt cotton. The crop also requires high amounts of fertilizer inputs, which increases sugar content, thereby attracting sucking pests."

Meanwhile, an association that represents seed sellers such as Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech Ltd, Rashi and Ankur notes that the problem is "not Bt related. Bt is only specific for bollworms. This has taken farmers by surprise. Not that they are not aware that they need to use pesticides with Bt cotton seed," said R.K. Sinha, executive director, All India Crop Biotechnology Association, the umbrella organization for manufacturers of genetically modified seeds.

"It has been observed that when 100% of a region goes under Bt cultivation, it becomes susceptible to pests," says a pesticide company official who did not wish to be identified. "The best example is Gujarat. We expected this to happen in Punjab too as more than 80% is under Bt and it did."

This year's attack will not only reduce cotton yield but it has pushed up input costs of farmers as well. "The cost to farmers has increased by Rs2,500 per acre on account of pesticides to contain the attack," the pesticide official said. He added that because of this attack, his company had in the last few weeks sold additional pesticide worth Rs300 crore. Input costs for Bt cotton farmers is higher to begin with as each seed packet costs around Rs750. Moreover, Bt can be grown only in intensively irrigated areas as opposed to indigenous seeds, which are hardier. Irrigation pulls up input costs for farmers because they have to run pumps.

30 August 2007

Greenpeace defends Poland against challenge by European Commission

European Environmental Bureau / Greenpeace press release, 30 August 2007.

Greenpeace yesterday made a legal submission to the European Commission arguing that Polandís draft national legislation on the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is fully consistent with EU law. Greenpeace made its submission in the context of a formal European Commission notification procedure on the draft Polish law. This procedure could represent the first step of a challenge by the EU Executive of the Polish national GMO law.

The Greenpeace submission was written by EU Environmental Law Professor Ludwig Krämer. According to Professor Krämer Poland has the right to restrict the use of GMOs in its territory in order to protect its environment. The fact that a genetically modified seed or plant or animal has been authorised at EU level does not mean that member states have no further rights to regulate the use of such genetically engineered living beings in their territory.

"The fact that a car has been authorised for sale and circulation in the EU does not mean that it can be driven without restriction everywhere in all member states. EU member states certainly have the right to regulate the use of cars and restrict it to designated roads. EU law similarly applies to the case of genetically modified organisms - member states have the right to regulate and restrict the use of GMO seeds, plants and animals in their specific environments. Poland is right on this one." said Professor Kr”mer.

"The Commission's interpretation of the provisions set out in Directive 2001/18/EC, according to which member states are not allowed to regulate the use of GMOs in their territory, is flawed" Professor Kr”mer added. "This interpretation is based upon the false assumption by the Commission that the concepts of 'placing on the market' and of 'use' are equal in EU law" he concluded.

Greenpeace urges the European Commission to recognise the right of Poland and all EU Member States to restrict the use of GMOs in their territories in order to protect their citizens and the environment from the serious and irreversible risks posed by the cultivation of GMOs.

"The Commission should correct its flawed interpretation of EU law and stop trying to interfere with Poland's national law on the use of genetically modified organism in Polish agriculture" said Marco Contiero, GMO policy director of Greenpeace European Unit.

Note: Greenpeace European Unit is based in Brussels, where we monitor and analyse the work of the institutions of the European Union (EU), expose deficient EU policies and laws, and challenge decision-makers to implement progressive solutions.

Switzerland: Bt Corn Is More Susceptible to Aphids, Swiss Researchers Report

Public Library of Science press Release -- Aug 29 2007

The environmental consequences of transgenic crops are the focus of numerous investigations, such as the one published in the journal PloS ONE, which was carried out by Cristina Faria and her colleagues, under the supervision of Ted Turlings, professor in chemical ecology at the University of Neuch’tel. The researchers observed that most transgenic maize lines were significantly more susceptible to the aphid Rhopalosiphum maidis than their conventional equivalents. "We have studied six lines of Bt maize containing an insecticidal gene derived from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. The toxin produced by these genes is very specific and only affects the caterpillars feeding on the plants, not the aphids. Five of the lines contained up to twice the number of aphids", states Cristina Faria. She does, however, go on to clarify what seems, at a first glance, detrimental to the plant.

"It all depends on the economic threshold for aphids in the region where maize is being grown. If these insects are not a major problem, then it is rather good news." In fact, aphids produce honeydew, a sugar-rich substance that can be used as a food source by beneficial insects, such as the parasitic wasp Cotesia marginiventris. This parasitoid helps the plant when it is attacked by caterpillars. It kills these pests by laying its eggs in them. In cages with aphid-infested Bt maize, Cotesia wasps lived almost twice as long and parasitized 37.5% more caterpillars. Hence, an increase in the number of aphids might help to control caterpillars in areas where these are a major problem. "However, in regions where aphids are considered to be a pest, growing Bt maize could be problematic," adds the biologist. Aphids mainly damage plants by transmitting viruses and using Bt maize might amplify this problem.

So where does this unexpected difference between conventional and Bt maize come from? The insertion of the Bt gene could have an effect on other genes, but the NCCR Plant Survival researchers rather think that by producing Bt toxin the plant's chemistry is otherwise altered. In Bt plants, they measured slightly higher concentrations of amino acids, which are essential nutrients for aphids. Moreover, the plant may mobilise energy resources for the production of the Bt toxin at the cost of producing substances that it normally uses in defence against aphids.

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Disclaimer

The above press release refers to an upcoming article in PLoS ONE. The release has been provided by the article authors and/or their institutions. Any opinions expressed in this are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.

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Contact:

Igor Chlebny, igor.chlebny@unine.ch, 41-327-182-507, Public Library of Science

Citation: Faria CA, W”ckers FL, Pritchard J, Barrett DA, Turlings TC (2007) High Susceptibility of Bt Maize to Aphids Enhances the Performance of Parasitoids of Lepidopteran Pests. PLoS ONE 2(7): e600.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000600

The published article may be found at: http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0000600

Australia: GM seeds to be prohibited: Chance

WA Business News, August 30 2007

Genetically modified seed will be prohibited for cultivation, sale or import in Western Australia under new laws introduced this week by Agriculture minister Kim Chance.

The full text of a ministerial announcement is pasted below

Agriculture and Food Minister Kim Chance this week introduced legislation into the Western Australian Parliament designed to further protect the State's moratorium on the growing of Genetically Modified (GM) crops.

The Seeds Amendment Bill 2007 will allow the Minister to declare GM seed to be 'prohibited seed'.

"Under the proposed changes, it will be an offence to import, sell or be in possession of prohibited seed in WA for the purposes of cultivation," Mr Chance said.

"This legislation is designed to protect WA's GM-free cropping systems from intentional or inadvertent GM contamination."

The Minister said that traces of GM contamination had been previously detected in the State's canola crop, despite the fact that all canola-growing States of Australia had a moratorium in place.

Testing of canola within WA had revealed no further traces of GM canola lines. The Department of Agriculture and Food continues to test for contamination of seed lines and harvested canola as an ongoing activity.

"WA's GM-free status is providing benefits to WA farmers in terms of price premiums for food grade non-GM canola and continued market access to discerning markets in Europe, Japan, India and China," Mr Chance said.

"The legislation will help to protect and maintain the market advantage currently enjoyed by WA farmers because of our GM-free status in the local and international marketplace."

The Minister said the risks to the State's GM-free canola cropping and grain handling systems could be further increased if other States lifted their moratorium in 2008. WA had a moratorium in place until 2009.

Mr Chance established a Ministerial Reference group to prepare a discussion paper for public consultation on the risk s and benefits of GM canola to farmers and markets.

The discussion paper should be available for public comment in early 2008.

Ireland: Your organic sustainable future

Irish Examiner (Farming supplement), 30 August 2007.

Creating a future for yourself and your children that is sustainable is becoming an important part in many of our lives.

All the experts agree that oil and gas prices are set to rise steeply in the coming years as demand starts to out-strip supply. This will have a profound effect on our society which is dependent on oil and gas for everything from transport and medicines to packaging and food. For every one calorie of food that we eat it has taken ten calories of oil to grow it, and that's before packaging and transport have been taken into account! The days of well stocked supermarkets full of cheap food may be limited.

Organic growing, and an understanding of how to live a practical sustainable life are set to become essential skills in the years to come. Organic farming is the fastest growing agricultural sector in most of Europe, and sustainability is the buzz-word every government wants to include in its policies. Not only does organic growing remove the need for oil-based agrochemicals, ...[remainder of article to be added later].

The Philippines: Negros Occidental bans GMO

Philippine Information Agency, 30 August 2007.

Bacolod City (30 August) -- The province of Negros Occ. has banned the entry of Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) into the province as officials asked for the cooperation of businessmen and the citizens to declare truthfully the nature of the products they are bringing in Negros Occ.

Provincial Ordinance No.007 sealed the stand of the province to go full swing into organic farming and become the organic capital of the country and of Asia.

The law prohibits not only the entry of GMO into Negros Occ. but also its experimentation and field-testing.

During the recent public forum on this ordinance, Negros Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Foundation (NISARD) Executive Director Patrick Belisario said a big challenge is set before them in the implementation of the P.O. 007 especially in the aspect of regulation.

He admitted that instruments to test the veracity of declared products may not yet be readily available to effectively implement the law but the province, in the end, will have to acquire them.

Meantime, the law will definitely be imposed and other concerns will be dealt with accordingly as they come. "We have to start somewhere," he said.

Belisario said initial talks with the business sector yielded fruitful results as they pledged to cooperate with the provincial government.

29 August 2007

USA: Rice farmer claims research contaminated crop

Beauregard Daily News, August 29 2007. By Hattie Sherrick-Burton.

A Beauregard Parish rice farmer is suing the board of supervisors of Louisiana State University and Bayer CropScience, the developer of genetically modified rice, for allegedly contaminating the U.S. rice crop and causing harm to his farm.

Farmer Kenneth Habetz is seeking compensatory, exemplary and punitive damages, as well as injunctive relief.

Habetz filed his suit in 36th Judicial District Court on Aug. 17. It claims negligence, nuisance and trespassing following the contamination of the U.S. rice supply by the genetically modified, long-grain "LLRICE" or Liberty Rice.

According to the suit, the board of supervisors contracted with Bayer to field test the rice, which is grown to be resistant to the active ingredient in the Bayer product Liberty@Herbicide, at an LSU-operated Rice Research Station two miles east of Crowley.

The suit alleges that during field-testing from 1998 through 2001, LSU and Bayer failed to take action to prevent the contamination of conventional rice with "LLRICE" through cross-pollination or commingling during planting, harvesting, handling, storage, transportation and disposal, resulting in the contamination of the entire U.S. supply.

Genetically engineered rice has been modified so that it is resistant to herbicide. On Aug. 18, 2006, an announcement was made to U.S. rice farmers that trace amounts of genetically engineered rice had been found throughout the Southern U.S.

It was concluded at the time, however, that there was no health, food safety or environmental concerns associated with the U.S. rice.

According to the suit, while all biotechnology products in the country are required to undergo testing by the USDA and other food safety agencies, such approval was not sought by Bayer until more than one strain of the rice was confirmed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to be found in rice supplies destined for human consumption and export.

Habetz claims that his farming operation suffered as a result of the contamination.

He alleges that he and other farmers were faced with increased costs due to the need to maintain the integrity of their rice supply, and for their efforts to keep "LLRICE" from further entering supplies.

According to USDA estimates for the 2006 crop year, rice production in the U.S. was valued at $1.88 billion, approximately half of which was expected to be exported.

The U.S. also provides about 12 percent of the world rice trade.

Habetz grew rice on approximately 600 acres of Beauregard Parish farmland during the relevant time periods and, according to the suit, has never knowingly grown "LLRICE."

According to the USDA, Louisiana has the second largest area devoted to long-grain rice production, accounting for about 20 percent of the acreage devoted to long-grain rice production, as well as 16 percent of the long-grain production in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Rice Federation, Bayer CropScience has developed many genetically engineered herbicide-tolerant products with the protein called "Liberty Link," including corn, soybeans, canola and cotton, some of which are grown in the U.S. Bayer has developed three rice products, two of which have been thoroughly evaluated and declared safe for use in food, safe in the environment and approved for production. Neither of these rice products have been commercialized.

USDA considering new regulations for GMOs

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering the adoption of new regulations for genetically engineered organisms. They have released an extensive Environmental Impact Statement describing the proposed changes that are being considered. The proposed changes to the failing federal GE regulatory system provide us with a unique and important opportunity to make our voices heard.

One of the options under consideration is to ban the open-air production of food and feed crops that produce pharmaceutical drugs and industrial compounds. This is a policy that has been advocated by mainstream food industry representatives such as the powerful Grocery Manufacturers Association and many conventional agriculture organizations.

However, USDA has made a preliminary recommendation for a much lower standard of protection that would allow food crops to be produced outdoors, so it is important that they hear from us demanding that they do better!

Take action

Comments are due by Sept. 11th

The Union of Concerned Scientists has prepared a sample letter http://rs6.net/...F that makes it easy for you to send your comments to USDA, urging them to ban the outdoor production of drugs in food crops.

Help Build the California GE-Free Network

As one of the largest agricultural economies in the world, California has the opportunity to become a leader in safeguarding our public and private lands, fisheries, forests, schools, gardens and nurseries from GE contamination.

If GE is an issue that you are concerned about and you are not already a member, sign on to the Cal GE-Free list serve http://rs6.net/tn... to receive this newsletter.

USA: Hormone-free milk ads not misleading

Chicago Tribune, August 29 2007

The Federal Trade Commission has rejected Monsanto's claim that milk ads using the terms "free of artifical growth hormones" or "rBGH-free" are misleading, according to the Associated Press.

The decision was announced in the same week that Starbucks agreed to stop using Monsanto's genetically engineered supplement, which is used to boost milk production in cows by 10 percent. Major grocery chains have already switched to milk free of synthetic hormones, including Safeway and Kroger Co.

This is bad news for Monsanto, which markets the hormone under the brand name Posilac. While the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug's use in 1993 and says its safe, it's banned in Europe and Canada in part because it leaves cows more prone to illness.

The ruling means ads like the one below from Borden, did not make any misleading claims about the safety of the growth hormone, called recombinant bovine somatrotropin, or rBST. (It's also known as recombinant bovine growth hormone or rBGH).

"We work exclusively with farmers that supply 100 percent of our milk from cows that haven't been treated with artificial hormones," the Borden ad says. "So, who do you trust when it comes to your family's milk?"

Monsanto argues that this type of advertising has created an artificial demand and higher consumer prices for milk from cows that have not been injected with the growth hormone," the AP reported.

"Mike Lormore, dairy industry affairs director for Monsanto in St. Louis, said the issue is 'accuracy in labeling.' He said moves by retailers could limit long-term demand for the hormone, but has not had a "significant impact" on current sales.

Under FDA policy, food companies are allowed to make claims on labels that they do not use rBST, as long they do not 'mislead consumers" to believe milk from cows without rBST is safer or of higher quality."

USA: Fox News Reporters Fired For Being Too Tough on Monsanto Milk

In 1997, the investigative reporting duo of Steve Wilson and Jane Akre cracked a story about Monsanto's conspiracy to push bovine growth hormone while ignoring the potential risks to its "end users." Unfortunately, they worked for Fox News. The channel was extremely reticent, to say the least, to run the story after coming under pressure by Monsanto.

After being fired, the couple successfully sued under Florida's whistleblower laws. However, Fox won on appeal as courts found FCC regulations against news falsification was a policy, and not a law. Fox then countersued in 2004 for court fees and legal costs.

We raise our glass of milk to you, oh Monsanto! We knew there were even more good reasons for you to contend in our Worst Company in America contest! [via The Field Report http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-america/...].

Thailand: Minister backs off

Bangkok Post, 29 August 2007

The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry retreated from its plan to seek cabinet approval yesterday for the lifting of the ban on field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops.

Agriculture Minister Thira Sutabutra said the decision followed the fierce protests since he announced the plan earlier this month.

"It's hard to press ahead with this, but I will not give up because lifting the ban would benefit the country," he said.

Mr Thira reaffirmed that he still intended to ask the cabinet soon to revoke the April 13 resolution prohibiting GM crop field trials.

Witoon Lianchamroon, of the farm community rights group Biothai, said the ministry had underestimated public opposition to GM crops. Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla had also publicly opposed lifting the ban, he added.

France: Monsanto stays course despite French GMO attacks

Reuters, August 29 2007. By Tamora Vidaillet.

PARIS (Reuters) - Fresh attacks on Monsanto's French test sites for genetically modified (GMO) maize have not put it off research in France, the U.S. biotech giant said on Wednesday.

In recent years, biotech firms given the green light to carry out GMO tests in France have done so under threat that protesters may trample fields and wreck months of research.

This pushed Bayer CropScience to end field tests in France in 2004 and has prompted fears among scientists that others may shift at least part of their research efforts abroad.

Still, Missouri-based Monsanto, creator of the only GMO technology currently in commercial use in France, a corn called YieldGard MON-810, remains committed to field trials.

"Monsanto wishes to continue its research in biotechnology and its field trials in France despite illegal destructions because the best adapted varieties for farmers' specific needs are created at the local level," said Jean-Michel Duhamel, Monsanto's director for southern Europe.

"As the sharp rise in prices of raw food in France shows that an abundance of food cannot be taken for granted anymore, it is necessary to develop all tools to strengthen efficiency and sustainability of agriculture including biotechs," he said.

Monsanto has issued two separate complaints against protesters this month following attacks on GMO test sites that it says caused losses totaling 100,000 euros ($135,900).

In 2004, 45 percent of all Monsanto's field trials on GMO seeds suffered damage from activists. In 2005, 55 percent suffered such damage and in 2006, 65 percent did.

Heated debate has surrounded the use of GMO products across Europe and in France, a country which takes special pride in the quality of its food and where many consumers and green groups doubt the safety of GMO products.

While GMO technologies are more widely used in the United States, analysts say it could take years before such solutions are welcome with open arms in Europe.

Monsanto said it derives around 50 percent of its revenues in France from the sale of herbicides and most of the remainder from sales of conventional, non-biotech seeds.

While the number of hectares sown with maize incorporating Monsanto's MON-810 technology has swelled to more than 20,000 hectares this season from 5,000 in 2006, GMO-derived business accounts for less than one percent of its turnover in France.

Monsanto has given about eight seed companies the right to use its MON-810 technology in France.

This season around 40 percent of the area sown with GMO maize was directly using Monsanto seeds. The other 60 percent was made up of maize produced by French firms or cooperatives which have negotiated the right to use Monsanto's technology.

Who sells GMO's in Romania?

Hot News (Romania), 29 August 2007.

[Extract:]

Most Romanians (67%) refuse to consume genetically modified food with the highest rates of rejection reported in the southern regions of Oltenia, Muntenia and Dobrogea, according to a recent survey commanded by Greenpeace Romania.

Regardless of the fact that the Romanian law requires that all the food products containing more than 0.9% GMOs should be labeled as such, and that some supermarket chains in Romania claim they're not selling such products, the sale of GMO products is not excluded.

Read the article: http://english.hotnews.ro/Who-sells-GMO's-in-Romania-articol_45761.htm

Thailand: Let rationality decide GMO debate
The bio-safety law must be enacted before field trials on genetically modified crops can resume

The Nation (Thailand), 29 August 2007.

[Extract:]

The Agriculture Ministry has said it would, at a later date, submit a proposal to the Surayud Cabinet to lift the ban on field trials of genetically modified organisms (GMO), which has been in force for the past six years. The ministry, which was earlier scheduled to table the proposal at yesterday's Cabinet meeting, withheld it without giving a reason why. Officials at the ministry insisted that Thailand, one of the world's major food producers, must restart field tests of genetically modified crops to keep up with advances in global research and to maintain the country's competitiveness.

Read the article: http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/29/opinion/opinion_30046911.php

The Philippines: Help enforce GMO ban, Negrenses urged

The Visayan Daily Star, 29 August 2007. By Nanette Guadalquiver.

The Province of Negros Occidental, together with the Negros Island Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Foundation, is urging Negrenses to take part in the enforcement of the ban on living genetically-modified organisms in the province, a policy vital to its goal to make the island the "Organic Food Basket of Asia."

"We want to give notice to the whole world, to the entire country that we ban GMOs in Negros Occidental," Aleta NuÒez of the Provincial Legal Office said at the orientation on the GMO ban ordinance at the Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod City yesterday.

GMO is an organism whose natural genetic material has been modified with synthetic material inserted into it.

NuÒez, who presented the features of Provincial Ordinance No. 007-2007, said that, for now, the important thing is to disseminate the information on the policy of Negros Occidental to prohibit living GMOs within its jurisdiction.

"The first value of this ordinance is to provide information and to insulate the island from any GMO activities," she said. The key LMO bans under the ordinance are: entry of living GMOs and experimentation and/or field testing related to it, as well as planting or growing and selling or trading of living GMOs. Part of the information campaign is the installation of "notice to the public" billboards in 30 strategic locations across the province.

Patrick Belisario, executive director of NISARD, said only patches of agriculture areas in Negros Occidental use GMOs, and these are still unverified.

With the ordinance, they are focusing on the non-entry of living GMOs for the first year.

For now, non-living GMOs, which are usually found in animal feeds, will still be allowed in the province, he said. Living GMOs specifically banned are crops, including corn which, so far, has 23 GMO varieties.

Aside from corn, also included in the Initial Watch List are:, six varieties of cotton, three varieties of potato, two varieties of sugarbeet as well soybean 40-3-2, canola RT73, and Alfalfa Events J101 and J163.

Majority of these living GMOs have been developed by Monsanto, particularly corn, soybean, cotton, potato, sugarbeet, canola and alfalfa while other corn varieties are by Pioneer, Syngenta, and Bayar Cropscience.

"It's no joke implementing this ban. We don't want to be like the other provinces (which also did this), only to fail. We're realistic so we we start with the living GMOs, those that can be easily propagated," Belisario said.

Phase-out The ordinance states that all persons in Negros Occidental who have already planted living GMOs, in whatever quantity or stage at the time of the effectivity of the ban, are given the remaining growing period of 120 days from July 19, 2007, when the ordinance took effect, to completely and permanently terminate the growing of living GMOs. They will also dispose of the living GMOs harvested outside the province.

Persons engaged in planting or trading of living GMOs are also required to make full disclosure of their activity to the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist and Office of the Provincial Veterinarian.

Those who are engaged in the selling or trading of living GMOs are given 30 days to dispose of their products.

Propaganda, Fraud and Libel - a response (part 1)

GM Watch, 28 August 2007.

An article about the recent row involving the Canadian Government bureaucrat, Shane Morris, ourselves and GM-free Ireland, recently topped the daily bulletin of AgBioWorld's listserv - AgBioView - and was subsequently posted onto websites run by the Hudson Institute and Monsanto, as well as another pro-GM list, Doug Powell's Agnet.
http://www.cgfi.org/cgficommentary/Anti-biotech%20wactivists%20082307

Under the title Propaganda, Fraud and Libel, the author - Andrew Apel - paints a picture of Shane Morris as a scientist beset by "Irish activists" who according to Apel, "Apparently, cannot distinguish between scientific opinion, propaganda, fraud and libel".

There is considerable irony in such an accusation from such a source. Andrew Apel was formerly editor of the biotech industry newsletter, AgBiotech Reporter, but these days he is the "guest editor" of AgBioView. This listserv was in the forefront of the notorious campaign to smear the Berkeley scientists David Quist and Ignacio Chapela over their research on Mexican maize contamination.

The AgBioWorld campaign was initiated and fuelled by "anonymous" e-mail attacks on the integrity of the researchers. The attacks were subsequently shown to have been posted out of Monsanto and its Internet PR firm, Bivings. Bivings, it turned out, were also providing AgBioWorld with undisclosed support.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,715153,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,723899,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,842999,00.html

The accusations included the suggestion that the research had been constructed by Dr Chapela in collusion with activists for propaganda purposes, and there was even a call posted on AgBioView by Prof Anthony Trewavas that UC Berkeley should be pressed to dismiss Dr Chapela if he failed to give in to demands that he hand over his maize samples for independent scrutiny.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=153
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1691

Another Monsanto PR attack posted on AgBioView was aimed at Greenpeace UK and its then head, Peter Melchett. When this AgBioView material ended up being published in a Scottish newspaper under the name of Prof Trewavas, it resulted in a successful libel action.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=153

Andrew Apel's personal contributions to AgBioView have also been highly controversial. Following September 11th, for instance, he made an extraordinary attack on two GM critical scientists: "Vandana Shiva has blood on her hands, so does Mae-Wan Ho. So do others of their ilk."
http://www.gene.ch/gentech/2001/Sep/msg00154.html

A few months later Apel sought to link GM Watch founder, Jonathan Matthews, to terrorism, claiming, "He takes money from Greenpeace and has been associated with at least one terrorist group."
http://www.gene.ch/gentech/2002/May/msg00245.html
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=49&page=1

Shane Morris and his supporters have also repeatedly attacked Matthews and GM Watch, as well as Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland, in highly personal terms, accusing them, for example, of "FAKE information and Lies!!!". And while Apel seems to regard GM Watch as "Irish activists", Morris has even sought to link GM Watch to the colonial suppression of Ireland!
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6330

Morris and his co-author Doug Powell appear to have a history of aggressive attacks. After a press piece about the Royal Society of Canada's expert report on GM, an editorial in a Canadian farming paper accused them of "offensive" propaganda marked by "irrational views" and "virulent attacks on respected scientists." (Rude Science, John W. Morris, The Manitoba Co-operator, June 21 2001)

According to Apel's article, however, it is the "activists" who engage in aggressive propaganda and libel.

----------

For more on the research at the centre of the row: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

See our story "Canada attacks Ireland's GM policy" at www.gmfreeireland.org/morris/.

27 August 2007

USA: Monday morning corn comment

The Linn Group Inc., 27 August 2007.

[Extract:]

Exports remain very strong and many cash traders are saying that European buyers are chasing every type of non-GMO feed grain, which will make US corn more in demand from new sources.

Read the article: http://www.etvfutures.com/futures/Text/ShowStory.jsp?id=12792

France: GMOs: let us finally make room for a democratic and calmed-down debate

Le Figaro, 27 August 2007. Commentary by Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Michel Barnier:

Recent events have thrown a tragic light on the debate over genetically modified organisms [GMOs]. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies the death of a sincere man who respected the law. This tragedy proves once again how difficult, necessary, and awaited this debate is. It will take place - the president of the republic has committed himself to it - but it will take place only in an atmosphere of serenity, dignity, and respect for the principles of the rule of law. Because it concerns our future and our vital functions - feeding ourselves, looking after our health - and because it raises questions and disquiet on the part of our compatriots the debate is a legitimate one and must be held without taboos and in total transparency. Ý

The national debate on the environment in the fall offers a real opportunity to discuss and compare points of view with a view to all the participants listening to one another. That is why within the course of this major debate I will be particularly following the question of GMOs. Ý

What, then, is the reality of GMOs? They form part of a long history of innovation and modernization of agriculture in order to respond to our demand for food. The domestication of soft wheat even goes back more than 9,000 years! GMOs are one of the extensions of that history. Ý

You have actually to distinguish two realities in this area: scientific research on the one hand, marketing on the other. Both exist in France. Ý

We have authorized research on GMOs because we have to know specifically whether our knowledge of genes and the living world enables us to improve the properties of the plants which we need. GMOs hold out great promise, whether it be greater resistance to parasites or drought permitting better yields, or progress in nutritional matters. Moreover, GMOs have industrial applications: a poplar containing less lignin reduces the pulp and paper industry's water pollution. GMOs could then make it possible to reconcile the increasing needs for agricultural products with environmental demands. Lastly, let us not neglect the medical stakes involved, with the prospect of new therapies for diseases like cystic fibrosis. Ý

For marketing, only MON810 maize has been grown in France since 1998. Our country has in all 20,000 hectares cultivated, that is to say, 0.75 per cent of the total surface area under maize. That is not a lot. In the world more than 100 million hectares of GMOs are cultivated by 24 countries, including five in Europe, out of a total of 100,000 hectares [as published]. Our continent is then still at the beginnings in this area! Because GMOs in France, as in Europe, are extremely controlled and regulated on account of the precautionary principle, to which I am personally very attached: I was the first in France to introduce it into law, in February 1995. In fact, all licenses for a GMO trial to be set up or for placing it on the market are issued only after an evaluation of the potential risks to the environment and health. Surveillance is exercised over the crops by the Ministry of Agriculture's departments and by the license-holders, particularly over the risks of accidental dispersal. Lastly, to guarantee transparency, the European Union requires that member states inform the public, particularly by appropriate labelling of GMO products or those containing them. Ý

Within the European framework the states can invoke safeguard clauses enabling them to ban or limit the cultivation or placing on the market of a product, albeit authorized by the community bodies. France has activated these clauses on transgenic colzas [i.e. oilseed rape] insofar as the licence issued did not contain sufficient precautions. Ý

Moreover, we have set up supervision of the scientific trials according to a very strict procedure which includes several visits to each plot of land, town hall briefings, and public consultations. For all the crops we have imposed a declaration of the plots of land which has made it possible to draw up a register which can be consulted by absolutely everyone on the interministerial site. Lastly, checking for the accidental presence of GMOs was established in 2004 by the departments of the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption, and Prevention of Fraud in order to avoid the importing of nonauthorized GMOs into France. All these measures mean that we know precisely where GMOs are being grown and can sanction operators who illegally import GMOs. That is what is meant by traceability. And rarely will a technological innovation have been so tightly supervised. Ý

These precautions having been taken, it is imperative and a matter of priority that research should continue. Otherwise, the United States and China will dominate world agriculture and future research and development, placing us in a situation of dependency. Ý

Europe, independent and self-sufficient thanks to the Common Agricultural Policy, cannot afford, 50 years on, to put the process into reverse. Ý

The national conference on the environment will be a high point of debate and democracy regarding these issues and will, I am sure, enable us to provide answers to the legitimate questions of everyone in an atmosphere of serenity and respect for the rules. That is our whole ambition for our agriculture.

France: Police tear-gas farmers in clash over French GM crops

The Independent (UK), 27 August 2007. By John Lichfield in Paris

Growing tensions in France between opponents and supporters of genetically modified crops have led to violent confrontations.

Gendarmes used tear gas and batons to prevent pro-GM farmers from invading a picnic for militant opponents of genetically modified maize at the town of Verdun-sur-Garonne in south-west France over the weekend.

Hardly a day has gone by this summer without opponents of GM maize - both environmental campaigners and small farmers - invading fields and trampling or cutting down crops. The protesters, led by the small farmers' leader, José Bové, claim a citizens' right to destroy crops which, they say, threaten ecological calamity and the subjection of farmers to the whims of agro-industrial, multinational companies.

Tempers have risen to boiling point since the suicide earlier this month of a farmer in the Lot département who had agreed to plant a small section of GM maize. He took his life a few days after he had been warned that anti-GM protesters planned to hold a picnic on his fields.

The largest French farmers' federation, the FNSEA, called for Saturday's demonstration to protest against attacks on crops and alleged government inaction. Gendarmes used tear gas to prevent the farmers from crossing a bridge to the site of the anti-GM picnic, which was addressed by the extravagantly moustachioed M. Bové.

"If Bové keeps on cutting down our crops, we're going to shave his moustache," said one protester.

Michel Masson, head of the FNSEA in the central area of France, said: "There has already been one death and I can tell you that many farmers, rather than hang themselves from a tree, are now ready to take their rifles off the wall."

The confrontation is partly between town and country. It is also a confrontation between two different approaches to agriculture. The FNSEA supports a "scientific" and highly productive approach to agriculture. M. Bové and his supporters argue for a traditional, small-scale approach.

Successive governments have shied away from legislating clearly on GM crops. Most types are banned but farmers have been allowed to plant, experimentally, a variety of maize called MON810, developed by the US company, Monsanto, which is said to be immune to insect attack.

Thailand: NGOs protest against GMO crops

Bangkok Post, 27 August 2007.

Nine tonnes of papaya were dumped at the gates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives on the capital's stately Rajdamnoen Avenue Monday in protest of the ministry's plan to promote fruit allegedly grown as genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Led by Nutthawipa Iwsakun, a Greenpeace Southeast Asia coordinator, a group of NGO demonstrators and other activists unloaded the papaya from trucks at the ministry's gates and called on Agriculture Minister Thira Sutabutr to stop pushing for a cabinet waiver on a nationwide ban on GMO farming.

The agriculture minister reportedly planned to seek a waiver of the ban on genetically-modified fruit in a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

Ms. Nutthawipa charged the ministry's promotion of GMO papaya was merely aimed to help a few firms at the cost of the country's fruit exports, because world markets will not accept GMO products.

Though the Agriculture Ministry had destroyed genetically-modified papaya trees at a demonstrative farm in Khon Kaen, others have been grown in Kalasin, Maha Sarakham, Chaiyaphum, Kamphaengphet and Rayong provinces while papaya seed from the GMO demonstration farm in Khon Kaen had been distributed to more than 2,600 farmers in 37 provinces, the activist said.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia earlier litigated at the Administrative Court against the Agriculture Department for failing to keep papaya a GMO-free fruit.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commerce Minister Oranuch Osathanonda said she disagreed with the government plans to promote genetically-modified papaya farming because importing countries would cut back their orders for fruit and other farm products from Thailand.

Mrs. Oranuch commented that experimental GMO projects should be terminated, because, she said, their output might otherwise be leaked to farmers.

Rice Exporters Association chief Chukiat Ophatwong urged the government to call off all research and development projects on any GMO product because it would impact rice and other farm commodities bound for world export markets. (TNA)

Ireland: GM foods are demonised by the media without any real evidence

Irish Medical News, 27 August 2007.
Letter to the Editor from Prof. Vivian Moses
Chairman, CropGen

Dr Elizabeth Cullen (IMN 9/7/07) should take more heed of the quality of the reports she favours.

Her "good news" - that "female rats fed genetically modified soya produced excessive numbers of severely stunted pups with over half the litter dying within three weeks, and the surviving pups being sterile" -is, alas, no news at all.

The accepted way of assessing evidence lies through peer review in which reputable and experienced scientists anonymously scrutinise incoming manuscripts. Most reports purporting to show deleterious consequences of GM foods are not peer reviewed.

It is obvious why: they would not have passed.

There have been three or four major attempts to show that GM foods have undesirable health effects. The first, mooted on UK television in 1998 and eventually published against the advice of reviewers, was an incomplete and later wholly discredited claim that rat intestinal disorders were caused specifically by biotech potatoes.

Some time later came an assertion at a Manila news conference that Philippine farmers living near GM-maize plantations had contracted a mystery illness caused by those very crops. No supporting evidence has ever appeared; the local medical authorities diagnosed influenza.

A couple of years ago, a paper from Russia claimed effects in rats fed GM-soya. The paper, substantially devoid of detail, was delivered at a conference and then appeared without peer review on an activist website. That is hardly surprising as the quality of those experiments was, in my opinion, so poor, and the statistics so dubious, that no credence could or can be given to the conclusions.

Most recently we had a "reevaluation" of GM-maize MON 863, already approved for cultivation in North America and for import into a number of major countries and regions, including the EU; part of the approval process was scrutiny by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The new re-evaluation suffered once more from severe statistical shortcomings and its condusions have been specifically dismissed by EFSAfor that reason.

We must not forget that approved GM foods have been consumed by hundreds of millions of people for more than a decade without a single confirmed adverse health effect. At the same time GM fodder has been and is being fed to millions of animals worldwide, again with no problems.

Dr Cullen's arguments on the difficulties of establishing food safety notwithstanding it was kind of her to quote from the report Mike Brannan and I assembled in 2001 (readers might like to see it for themselves at http//^AA/wv.cropgeRorg/GM_Bio safety.pdf, pages 19-20).

That report was written in 2001, what we said then about food safety has been amply confirmed by more years of experience.

She goes on to make further unsupported allegations: supposed uncharacterised damage from genetic recombination but not a word about unknown and untested for genetic effects from conventional crossings or from mutation breeding; and"... a GM food supplement which almost certainly resulted in the deaths of almost 100 people, and illness in thousands."

Really? Peer-reviewed evidence, please, that it was the fact of producing tryptophan in a GM bacterium rather than a processing failure that was the problem. Would a doctor withhold GM- insulin and growth hormone from his or her patients on similar doctrinaire grounds?

She seems unaware that the lowered content of fumonisins in Bt-maize in particular comes about because of better insect control and hence less fungal infection.

Nor does she appear to recognise that more than 10 million farmers across the world have taken to GM crops, their numbers increasing by 10 to 20 per cent annually.

Dr Cullen may like to know that the view from my "London office" is fortunately not unpleasant Though it may not compare with parts of the Kildare countryside, she is welcome to come and judge for herself. I too, have a school within view and earshot - 150 yards away at a guess.

What have either to do with food safety?

Profile of Vivian Moses published by GM Watch:

[Extracts: (for complete profile with hyperlinks, see http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=91&page=M)]

Prof. Vivian Moses has worked tirelessly to promote GM crops and food in the UK, most notably through his role as Chairman of the panel of scientists of CropGen, the biotech-industry funded lobby group. He is also on the advisory panel of Sense About Science, as well as being a Scientific Advisory Forum member of the Scientific Alliance...

Several of Moses' publications display considerably more candor about the essential purpose of biotechnology. This is perhaps evident even from their titles, which include From Cells to Sales, Entrepreneurial professors, Exploiting biotechnology and Biotechnology: the science and the business, which he edited with Ronald Cape.

In their introductory chapter, Moses and Cape describe many definitions of biotechnology as unrealistic and 'rather noble in character, expressing lofty aspirations' while failing to convey that 'biotechnology is not some academic activity, a kind of consequence of innovative laboratory experimentation or a kind of social crusade, but is itself an intensely industrial and commercial matter'. Moses and Cape add, 'Perhaps if pushed, we might describe biotechnology as making money with biology..' (p.1; emphasis in original). Biotechnology, they emphasise, 'is about selling'. (p.2)

In another of his books, 'Exploiting Biotechnology', Moses describes biotechnology similarly, as 'fundamentally about making money with biology'. Alternative definitions are described as both 'elaborate' and 'a bit woolly'.

He is equally frank in Exploiting Biotechnology about the extraordinary extent of the commercialisation of biology: 'By the end of the1970s a number of commercial companies were already working directly to generate saleable products based on the new knowledge'. Their corporate laboratories, Moses tells us, 'were almost indistinguishable from the best in the universities... And the scientists, too, were indistinguishable, hardly surprising as most had joined from university laboratories and many who remained professors accepted part-time consultancies with the companies.' (p.2) At no point does Moses appear to consider that this situation may in any way be problematic.

_______________________

26 August 2007

USA: Banned strain of alfalfa planted in 43 Michigan counties

The Associated Press, 26 August 2007.

BAY CITY, Mich. (AP) ó A genetically engineered strain of alfalfa that was banned nationwide until the government can adequately study the crop's potential impact already has been planted in 43 Michigan counties.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in California made permanent a temporary ban he ordered in March on alfalfa with genetic material from bacteria that makes the crop resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup.

Breyer said the U.S. Department of Agriculture must conduct a detailed scientific study of Roundup Ready alfalfa's effect on the environment and other alfalfa varieties before deciding whether to approve it.

The USDA recently released a list of counties in which the alfalfa is grown that includes the Michigan counties, The Bay City Times reported.

The Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C., had sued on behalf of farmers who argued that the genetically engineered seed could contaminate organic and conventional alfalfa varieties.

"There's a lot of farmers who don't want to use genetically engineered alfalfa for a variety of reasons," said Joseph Mendelson, the center's legal director. "When their fields essentially get polluted with this crop, it can have negative effects on them in the market."

Dean Kirkpatrick, a dairy farmer in Kinde, grows 150 acres of traditional alfalfa. He scoffs at worries about the Roundup Ready variety.

"I believe a lot of this stuff is blown way out of proportion," Kirkpatrick said. "The same story went around when it came to Roundup Ready corn and then ... soybeans. Every time we come around with a new technology, somebody is going to make a fuss about it."

Nationwide, about 220,000 acres of genetically engineered alfalfa were planted this year before the judge's ban went into effect. The judge ordered those farmers to ensure their crops do not contaminate adjacent fields of alfalfa.

About 2,000 acres of the seed were planted in Michigan last year, according to the Michigan Farm Bureau.

Portugal: GM controversy explodes in the Algarve
Movimento Verde Eufemia mows first GM Field in South Portugal

Verde Eufemia, 26 August 2007.

On the 17th of August the Movimento Verde Eufemia went into action of civil disobedience, targeting the first transgenic field in the Algarve GMO Free Zone in South Portugal. 65 mowers entered the field and were able to mow a hectare of GM corn in less than 20 minutes. The action received support from a parade of an extra 60 people.

Political background

This year the first GMO field ever has been planted in the Algarve Region in Portugal. Already years before the planting of his GM corn there has been strong opposition from civil society against the cultivation of GMOs in the Algarve. This includes social and environmental organisations, farmers and a public opinion (which) is in general against the cultivation and consumption of GM crops. Also from the political field opposition was made. As a result the Algarve was the first GMO free zone in Portugal declared by the Junta Metropolitana do Algarve already in 2004. On the level of the municipalities over time motions have been passed rejecting the cultivation of GM crops on their territory.

Despite the strong opposition within layers of civil society and from local authorities against GMOs, the policies of the Portuguese Government and the European Commission constantly disrespect the moral and democratic right of those opposing actors to ban GMOs from their fields and their plates.

Movimento Verde Eufemia

For reasons described in the previous paragraph, an informal group of peasants, ecologists and concerned citizens have gathered to take direct action with the aim to re-establish the democratic, moral and ecological order. The movement that we are now starting will go under the name Movimento Verde Eufemia, in homage to the peasant struggle against the former portuguese fascist regime.

The struggle of Caterina Eufemia and the peasant movement of which she was part aimed at defending the rights and the well-being of peasant communities. Our movement will continue this struggle in the context of new appearing threats, namely the agro-biotechnology sector and their powerful lobby.

The action

The direct action involved 65 mowers, destroying 1 hectare of the 50 hectare GM corn field in less than 20 minutes around midday. The activists took the well considered risk to announce the action beforehand in the media. This was done for reasons of receiving the highest media coverage for the largest direct action since the post revolutionary period in Portugal. However, the activists were aware of risks of compromise that this decision would bring along.

After 10 minutes, the owner and his colleagues noticed the action. About 8 farmers attacked the group of mowers using physical violence. The mowers took a defensive stand by using their higher number but did not use violence in return. One farmer fired shots from an alarm pistol and the activists were threatened with poison sprayers. One police patrol arrived shortly after. All mowers aborted the action after 20 minutes and moved on the public road to mix up in the parade. The 10 police officers that were in the area could not do anything else but regulating the traffic for the parade then counting more than 120 people, moving towards the nearest village of Poco Barreto. 3 identifications were made by the police, this involved the police speakers and the media spokesperson. The whole group was picked up by busses and the action ended in all order.

Knowing that the activist were hitting the property of a farmer, even though it was a big one they announced that they would provide compensation for the damage inflicted. In the end the activists intended no harm towards the farmer himself who for one or another reason choose to cultivate GM crops. The activists proposed that they would provide the farmer with organic seeds for the surface (50 hectares) which is currently being planted with GM corn.

The aftermath

Now, five days after the action, the name Movimento Verde Eufemia is still frontpage news. All television stations and radio stations give continuous updates on the case. Major political party leaders are now involved in the debate. The Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Internal Administration are main actors in the debate while the President has commented on the issue as well on television.

The discourse from the Minister of Agriculture is one that mainly evolves around statements confirming support towards the farmer in the legal prosecution of the activists and pointing out that the activists hit a 'poor farmer' and they should be punished for trespassing and destruction of private property. An estimation from the Ministry after the minister visited the field under huge media attention, he came to the conclusion that the damage counts up to around 4000 euros. However the Order of Lawyers issued a press release yesterday stating that that delivery of legal financial support to from the ministry would be an illegal act as it would mean governmental interference in a civil court case. As a reply to that the ministry back off stating that "obviously" they meant to support the farmer win the paper work and in the development of his legal discourse in the court. Next to that, the minister of agriculture takes a completely outbalanced pro-GMO position, saying that: "There is no problem, this is scientifically proven". This can be considered as a complete invalid statement since the scientific world is at least very divided on the matter of GMOs.

The discourse of the Ministry of Internal Adminstration, being the head of police, develops mainly around the goal to criminalize Movimento Verde Eufemia and its last action. On one of the main television stations in a news studio interview he labelled the action as "soft" eco terrorism. The discourse of the minister receives additionally a lot of support from the President.

However it is not all bad news. Now that the media have almost exhausted all variations on head titles stretching over two pages, they also start to go more in detail, covering the different opinions and position on GMOs and explain for example the status of GMO Free Zones. Through their press releases, MVE has invited all associations in Portugal to use the media space created to voice their arguments against GMOs. In a reaction to that, some main actors in the GMO debate, who initially distanced themselves from the action, and still do, they have now taken up the opportunity to voice their concerns on GMOs. For that reason and other reactions that the action has provoked from the political field the MVE has expressed their content seeing that their action has resulted in an opening of the debate on GMOs.

Investigation

Now, for the activists involved in the action it is clear that they should be very careful in their current steps. The minister of Internal Administration himself is, as announced in the media, involved in the coordination of the investigation carried out by the Information and Security Service (SIS) and the Police Justice Department (PJ). Their aim is to uncover the networks of activists that were involved in the action in order to run legal prosecution.

Know more

MVE has currently a blog where you can follow up on the development of the case. The link is http://eufemia.ecobytes.net.

25 August 2007

Qatar: Boycott of firms dealing in 'tainted' goods urged

Gulf Times (Qatar), 25 August 2007.

PROMINENT scholar Ali Mohyeedin al-Qurradaghi has called upon dealers and consumers to boycott companies trading in tainted commodities and genetically modified foodstuff, saying that cheating in these goods is a "crime against humanity" that should be strictly dealt with.

Al-Qurradaghi, a professor of Shariah at Qatar University, has also called for a stricter law and monitoring of the local market to deter companies dealing in foodstuff or commodities that can constitute a threat to health.

He also blamed the rise in cancer cases around the world on what he called "commercial cheating", saying that those involved in such cheating should be punished as stated in the Holy Qur'an. "According to the Holy Qur'an, cheats who aim to ruin the health of others by their harmful practices should be put to death in public," he said in a Friday sermon at a Doha mosque.

"Today's vegetables are not like vegetables of the past. They contain substances which are harmful to health and can cause serious diseases," he said.

He also called for taking a cue from the US and Europe where dealers are required to put labels on foodstuff showing whether they contain genetically modified ingredients. "I have visited the American markets and noticed that naturally produced vegetables and genetically modified ones are kept in separate places," he said.

The scholar also called on consumers to act as inspectors when shopping. Instances of such commodities being sold should be reported to the authorities, he said.

He also referred to reports in the local and international media about cases of foodstuff and other commodities like toys which proved to be harmful to health.

"I have read that some 332 types of foodstuff were confiscated from the Kuwaiti market for being unfit for human consumption," he said. The phenomenon had spread to the drug industry, he added.

He also accused Chinese producers of applying specific techniques to manufacture "low quality goods and medications". "China and some other Asian countries are applying some Western technologies to cheat," he said.

Ireland: Why our European neighbours are saying no to GM feeds

The Irish Farmers Journal, 25 August 2007 (published 23 August).

Letter to the Editor from Cornelius Traas
Chairman,
Apple Growers Committee
Irish Farmers Association

Dear Sir,

Over the past few weeks, I note that there is much negative comment in the Farmers Journal on the potential implications of a restriction on the availability of GM feeds, for livestock producers especially.

While I don't know how accurate these reports may be, I do feel that it may be worth pointing out to readers why the eventual consumers of these products in Europe, who after all are our customers, do not want to purchase GM foods or increasingly, livestock fed on foods containing GM ingredients.

While a complete list of the concerns of consumers would be too long for a letter, or even for a substantial article, I would appreci- ate the space to give five examples of what has very many consumers concerned, and in my own opinion, rightly so.

If I may first point out what a GM plant is. It is a plant whose DNA (Genetic information) has been altered, normally by the addition of a gene or genes that originate in another plant, or that originate in animals or bacteria, or genes that are 'made' in the laboratory.

Obviously, it is a fact that GM plants created using genes from animals or bacteria (or genes made in a laboratory) could not be created by conventional plant breeders or nature, so this breeding technology is not like anything that has been used heretofore.

The first example of a concern with GM plants is the presence of antibiotic resistance marker genes (Arms) in the cells of some GM plants. The presence of these genes in plants means that the crop contains genes that code for resistance to antibiotics.

Risk factor

The risk for humans or animals is that the bacteria, naturally present in our guts, could incorporate this DNA into their own DNA, creating bacteria in our guts that are anti- biotic-resistant. That such incorporation of foreign genes is possible was demonstrated by a study conducted by the British Food Stan- dards Agency, where 19 volunteers were fed a single meal of a burger and shake containing GM soya.

Seven of the volunteers had incomplete digestive tracts, and in three of these, it was found that bacteria in their guts had taken up genes from the soya.

The implication of this is that any gene in any GM food could be taken up by any bacteria (good or bad) in the gut of a human (or plausibly a farm animal), and, if that gene is advantageous to the bacteria, then that bacteria will replace others that are present. The implications of this are, as of yet, unknown, but could quite conceivably be very negative. The second example is to do with allergens.

In one case, soybeans were modified by the addition of a protein from Brazil nut, which resulted in the soya containing extra methionine (a desirable trait). However, the modified soybean produced immunological reactions in people usually allergic to Brazil nut. (The trial was stopped and the soybeans destroyed). Another example like this occurred when a pasture-crop field pea was developed, by taking genes from the closely related bean.

Not expected

The result was not as expected however, as the peas containing the gene caused an allergic reaction in mice, even though the beans, in which the gene was naturally present, did not. Now, neither of these two examples led to any problems, as the crops were never released.

However, they highlight a problem, identified by the immunologist who tested the pea who noted that the episode illustrated the need for each new GM food to be carefully evaluated for potential health effects.

While this might seem like a logical thing to do, under the current regulatory framework due to the concept of substantial equivalence there is no legal obligation for such evaluations. This leads to the third reason for consumer concern, and that is this very concept of substantial equivalence. Basically this concept says that genetically modified plants do not need to be tested for safety before they are released, as they are considered substantially equivalent (more or less the same as) plants, produced by conventional breeding.

Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy

Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy
Edited by William Dinan and David Miller
Pluto Press, 2007 (Available at http://www.spinwatch.org)

Book review by Claire Robinson

The premise of Miller and Dinan's book, laid out in the Introduction, is that PR was created to "take the risk" out of democracy. They point out that PR is overwhelmingly carried out for vested interests, mostly corporations, and that it is not open and transparent about its means or its clients. In its drive to persuade the people that the corporate interest is identical with the public interest, it relies on misinformation, lies, and dirty tricks. One common tactic is the "third-party" technique, in which seemingly independent people or organizations are used to spread a corporate message. The third parties do not disclose their funding or affiliations, and much of the public (and, I'd add, much of the media) has a "blind spot" that prevents them from looking behind the mouthpiece to the source.

Miller and Dinan hope that their book will shine a light into some of the dark corners of covert corporate influence. To that end, it brings together 16 chapters by different writers and activists describing some of the ways in which corporations have deceptively used PR and spin to subvert democracy and work against the public interest. Some of these are summarized below:

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Eveline Lubbers describes how arms company British Aerospace paid spies to infiltrate the NGO Campaign Against the Arms Trade when CAAT was opposing the company's plan to sell jets to Indonesia. CAAT had argued that the Indonesian government would use the jets to crush resistance in East Timor. The infiltrator tried to manipulate CAAT in the direction of more violent protests, a tactic which fortunately did not succeed because of the Quaker pacifist origins of the group. The private company that did the spying boasted back in 1996 that they had a database of 148,900 "known names" of CND members, trade unionists, activists and environmentalists.

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David Miller tells the story of how industry interests, with their friends in government, twisted and tried to discredit research casting doubt on the food safety of farmed Scottish salmon. The research found that the salmon contained dangerously high levels of toxic PCBs, but the message that reached the public after the corporate spin doctors had done their job was that the salmon was perfectly safe to eat.

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In his chapter, "Biotech's Fake Persuaders", GM Watch's Jonathan Matthews show how corporate interests are using the poor and disenfranchised as fronts to push the pro-GMO message.

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Andy Rowell recounts how oil company Exxon paid lobby groups, think-tanks and front organizations (which did not disclose their corporate affiliations and funding) to cast doubt on manmade climate change, thus disrupting the formation of coherent government policy to combat it. Several of these organizations, including the Institute of Economic Affairs and the International Policy Network, will be familiar to GM Watch subscribers as also having promoted GMOs.

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Olivier Hoedeman tells how Brussels is packed with over 15,000 corporate lobbyists who influence and even write EU policy on matters that affect us all, but who do not have to disclose details of their funding or activities.

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William Clark gives his account of how from the mid-1980s, the US led a concerted campaign to promote a pro-US, pro-corporate orientation among policy makers in Britain. The campaign involved the setting up of supposedly independent think-tanks that co-opted the principles and rhetoric of the political Left for US and corporate interests. These think-tanks pushed neoconservative free market policies into the traditionally socialist Labour Party. They did an effective job in filleting out Labour's old Left sympathies, to such an extent that before the 1997 election, British voters were treated to the sight of "New Labour" leading lights reassuring the CEOs of major corporations that a Labour government would not rock the boat for big business. The right-wing co-option of Labour created a situation in which British voters have a false choice between one lot of neocons or the other lot of neocons (my conclusion, not Clark's).

Despite such fascinating material, Miller and Dinan's book is a bit of a curate's egg, good in parts but... In some places, for instance, it seems that both the books' sociologist editors and the publisher's in-house editors could have worked harder to bring clarity to over-complex passages. Also, while some of the articles are impeccably referenced (stand up, Miller, Matthews and Rowell), there are some serious omissions which the editors should have picked up on. A case in point is Clark's assertion that Shell is "a major Demos funder". This is sufficiently controversial to deserve a reference.

I also found that one or two of the chapters raised more questions than they seemed to answer. In Lubbers' chapter, for instance, we're told that even after the man who infiltrated CAAT had been exposed as a paid spy, he was still able to go on working for the Disarm DSEi campaign. There's an obvious question here, but seemingly, it wasn't asked. This chapter also left me wanting more information and advice from the spied-upon NGOs themselves. Presumably, they learned bitter lessons from the experience, but we are not told what they are. This would be useful to know since, as Lubbers notes, an all-too-common response to the possibility of infiltration is paralysis.

These are, however, relatively minor cavils given the scope and depth of the investigations carried out by the writers of this book. Without their painstaking research, much of what is detailed here would have remained, as it was always intended to be, hidden from public view.

Miller and Dinan conclude their book by calling for an end to privileged access to government by corporate interests. To this end, they want legislation enforcing transparency for lobby groups of all persuasions. Corporations would have to declare which think-tanks, institutes, and front groups they fund. "Third-party" lobbying would be made illegal. Exposing the truth about corporate spin and deception, point out Miller and Dinan, will roll back corporate power and lead to democratic renewal.

Claire Robinson is an editor at GM Watch - wwww.gmwatch.org

The Fake Parade

by Jonathan Matthews, Founder of GM Watch and Corporate Watch. http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.php?id=254

Excerpted from the biotech chapter of the book
Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy
Edited by William Dinan and David Miller
Pluto Press, 2007 (Available at http://www.spinwatch.org)

"Carrying his placard the man in front of me was clearly one of the poorest of the poor. His shoes were not only threadbare, they were tattered, merely rags barely being held together."

So begins a graphic description of a demonstration that took place at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. The protesters were "mainly poor, virtually all black, and mostly women... street traders and farmers" with an unpalatable message. As an article in a South African periodical put it, "Surely this must have been the environmentalists' worst nightmare. Real poor people marching in the streets and demanding development while opposing the eco-agenda of the Green Left."

And seldom can the views of the poor, in this case a few hundred demonstrators, have been paid so much attention. Articles highlighting the Johannesburg march popped up the world over, in Africa, North America, India, Australia and Israel. In Britain even The Times ran a commentary, under the heading, "I do not need white NGOs to speak for me".

With the summit's passing, the Johannesburg march, far from fading from view, has taken on a still deeper significance. In the November issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, Val Giddings, a Vice President of the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO), argues that the event marked "something new, something very big" that will make us "look back on Johannesburg as something of a watershed event--a turning point." What made the march so pivotal, he said, was that for the very first time, "real, live, developing-world farmers" were "speaking for themselves" and challenging the "empty arguments of the self-appointed individuals who have professed to speak on their behalf."

To help give them a voice, Giddings singles out the statement of one of the marchers, Chengal Reddy, leader of the Indian Farmers Federation. "Traditional organic farming...," Reddy says, "led to mass starvation in India for centuries... Indian farmers need access to new technologies and especially to biotechnologies."

Giddings also notes that the farmers expressed their contempt for the "empty arguments" of many of the Earth Summiteers by honoring them with a "Bullshit Award" made from two varnished piles of cow dung. The award was given, in particular, to the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, for her role in "advancing policies that perpetuate poverty and hunger"

A powerful rebuke, no doubt. But if anyone deserves the cow dung, it is the President of BIO, for almost every element of the spectacle he describes has been carefully contrived and orchestrated. Take, for instance, Chengal Reddy, the "farmer" that Giddings quotes. Reddy is not a poor farmer, nor even the representative of poor farmers. Indeed, there is precious little to suggest he is even well-disposed towards the poor. The "Indian Farmers Federation" that he leads is a lobby of big commercial farmers in Andhra Pradesh. On occasion Reddy has admitted to knowing very little about farming, having never farmed in his life. He is, in reality, a politician and businessman whose family are a prominent right-wing political force in Andhra Pradesh--his father having coined the saying, "There is only one thing Dalits (members of the untouchable caste) are good for, and that is being kicked".

If it seems open to doubt that Reddy was in Johannesburg to help the poor speak for themselves, the identity of the march's organizers is also not a source of confidence. Although the Times' headline said "I do not need white NGOs to speak for me", the media contact on the organizers' press release was "Kendra Okonski", the daughter of a US lumber industrialist who has worked for various right wing anti-regulatory NGOs--all funded and directed, needless to say, by "whites". These include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based "think tank" whose multi-million dollar budget comes from major US corporations, among them BIO member Dow Chemicals. Okonski also runs the website Counterprotest.net, where her specialty is helping right wing lobbyists take to the streets in mimicry of popular protesters.

Given this, it hardly needs saying that Giddings' "Bullshit Award" was far from, as he suggests, the imaginative riposte of impoverished farmers to India's most celebrated environmentalist. It was, in fact, the creation of another right-wing pressure group--the Liberty Institute--based in New Delhi and well known for its fervent support of deregulation, GM crops and Big Tobacco.

The Liberty Institute is part of the same network that organized the rally: the deceptively-named "Sustainable Development Network." In London, the SDN shares offices, along with many of its key personnel--including Okonski--with the International Policy Network, a group whose Washington address just happens to be that of the CEI. The SDN is run by Julian Morris, its ubiquitous director, who also claims the title of Environment and Technology Programme Director for the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank that has advocated, amongst other interesting ideas, that African countries be sold off to multinational corporations in the interests of "good government".

The involvement of the likes of Morris, Okonski and Reddy doesn't mean, of course, that no "real poor people," were involved in the Johannesburg march. There were indeed poor people there. James MacKinnon, who reported on the summit for the North American magazine Adbusters, witnessed the march first hand and told of seeing many impoverished street traders, who seemed genuinely aggrieved with the authorities for denying them their usual trading places in the streets around the summit. The flier distributed by the march organizers to recruit these people played on this grievance, and presented the march as a chance to demand, "Freedom to trade". The flier made no mention of "biotechnology" or "development", nor any other issue on the "eco-agenda of the Green Left".

For all that, there were some real farmers present as well. Mackinnon says he spotted some wearing anti-environmentalist t-shirts, with slogans like "Stop Global Whining." This aroused his curiousity, since small-scale African farmers are not normally to be found among those jeering the "bogus science" of climate change. Yet here they were, with slogans on placards and T-shirts: "Save the Planet from Sustainable Development", "Say No To Eco-Imperialism", "Greens: Stop Hurting the Poor" and "Biotechnology for Africa". On approaching the protesters, however, Mackinnon discovered that all of the props had been made available to the marchers by the organizers. When he tried to converse with some of the farmers about their pro-GM T-shirts, "They smiled shyly; none of them could speak or read English."

Another irresistible question is how impoverished farmers--according to Giddings, there were farmers on the march from five different countries--afforded the journey to Johannesburg from lands as far away as the Philippines and India. Here, too, there is reason for suspicion. In late 1999 the New York Times reported that a street protest against genetic engineering outside an FDA public hearing in Washington DC was disrupted by a group of African-Americans carrying placards such as "Biotech saves children's lives" and "Biotech equals jobs." The Times learned that Monsanto's PR company, Burston-Marsteller, had paid a Baptist Church from a poor neighborhood to bus in these "demonstrators" as part of a wider campaign "to get groups of church members, union workers and the elderly to speak in favor of genetically engineered foods."

The industry's fingerprints are all over Johannesburg as well. Chengal Reddy, the "farmer" that the President of BIO singled out as an example of farmers from the poorer world "speaking for themselves", has for at least a decade featured prominently in Monsanto's promotional work in India. Other groups represented on the march, including AfricaBio, have also been closely aligned with Monsanto's lobbying for its products. Reddy is known to have been brought to Johannesburg by AfricaBio.

And here lies the real key to the President of BIO's account of the march, and specifically to the attack on Vandana Shiva. Monsanto and BIO want to project an image of GM crop acceptance with a Southern face. That's why Monsanto's Internet homepage used to be adorned with the faces of smiling Asian children. So when an Indian critic of the biotech industry gets featured, as Shiva was recently, on the cover of Time magazine as an environmental hero, the brand is under attack, and has to be protected.

The counterattack takes place via a contrarian lens, one that projects the attackers' vices onto their target. Thus the problem becomes not Monsanto using questionable tactics to push its products onto a wary South, but malevolent agents of the rich world obstructing Monsanto's acceptance in a welcoming Third World. For this reason the press release for the "Bullshit Award" accuses Shiva, amongst other things, of being "a mouthpiece of western eco-imperialism". The media contact for this symbolic rejection of neocolonialism? The American, Kendra Okonski. The mouthpiece denouncing an Indian environmentalist as an agent of the West is a...Western mouthpiece.

The careful framing of the messages and the actors in the rally in Johannesburg provides but one particularly gaudy spectacle in a continuing fake parade. In particular, the Internet provides a perfect medium for such showcases, where the gap between the virtual and the real is easily erased.

Take the South-facing website Foodsecurity.net, which promotes itself as "the web's most complete source of news and information about global food security concerns and sustainable agricultural practices". Foodsecurity.net claims to be "an independent, non-profit coalition of people throughout the world". Despite its global reach, however, Foodsecurity.net's only named staff member is its "African Director", Dr. Michael Mbwille, a Tanzanian doctor who's forever penning articles defending Monsanto and attacking the likes of Greenpeace.

The news and information at Foodsecurity.net is largely pro-GM articles, often vituperative in content and boasting headlines like "The Villainous Vandana Shiva" or "Altered Crops Called Boon for Poor". When one penetrates beyond the news pages, the content is very limited. A single message graces the messageboard posted by an myoung@bivwood.com;the domain name of The Bivings Group, an internet PR company that numbers Monsanto among its clients. There's also an event posting from an Andura Smetacek, recently identified in an article in The Guardian as an e-mail front used by Monsanto to run a campaign of character assassination against its scientific and environmental critics.

The site is registered to a Graydon Forrer, currently the managing director of Life Sciences Strategies, a company that specializes in "communications programmes" for the bio-science industries. A piece of information that is not usually disclosed in Graydon Forrer's self-presentation is that he was previously Monsanto's director of executive communications. Indeed, he seems to have been working for the company in 1999--the same year the site of this "independent, non-profit coalition of people throughout the world" was first registered. Foodsecurity's "African Director", Dr. Mbwille, is not, incidentally, in Africa at the moment. He is enjoying a sabbatical observing medical practice in St. Louis, Missouri--the home town, as it happens, of the Monsanto Corporation.

Foodsecurity.net forms but one of a whole series of websites with undisclosed links to biotech industry lobbyists or PR companies, as our previous research has demonstrated. But despite the virtual circus oscillating about him, if the BIO Vice President were really interested in hearing poor "live, developing-world farmers... speaking for themselves", he need look no further than Chengal Reddy's home state of Andhra Pradesh. Here small-scale farmers and landless laborers were consulted as part of a meticulously conducted "citizens' jury" on World Bank-backed proposals to industrialize local agriculture and introduce GM crops. Having heard all sides of the argument, including as it happens the views of Chengal Reddy, the jury unanimously rejected these proposals, which are likely to force more than 100,000 people off the land. Similar citizens' juries on GM crops in Brazil and in the Indian state of Karnataka have come to similar conclusions--something that BIO's Vice President is almost certainly aware of.

But rainchecks on the real views of the poor count for little in a world where "something new, something very big" and "a turning point" in the global march towards our corporate future, turns out to be Monsanto's soapbox behind a black man's face.

France: Monsanto Sues Unnamed French Vandals for Corn Attacks

Bloomberg, August 25 2007. By Heather Smith.

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Monsanto Co., the world's biggest seed producer, sued unidentified people for destroying corn seeds in two incidents this past week in France.

Monsanto France, a division of the St. Louis-based company, filed a criminal complaint against "X'' for destroying four types of corn the company was testing, it said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.

No one was arrested during the attack in the night of Aug. 20-21 in Mauroux, southwestern France. On Aug. 18, dozens of vandals were arrested in Poinville, in the nation's center, for destroying experimental corn seeds. Monsanto filed a similar complaint following that attack. It estimated its combined loss at 100,000 euros ($137,000).

The vandals "proved their irrationality'' regarding science by destroying the test seeds, Yann Fichet, Monsanto France's director of external relations, said in the statement.

In both instances, the seeds were created to increase their resistance to pests or to increase their tolerance of herbicides.

Monsanto focuses on corn, cotton and oilseeds, as well as small-acre crops, to develop seeds with genetic makeups that will provide the highest yield while protecting the plants against environmental factors such as disease, insect damage and weed competition, according to the Web site.

The company invests about $1.5 million a day to bring to market technologies beneficial to farmers, Monsanto said on its Web site. The company forecasts that, based on population projections in the next 20 years, per-acre production under cultivation will have to increase by as much as 75 percent.

Monsanto uses plant biotechnology, genomics and molecular breeding to make farms more productive, the Web site said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Smith in Paris at hsmith26@bloomberg.net

24 August 2007

India: Mealy Bug Takes Away Glory of Bt Cotton

Environment News Service, August 24 2007. By Umendra Dutt.

JAITU, Punjab, India, August 24 2007 (ENS) - So, once again it is boom time for the pesticide manufacturing companies in Punjab. Harping on the desperation and fear psychosis among the farmers over the attack of a new pest - the mealy bug - on the cotton crop, the pesticide companies have already sold pesticides worth over Rs 500 crores (US$121.4 million) in Punjab, in the last two months.

Not only making a big hole in the pocket of the already distressed farmer, the mealy bug also has demolished the so-called hype over Bt cotton. While governments and the Bt cotton manufacturing and distribution companies were claiming a panacea for the farmers, claiming there would be no attack of pests on the genetically engineered Bt cotton, the mealy bug has broken the hype and illusion.

As the mealy bug is destroying the cotton crop in the Malwa region of Punjab, in desperation the farmers are intensively spraying the cotton with pesticides, which are toxic and costly.

A major portion of the profit which the farmer hoped to reap from his cotton crop, has already gone into pockets of pesticide companies, making the farmer once again the ultimate loser.

First, he purchased expensive Bollgard Bt seeds, believing in their resistance towards pests, and after the mealy bug made meal of the Bt cotton, the farmer made a huge investment in pesticides.

The seed companies had already cornered the lion's share of the cotton crop by selling the farmers expensive seed and now it is the turn of pesticide companies to squeeze the farmers. Our farmer is surrounded by merchants of Venice; there are Shylocks all around him.

Mobile vans carrying the big banners of pesticide companies are criss-crossing villages to educate farmers about the mealy bug attack. But educating farmers is a money minting exercise for the pesticide companies.

When the farmers were gripped with mealy bug panic, and some of them started ploughing their fields under, the Directorate of Agriculture, Punjab published advertisements in vernacular daily papers with official photos of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Agriculture Minister Sucha Singh Langah, prescribing a list of pesticides to spray for mealy bug control.

Headlined "To Control Mealy Bug Attack on Cotton" and the advertisements list pesticides - Carbryl, Thiodicarb of Carbamate group, Quinalphos, Prosenofos, Chloropyrifos and Acephate of Organophas group. The advertisement even suggests using Holocon nozzles while spraying. This advertisement is look-alike of any advertisement placed by pesticide companies.

It is a tragedy that two years back the Punjab government had published similar advertisements with the photo of then Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, describing the introduction of Bt cotton as a great achievement.

At that time, government advertisements made tall claims about the advantages of Bt cotton, stating an increase in yield by 25 to 28 percent per hectare, and a net increase in income by Rs 10,000 to 15,000 (US$ 242 to 364) per hectare, and a saving on agro-chemicals of up to Rs 1,000 (US$ 24) per hectare.

But, this season, the third year after the introduction of Bt cotton in Punjab, things are going the opposite way.

Surprisingly, Punjab is the only state where one could find government advertisements with the chief minister's photos either for the promotion of Bt cotton or for propagating use of pesticides. Apparently, the agribusiness companies could not find more state patronage than this.

Punjab seems to be heaven for these companies. The agriculture establishments here are advocating all sorts of agrochemicals, hybrid seeds, Bt seeds and a whole lot of poisons even more loudly then the manufacturers.

The government has every right to issue advertisements about its achievements whenever they want to communicate to the people, but how can a government advertisement propagate Bt cotton or pesticides? We have to question the very mind set and thought behind these advertisements.

The agriculture establishments in Punjab are looking for solutions of every problem with the eyes of farm input companies and agribusiness corporations. This indicates the intellectual bankruptcy of the people at the helm of affairs in the state. What could be more ironic than the fact that the solutions which they are suggesting are not only more problematic but also totally unsustainable? These solutions bound to bring more and more devastation.

Those who are prescribing these solutions are not legally bound to any action if their prescription brings any adverse effects after few years. The so-called agriculture experts will go scot-free but the poor farmer will certainly lose his money, land, health and maybe his life too.

Nobody is talking about the loss to farmers. The farmers who sowed Bt cotton seeds are now feeling cheated. Their dreams have turned into nightmares.

The mealy bug has attacked cotton in almost the whole of Malwa. The white sticky bug made cotton fields look as though they were covered with snow. The bugs have even entered house and kitchen gardens.

The bugs attacked cotton last year but the damage was on a limited scale. This year it became so widespread that in hundreds of villages in all pockets of the Cotton Belt, farmer after farmer ploughed their Bt cotton fields under to get rid of the mealy bug.

The government departments pressed the panic button. They worked even on Sundays, discussing which pesticide is better and how to make pesticides available to farmers. They declared war against the mealy bug but the ammunition is being provided by a private company, Syngenta.

The agriculture development officers also have become brand campaigners for Actara, another pesticide manufacturing company.

The entire agriculture establishment of Punjab seeks asylum in poisons only. While promoting pesticides they have also advised farmers to spray herbicides all along the farm to prevent weeds.

This means a greater poison load on the already devastated ecosystem of Punjab.

The chemicalization and monoculturing of agriculture in Punjab has made its agriculture experts bonded royal laborers of the chemical farming paradigm. They cannot think and see beyond that, and they do not want to think and see. They cannot dare to do so, as it does not suit the masters of the present agriculture system.

The "Indian Express" newspaper quoted the head of the Entomology Department of Punjab Agricultural University Dr. N.S. Bhutter, justifying the planting of Bt cotton and the increasing use of pesticides. "Prior to the introduction of Bt cotton, we used to spray the crops with chemicals which killed these pests. Now as the pest umbrella has been lifted because Bt cotton does not need so many sprays, these pests are becoming dominant."

When asked why Punjab Agricultural University didn't think of this attack when it was rooting for Bt cotton as a panacea for the problems of Punjab farmers, his reply reflects that there is some thing seriously wrong with the vision of the Punjab agriculture establishment.

Dr. Bhutter said, "At that time there was no mealy bug, and we were dealing with just American bollworm. With chemicals, we will be able to control this bug too."

The agriculture experts encouraged farmers to spray pesticides, but large number of farmers and labors who were exposed to the deadly pesticides have been hospitalized at several towns in the Cotton Belt. Two deaths were reported due to pesticide exposure.

The mealy bug is giving a lesson to the agriculture establishment and proponents of chemicalized agriculture that their pest control design is faulty. The small insect dares the agriculture scientists to change their view, but who has the guts to do so? Punjab, devastated by ecological crisis, debts, suicides and cancers is waiting for this change.

There is no holistic approach, no farsightedness, no concern about destruction done by chemicals, nor any thought for the ecological, economic and social implications of this highly toxic agriculture.

When lakhs of farmers elsewhere are successfully growing cotton without using any sort of chemicals and even without Bt seeds, why cannot this happen in Punjab?

But our politicians, bureaucrats, scientists and planners all are hypnotized by companies. All Punjab's main parties became mad in the craze for Bt and everyone wants to claim credit for the release of Bt cotton and its further expansion.

Despite the mealy bug attack on Bt cotton, Agriculture Minister Langah announced in his Independence day address at Muktsar on August 15 that his government is proud of distributing 1,535,500 packets of Bt cotton seeds at the rate of Rs 760 per packet.

But question is, who is paying the royalty for these packets? Certainly, neither Mr. chief minister nor the agriculture minister nor the director of agriculture nor Punjab Agricultural University is going to pay.

The farmers of Punjab have already paid some Rs 100 crores (US$ 1 billion) to Monsanto as royalty over last three years and this process will continue until farmers dare to see through the Bt seed deception.

But in this darkness of chemical farming, there is a ray of hope. Natural farming is making inroads in Punjab.

The mealy bug does not worry natural farmers at all. The farmers who are practicing natural farming neither use Bt cotton nor do any pesticide spraying. But still their cotton crops are healthy and free from any destruction caused by mealy bugs.

First of all, they witnessed very mild mealy bug attacks, due to their multiple cropping system. Their cotton fields have as many as eight to 15 crops.

Second, if mealy bugs attacked their crops they controlled the pests with neem, dhatura and cow urine. There are large numbers of farmers who are proud owners of naturally treated farms. These farmers are erecting the foundation for a paradigm shift in Punjab.

A constructive change is taking place - minus experts and the establishment. It is a community initiative and farmer driven movement called Kheti Virasat Mission.

The growing number of farmers practicing natural farming is an indicator that society wants a change in agriculture perspective and paradigm. These farmers have already walked out of the Bt and pesticide trap and are now leading the Punjab towards an imperishable prosperity, free from the exploitation of the farmer as well as Mother Nature.

{Umendra Dutt is executive director of Kheti Virasat Mission, a not-for-profit civil society organization established in March 2005, working in the field of natural farming, sustainable agriculture, conservation of natural resources, environmental health and eco-sustainable technologies. Registered as a charitable trust, KVM is headquartered in the town of Jaitu in the Faridkot District of Punjab. Contact Dutt by email at: umendradutt@gmail.com.}

The Philippines: Capitol sets public forum on GMO ban ordinance

The Visayan Daily Star, 24 August 2007. The Provincial Government of Negros Occidental, in coordination with the Negros Island Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Foundation, will discuss the ordinance banning the entry of genetically modified organism in a forum on August 28 at 8 a.m. , at the Capitol Social Hall in Bacolod City. The forum seeks to strengthen partnership and advocacy in the promotion of sustainable agriculture, clean environment and healthy lifestyle in the province, the Office of the Provincial Agriculture said.

Provincial Ordinance No. 07-2007, or "The Safeguard Against Living Genetically-Modified Organisms," was passed by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan in April this year. NISARD executive director Patrick Belisario said the ordinance will help bring Negros Island a step closer to its goal of becoming the organic food bowl of Asia.

The ordinance is aimed at instituting stringent measures for the protection of biodiversity and attainment of the status of Negros as an Organic Food Island in Asia, by banning the entry, importation and introduction of genetically-modified plants and animals in the province.

Persons violating the ban on GMOs in Negros Occidental will be fined not more than P5,000 or face imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court for each and every defined violation, the ordinance states, and if the violator is a corporation organization, the heads of the groups will be held liable.

All Living Modified Organisms brought into Negros Occidental will be seized and destroyed at the expense of the violator, it also says. The ordinance defines LMO as any living organism that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology. It also prohibits the planting, growing, selling and trading of living GMOs in Negros Occidental.

Chile Transparency Law just a fig-leaf, says critic

The Santiago Times / El Mercurio, 24 August 2007. By Ashley Pandya (editor@santiagotimes.cl)

Government spokesman Ricardo Lagos Weber announced Wednesday that Chile will soon have a new law guaranteeing citizen access to information. While this may appear to be good news to some, critics of the legislation doubt the law Lagos praised will be very effective.

"Chile is pushing for the new transparency law as part of its bid to join the prestigious Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)," said critic Miguel Fredes, an environmental attorney who is suing Chile's government to get access to public papers. "But if the law is passed as it now stands, the holes and ambiguities in it could benefit both the government and large corporations by giving them transparency in name, but not in practice."

According to Fredes, the law concerns four broad areas: civil society, which has been unsuccessfully requesting information for years; private corporations, which would be like the faÁade of transparency without the corresponding obligations; the government, which approves of the law but does not want to be subject to it; and the judicial branch, which wants to keep some information secret.

"The law creates a Transparency Board, but the chief of the Board, who will oversee the law's provisions, will be appointed by the president without consent of the Senate," Fredes told the Santiago Times. "This means the chief will have very little political independence and that others will be reluctant to challenge him."

Fredes also said the bill allows third parties (i.e. corporations) to refuse information requested by an applicant by arguing their trade secrets and intellectual property could be violated.

Fredes first became interested in Chile's transparency and public access policies when he requested the names of the companies producing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the locations where the GMOs were growing.

"The government refused to give me the information, saying that the names could harm the interest and the secret business policies of the GMO companies," said Fredes. "Names and locations are not intellectual property ‚ if I am an organic farmer, I should have the right to know where GMOs are being grown."

"The information that we would like to make public is already in the hands of public agencies, so clearly the information is not harmful to Chile's national interest," added Fredes. "There is already plenty of legislation that protects trade secrets and intellectual property, so that is not the issue."

Fredes sued and won the case. A national association of GMO producers appealed the case, which is now being reviewed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The decision could be monumental - this case is the first of its kind to be determined by an international body.

Fredes has proposed a number of amendments to the legislation, including the requirement that public bodies conform to obligations of the law and the creation of a single working definition of the word "information."

"There are a number of serious shortcomings in the draft which threaten to defeat the original objective," said Fredes. "I do not think this law will pass or be approved this year."

23 August 2007

Australia: Governments duped over GM food crops

Eureka Street Magazine, 23 August 2007. Charles Rue.

Dr Charles Rue is a Sydney-based priest of the Columban Missionary Society, and co-ordinator of Columban JPIC (Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation).

Most Australian states have started reviews of their 2004 GM Acts which carry a de facto moratorium on growing genetically modified (GM) crops. The pro-GM lobby has responded with an orchestrated campaign.

Liberal insider Guy PearceÇs website, High and Dry, tells how the Howard government's climate change policies became captive to the "greenhouse mafia" because of an ideology of neo-liberal economics. A 'GM mafia' has captured the Federal political scene and is pressuring State GM Reviews.

"In the absence of consumer take-up of its products, selling stocks has become a biotech industry lifeline", stated The Wall Street Journal in 2004. In 'Biotech's dismal bottom line: More than $40 billion in losses', it spelt out the immediate GM agenda.

Australian State governments been caught up in a religious type rapture over biotech promises of silver bullets. They have become naive investors seemingly unaware of biotech economic strategies. Industry lobbyists such the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and its PR arm the Australian Environment Foundation have egged them on.

More importantly, big long-term profits for biotech companies will come through monopoly control of the food industry.

To achieve this, government mechanisms have been white-anted. In Australia, it means implementing the biotech led Trade Related Intellectual Properties (TRIPs) Agreement of the WTO and manipulating both the Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) and Food and Safety Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ).

Australia has implemented patenting laws that benefit GM seed companies. These are reinforced by the US-Aus Free Trade Agreement. (Pharmaceuticals are under the same threat). Farmers will be forced to buy GM patented seed and consumers will have no choice but to buy GM food in a monopoly system. The TRIPs office within DFAT has proved reluctant to reveal who forms Australian policy on patenting at WTO meetings.

The next step is to have federal bureaucracies help implement biotech monopoly of the food chain. The OGTR was set up to guarantee health and environmental standards but is headed by Dr Sue Meek who formerly promoted biotech based industries. The OGTR has approved GM crops without regard for the 'precautionary principle'. This lack of caution is evidenced by the GM contamination of Australian canola seed.

GM contamination of the crops of conventional breeders and organic growers suits the long-term economic goals of the biotech companies; to undermine economic rivals. The OGTR is only restrained by State GM Acts of 2004 which have shown at least some concern for the economics of farmers about issues such as seed separation. That is why the State Reviews are under attack.

An aspect deserving attention is the negative effects of GM plants on the genetics of the natural environment. In economic terms it is a mere externality. However, for wheat and other food crops, cross pollination means GM contamination of genetic riches. It will grow worse as Roundup-Ready (glyphosate) crops become ineffective and replaced by Agent Orange related Dicamba-Ready GM crops.

The OGTR does no independent testing about health or environmental impacts. It relies on what the biotech companies tell them. Independent testing by the iconic CSIRO has all but stopped as it has been forced to form profit-oriented commercial partnership with biotech companies. These are bound by confidentiality clauses.

FSANZ, like OGTR, does no independent testing yet controls the approval of foods for consumption and food labelling. Food ingredients under one per cent GM go unlabelled. Even the report of Minister McGauran prepared by ACIL Tasman says that Çconsumers in some countries are not aware they are purchasing and consuming products containing GM foods. It is of note that co-founder of ACIL Tasman, David Trebeck, is on the board of Graincorp.

Information presented in the media has been deliberately limited or given as spin. The reports of Jason Koutsoukis are examples of creating the impression that lifting GM moratoriums is a done deal and consumers are for it. When reporting on a survey on customer attitudes to GM by Biotechnology Australia his article did not explain that key survey questions were prefaced with ÇWhat if?Ç caveats supposing evidence about health safety and benefits.

The Catholic Church in India is responding to the alarming number of suicides among farmers, many because of failed GM cotton crops. It would be good to see Catholic moralists and ethical institutes in Australia venture out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Morality is about care for God's gift of life in every form. It means addressing what the alliance of the 'GM-mafia' and neo-liberal economics is doing.

Australian Government's GM report 'dishonest': BFA

Rural Press weekly agricultural papers, updated daily on FarmOnline. Thursday, 23 August 2007. By Lucy Skuthorp.

The Federal Government's latest report on genetically modified (GM) crops is "dishonest" and "bordering on hysteria" according to organic farm lobby, Biological Farmers Australia.

While the push is on at a Federal level, to have the State bans on GM crops lifted, Biological Farmers Australia (BFA) says a review of the North American and Canadian experiences with GM canola supports the continuation of the moratoriums.

Earlier this week, BFA lodged a submission with the South Australian, NSW and Victorian governments which said the premiums Australian farmers were receiving for non-GM canola "could not be denied".

They averaged US$68/tonne more over two years than over the previous 10 years.

Federal Minister for Agriculture, Peter McGauran, has launched a third major report on GM crops, on canola, this week, which found GM canola can co-exist with conventional crops.

Mr McGauran said that, with moratoriums currently under review in four States, GM canola could potentially be grown in Australia from 2008.

"Australian farmers should be able to grow GM crops in parallel with conventional crops," Mr McGauran said.

"If these bans are not lifted, farmers will be denied the opportunity to grow crops that will increase their international competitiveness."

But BFA spokesman, Scott Kinnear, says the Federal Government is behaving like an agency of one of the big global GM corporations.

Mr Kinnear said the latest round of reports from the government were 'fantasy, pie-in-the-sky stuff".

"It's so far from commercialisation it's not funny," Mr Kinnear said.

"Why would you want to adopt second rate genetic-engineering technology that's been around for 20 years?

"It's unstable, unproven, unsafe, and poses huge issues for our export markets."

Mr Kinnear said he held grave fears for what a regulatory regime might impose, with suggestions of "forced" or accepted contamination up to 0.9 per cent.

"That's what the supply chain, or segregation system will allow - contamination up to 0.9pc.

"Our markets require nil-detectable, which is to 0.01pc ‚ one in every 10,000 seeds can be detected.

"It's entirely possible, theoretically on paper, to design a segregation system that will keep contamination below 0.9pc, but it's not going to be practically possible because of human error."

Mr Kinnear said, "None of these GM canola crops that they're looking at have any drought tolerant capabilities.

"We're looking at the facts and saying the North American experience has cost their economy a lot of money, and the only reason that North American farmers are still growing crops is because the government there is bailing them out with direct subsidies to the tune of billions of dollars."

More information:

The government's report can be found at www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/biotechnology

BFA's report can be found at www.bfa.com.au

German company sues U.S. rice millers over modified rice

The Associated Press, August 23 2007

LITTLE ROCK: A German food producer has sued two Arkansas rice millers, alleging that shipments to the company contained unapproved genetically engineered rice.

Bremen-based Rickmers Reismuehle GMBH, filed separate federal complaints Tuesday against Riceland Foods cooperative and Producers Rice Mill, both based in Stuttgart, Arkansas.

Rickmers alleged the millers breached contracts by selling rice that did not meet the terms of a 2003 European Union ban on the importation and sale of genetically modified foods.

The lawsuits seek damages incurred by Rickmers in purchasing, using and recalling the rice and the food products made with it.

Keith Glover, president and chief executive officer for Producers, said Wednesday he had not seen the lawsuit but suspects it stems from the federal government's finding a year ago that the food supply contained traces of unapproved genetically engineered rice. Before that, Glover said, producers believed U.S. rice was free of the genetically modified grain.

Riceland did not immediately return a call for comment.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed over a genetically modified rice that was found in storage bins in Arkansas and Missouri. Those cases have been consolidated in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis.

Finland: GMO Food Products Not On Offer In Country

Namnews, 23 August 2007.

According to local media, the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira has said that currently, there are no licensed GMO food products on sale in the country. The report also said that retailers Kesko Food and S Group have also declared that no GMO products will be offered in their stores in the near future.

Local civic organisations maintain a website, www.gmovapaa.fi, which lists products that should be boycotted as they are likely to contain meat that has been produced with GMO feed. The list includes products by Finnish food companies HK Ruokatalo and J”rvi-Suomen Portti, among others. However, J”rvi-Suomen Portti's MD Kari Tillanen has said it does not presently sell any products that contain meat from animals that have been fed with GMO soy

The Philippines: Greenpeace seeks injunction vs GMO rice

The Enquirer (Philippines), August 23 2007. By Alexander Villafania.

MANILA, Philippines -- The environmental group Greenpeace and the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (Searice) filed Thursday a petition for injunction with the Quezon City trial court against the use of genetically-modified rice that is pending approval by the government.

The petition questions the constitutionality of for the Department of Agriculture's (DA) Administrative Order 8, series of 2002, which sets the guidelines for the approval and use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

Greenpeace and Searice are also seeking a temporary restraining order against the approval by the DA and Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) of the GMO rice called Bayer LL62 for commercial use.

The petition cited several concerns regarding the use of LL62, particularly the absence of public consultations as required by the Philippine Constitution, particularly Article 3, Section 7, which recognizes people's rights in matters of public concern.

The groups questioned the timing of Bayer's application for LL62 in August 2006, which was the height of the controversy in the US over the contamination of rice crops there with Bayer's LL601 GMO rice.

Greenpeace, in particular, said it requested for official information about Bayer's application but said both the DA and BPI have yet to answer.

Both Greenpeace and Searice say approval of LL62 will make the Philippines the first country in the world to approve a genetically-altered food crop.

Greenpeace genetic engineering campaigner Danny Ocampo described the system for GMO approval in the country as "hopelessly flawed" because it excludes public representation in such matters.

"How much do Filipinos know about this, and what voice do they have in such a process? Very little. And yet, for the whole country, the impending approval of this genetically altered rice will certainly be an alarming precedent that will irrevocably alter the future of our most important staple food," Ocampo said.

Ocampo also told INQUIRER.net that the BPI has not rejected any of the 44 applications for GMOs, in particular four applications for the propagation in the Philippines pf GMOs -- BT11, Bt corn, roundup-ready and a strain that is a combination of Bt corn and roundup-ready.

He also said the petition would push a review of the approval process for GMO plants in the country

Argentina's transgenic corn seeds come with strings attached

Food Chemical News ISSN: 0015-6337; Volume 49; lssue 24, 23 August 2007. By Steven Lewis.

When Argentina's National Seed Association (INASE) reversed its ban on sale of Syngenta's GA21 corn seeds last month, the nation's corn farmers believed they would regain unrestricted access to the seeds, but they soon discovered there were strings attached (see FCN June 18, Page 8). Upon lifting the ban, agriculture minister Alvaro Rojas cautioned, "Approval [of GA21 seed sales] is conditioned on meeting traceability requirements from the time seeds are planted."

A recent up-tick in sales shows that Argentine farmers are willing to purchase GA2I seeds even if they must surmount a regulatory obstacle course to do it.

As a condition for purchase, seed vendors must request a legally binding document that obligates producers to provide INASE with traceability data via a registered seed vendor. Farmers who purchase GA21 seeds must also inform transporters, processors, and exporters of the transaction.

By doing so, they automatically eliminate themselves from the ranks of suppliers to Europe and limit themselves to supplying the domestic market or less lucrative foreign markets.

INASE leaders explain that the traceability requirement will allow them to jump start a reliable system for tracking and segregating corn. However, they are having a hard time winning over exporters, who observed the numerous delays and deficiencies that arose when the agriculture ministry implemented Argentina's cattle/beef traceability system.

Worrisome imperfections

The most glaring flaw in the system for controlling GA2I corn plantings is that farmers who have acquired seeds on Argentina's burgeoning black market are motivated to deny the presence of any GA2I content. By doing so, they hope to position their product in premium foreign markets while avoiding sanctions for evading royalties.

The agriculture ministry has assured EU sanitation officials that testing equipment recently installed at Argentina's grain export terminals will prevent commingling of GA2I and conventional corn. The laboratories will surely be put to the test as undeclared GA21 corn makes its way into shipments bound for Europe. Much rests on their ability to detect trace amounts of transgenes, because biotechopponents in Europe will demand a blanket ban on Argentine corn imports if even one lot with 1 % or more of GA21 corn reaches a European port.

22 August 2007

SLAPP Suits in Biotechnology

Article by Prof. Joe Cummins
Emeritus Professor of Genetics
University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
22 August 2007.

Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation ("SLAPP") is a form of litigation filed by a large organization or in some cases an individual plaintiff, to intimidate and silence a less powerful critic by so severely burdening them with the cost of a legal defence that they abandon their criticism. The acronym was coined in the 1980s by University of Denver professors Penelope Canan and George W. Pring. One marker of a SLAPP suit is whether the costs outweigh the claimed damages by a large amount: for example, damages of a few hundred dollars and costs in the tens of thousands. Lawyers are thought to be particularly conflicted in SLAPP suits, since a marginal case can lead to high legal fees, and lawyers are encouraged to run up costs by their clients (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP).

Canada and the United States have had long experience with SLAPP litigation and several states have legislated against the practice. SLAPP suits have been employed all over Canada; and in British Columbia, the Protection of Public Participation Act came into effect in April 2001, but the provincial government enacting the bill was defeated and in August 2001 the bill was repealed by the newly elected pro-corporation government. It was feared that the bill was causing hardship to a large number of lawyers who depended on the fees flowing from SLAPP suits.

Now it appears that the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have employed the SLAPP technique in Ireland and Great Britain to try to silence the opponents of GM food in those countries. Canada has committed to GM crop production and is a major producer of GM crops after the United States. The action by the Canadian Agriculture Ministry should be a lesson for all organizations critical of GM crops. This is the Ministry's way of promoting GM crops by intimidating the critics of the GM crops, a negative promotion device aimed not at their citizens but at citizens of other countries.

The GM-free Ireland Network is the subject of on-going attack by a biotech industry lobbyist called Shane Morris, who is a paid agent of the Canadian Government! Shane Morris is a Senior Consumer Analyst at the Consumer Analysis Section of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. He has managed a website that attacked opponents of GM crops in his home country and in great Britain as well as high ranking European Union politicians whom he believes are soft on GM crops.

Morris recently threatened legal action against third party internet service providers who carry comments critical of him. The main issue appears to be an article: "Agronomic and consumer considerations for Bt and conventional sweet-corn", D.A. Powell, K. Blaine, S. Morris and J. Wilson, British Food Journal, Volume 105 Number 10, 2003, pp. 700-713, which won the British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding Paper in 2004.

Powell et al. reported consumers at a farm store showed a strong preference for GM sweet corn over non-GM corn. In the paper the choice appears straightforward - the bins were "fully labelled" either "genetically engineered Bt sweet corn" or "Regular sweet-corn". The only other written information mentioned that might have influenced the preference of customers was lists of the chemicals used on each type of corn, and pamphlets "with background information on the project." However, according to Toronto Star reporter Stuart Laidlaw, when he visited the store on several occasions during the data collection period, the sign above the non-GM corn bin was headed, "Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?" Above the Bt-corn bin the equivalent sign was headed: "Here's What Went into Producing Quality Sweet Corn". Although Powell et al. describe in some detail the care taken to avoid biasing consumer choice during the research, there is no mention in their paper of the corn being labelled "wormy" or "quality". Laidlaw includes a photograph of the "wormy" corn sign in his book. The photograph has been reproduced online: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

The signs are not the only instance of methodological bias observed by Laidlaw but not reported by Powell et al. A number of fact sheets promoting genetic engineering were available at the farm store - some authored by industry lobby groups - but there was no balancing information from critics. Laidlaw also reports that on one occasion the lead researcher demonstrated to him his ability to influence a customer's responses in favour of Bt corn. The customer, who had bought non-Bt corn before Powell talked to him, told Laidlaw he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Such interventions are of particular significance.

I objected to the study because its results and methods did not appear to be reported fully and truthfully. The Editor - Prof. Griffith - noted in his Editor's note (British Food Journal Vol : 108 Issue: 8,2006) that "A common misconception is that science and research are about facts" but published my comments and the reply of the senior author of the study who acknowledged the methodology but argued that full reporting was not relevant. He commented "Joe Cummins, and others on the internet, have accused me, and my co-investigators, of academic fraud and bias, because a sign sitting atop the bin of regular sweet corn asked, 'Would you eat wormy sweet corn?'"

I do not recollect using those terms on the internet and they certainly did not appear in my comment published in the British Food Journal. That comment by the senior author appeared aimed at justifying the methodology used in his study by attacking me personally even though his bias is clearly admitted in his defence of the methodology. Even the journal editor seems to believe that bias is just peachy so long as the cause needs to be fought for.

Turning back to Shane Morris and the Canadian SLAPP suite aimed at third party service providers: I commented to GM Free Ireland "I think it is worth reminding people that Shane is a bureaucrat in Agriculture Canada and his views are supported by that Ministry. It is very clear that the Canadian government hired Shane and promote him in the Ministry as a way of promoting GM crops. Shane's attacks may seem like sheer lunacy to most of us but the Canadian bureaucrats think that he is brilliant in damaging the detractors of GM crops. I expect that they will hire other nationals who will attack those opposed to GM crops in their home countries." Using third party SLAPP suits the Canadian Ministry seeks to coerce and intimidate critics of GM around the world.

What should be done about government bureaucracies who wish to influence the world using third party SLAPP suits to beat down critics and prevent them from using the internet?

Comment by GM Free Ireland:

For details of the controversial paper and Canada's attack on Ireland's GM-free policy, see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/morris/index.php

GM Watch is back – the article they didn't want you to read

GM Watch, 22 August 2007.

The GM Watch website is back after being shut down for nearly a week.

In an outrageous attack on free speech a Canadian Government bureaucrat succeeded in censoring a UK public interest website which serves a global audience on the GM issue. But his goal went still further than that.

The concern was over our expose of how a group of researchers deliberately skewed research to favour GM corn. Shane Morris initially focused his legal threats on the use of the word "fraud" in the title of our article, but once the GM Watch website had been forced down, his real goal became clear.

In a legal threat against GM-free Ireland, he stated:

"You will note that the GM Watch website in the UK has been disabled. As a matter of urgency please remove the [sic] **all** the GM Watch material on GM FREE IRELAND's website that you have reproduced in connection with me." (our emphasis added)

It's vital that this aggressive attempt at web censorship is totally defeated.

* Please circulate this news, and the following article, as widely as possible.

* If you know a website where this could be posted, please ask them to reproduce this message and the following GM Watch article, in order to expose just how far some people will go to try and fix public debate.

THE GM PROPAGANDA LAB (PART 1)
The article they didn't want you to read
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1



The British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding Paper in 2004 went to research that should never have been published. What the reviewers mistook for an impressive piece of scientific enquiry was a carefully crafted propaganda exercise that could only have one outcome. Both the award and the paper now need to be retracted.

*** Since this article was published a leading researcher into scientific ethics has called for the paper to be retracted. New Scientist's report http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025533.300&feedId=gm-food_rss20

***

It was late September 1999. The scene was a news conference outside a Loblaws grocery store in downtown Toronto. Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians were launching a public awareness campaign urging customers to ask the chain to remove all genetically modified foods from their shelves.

"The food is safe," shouted someone on the edge of the crowd. Jeff Wilson, who farms about 250 hectares northwest of Toronto, was part of a small group of hecklers. He had come to the store with Jim Fischer, the head of a lobby group called AgCare which supports GM foods. Doug Powell, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph, was also there.

And they had come prepared. Holding aloft a bug-ravaged cabbage, Wilson demanded, "Would you buy that?" Wilson claimed the cabbage could have been saved by genetic engineering.

According to a report in the Toronto Star, Doug Powell ended up in a shouting match with a shopper - 71-year old Evan John Evans, who told him, "I resent you putting stuff in my food I don't want."

A year later and Powell and Wilson's street theatrics had given way to a much more carefully choreographed exercise in persuading people that GM foods were what they wanted.

The scene this time was not Loblaws but Jeff Wilson's farm store, just outside the village of Hillsburgh. Here Powell and Wilson were running an experiment that had been conceived following the Loblaws encounter.

During summer 2000 Wilson grew both GM and conventional sweet corn on his farm. And following the first harvest in late August, both types of corn were put on sale amidst much publicity. The aim was to see which type would appeal most to Wilson's customers.

According to an award winning paper published in the British Food Journal, a sizeable majority opted to buy the GM corn. In the paper, authored by Wilson and Powell, and Powell's two research assistants - Katija Blaine and Shane Morris, the choice appears simple - the bins were "fully labeled" - either "genetically engineered Bt sweet corn" or "Regular sweet-corn". The only other written information mentioned in the paper that might have influenced the preference of customers was lists of the chemicals used on each type of corn, and pamphlets "with background information on the project."

What Powell and his co-authors failed to report was that the information on the chemicals came with a variation on the bug-eaten cabbage stunt Wilson pulled outside Loblaws. There Wilson had demanded of shoppers "Would you buy that?" In Wilson's store the sign above the non-GM corn bin asked, "Would You Eat Wormy Sweet Corn?" Above the the Bt-corn bin, by contrast, the equivalent sign was headed: "Here's What Went into Producing Quality Sweet Corn".

Toronto Star reporter Stuart Laidlaw, who visited Wilson's farm several times during the research, says, "It is the only time I have seen a store label its own corn 'wormy'". In his book Secret Ingredients , Laidlaw includes a photograph of the "wormy" corn sign, and drily notes, "when one bin was marked 'wormy corn' and another 'quality sweet corn,' it was hardly surprising which sold more."

Laidlaw also notes that any mention of the corn being labelled as "wormy" or "quality" was omitted in presentations and writings about the experiment. This is certainly the case with the paper in the British Food Journal. Yet the paper describes in some detail the care that the researchers took to avoid biasing consumer choice - by having, for example, both corn-bins kept filled to the same level throughout the day; and by selling the two different types of corn for exactly the same amount. We are even told the precise purchase price: Cnd$3.99/dozen.

The emotively worded signs are not the only instance of glaring experimenter bias that went unmentioned in the award winning paper. During his visits to the store, Laidlaw noted that an information table contained, as well as press releases and pamphlets on the experiments, a number of pro-GM fact sheets - some authored by industry lobby groups, but no balancing information from critics of genetic engineering.

And the bias didn't stop there. The lead researcher, Doug Powell, actually demonstrated to the journalist his ability to influence customer responses to questions about Bt corn and their future purchasing preferences. Laidlaw describes how when a customer who'd bought non-Bt corn was walking to his truck, "Powell talked to him about Bt corn - describing how it did not need insecticides because it produced its own and that it had been approved as safe by the federal government. Powell then told me I should talk to the man again. I did, and he said he would buy GM corn the next time he was at the store. Powell stood nearby with his arms crossed and a smile on his face."

Outside Loblaws the previous Fall, Powell had ended up in an unsuccessful slanging match. Now Powell and his associates had engineered a setting in which customer responses could be influenced far more successfully. Seeing Powell in action convinced Laidlaw that the only conclusion which could safely be drawn from these "experiments" was that, "fed a lot of pro-biotech sales pitches, shoppers could be convinced to buy GM products."

But none of the "pro-biotech sales pitches" made their way into the paper for which Powell and his associates were commended. Instead, research that was little more than pro-GM propaganda was presented as providing a meticulous scientific evaluation of consumer purchasing preferences.

Read on at http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

Comment by GM Free Ireland:

For details of the controversial paper and Canada's attack on Ireland's GM-free policy, see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/morris/index.php

Finland's Pekkarinen appoints GM label working group

Newsroom Finland, 22 August 2007.

Mauri Pekkarinen, the Finnish trade and industry minister, on Tuesday appointed a working group to examine the possibility of creating an alternative food labelling system to inform consumers whether meat came from animals fed genetically modified feed.

More generally, a government statement added, the working group was to look into ways in which consumers could receive information about the production methods and origins of foods. One of the issues the working group is tasked with is to establish whether EU regulations, which do not stipulate labels on meat from animals raised on GM feed, have national room for manoeuvre.

The working group is expected to submit its proposals by the end of December. Announcements by two major Finnish meat producers to start importing genetically modified feed sparked a lively public debate earlier in early August.

Ireland: Organic growers want action

Kildare Post, 22 August 2007.

The Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association (IOFGA) has presented the Government with a proposal outlining their proposed actions to achieve the government's target for 5pc organic agricultural output over the next five years.

IOFGA says that the development of the organic sector will revitalize agriculture and benefit the overall Irish economy, climate, environment, health, nutrition and tourism.

In addition to educational and information programmes for producers and consumers, the group's 12 point plan recommends the government commits to a 15pc public procurement of organic foods for organisations such as schools and hospitals over the next five years.

It also wants the establishment of an Organic Development Agency, an additional budget of 20 million exclusively for the organic sector and the drawing up of a new organic development plan to take the country up to 2012.

IOFGA believes that Ireland, with its green image, low population density and buoyant economy, can capitalize on organic food and farming to boost its economy. They also say that a new, proactive organic agricultural strategy has the potential to reverse declining farm fortunes and restore confidence in the farming sector.

Other points on its plan, which was presented to the Minister of State for Food and Horticulture, Trevor Sargent, TD, includethe setting up of a dedicated conversion information service, assistance with the marketing and distribution of organic produce and the protection of the country's GM free status.

New Zealand: GE Vaccine Implicated In Foot and Mouth Incident

GE Free New Zealand press release, 22 August 2007.

New Zealand's transgenic research centres are potentially able to cause the spread of virulent unwanted disease and must be investigated in light of the new evidence on Foot and Mouth in England.

A Foot and Mouth outbreak in Surrey England has been linked to a transgenic vaccine that was under research at the Pirbright /Merial Animal Health research farm. The discovery raises further concerns for bio-security at New Zealand and overseas research centres as a similar outbreak would have a disastrous impact on World economies.

Up to 200 animals have been killed and a ten mile quarantine zone set up to contain the outbreak in the UK. A flooded stream or human movement are the two areas suspected to have caused the spread of the virus, but research into a GE vaccine is implicated as a source (1).

Concerns have been raised at ERMA's NGO meetings over the waste, effluent and material from research facilities that use reticulated systems for cleaning down their laboratories. The risk of GE vector mutations from the research has always been played down by ERMA and applicants.

The concerns are further strengthened in the wake of a report on the death of a subject involved in trials of a new drug for Arthritis "tg AAC94" carried out by Targeted Genetics Corporation (TGEN.O). The drug was injected into joints of the subject. The trial has been halted whilst the FDA look into it further (2) & (3). It appears that TGEN used a similar process to that used in an earlier ill-fated trial by Te Genero.

In 2006 the New England Journal of Medicine Suntharalingam et al published a full report on TeGenero's GMO derived Arthritis drug "TGN 1412" and the life threatening reaction of six healthy volunteers, including a New Zealander. The report details adverse effects starting immediately and within hours the subjects were in a coma with severe immune system shut down and organ failure. The research participants are still ill, with one person diagnosed with a cancer related to the "vector" in the trial (3).

In 2002 a "miracle" gene therapy treatment for children suffering from the fatal "bubble boy" disease was halted in France, after one of the patients developed leukaemia linked to the "viral vector" (Mouse Leukemia Virus, MLV) as a direct consequence of the treatment. (4)

In 1999 Jesse Gelsinger died from a gene therapy trial to correct a missing enzyme that he could not produce. He died having suffered a massive immune response triggered by the use of the viral "vector" used to transport the gene into his cells. This led to multiple organ failure and brain death.(5)

The FDA is looking into the latest drug case however in the previous cases it has been found that certain rules of conduct were not complied with. Subjects were not told that the therapy was made from a GE process, nor that adverse reactions and deaths in animals had been found in previous trials.

This is a warning for ERMA to reconsider all genetically engineered trials, whether in the laboratory, outdoor containment or in the field," says Claire Bleakley of GE Free NZ (in food and environment).

"GMOs whether in drugs, plants or animals have the ability to interact, survive and become a severe disease risk through mutation and transformation with the billions of natural bacteria and viruses that are already in our environment".

"ERMA is still denying the horizontal gene transfer (HGT) can occur at levels that would cause damage. These trials show that GMO's are able to cause significant damage and stringent protocols need to be put in place when assessing the risk and disposing of laboratory and field waste material".

References:

(1) Britain to ease restrictions on cattle movement after foot and mouth outbreak, The Associated Press Published: August 20, 2007.

(2) Targeted genetics' inflammatory arthritis phase i/ii trial placed on clinical hold. (July 2007) http://ir.targen.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84981&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1030172&highlight=htmllink

(3) FDA statement of Gene Therapy Clinical Trial - July 26th 2007 http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01672.html

(4) Suntharalingam G., Perry M., Ward S., Brett S., Castello-Cortes A., Brunner M. and Panoskaltsis (2006) Cytokine Storm in a phase 1 Trial of the Anti-CD28 Monoclonal Antibody TGN1412, The New England Journal of Medicine; Vol: 355:1018-1028:10.

(5) Miracle' gene therapy trial halted; October 2002, E.Young, NewScientist.com news service http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2878

(6) Jesse Gelsinger 1999 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger

21 August 2007

Ireland: Quick buck GM attitude ruining our reputation

The Irish Independent, farming supplement, 21 August 2007.

As a farmer and food producer, I am deeply shocked by the current campaign to force GM food down the throats of unwilling and unuspecting Irish consumers.

This campaign is being orchestrated by official spokespersons for the animal feed industry, with the support of our main farming organisation and a very prominent farming publication.

The fact that the Irish Grain and Feed Association has admitted that the price of feed containing GMOs is now heavily discounted, and can be purchased at up to 35/t cheaper than GM-free feed, is incontestable proof that the overwhelming rejection by European consumers of GM food has become a worldwide phenonemon. Apparently, fewer people are prepared to expose themselves to GMOs.

I would respectfully suggest that it behoves the interests of all involved, all of who make a very good living from Irish farmers, to protect the Irish farming industry and not become involved in making a "quick buck" by destroying the integrity and world-renowned quality of food produced in Ireland.

John Heaney
Kilfeacle, Co. Tipperary
Ireland

Australia: Ban on GM canola must stay: BFA

New Queensland Register, 21 August 2007

The Biological Farmers Australia group has lodged a submission this week requesting the continuation of the moratoriums on GM crops.

Their submission has gone to the SA, NSW & Victorian Governments which are conducting a review of the moratoria prohibiting the planting of genetically modified (GM) canola.

Scott Kinnear, spokesperson for BFA, said, "The BFA submission comprehensively makes the case for continuing the moratoria on the planting of GM crops in Australia."

The submission, titled Genetic Engineering - A Review of the Evidence, takes a critical look at the USA and Canadian experience with GM canola.

It contrasts this with European and Asian markets and Australian export opportunities.

The following points represent only a selection of the points made by the BFA in their submission:

•

The continuation of the moratorium produces security for the growth of Australian farm business including the rapidly growing organic sector.

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The global crop area of GM canola has not increased since 1999.

•

The claims by GM proponents that we will fall behind and be unable to compete have no foundation and ironically bear the hall marks of emotion and hysteria that the anti GM sector is accused of.

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The GM canola being pushed for commercial release is not drought or salt tolerant and will not use less fertiliser.

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The USA and Canada pay billions of dollars of direct subsidies to farmers and this comes at the expense of health and education spending.

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North American farm incomes have fallen disastrously.

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Australia remains, of the three players on the global market, the only GM free canola producer

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Strict labelling laws in the EU makes our canola the preferred product for food and biofuel use.

•

The premiums cannot be denied: Australian canola wins by up to $US120 per tonne, and an average of $US68 more over 2 years than in the previous 10 years.

•

Consumer resistance has increased, even according to loaded opinion surveys.

•

It is not just organic vs GM canola. Commercial release of GM crops will affect organic and non- GM farming across the board, including grains and stock feeds.

•

The cost of segregation has been conservatively estimated again at 5-15pc, even at high admix thresholds and will need to be borne by the GE free and organic farm sector, not the GE sector.

•

Yield gains are not 20pc higher as claimed but are more likely to be nearer 1pc.

•

The GM moratorium is not going, in fact some permitted GM varieties are being withdrawn from the approved list etc.

•

Many more processors and retailers now have absolute GM free purchasing policies and marketing claims (Goodman Fielder, etc).

•

The US has lost markets for its organic products due to GM contamination.

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The main impediment to the growth of the organic sector is lack of supply, which means if certain crop specifications cannot be guaranteed (as in Canada), opportunities cannot be developed.

•

We do not oppose biotechnology, but fully support the use of non GM biotechnology to assist in progressing desirable traits such as drought and salt tolerant crops.

•

There is a growing alliance of farmers and consumers in North America and worldwide opposed to GM wheat being released there next, while litigation is continuing surrounding existing GE crops.

•

The submission can be downloaded from the BFA website, www.bfa.com.au

SOURCE: Breaking national grains news, from Rural Press weekly rural weekly papers, updated daily on FarmOnline.

20 August 2007

Northern Ireland: Nicholson warns over rise in NI feed prices

Farming Life, 20 August 2007. By David McCoy.

THE continuing rise in animal feed prices has the ability to put more and more farmers out of business in Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionist MEP, Jim Nicholson, has warned.

"Quite clearly, the spiralling prices for animal feed, being driven by the world market, mean that farmers should see an increase in the price received for what they produce and as we approach the winter this will become even more of an issue,'' said Mr Nicholson.

"Not only was last year a disaster but the incoming winter looks no better as returns from the market are abysmal.''

He pointed out that, last week, the European Commission's report into the medium term prospects for agricultural markets and income had highlighted the likely decline in beef production within the European Union and cited an increase in animal feed prices as being partly responsible for the likely decline.

"This sector cannot continue to absorb the increased costs and survive,'' said Mr Nicholson.

"It is my intention to raise the issue at the earliest opportunity when the European Parliament returns in September. It must be highlighted at a European level because Europe is going to make the problem even worse by their attitude to GMO produced grain and the demand for zero tolerance, which probably will result in even more increases in the months ahead. My fear is that if there is not a significant increase to the farmer for what he produces and if the supermarkets do not support the local economy by buying local produce rather that the cheaper, inferior imported products, farmers will quit producing and while the consumers will have short term cheap food the long-term implications will be disastrous."

Portugal: We want Portugal free of GMOs!
Action of civil disobedience against the first transgenic field in the GMO Free Zone of the Algarve

Northwest resistance against genetic engineering - http://www.nwrage.org/, 20 August 2007.

This year the first GMO field ever has been planted in the Algarve Region in Portugal. Already years before the planting of his GM corn there has been strong opposition from civil society against the cultivation of GMOs in the Algarve. This includes social and environmental organisations, farmers and a public opinion who is in general against the cultivation and consumption of GM crops. Also from the political field opposition was made. As a result the Algarve was the first GMO free zone in Portugal declared by the Junta Metropolitana do Algarve already in 2004. On the level of the municipalities over time motions have been passed rejecting the cultivation of GM crops on their territory.

What is NW Rage?

NW RAGE works with neighbors, teachers, farmers and friends to stop the reckless splicing and dicing of our genetic material Ý

Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (NW RAGE) is a non-violent, grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the responsible, sustainable and just use of agriculture and science. We are working towards a ban on genetic engineering and patents on life. Our efforts focus on education, community building, advocacy and action.

NW RAGE works with neighbors, teachers, farmers and friends to stop the reckless splicing and dicing of our genetic material. We are not anti-science, we are pro-precautionary principle. We believe in a future that strives to do no harm to humans and to the ecosystems we all depend on. We believe in proceeding with new technologies only if a well informed civil society decides to do so after proper testing has been conducted.

Our activities range from postcard and letter writing, to education presentations, to debates and public forums, to protests and direct action. We strongly believe that, in spite of the dangers of genetic engineering, people working together for change can and are making a difference in preventing this unnecessary and unsustainable technology from causing any further harm.

We warmly invite you to bring your voice and join in the struggle!

NW RAGE promotes active resistance to the intrusion of genetic engineering into our lives, food and ecosystems. We are against corporate ownership of life. We believe so-called "life science" corporations, like Monsanto and Dow, are attempting to privatize, patent and own life to create huge profits and monopolies while ignoring the sanctity of creation.

We work to ban the release of genetically engineered organisms through education, advocacy and action. We also works to promote sustainable agriculture through activities like partnerships with organic associations and seed swaps. We see this as a vibrant and viable future for life on the planet.

We work towards:

•

A ban on genetic engineering

•

A ban on patents on any life forms including animals, plants, cells, viruses, bacteria, genes, and proteins

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A ban on biopiracy - the theft of indigenous people's genes and knowledge

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A ban on cloning of humans and animals

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A rescinding of all current FDA approvals for genetically engineered products on the market

•

An increase in the scale and scope of organic agriculture

•

An increase in funding for research into organic agriculture and chemical-free growing techniques

•

The cessation of factory farming

_______________________

Mexico under Pressure to Grow Transgenic Plants

Prensa Latina, Aug 20 2007

Mexico, Aug 20 (Prensa Latina) Mexico is being pressured by transnational companies to grow transgenic plants in its fertile land, a social leader denounced on Monday.

Miguel Luna, president of the Coalition of Urban and Farmer Democratic Organizations, said that Mexican farmers have to deal with impositions by rival companies in that sphere: Cargill and Monsanto.

They compete to rent agricultural land to grow genetically modified grains.

According to Luna, this is additional to the lifting of taxes on corn, beans, sugar and milk in 2008, within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

He added that transnational companies in Mexico focus on controlling the import, production and commercialization of seeds, chemicals, pesticides, veterinary items and, recently, the production and sales of transgenic plants.

The Mexican leader said that planting and consuming genetically modified grains could cause short-term effects on the ecosystem, including irreversible genetic contamination and the extermination of endemic and traditional varieties, among others.

It also causes allergies, resistance to antibiotics, and toxic effects in humans, he went on to say.

Economically speaking, it makes farmers dependent on transnational companies and promotes the strengthening of the monopolies that commercialize seeds and agricultural inputs.

Luna demanded that genetically modified food must be clearly identified and labeled for commercialization, and experiments with animals and plants for human consumption must comply with the law and ethics.

He added that the NAFTA does not bring either comparative or competitive advantages for Mexico over the United States and Canada regarding production of basic grains and oleaginous plants.

A total of 3.5 million Mexican producers devote 65 percent of agricultural land to those products, which contribute 40 percent of the value of sales.

The Philippines: Sanchez: GMO merchants, beware

Nature Speaks, 20 August 2007. By Benedicto Sanchez.

GMO purveyors, beware when you come to Negros Occidental. You stand the risk of losing your living GMOs when you step on our provincial soil.

I have been taking part since Day 1 in the crafting of the anti-GMO provincial ordinance. What we jokingly referred to as the "James Bond" ordinance, the implementation of PO 007, Series of 2007 is moving into high gear.

Right now, our focus is on finishing the signages on all provincial points of entry. That would include piers, airports and bus terminal, a total of 30 billboards, written in Hiligaynon, English and Cebuano.

Taking part in the discussions on the anti-GMO follow-thru are government and non-government organizations which include the Broad Initiatives for Negros Development, Negros Island Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development, Office of the Provincial Agriculturist, Office of the Provincial Veterinarian, Provincial Environment and Management Office, and the Negros Organic Agricultural Movement. Among my colleagues include Patrick Belisario, Armi Benedicto, Atty. Alett Nuñez, Greg Destajo, USLS college teacher Renato Bañas, and my fellow mediator, veterinarian Elizabeth Suyod.

So far, we agreed on the following warning: "GMO entry banned in Negros Island," so goes the heading. Then invoking the James Bond ordinance, it went on: "In our quest to make Negros Island as the organic food bowl of Asia, Provincial 7, Series of 2007, bans the entry, importation, introduction, planting, growing, selling and trading of GMO plants and animals within the territory of Negros Occidental. "All arriving passengers with plants or animals are required to declare them to the GMO inspectors in the province."

For you GMO merchants, don't ever think the billboards are more bark than bite. The eyes of the world are in the province. Many international environmental organizations have come to offer their services to develop the Negrenses capability to detect various GMO. We will make sure we won't disappoint them by coming up empty-handed.

If we ever get our hands your contraband, you will be subject to fines and detention, and this will hit your bottomline; we'll gleefully confiscate and burn your produce. If you lose hundreds of thousands, even millions of pesos, tough luck. We won't lose sleep over your misfortune.

Correction. We'll rejoice at your misery. Your losses will be our organic industry's gains, and will show to the world that we mean business. As in the business of growing and marketing organic produce, the provincial seal of guarantee. And its corollary, the banning and seizure of your Frankencrops. You'll have your shot of fame (or infamy?). All the world's a stage, you'll have your exit but certainly not your entrance in the province. But in the 21st century, your stage will include cyberspace. You can bet your last peso, your infamy will be trumpeted to the world, that we have confiscated your unwanted products. If it makes you happy, which I doubt, you can surf, Google your name in the organic world watchlist, your name will be in it. And the equivalent of your mug shot. GMO purveyors, you have been read the environmental version of your Miranda rights, or more colorfully, the provincial riot act. Don't ever complain you have not been forewarned. Besides, ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of the law excuses no one). We will make sure, though, that you can never invoke ignorance.

To the Negrense citizenry, If you have information on living GMO smugglers, contact the following numbers: OPA, 434-8711 or 433-9853; OPV, 434-5924 or 433-and NISARD, at 433-2174 or 707-1434.

Please email comments to bqsanc@yahoo.com.

18 August 2007

USA: Industry tries to purge rice strains

Arkansas Democrat Gazette, August 18, 2007. By Nancy Cole.

One year ago today, the U. S. Department of Agriculture announced that traces of an unapproved, genetically engineered rice had been discovered in U. S. long-grain rice supplies.

"I wish that day would never have happened," said Keith Glover, president and chief executive officer of Producers Rice Mill Inc. in Stuttgart. "It really created a lot of hardship for a lot of people: farmers, mills, exporters, seed dealers... everybody in the industry was impacted."

The USDA and the Food and Drug Administration said the genetically engineered rice - one of Bayer CropScience's LibertyLink varieties - posed no health, food safety or environmental risks. But many foreign countries, which buy about half of each year's U. S. rice crop, shun genetically engineered foods. As a result, sales in nearly half of all U. S. rice export markets were negatively affected. Exports to the 27 member nations of the European Union halted almost completely.

The fallout from the problem was particularly acute in Arkansas where the state's farmers produce about half of all U. S. rice. In 2006, Arkansas' rice harvest was worth $ 892 million, making it the state's single most valuable crop.

The U. S. rice industry has been working to purge LibertyLink traits from the country's long-grain rice supply and restore the grain's international competitiveness and marketability. Great strides have been made, said Ray Vester, a Stuttgart rice farmer who is chairman of the USA Rice Federation's environmental regulatory subcommittee.

Arkansas took the lead by banning the 2007 planting of two rice varieties, Vester said. Cheniere and Clearfield 131 both tested positive for the "adventitious presence" or unintentional commingling of trace amounts of the protein that makes LibertyLink rice varieties resistant to the herbicide Liberty, also known as glufosinate. Farmers and millers then were urged to thoroughly clean their equipment before starting the 2007 harvest.

Whether those efforts have been successful in Arkansas will become apparent later this month, when the state's rice harvest begins, Vester said.

He and many others are confident that this year's crop is "clean."

"I really feel good about what we have in the field right now," said State Plant Board Director Darryl Little. "My biggest fear - and I suspect that of everyone in the industry - would be carryover of Cheniere and Clearfield 131 that was grown last year that might be in on-farm storage somewhere" and get mixed with the new crop, Little said.

Rice miller Glover echoes that concern.

"You're just nervous about that one kernel that might happen to show up" in a shipment to Europe, he said. "If they just happen to probe and hit that one kernel, that's all it takes to ban the whole shipment and have to ship it back."

For that reason, the U. S. rice industry is lobbying the EU to agree to "origin testing," Glover said, so that U. S. exporters can be confident their rice will be accepted for delivery before it is shipped. Alternatively, the EU's establishment of a minimum tolerance for the adventitious presence of genetically engineered traits could help to restart U. S. rice exports, he said.

USDA also could assist the rice industry by completing and releasing its long-awaited investigation into the LibertyLink case, Glover said, explaining "what happened, how it happened and what's being done to correct the problem."

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has repeatedly promised to "determine the circumstances surrounding the release [of regulated material into supplies of commercial long-grain rice ] and whether any USDA regulations were violated." But APHIS spokesman Karen Eggert said Thursday "that investigation is not yet complete, so we haven't issued any final findings."

Not surprisingly, the genetically engineered rice problem has spawned hundreds of lawsuits during the past year. Most of those cases have been brought by farmers who are suing Bayer CropScience. Some cases, however, have been brought by rice buyers and seed dealers, and several cases also name rice mills as defendants.

In December, all such rice litigation - which now numbers 184 cases - was consolidated in U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis. Judge Catherine Perry was assigned to handle all pretrial matters such as discovery, which began last month.

Most of the rice-farmer plaintiffs are seeking class-action status for their complaints, said Scott Poynter, a Little Rock attorney who serves on the plaintiffs' executive committee. A hearing on that issue is scheduled for May 1, 2008.

"I think it's more than likely, if [Perry ] does certify the class, that the class case would be tried with her," Poynter said. "Individual cases that aren't part of the class, and any individual case where the plaintiff doesn't fall within the class definition will go back to their original venue and court."

Based upon the current scheduling orders, none of the rice trials will begin before 2009.

17 August 2007

Ireland: Organic 'key to Irish farming's future'

The Irish Examiner, 17 August 2007. By Ray Ryan, Agribusiness Correspondent.

ORGANIC farming couid hold the key to providing an economic future for farming in Ireland as we!! as issues such as obesity and healthier eating, according to the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association (IOFGA).

It has presented Food and Horticulture Minister Trevor Sargent with a 12-point pian for the development of the sector over the next five years.

IOFGA, representing some 1,000 farmers, growers and processors, said Ireland has a green image, low population density and a buoyant economy and can capitalise on this to boost the economy from a food, environmental and tourism perspective.

"It is imperative the Government acts to ensure that Ireland is marketed as a green destination with quality organic food, in order to capitalise on the opportunities available," it said.

IOFGA said it sees organic farming as a viable future for farming in Ireland at a time when traditional agriculture is under pressure.

The association wants Ireland to become an international example of best practice and achieve a target of 5% of agricultural land for organic farming by 2012.

"The'organic sector has been stagnant in Ireland for the past number of years, while progress has been rapid in many other countries," the IOFGA said.

"Existing structures, supports and resources have been inadequate and ineffective."

Australia: Food production must not be controlled by a few corporations

The Age, August 17 2007. Bu Gyorgy Scrinis.

(Dr Gyorgy Scrinis is a research associate in the Globalism Institute at RMIT University)

NEW report prepared for the Federal Government on genetically modified canola crops is being used to support the lifting of state bans on growing commercial GM canola. Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran says this report confirms that GM canola would offer significant economic and agronomic benefits for Australian farmers.

Yet the report contains no new revelations, and even acknowledges the possible market advantages of remaining GM-free and the continued strong public opposition to GM food.

The introduction of moratoriums in most states that began in 2003 were largely based on economic and trade considerations, with farmers, farmers' organisations, processors and food marketers concerned about the loss of overseas markets and the loss of the price premiums being received for non-GM canola crops.

The report acknowledges that there may still be price premiums and greater market opportunities for non-GM crops. The European Union has maintained its ban on the importing of GM canola seeds, and many food companies prefer non-GM canola for human consumption because of consumer rejection of GM foods. Of the 20 canola-producing countries, only Canada and the United States grow GM crops and this amounts to just 17 per cent of global canola production.

One problem with growing GM canola is that the engineered genes quickly contaminate the fields of non-GM canola, as has happened in Canada and the US. So many conventional non-GM farmers as well as organic farmers oppose the introduction of GM canola and other crops.

In 2003, the decision to impose state bans on GM canola was made in the context of strong and continuing public opposition to GM foods, with surveys around the world confirming that most citizens do not want to eat GM foods.

The varieties of GM canola licensed to be commercially grown if the bans are lifted are herbicide-tolerant varieties. Monsanto, the world's biggest seed company, owns the Roundup-tolerant varieties and Bayer, the world's biggest agri-chemical, company owns the Basta-tolerant ones.

These GM crops are engineered to survive being sprayed with chemical weedkillers that would otherwise kill the crop itself. Herbicide-tolerant crops are thereby being used to expand the range of situations in which, and the doses of, chemical herbicides that can be applied.

As weeds related to canola - radish, turnip and charlock - also become resistant to the herbicides, other even more toxic chemicals will be used. GM crops offer, at best, a Band-Aid solution to weed-management problems or other agro-ecological crises facing chemical-industrial farmers.

Aside from some narrow and questionable economic and agronomic benefits, the bigger question is what else we are committing to when we open the door to GM canola and other food crops.

First, there are new health and ecological risks. The genetic modification of plants to introduce new agronomic traits may also induce other changes in the plant and the ultimate food product. Few independent studies have been conducted into the safety of GM foods, yet our food regulators continue to approve these foods for environmental release and human consumption largely based on data supplied by the companies that own these GM seeds. GM crops also introduce an entirely new form of pollution into the environment: genetic pollution.

Second, GM crops enable the continuation and extension of chemical-industrial agricultural practices, and may exacerbate some of the existing ecological problems associated with them. For example, GM crops introduce a higher level of uniformity into food crops, and accelerate the erosion of seed diversity and other forms of biodiversity.

Genetic engineering is essentially a tool for finetuning chemical-industrial agriculture, rather than offering ecologically sustainable alternatives to it, and further locks farmers into this system of production.

Third, genetic engineering is allowing the further concentration in corporate ownership and control of the agri-food system. GM seeds are patented and controlled by a handful of global corporations. These corporations not only own the seeds, but also the chemical inputs that these seeds require to perform as intended. Farmers must pay "technology fees" on top of the price of the seeds, and are also asked to sign contracts that stipulate how these seeds are to be used. GM technology brings the total control of the global food supply within reach of this handful of global corporations.

To accept the introduction of GM crops is to allow what will amount to a significant shift in the structures and practices of agricultural production. I refer to this in terms of a broader shift from a chemical-industrial to a genetic-corporate system of agri-food production. The development of new nanotechnologies for agri-food production - such as nano-chemical pesticides - is likely to reinforce these agro-ecological and socio-economic trends.

Opposing GM crops and maintaining the state bans on GM canola is a way of resisting the genetic-corporate and nano-corporate takeover of the global agri-food system, and of maintaining a space in which alternative, ecologically sustainable and socially equitable ways of producing and sharing seeds, crops and foods may flourish.

Thailand: Transgenic crops open-field tests row
Activists warn of legal action over GM trials

Bangkok Post, August 17 2007

An activist network against genetically-modified (GM) agriculture yesterday threatened legal action against the government if it approves open-field trials of GM crops, as proposed by the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry. Witoon Lienchamroon, director of Biothai, a non-governmental organisation advocating farmer rights protection, yesterday called on the government to put in place measures to prevent the spread of GM-contaminated crops before allowing field trials.

''If the government continues to ignore our concern, we will take the case to the Administrative Court. GM field trials will definitely pose a risk and burden to farmers as they will not be able to sell their GM-tainted produce,'' Mr Witoon said, referring to the move by Agriculture Minister Thira Sutabutra to seek cabinet approval for GM open-field trials by next week.

''We do not oppose GM laboratory tests but we need a biosafety law before we eventually put in place field trials.''

The previous government in 2001 suspended a plan for field trials due to strong protests by activists who demanded the introduction of a biosafety law.

However, there were reports of GM contamination in papaya plantations surrounding the agriculture office in Khon Kaen and other areas in many provinces in 2004, prompting the set-up of an investigative panel led by Mr Thira, who was then dean of the agriculture faculty at Kasetsart University. However, his panel was unable to find the cause of the GM leakage.

Chakarn Sangraksawong, the ex-agriculture department chief, is facing a probe by the National Counter Corruption Committee in a case where he was charged with negligence of duty that resulted in GM contamination.

Buntoon Srethasirote, director of the Project Policy Strategy on Tropical Resources Base of the National Human Rights Commission, said open-field trials did not bring any benefits to the country.

''I think that the heavy push for the open-field experiments comes from academics who want to promote GM farming. But the country will not benefit from the trials. The global market has said no to GM produce and we are going to promote the produce that consumers do not accept,'' he said.

He further questioned the delay in promulgating biosafety law, which has been drafted by the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry. The draft has yet to be submitted to the National Legislative Assembly.

The law will make GM firms accountable for contamination that damages non-GM farmers and the environment.

Soonthorn Sritawee, a representative of the Thai Organic Farming Association, said if the government approves the trials, organic farming produce will be severely affected as the country might be downgraded from ''medium to low'' to ''high-risk'' GM concern status by international trade counterparts.

He said the country earns some three billion baht annually from the export of organic produce _ 90% of which goes to Europe and 10% to the US. The global market for GM produce is growing at a 15% clip each year.

16 August 2007

The Philippines: Bishop warns v. consumption of genetically enhanced rice

Sun Star Manila, February 16 2007

MANILA Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales has asked the government to recall and stop the selling of genetically-enhanced rice products from the US that pose health risks to humans and to the environment.

Rosales, in a letter sent to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last February 9, asked Arroyo to take back from the supermarkets the Uncle Sam Texas Long Grain Rice, which is being distributed by Purefeeds Inc.

"We believe that we should strongly oppose any experiment or attempt to use genetically engineered foods that are not safe or good to the environment. We should feed our people with food that are produced through natural means," Rosales said.

The cardinal endorsed the petition of the ecology desk of the Archdiocese of Manila and signed by 2,000 people who raised several issues on the entry and sale of genetically-made products in the Philippines.

Aside from the withdrawal of the products, the cardinal also demanded that a moratorium be imposed on the importation of genetically-modified rice from the US; require the agriculture department to do mandatory testing of imported rice and urgently stop the propagation of genetically-enhanced food products; and certify as an urgent bill the mandatory labeling of all imported, processed food products.

"As a church institution, we have a moral obligation to protect the interest of God's people and their inherent right to safe food and a healthy environment. Independent and environmentally-concerned local and international scientists already warned that genetically-modified crops and food products could be very harmful to the environment and to human beings," said the cardinal who was recently named as one of Pope Benedict XVI's economic advisers. (MSN/Sunnex)

Australia: Organic farming body warns against GM canola

ABC, Aug 16 2007

Australia's peak organic farming body is predicting widespread legal action if genetically modified (GM) canola is allowed to be grown in Australia.

The Federal Government this week began pushing for the introduction of GM canola, saying it is safe.

South Australia has a moratorium on the commercial planting of GM crops, which is under review.

The director of Biological Farmers of Australia, Scott Kinnear, says experience in the United States shows the lifting of any ban will unleash a flurry of litigation:

"Without any question there will be litigation if genetically modified canola is planted and contamination will occur," he said.

"Government has not put in place any assessment of the legal implications and in fact the cost of litigation should be taken into account when weighing up any benefits."

Australia: GE Free food good for Tasmania
But Where Is Government Market Research?

Media Release, 16th August 2007. Kim Booth MHA.

For Comment: State Parliamentary Offices of the Tasmanian Greens, (03) 6233 8300

The Tasmanian Greens today called on the State Government to release any research it had done into the national and international marketing benefits to the State's Brand and economy of the current moratorium on genetically engineered food crops, following assertions by pro-GE advocates that the moratorium has not benefited farmers.

Greens Shadow Primary Industries spokesperson Kim Booth MHA said that the Greens had always advocated that the five year State moratorium should be utilised to have such market research conducted in order for there to be real data available to contribute to further evaluation of the ban on GE crops, and that if the government has missed the boat by not having done so then Tasmanians will have been let down drastically.

"The government must now release research quantifying the benefits to the Tasmanian economy, both now and into the future that are brought to us by our internationally significant GE-free status," Mr Booth said.

"The Greens have always advocated that the five years of our current moratorium should provide a good opportunity to conduct research into national and international markets to ascertain the value of our GE free status on the StateÇs Brand as a whole, as well as a marketing tool to secure lucrative high-value niche markets in Japan and Europe, where the consumer want guaranteed access to GE free food."

"It is all very easy for Biotechnology companies, who profit from genetically engineered crops through seed and chemical sales, to claim that moratoriums have not benefited farmers while attempting to lobby governments to change legislation to allow the proliferation of genetically engineered food crops, without having to refer to any specific example."

"Hopefully the State Labor government has acted to ensure that such ongoing national and international research is underway, so that the true market value and benefit to farmers and other contributors to the Tasmanian economy can be ascertained and evaluated, especially given the imminent Parliamentary Inquiry into the moratorium."

"The government needs to protect Tasmanian farmers from the serious threat posed to their future by the Biotech companies who will profit from breaking the protection that the GE ban brings, and we must be able to evaluate the impact of that loss to the State's overall Clean, Green Brand," Mr Booth said.

USA: What it means to be organic

The Beacon (Massachussets), 16 August 2007. By Pat Harpell.

Acton, Mass. - Organic isn't just something we eat. It's something we live. Organic means that you care enough about your health and the health of those around you, including insects, animals, plants, the earth, the air and water, to change the way you live in order to protect them. I suggest that Acton is in a position to be a model for how a small piece of the universe can wake up and make a difference in the health and well-being of its residents by more conscious consumption and disposal. Here are some examples.

Some 70 percent of the foods on our grocery shelf are genetically modified. Shocked? I was. The Institute for Responsible Technology has a hair-raising account of how the biotech industry and the FDA have manipulated our food supply. Visit responsibletechnology.org and click on "About GM Foods: to see how clinical studies were contrived, resulting in the release of unlabelled GM foods, since 1996. This, despite FDA scientists' warnings that GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and new diseases that may be difficult to identify.

These foods are especially harmful to the very young and very old. Unless you are purchasing organic or specifically-labeled non-GMO soy, corn, cottonseed, or canola products, you are ingesting bacteria, virus and other genes that have been artificially inserted into the DNA of these plants. Every time you have a product that includes corn syrup, you are eating a genetically modified food and are imperiling your immune system.

Enraged? I hope so. Helpless? No. In 1999 UK noticed a rise in soy-related allergies from products imported from the U.S. These foods were genetically modified. The UK began an educational campaign to tell businesses and consumers not to purchase products that were not labeled organic or non-GMO. It worked. This is the same type of campaign that we are waging today against unlabeled foods entering our country. Our government and food suppliers are guilty of the same crime, it's just not being talked about. You can make a difference by not purchasing these products, educating your friends and neighbors, and asking your food store to carry healthier products.

And then there's our water supply. We may consider the Water Ban an inconvenience. I say "hooray!" How long does the water run in the shower before it turns hot? How many gallons slip down the drain? Take a bucket into the shower every morning and let the water run into it until it's hot enough to bathe with. It's about 2 gallons of water, enough to water container plants with every day.

But what about the safety of our water? Studies by the USGA have found pesticides, herbicides, codeine, antibiotics, caffeine, cholesterol-lowering agents, anti-depressants, birth control medication, chemotherapy and more are in most of the nation's water supplies. This is from industry and from households flushing unwanted drugs down the toilet, rinsing toxic shampoos and soaps down the drain, and from undigested drugs in our fecal matter. It is now assumed that the reduced sperm count in men, and some of the nervous disorders in children and the elderly are due to contaminated water supplies. Use non-toxic products and recycle unused medications through your pharmacist.

Did you know that the leading use of antibiotics in the U.S. (40-50 percent) is in cattle feed? This is yet another reason to eat organic meat or to be vegetarian. What does this have to do with our water supply? The run off from fields includes antibiotics that are passed in the manure. And, often, the manure that is left behind is sold to consumers as garden compost: a double whammy.

We are consumers. Think about the word and its implications. With consumption comes waste. Do we need a pair of shoes for every outfit? Do two-family households need SUVs and trucks? Do we need a television in every room? There is a success myth that is pervasive in our culture: more and bigger equals success, less and simple equals failure. Think about how this was generated, and cut the strings of the retail puppeteers. I'm not saying that we should deprive ourselves, but we might consider spending our energy and money on creating a better habitat for future generations instead of on another "thing."

When you start to think organically, your consumer patterns change. You purchase only what you need; you compost or recycle what you don't; you rebel against chemicals; you consume less energy; your laundry dries outdoors; you want, desperately, for all living beings (not just humans) to be healthy because we're all in this together.

A major part of being organic is taking charge of your health. You know more than you think, and have the ability to preserve or enhance your well-being. The less you do to protect your health, the more of a burden will be placed on a tentative health system that is already draining the country and its citizens.

Rise to the challenge, Acton. This is not difficult and may even be fun. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for the future generations who deserve more than we are currently leaving as a legacy.

Pat Harpell is director of Acton Yoga and Wellness.

15 August 2007

Canada: Farmers feel it's time to give GMO foods the TKO

[Note: TKO = technical knock out, ie when a fight has to be stopped because one of the fighters is in such bad shape it's not safe to continue.] Cowichan Newsleader, Aug 15 2007. By Don Maroc.

At last weekend's general meeting of Farmers' Institutes from across Vancouver Island in Cobble Hill, farmers bravely declared Vancouver Island (plus Powell River) a genetically modified free zone.

Brave because the governments of British Columbia and Canada are both solid backers of agricultural and pharmacuetical GMOs (genetically modified organisms). They have both refused to test and regulate GMO's, they will not require GMO food to be labelled, they hand millions of dollars in grant money to the corporations that "own" the GMO seeds and, in places like the Comox Valley, to farmers who grow it.

There are farmers in the Cowichan Valley who will not be enthusiastic about the proposed ban on GMO's. According to our district agriculturalist nearly all Cowichan Valley dairy farmers who grow feed corn are growing MonsantoÇs Roundup Ready corn, which is genetically engineered to endure repeated spraying with MonsantoÇs glyphosate-based toxin.

All of these farmers are shipping their milk to Island Farms Dairy in Victoria. Island Farms used to be a co-op owned by all Vancouver Island dairy farmers, but no longer, Quebec-based Agropur bought them out a year ago.

Monsanto would have us believe that Roundup does not last long in the soil, that it will not wash away into creeks and rivers, where it has been shown to be toxic to fish and amphibians. They even advertised for a while that Roundup is biodegradable and "safer than table salt", but a U.S. court ordered them to stop the false claims.

The largest seller of GMO seeds in the world apparently does not believe its own PR (or BS?). The company cafeteria at Monsanto's British headquarters serves only non-genetically modified products, no GMO soy and corn for their own employees.

Part of the difficulty in dealing with a herbicide like Roundup is that we only know it's active ingredient, glyphosate. There are a number of other chemicals which help the glyphosate penetrate the plant tissues but Monssanto claims that would be revealing confidential business information. In our mad corporate-ruled, free-market economy all it takes is a "claim" by the manufacturer and all the information is top secret - no business of consumers who have to eat these mutant plants.

So they created corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola plants that resist the effects of the hormonal toxins in Roundup. Whenever a weed shows its ugly head the farmer can douse his fields with Roundup and only the corn plants will survive. By the time the corn matures it will have soaked up a lot of glyphosate and other secret chemicals. So much so that the U.S. government had to increase the level of glyphosate residue legally allowed on our food crops.

The Canadian government does not require labelling for GMO's, so there is no way for consumers to know if mutated genes are in their food.

In a phone conversation last year an Island Farms spokesperson said they have no policy concerning the use of GMO feed corn for the cows that supply their milk. This year the question was emailed, but Island Farms has failed to respond.

Let's all get behind the Island Farmers' Institutes' drive to declare Vancouver Island GMO-free.

USA: Group resists GMO taro

The Garden Island www.kauaiworld.com (Hawai'i), 15 August 2007. By Lester Chang.

During a rally outside the Historic County Building Wednesday, a handful of residents urged visiting state legislators to halt genetically modified organism laboratory testing of taro by the University of Hawai'i.

"We want to make our intentions known to Kaua'i that we don't want GMO crops, especially GMO taro, on our island," said Jeri Di Pietro, accompanied by eight supporters. "If taro goes into field tests, we will be giving pollution a life of its own."

The group attempted to get their message across to 13 members of the state House of Representatives who were on Kaua'i yesterday for a two-day visit to tour agricultural and economic development projects. The group was loosely tied to GMO Free Kaua'i, which strives to keep genetically modified crops off the island.

GMO technology supporters say there exists no evidence that altered foods are dangerous. However, critics argue that genetically modified organisms should not be eaten because their long-term effect on humans is still unknown.

Wayne Nishijima, associate dean with the University of Hawai'i's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, said the university has reached an agreement with the Royal Order of Kamehameha at this time not to conduct GMO testing of known Hawaiian taro varieties.

"Because of the moratorium, we are not touching the Hawaiian variety," he said.

Nishijima said the university division has genetically modified Chinese taro known as bun long to make it more resistant to disease. It could begin work on Hawaiian varieties in the future, but only with approval by Hawaiian leaders, he said.

Genetically modified foods are produced from organisms with altered genome, or chromosomes. The process involves taking the DNA from one organism, modifying it in a laboratory, and inserting into another organism.

Carrying placards and standing with banners denouncing genetically modified crops, the group yesterday wanted to meet with state Rep. Clift Tsuji, D-3rd (South Hilo, Pana'ewa, Puna, Kea'au and Kurtistown), and other legislators to state their stand.

Di Pietro said the group wanted Tsuji, who heads the House Committee on Agriculture, to reconsider a failed bill proposing a 10-year moratorium on genetically modified laboratory testing and field work in Hawai'i.

The legislators attended a meeting of the Kaua'i County Council's Finance and Economic Development Committee yesterday as part of a courtesy call. While in attendance, they listened to a presentation by county officials on the future of the island's tourism industry.

But none of the legislators reportedly met with the group, boarding a bus after the meeting to visit project sites on the island, county officials said.

"We'll get opinions from both sides of the (GMO) issue," Tsuji said yesterday. "That is why we're here (on Kaua'i)."

Nishijima said the university began genetically modified testing on the Chinese taro at its facilities a "couple of years ago."

But Di Pietro doesn't see that type of testing as having much value, as "it is not something we want."

"The university sees (genetically modified testing of taro) as a small risk," she said. "We see it as a big risk. Farmers don't want it. Consumers don't want it. You can't reverse the effects."

Di Pietro also said taro eaten by Hawaiians is as important to today's generation as it was to ancient Hawaiians, as taro is a main staple for them.

Thomas Silva Jr., a Kalaheo resident whose wife's family has grown taro for generations, said genetically modified taro borders on being sacrilegious.

"By taking away the taro and changing it, you are taking away the culture of Hawaiians," he said.

Francine Weigle, who is part Hawaiian, said she tended to taro patches in Hanalei Valley as a girl, and that "the pure taro is better than anything else."

Anne Ponohu said growing Lihuaali'i taro in the traditional way is a top priority for her, as the rare pink taro was served to Hawaiian royalty. The taro species is unique because it bleeds a red-colored liquid whenever a leaf is pulled off, she said.

"It grows mostly in Hanalei and is mostly cultivated by older Hawaiian families," she said.

Also calling for a ban on GMO testing, Marge Freeman said having stocks of taro or corn that are not treated will go a long way toward protecting crop production in Hawai'i and elsewhere in the world.

"Bio-diversity is an important part of keeping crops healthy," she said.

Nishijima said the research will continue, as no evidence has come forward to prove that generically modified crops have adversely affected the health of consumers. GMO advocates have said it is too early to tell whether such treated crops will do harm.

Di Pietro said banning the technology is the best option, adding that its use poses a bigger problem than scientists can control.

Should GMO technology be used on Hawaiian taro varieties, the amount of poi taro produced by Kaua'i, for instance, could increase significantly, Nishijima indicated. According to a 2005 study, 235 of 350 acres in the state for that type of poi are found on Kaua'i, he said.

Kenya: GMOs - We Should Be Wary of Those Pushing This Agenda

The Nation (Nairobi, Kenya), August 15 2007. John Mbaria.

AS WE ALL SIT GLUED TO THE melodramatic antics of politicians, another very determined lot has been working tirelessly to ensure that the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) they have patented get a foothold in the country.

In a subtle manner, giant biotechnology companies have been telling everyone that theirs is only a novel undertaking to ensure that hunger and famines are wiped out from the country.

And they know where to go, for they have targeted underpaid scientists and gung-ho politicians ready to do their bidding without raising a question.

Even before MPs had come to back a haphazardly drafted Biosafety Bill, 2005, they were taken on a trip to Makatini, South Africa's GM-capital, in May.

And ever since they came back, they have been waxing lyrical about GM products, with Muhoroni MP Ayiecho Olweny and his Mwea counterpart Alfred Nderitu publicly vowing to ensure GM crops are not only raised but also become part of Kenya's commercial agriculture.

BUT WHY SHOULD THESE MPs be careful of publicly supporting GM crops? For one, most of us are not even aware of what genetically modified crops are' nor are scientists sure of their safety.

By definition, GM crops are those in which 'alien' material (or genes) have been introduced either for the sake of giving them in-built ability to fight off pests or to make them tastier, more productive or even able to withstand such weed-killing chemicals as Roundup.

But our MPs ought to seek to understand not only actual and possible implications of planting and eating these crops, but also the hidden agenda of the giant biotechnology companies which jealously guard patents on these crops.

Pro-GM scientists say no food is 100 per cent safe, and that because of the heated reactions they have been attracting throughout the world, GM foods have now undergone thorough testing and are, therefore, probably safer than traditional foods.

While Kenya does not have evidence to counter that assertion, it is curious that most countries in the European Union are not keen to embrace GM foods.

The US and Canada may be growing these crops, but there, GM maize is not cultivated to be milled for ugali but to feed livestock, besides generating bio-fuels. Further, it remains unclear why the West is never keen to support the cultivation of GM wheat, which is a major staple there.

Those who have followed the matter closely say the Biosafety Bill is a product of a "boardroom" process rather than an all-inclusive one involving farmers, students, biology teachers, scientists, civil society, and other interested Kenyans.

Scientists and MPs have not told the country who sponsored both the drafting process and the trip the MPs took to South Africa in May, and how all these activities fit in the ongoing developments fit in with Kenya's seed market.

It is of utmost importance that we treat the Biosafety Bill with the seriousness it deserves. I am not saying everything in the Bill is awful. For one, it introduces the National Biosafety Authority, charging it with a host of regulative responsibilities. It also sets up a biosafety committee to be peopled by some of the best scientific brains in the country.

But it is fashioned as if the question of whether or not the country ought to embrace GM foods is no longer a consideration.

Further, it is silent on such biosafety issues as how to handle outbreaks of viruses leading to the foot-and-mouth disease or birdflu that have recently led to total annihilation of millions of cattle and chicken in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

IT IS ALSO SILENT on how to deal with the safety of imported pharmaceutical products, or on whether the National Biosafety Authority ought to investigate the safety of food and seed aid to Kenya.

Lastly, there is evidence that companies eager to manufacture vaccines and other drugs have been testing them in Africa. Although this has proved disastrous, the Bill offers no solution.

This is dangerous. The Nigerian government has taken Pfizer, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, to court over the deaths of unspecified number of children following the 1996 trials of Trovan, an unapproved anti-meningitis drug in the Kano area.

Who will save us from such evils if our MPs and scientists rush to embrace laws that are not suited to our welfare?

Finland: Finnish Farmers' Union appeals for GM labelling

ULE Ultiset, 15 August 2007.

The Finnish Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) say that consumers have the right to know about the use of genetically modified feed in the food chain. According to a statement by the organisation's executive, MTK supports the consumer's right to know about the origin of their food, the way that it was produced, and the possible use of genetically modified feed or raw material in the production of the food.Ý

MTK is calling for the voluntary labelling of products in every part of the production chain, and urges retailers to make sure that consumers have sufficient information about products.

Under current legislation, there is no need to report the use of genetically modified products in the food chain, as long as the product itself is not from a genetically modified plant or animal.

USA: World Corn Trade To Hit Consecutive Records, Boosting U.S. Exports

CattleNetwork.com, 15 August 2007.

[Extract only:] World corn trade in 2007/08 is projected to top the expected 2006/07 record, reaching 86.7 million tons, up 3 million this month. Most of the increase is for the EU-27, up 2.5 million tons this month to 6.0 million. With sharply reduced domestic grains supplies, and limited alternative feeds available, the EU-27 is expected to buy corn aggressively, especially from non-GMO origins like Brazil.

South Africa: SA rejects GM flowers and Bulb Application
Failed Application for Contained Use of Genetically Modified flowers and bulbs involving Ornithogalum dubium x thyrsoides Line A2

African Centre for Biosafety - www.biosafety.net, 15 August 2007.

The South African GMO Authority, the Executive Council (EC), established under the GMO Act has refused the first ever application for experimentation of GM bulbs and flowers outside a laboratory facility.

According to the applicant, Afriflowers, a plant breeder, the Executive Council was not satisfied that adequate safety information had been furnished to justify the approval.

If granted, Afriflowers would have been permitted to grow for the first year, approximately 10 000 genetically modified bulbs and flowers involving hybrid lines, Ornithogalum dubium x thyrosoides, genetically engineered to resist the Ornithogalum mosaic virus. The experiments were meant to take place in a 10 x 6 meter shade/virus netting structure.

The ultimate beneficiary targeted by this type of experimentation is the lucrative horticulture industry, which is geared towards the export of cut flowers. Approximately 95 % of South Africa's cut flowers are exported to the Netherlands.

Ornithogalum dubium, also known as the Sun Star, is a perennial bulbous flowering plant of the family Hyacinthaceae and is native to South Africa (Cape Province). Ornithogalum thyrsoides, commonly known as the wonder-flower and star-of Bethlehem, occurs in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces and its distribution extends from Namaqualand to Caledon.

Although Afriflowers is the named applicant, the Agriculture Research Council (Roodeplaat) is responsible for the transformation.

This is the third 'contained use' application turned down by the EC in the past year. Earlier, two contained use applications involving GM sorghum had been turned down on biosafety grounds. This year, ARCÇs application to field test GM cassava was turned down.

It is not clear whether Afriflowers will resubmit its application. If it does, the public may be kept in the dark, as the GMO Act does not require the public to be informed of contained use applications.

14 August 2007

Ireland: Republic announces funding to 'go organic'

Irish News, Special Supplement, 14 August 2007.

The Republic's government has announced a new scheme to support organic farmers.

Producers of organic food will qualify for thousands of euro while they convert their land. The Organic Farming Scheme encourage producers to respond to the market demand for organically-produced food.

It will also deliver enhanced environmental and animal welfare benefits, Trevor Sargent, below, minister of state with responsibility for food and horticulture at the Department of Agriculture and Food, said.

Co-funded by the EU and the Irish taxpayer, it means that for the first time organic farmers can receive funding without being part of the new Rural Environment Protection Scheme (Reps 4) launched last week.

"1 see this as an important change," Mr Sargent said. "Up to now organic farmers had to be in Reps to get support payments.

"Some farmers might have considered the organic option but didn't find that joining Reps as well would have suited their particular situation."

Mr Sargent said small-scale horticultural producers, or large-scale conventional tillage producers who might be interested in converting part of their land to organic cereal production, would benefit.

He said the southern government's commitment to convert a minimum 5 per cent of acreage to organic farmland by 2012 was challenging but achievable, adding that the new scheme should attract more conventional producers to go organic.

An organic farmer will now be able to qualify for up to €21,650 during the conversion period and €15,860 a year with full organic status with Reps.

While those who do not join Reps will still qualify for up to €11,660 during the conversion period, and €5,830 a year once he or she has full organic status.

13 August 2007

USA: GMOs 'A Women's Issue,' Insists Author Of New Book
Calls For Food Labels In U.S.

Calibre Macro World, August 13 2007. By Randall Osborne, West Coast Editor

SAN FRANCISCO - The stronger side of the still-percolating U.S. debate over genetically modified organisms in food is driven by motives that are "blatantly economic, tossing aside safety," said Moira Gunn, National Public Radio host and author of a new book.

"I'm concerned about a society in which one can get a significant change - no matter how tiny this fragment is - into the American food supply without scientific testing," she said. "That's wrong."

Gunn's book, Welcome to Biotech Nation: My Unexpected Odyssey into the Land of Small Molecules, Lean Genes and Big Ideas (Amacom Books; $24.95) chronicles the "BioTech Nation" host's adventures in the industry.

Equipped with advanced degrees in science and engineering - she was the first woman to earn a PhD in the latter from Purdue University - the former NASA employee started her biotech radio show after more than a decade doing NPR's "Tech Nation," which deals with the impact of technology in other areas.

The wide-ranging book, likely to be useful for industry newbies and amusing for biotech veterans, is written in a gee-whiz, Alice-in-Wonderland style (first chapter: "Down the Biotech Rabbit Hole"), and makes the complex science understandable for just about anybody.

Gunn wrote the 258-page book in seven weeks. Interviewing experts, she took an approach that differs from the methods of traditional science reporters. "They're trying to understand so they can explain," she told BioWorld Today. "I never did that. I said, 'You explain. Pretend it's a Fourth of July barbecue, and you have to explain it to your neighbor.' And they were all able to do it. They all wanted to do it."

Although troubled by the rise of diabetes and hepatitis C, Gunn also gets excited about GMOs, and snickered about assertions made during a panel talk at the Biotechnology Industry Organization annual meeting in Boston in May.

Officials at the meeting cited a poll of men and women that found a high acceptance of GMOs in U.S. foods, "but then, a little later on, they said 93 percent of all the food in the U.S. is bought by women," Gunn recalled. "If we asked [women], what they think about that rules change in the upcoming Super Bowl, don't you think they would say, 'Uh, fine with me'?"

Panelists remarked that some activists have tried to make GMOs a "women's issue," thereby hitching the GMO wagon to a larger, stronger lobbying group.

"But it is a women's issue," Gunn said. "We will go to any extent to make sure we have healthy food for our children, and we are doing the right thing for our family. Do you want us to just not ask anymore?"

She recommended the U.S. "GM away the corn for ethanol," and keep modified organisms out of corn as well as every other food, meanwhile labeling those edibles that do contain them. People in other parts of the world "say they would rather starve than eat our corn," she said.

"This is total kitchen research, but all people have this issue with choice, and when you're talking about women and the people they take care of, the people whose children have now gone off to college are even more vociferous," Gunn said. Parents with young children often are too busy and harried to worry much about it, she said, but "women, when they get past that point, go into the organic [foods]."

GMOs in agriculture is "something we've got to clean up, whether we're prepared to do it or not," she said - if not with a ban, then with better regulated research and clear labeling. "We need to show we're changing our ways."

Finland: Finnish minister appeals for GM labelling

NewsRoom Finland, 13 August 2007.

Sirkka-Liisa Anttila, the Finnish agriculture and forestry minister, on Friday urged the food industry to declare in meat packaging if the animal had been fed genetically modified soy.

According to Ms Anttila, such labelling is necessary to preserve the trust of consumers.

"Consumers must have the right to know how and with what sort of feed meat is produced," Ms Anttila said at a Centre party meeting in Hämeenlinna.

The minister said EU regulations allowed the importing of genetically modified soy as pig feed and that Finland could not impose a unilateral ban.

Over the course of the week, two Finnish food groups said they would begin to import genetically modified soy feed.

Australia: Howard Government GM canola push doomed

Gene Ethics Media Release - August 13 2007

"The Howard government's latest report on genetically manipulated (GM) crops is yet another doomed bid for re-election," says Gene Ethics Director, Bob Phelps.

"A new federal government should adopt a more evidence-based, cautious and balanced approach to GM crops and foods," he says.

"We expect the federal ALP and Greens to counsel state Labor Governments to extend their bans on GM canola until 2013 at least," he says.

"Howard government policy is grossly biased by contracts for the research and development of GM organisms between bodies such as CSIRO and the GM giants, Bayer and Monsanto," he says.

"Agriculture Minister McGauran sides with Bayer (the world's biggest agrichemical company) and Monsanto (the world's biggest seed company) to shove genetically manipulated (GM) crops and foods down our throats and into our environment against our will," he says.

"Claims that drought, salt and virus tolerant crops will soon be available are false and misleading as all the research is only at the 'good idea' stage of development and cannot be available within ten years, if ever," he says.

"GM herbicide tolerant canola is the only GM crop on offer and, if fairly assessed on its own merits, Australia should leave it alone," he says.

"For instance, McGauran's 'confidential' report leaked on Sunday fails to mention that over 80% of world canola production is GM-free and that only two of the twenty producing countries - USA and Canada - have adopted herbicide tolerant GM varieties," he says.

"The acreage of GM canola grown world-wide stalled in 1999, so Australia would be adopting canola varieties that are rejected in most parts of the world. It's an absolute dud," he says.

"An EU review of GM crops published last December found that Bayer and Monsanto got 94% of the revenues from GM canola in North America, the farmers got 6%, and shoppers got nothing by way of reduced prices," Mr Phelps says.

"The main plus for North American family farmers from GM crops is extra time to moonlight in an off-farm job, according to a review of the first ten years of GM," he says.

"The GM canola goes into ethanol and animal feed but our GM-free canola oil is in strong demand for human consumption everywhere and we have earned premiums of up to $120 per tonne for it in Europe and Asia since January 2005," he says.

"No-one anywhere is shopping for GM foods so why would we grow them?" he asks.

"Only fools would sacrifice our competitive advantage for GM-free in world markets by siding with our competitors - USA and Canada - to remove the GM-free choice of our many customers," he says.

"Herbicide tolerant GM canola would mean more chemical spraying, more often, and at higher doses, leaving more residues in our food and our environment. No-one wants that," he says.

"The latest survey showed strongest support for chemical and GM-free organic foods, with conventional second and GM a distant third in the race for public acceptance." he concludes.

More comment: Bob Phelps 03 9347 4500 or 0408 195 099 or 03 9889 1717 (H)

10 August 2007

Northern Ireland: Farm industry facing feed price crisis

Farm Week, 10 August 2007. By Cliff Donaldson.

[Photo caption: WARNING: Robin Irvine, president of the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association; Judith Nelson, Agricultural Industries Confederation; and Ryan McAuley, from grain importers W Barnett.]

Animal feed firms are warning of a looming crisis in the Province's farming industry. Huge rises in the cost of raw materials used to make feedstuffs are on the way and - without urgent steps to find alternatives - could drive many farmers out of business.

This stark warning comes from the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association, which says that a rise of around 30 per cent in feed prices now looks inevitable for this winter.

But even this may look relatively modest compared to what could happen in subsequent years - with one "worst case scenario" projection suggesting that within a few years feed prices could increase to a level that would make it impossible for local produce to compete with imported food.

While pig and poultry farms are most vulnerable, the future viability of all livestock farms hangs in the balance.

The main factor behind the crisis is a shortage of non-GM (genetically modified) cereals, which has driven up prices on the world market.

Many of the main grain-producing countries are moving towards GM crops - cheaper supplies of GM grain are available (up to $30/tonne cheaper), but Europe's "zero tolerance" approach to the import of grain produced using GM methods means these importers here must source more expensive non-GM crops.

Briefing food processors and retailers on the growing threat to the Northern Ireland livestock industry, Robin Irvine, Grain Trade Association president, said: "The EU, and particularly Northern Ireland, is dependant on the import of protein rich feeds such as soya and maize products.

"Europe imports more than 70 per cent of protein rich feeds. Northern Ireland is particularly vulnerable in that maize products constitute 30 per cent of beef and dairy feeds.

"The feed price rises will make food production in the EU completely uncompetitive and we will end up importing what has not been EU approved while putting our own industry out of business."

One potential solution would be to persuade Brussels to relax it's tough stance on the import of GM crops. Some grain may only have one per cent GM content, and is much cheaper than the guaranteed GM-free crops that feed firms currently use, but is banned from entering Europe.

However, European consumers have made clear their opposition to the use of GM crops - so EU politicians are unlikely to press for any change in the current legislation.

Cliff Kells, from Tesco, said that consumers wanted GM-free food - but many would not fully realise that there might be a considerable difference in price.

Judith Nelson, from the Agricultural Industries Confederation, speaking to industry leaders in Belfast, said it was essential to raise the growing feed price crisis with local politicians and MEPs.

"I'm not making a case for or against GM crops, but it's clear that the agricultural industry is facing some very serious issues. One approach might be to adopt a sensible tolerance for the low level presence of GM traits in crops (that are authorised by other countries outside the EU).

"This would enable, for example, the import of grains with one or two percent GM content.

"Based on recent studies by the EU Food Safety Authority, no GM can be detected in milk, meat or eggs from animals fed on GM feedstuffs."

She also called for Brussels to re-examine the GM issue in light of the potential damage to agriculture through high-priced feed supplies.

For example, the European Food Safety Authority has pronounced the GM maize trait Herculex safe for import for both animal and human food and safe for the environment - it is already in use in eight different countries around the world Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico and the US yet it is still pending approval in the EU.

Robin Irvine said said that, without urgent action, the consumer would no longer have the choice between imported product and competitively priced locally grown.

"It will be a choice between imported food and an extremely high- priced local product," he said.

"The irony of the situation is that, rather than protect consumers, this will expose them to even greater risks. By imposing such heavy penalties on local production, and making our producers less competitive, they are actually encouraging imports from regions which are much less regulated.

"In the parts of the world where genetically modified feeds are not restricted, where meat and bone meal can be fed to animals and where antibiotic growth promoters are still permitted, meat can be produced at a much lower cost."

Mr Irvine added: "The Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association is not anti GM free feed materials - our members are involved in supplying GM free feed, organic feed and other speciality feeds for the markets and consumers which demand those products.

"The lack of decision making in Brussels penalises the whole of food production within Europe.

"The situation can only worsen as GM crops are increasingly cultivated in the major exporting countries. Further GM maize traits and GM soya are in the pipeline for approval.

"At present the EU takes a minimum of two and a half years to authorise new GM plant materials while the average in the US is 15 months. If soya varieties do not receive swift approval as they come on stream then the intensive industries will be seriously affected especially the poultry industry as there is no alternative feed material."

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

How can the Farm Week publish such nonsense? This article contains numerous completely false statements:

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Europe does not have a "zero tolerance" approach to GM animal feed.

•

Importers do not source more expensive non-GM crops: 95% of the maize and soya animal feed ingredients they import are GM, and have been for years.

•

Certified non-GMO soya feed ingredients - the most important source of protein - are widely available from Brazil for a tiny premium of around € 0.1 (1 cent) per kilo above the daily price set by the Chicago Board of Trade.

•

Around half the US maize crop remains GM free; the vast majority of the EU crop is GM-free, and as of a few weeks ago, there was a surplus.

•

The increased cost of maize for animal feed is the result of the massive diversion of US corn into ethanol biofuel. This has nothing to do with GM, except that peak oil will divert more US food maize to biofuel use, and the biotech industry has seized this opportunity to promote more GM maize which will in turn contaminate conventional varieties.

•

The article quotes the European Food Safety Authority's claim that no GM can be detected in milk, meat or eggs from animals fed on GM feedstuffs. But numerous scientific studies prove that GM genes - including promoter genes made from virus DNA and antibiotic-resistant genes - can survive digestion in both livestock and humans, and become incorporated into internal organs, with the potential for chronic disease as well as hereditary damage to future generations.

All this misinformation sets the stage for the biotech industry bombshell: EU laws must be downgraded to accomodate the biotech industry by allowing our food chain to be contaminated via up to two per cent of illegal GM varieties in animal feed!

Feed costs are not increasing because responsible farmers continue to grow conventional GM-free crops. They are increasing because of the interlinked impacts of fossil fuel inputs, climate change (including droughts and floods), diversion of food crops to biofuels, and an unsustainable industrial agri-business-biotech model of food mass-production that is totally dependent on fossil fuel inputs for fertiliser, pesticides, refrigeration and long-distance transportation. As the impacts of peak oil and climate change worsen, feed costs will rise further.

GM industrial farming is part of the problem, not the solution.

The European-wide market rejection of GM food, including meat and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM ingredients, makes it clear that European consumers want high quality, safe GM-free food - even it it means paying a little more.

It is very worrying that the specialised farm press, including the Irish Farmers Journal and now Farm Week, are colluding with the biotech industry's spin doctors to misinform farmers on both sides of the border. Legitimate arguments are one thing, but disinformation on the scale of the above article is an outrage.

The Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association is the regional arm of UKESTA (United Kingdom Agricultural Supply Trade Association). Its "warning" is clearly intended to mobilise farmers to oppose the joint policies of the Northern Ireland Minister for Agriculture, Michelle Gildernew, and of the new government in the Republic, to declare the whole island of Ireland off-limits to GMO crops, with a voluntary phase-out of GM animal feed.

This policy is bad news for the likes of Monsanto, which is desperately trying to genetically modify and patent all of the European maize crop within a matter of years so as to obtain monopoly control of the animal feed corn supply.

But implementation of the plan to declare the whole island of Ireland a GMO-free crop zone (with a voluntary phase-out of GM animal feed) will give farmers on both sides of the border a clear competitive advantage over their EU neighbours in providing EU consumers with the high quality, safe GM-free food which the market demands. Given our low use of animal feed compounds compared with our EU neighbours, our mostly grass-fed livestock, our geographical isolation from transboundary contamination by wind-borne pollen from other countries, our very dioxin-free topsoil, Ireland's nuclear-free and incinerator-free status, and our world famous clean green food island image, we are ideally positioned to have the most credible safe GM-free food brand in the whole of Europe.

For more detailed information, see the article "Declaring Ireland a GMO-free zone" published in the Irish Examiner farm supplement on 26 July at http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/july.php#moc.

9 August 2007

Ireland: Health risks from GM crops and food need to be considered

Irish Farmers Journal, Letters to the Editor, 9 August (dated 11 August) 2007.

Dear Sir,

I would like to praise the new government for making its aim to have a GM- free Ireland in the very near future. If they bring this aim and make it a law of the land it will be a successful government.

I would like to take an issue with Jim McCarthy, Castledermot, Co. Kildare who had a letter in last week's Irish Farmers Journal. Not once in his letter did he mention the health risks to humans and to animals from GM crops and food.

In 2003, approximately 100 people living next to a GM BT cornfield in the Philippines developed skin, respiratory and intestinal reactions while the corn was shedding pollen. More than 20 farmers in North America report that pigs fed GM corn varieties had pigs, both male and female, that became sterile.

When given a choice, many animals avoid eating GM food. In farmer-run tests, cows and pigs repeatedly passed up GM corn. Animals have a sense about food.

I am a farmer from West Limerick and I say to Jim Mc Carthy and to the powerful pro-GM lobby that the genetic engineering of seeds ó the growing of GM crops in general, is a failed and dangerous technology. Russia knows it is dangerous because it has banned the import of animal feed contaminated with GM The Pre- sident of Poland has also declared his inten- tion of making Poland a GMO free zone.

Con Cremin, Kilcolman, Ardagh, Co. Limerick

Canadian Government attacks GM-free Ireland campaign

GM Watch, 9 August 2007.

Comment: PANTS ON FIRE award winner, Shane Morris seems to be up to his old tricks again.

As you may remember, Morris and his co-authors managed to carry off our PROPAGANDA LAB AWARD for 2006, after New Scientist reported on how a leading researcher into scientific ethics had called for the withdrawal of their paper published in the British Food Journal (BFJ). http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9235-controversy-over-claims-in-favour-of-gm-corn.html

This followed the publication on our website of a photograph showing a sign suspended above the non-GM corn during their study of consumer preferences that asked: "Would you eat wormy sweet corn?" The GM corn, with which it was being compared, had been labelled "quality sweet corn". And none of this was disclosed in the published paper ! http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page=1

Despite this, and other instances of glaring experiementer bias, the editor of the BFJ refused to withdraw the paper, which the journal had honoured with an award, saying he'd leave it up to BFJ readers to make up their own minds as to its merits.

Now Shane Morris is claiming on his blog that the GM-free Ireland Network has issued a "correction with an apology" on their website for labelling his scientific claims "fraudulent" in an unpublished letter. http://www.gmoireland.blogspot.com/

Morris also seems to have promoted this as a news flash, see - "Anti-GM activist group issues a correction with an apology": http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2007/08/flash-ant-gm-activist-group-issues.html

But when we visited the GM-free Ireland website, we found this was simply not true. Although the "f" word had been replaced by XXXXXXXXXXs, following the legal threats described below, we could find absolutely no trace of an apology - in fact, rather the reverse! http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/jun.php#shane

We also found that the wording of the supposed correction that Morris had reproduced on his blog had been taken completely out of context, as can also be seen below, in a way designed to put Shane Morris's words in the mouth of GM-free Ireland!!!

All in all, it seems those smoking undergarments were richly deserved. http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7495

Canadian Government attacks GM-free Ireland campaign

GM-free Ireland Network, 3 August 2007.

The GM-free Ireland Network is the subject of on-going attack by a biotech industry lobbyist called Shane Morris, who is a paid agent of the Canadian Government!

Canada is the world's second largest producer of GM crops. According to the Canadian Government Electronic Directory Services on 22 July 2007, Shane Morris is a Senior Consumer Analyst at the Consumer Analysis Section of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (download proof of employment): http://www.gmfreeireland.org/morris/ShaneMorris.pdf.

The Canadian government agent's interference in Ireland's GMO policy making process includes:

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A web blog at http://www.gmoireland.blogspot.com designed to discredit Ireland's GMO-free zone policy, the Minister of State for food and Horticulture, the Green Party, the Irish Doctors Environmental Association, and the GM-free Ireland Network;

•

persuading Bord Bía to withdraw agreed sponsorship for our Green Ireland conference on branding for food, farming and eco-tourism in 2006 [Bord Bía - the Irish Food Board - is the government agency responsible for trade and market development of Irish food, drink and horticulture]: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/conference/trans/bordbia.php;

•

complaining to the Ireland Funds for their co-sponsorship of the Briefing on Food Safety and GMOs co-hosted by the European Parliament Independence / Democracy Group and the GM-free Ireland Network at the European Parliament Office in Dublin on 15 June 2007;

•

defamatory personal attacks on Michael O'Callaghan, Percy Schmeiser and others;

•

letter-writing campaign to Irish newspapers (see news coverage for June and July 2007): http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/jun.php and http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/july.php;

•

threat of libel action against the GM-free Ireland Network and our internet service provider in July 2007, unless we agreed to publish the following statement in relation to an unpublished letter* sent to the editor of the Irish Times on 29 June 2007, in which we referred to a controversial scientific paper co-authored by Morris:

Gmfreeireland.org would like to correct a claim previously made that Shane Morris made "fraudulent scientific claims". Gmfreeireland.org acknowledges such a claim has no legal basis and would like to point out that: - No findings of fraud were ever made by the British Food Journal in regards to the claims in the publication in question. - The paper in question remains published as a valid piece of scholarly research. - The academic award for the paper remains valid. - A letter of explanation on the matter was published in the British Food Journal 2006 Vol 108, Issue 8

[The letter's a long-winded piece of sophistry that, apart from denying the obvious, contradicts Shane Morris's claim that the wormy corn sign had not been present during the data collection period - GMW]

According to Joe Cummins (Emeritus Professor of Genetics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada):

"I think it is worth reminding people that Shane is a bureaucrat in Agriculture Canada and his views are supported by that Ministry. It is very clear that the Canadian government hired Shane and promote him in the Ministry as a way of promoting GM crops. Shane's attacks may seem like sheer lunacy to most of us but the Canadian bureaucrats think that he is brilliant in damaging the detractors of GM crops. I expect that they will hire other nationals who will attack those opposed to GM crops in their home countries."

* [unpublished letter] http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/jun.php#shane

For a photo of the "wormy corn" sign: http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page= 1

For related correspondence in the British Food Journal: http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=9&sc=62&id=897

For a GM Watch profile of the paper's lead author: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=257

_______________________

Australia: Farmers group slams report that supports GM

ABC, 09/08/2007

The Network of Concerned Farmers has hit out at a new grains industry report which endorses the production of genetically modified canola in Australia.

The report, by Single Vision Australia, says GM and conventional canola crops could be segregated here and that pollination contamination would not lock growers out of conventional markets.

It also says Canada is receiving better prices for GM canola than Australia is for non-GM varieties.

But network member Arthur Bowman refutes the findings.

"Canada tried to segregate for the sake of their markets and they couldn't do it," he said.

"Right now we can sell anywhere throughout the world.

"As was quoted by Kim Chance, last year we were selling at a premium to Canadian prices in 2006 and we have also had another report from Mark Martin from Market Ag saying that canola prices this year will again produce a premium because of the fact that we have a GM-free product."

USA: Hidden Dangers in Kids' Meals: Genetically Engineered Foods

Set of three videos on DVD by Jeffrey M. Smith
Orders: Tel (outside the U.S. add 001) 888 717 7000 or via www.gmfreeschools.org

GM Watch review by Claire Robinson

While Jeffrey Smith's book "Genetic Roulette: The documented health risks of genetically modified foods" is a model of clarity, it isn't everyone's idea of bedtime reading. For those of us who, at the end of a day's work, find anything more demanding than The Simpsons a challenge, or for the many who would rather learn by watching and listening than by picking up a hefty book, Smith has provided a solution. He has produced a set of three accessible videos that present the health dangers of eating GM foods, with a special focus on children. Children are most at risk because they have fast-developing bodies that respond more drastically to toxins, their immune systems are less formed and thus more susceptible to allergies, and any problems with nutrition can affect them for life.

Though there are three videos in this set, it is (in football manager parlance) a game of two halves. The first two videos set out the dangers and proven harm of GM foods. The third video presents the enlightened alternative: the Wisconsin School Nutrition Program, which has seen extraordinarily positive results from feeding schoolchildren natural, unprocessed food, and perhaps not coincidentally, from avoiding GM foods.

Video number one features a posse of scientists reporting adverse findings from research on GM foods and explaining why they should worry us. Then there are the inadequate regulations. US FDA apparatchiks override the warnings of their own scientists in line with a government edict to foster the biotech industry. Monsanto people slip into the FDA via the revolving door to write the policy that allows Monsanto GM foods onto the market.

Then, the problems begin. Experienced farmers tell how female pigs fed Bt corn deliver bags of water or nothing instead of a litter of piglets. When farmers stop giving GM feed, the problem goes away. Given a choice, many animals, including cows and deer, won't eat GM feed. Professor of Ecology Terje Traavik warns of coming "ecological and health catastrophes" from GM foods. University of Minnesota biologist Phil Regal predicts: "People who push genetic engineering are going to have to do a 'mea culpa', come clean, ask for forgiveness, and admit they made a mistake, like the Pope did about the Inquisition."

The second video is a filmed talk by Smith. He's a dramatist and story-teller who weaves science into his narrative in a way that is utterly compelling. And he does it all without notes or autocue, and without "ums" or "ers". Here's an idea for a class study topic: watch Smith speak, then George W. Bush. Question: which one eats GM foods?

Smith tells the story of the l-tryptophan catastrophe, in which 5-10,000 Americans got sick and hundreds died after eating an l-tryptophan supplement made using GM bacteria. Many of us are familiar with the bones of the story, but the details as fleshed out by Smith show the corruption of the regulators. The symptoms of the disease were horrific. People's hair fell out; they suffered the worst pain their doctors had ever seen; their white blood cell counts went sky-high. But here's the rub: the epidemic was only noticed and its cause traced because the disease was acute, rare, and had a fast onset. If any one of these conditions had been absent, the disease would have slipped under the radar. Thus, though the incidence of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes continues to rise in the US, no one can tell if GM is a culprit, because these diseases are chronic, common, and slow in onset.

With l-tryptophan, the FDA went to great lengths to deny any GM link. The FDA's biotech coordinator James Maryanski claimed that two dozen cases of the rare disease had shown up *before* genetic modification of the bacteria began in 1988, and thus GM was not the likely cause. The FDA leapt on the alternative cause favored by industry, a new filter that failed to take out impurities. Interestingly, nobody in government or industry was curious to know why this brand of l-tryptophan uniquely contained dangerous impurities that needed to be filtered out in the first place.

Then, a bomb dropped. A confidential document, forced into the open by writer William Crist, revealed that the strain of l-tryptophan implicated in the disease was GM *strain number five*. GM strains one to four had been used in the production of l-tryptophan since 1984 - and Centers for Disease Control documents showed that at least a hundred people, not two dozen, as FDA claimed, got the disease before 1988.

Crist wondered why the FDA didn't know about the earlier GM strains. Then he noticed a fax imprint on the document: "FDA September 17, 1990." It had been faxed by the FDA. The FDA already knew back in 1990 that the earlier strains were GM, but as late as 1996 Maryanski was still claiming ignorance.

An even greater omission occurred in July 1991, when Douglas Archer, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, testified to Congress about the epidemic. Not only did he not discuss the earlier bacterial strains, he did not mention GM. Instead, he blamed the disease on "health fraud schemes" - alternative health supplements. The FDA used this lie to take all l-tryptophan, GM or not, off the market.

After Smith recounts another set of lies that were woven by industry and the FDA to get Monsanto's GM bovine growth hormone rBGH approved, the third video provides welcome inspiration. "The Wisconsin School Phenomenon" tells the astonishing story of a failing special needs school, Appleton Central Alternative School, that was turned around simply by a change in school meals. Processed, sugary, and junk foods were banished, and natural, unprocessed, fresh foods were brought in.

Before the Wisconsin nutrition programme started in 1997, teachers described the students as rude, obnoxious, and out-of-control. Weapons violations were common, and the school asked a cop to patrol the school full-time. But once the food and drinks were changed, the atmosphere was transformed. The students became calm. Discipline problems vanished. Once a year, the principal has to fill in a state report giving the number of dropouts, expulsions, drugs offences, weapons violations, and suicides. Since the programme began, she says, "Zeros are what I have to report." Academic learning has also improved.

Though this video does not mention GM, Smith points out that most GM foods in the human food supply are concentrated into processed foods, and an enterprising young scientist has already raised the question of behavioral effects when he turned experimental mice into anti-social and frightened creatures simply by giving them GM feed.

British readers of this review who followed TV chef Jamie Oliver's heroic struggle to feed schoolchildren healthy food on the government-set budget of 37p (75 US cents) per meal - less than prisons budget for their inmates - may be wondering about the cost of all this. The school principal explains that one cost reduces another: "I don't have vandalism, litter, or high security." The school district superintendent confirms that due to the success of the programme, he was able to cut USD 5 million out of his operating budget in two years. One problem that Jamie faced - obese mothers shoving emergency supplies of junk food through the school railings at their poor, deprived offspring - doesn't seem to have arisen in the US, where parents and students fully support the programme. It must help that the programme has spread to elementary and middle schools, so children are educated into healthy eating habits at an early age.

The conclusion of these videos is that we can choose either one of two worlds. In the first, the food that should nourish children, poisons them; the regulators who should protect children, endanger them; and the science that seeks truth is twisted into lies. In the second, the truth is as simple and obvious as it should be: nature provides delicious food, and the children who eat it have a radiance that (if the food programme was widely adopted) could reverse the mass exodus from the teaching profession. The choice is, as they say in the US, a no-brainer.

German government approves new GM crop law

ENDS Europe daily 2372, 8 August 2007.

The German government has approved a draft law establishing rules for cultivating genetically modified (GM) crops. The law sets out rules for compensating non-GM organic and conventional farmers if their crops are contaminated, and stipulates crop separation distances.

The draft law is intended to transpose the 2001 revision of the EU's "deliberate release" directive and is Germany's second attempt at establishing rules for GM crops. The first was drawn up by former Green agriculture minister Renate K¸nast two years ago but rejected by Germany's upper house of parliament as too restrictive (EED 02/05/05 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/18714). The new version will also require parliamentary approval.

Under the provisions GM farmers will be liable for damages if their crops contaminate nearby non-GM crops above the EU's 0.9 per cent "adventitious presence" threshold. For maize cultivation, GM varieties will have to be grown at least 150 metres from the nearest conventional varieties and 300 metres from the nearest organically-grown varieties.

Farmers will have to inform other farmers of any intention to cultivate GM crops, and consult local authorities on environmental restrictions that apply. The draft law also allows products such as milk and meat to be labelled GM-free if derived from animals not fed on GM produce.

Environmental group Bund and several organic farmers blasted the law for being too lax on separation distances and the contamination threshold. "The 0.9% threshold is meaningless, as any contamination of my crops below that is still contamination," one organic farmer told public television channel ARD.

See German agriculture ministry press release
http://www.bmelv.de/cln_045/nn_754188/DE/04-Landwirtschaft/Gentechnik/Novel lierungGentechnikrecht.html__nnn=true

ARD press report
http://www.tagesschau.de/aktuell/meldungen/0,1185,OID7249974_TYP6_THE_NAV_R EF1_BAB,00.html

and Bund reaction
http://www.bund.net/lab/reddot2/aktuell_pressemitteilungen_6453.htm

Canada: Greenpeace carves question mark on genetically engineered crop
Group calls on B.C. to require mandatory GMO labelling

CBC News, 8 August 2007.

Greenpeace activists cut a 61-metre-long question mark inside a crop circle in an Abbotsford, B.C., cornfield Wednesday morning, in protest of the absence of genetically engineered food labelling in Canada.

The question mark was to signify all the questions around the safety of genetically engineered corn - both from its consumption and its potential spread to nearby organic farms, said Josh Brandon, a genetic engineering campaigner with Greenpeace in B.C.

The cornfield Greenpeace targeted grows a variety of corn - genetically engineered by the agricultural company Monsanto - known as NK603 corn.

Brandon said they submitted a Greenpeace report to B.C. Health Minister George Abbott on Wednesday, pointing to new scientific evidence that they say highlights the dangers of genetically modified corn.

"These data were from a rat feeding study," he said. "They showed that the rats that were fed with [genetically engineered] corn NK603 showed statistically significant differences compared to the rats that were fed the non-[genetically engineered] corn."

The corn proved toxic to the rats' liver and kidneys, and impaired their growth, he said.

The genetically engineered corn is being grown in B.C. primarily for the animal feed market, and even if it's just fed to animals, it will work its way through the food chain to humans, Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace is calling on the B.C. government to require mandatory genetically modified organism labelling.

"We're asking the ministers to put consumers first and put labels on [genetically engineered] products," Brandon said. "People have the right to know what's in their food, especially when so many [genetically engineered] foods on our store shelves have been associated with health risks."

Canada does not require labelling of GMO foods, which Greenpeace said is putting the nation in a shrinking group of countries worldwide.

Health Canada's website says this about labelling of genetically modified foods: "In principle, food products derived from genetic modification that are demonstrated to be safe and nutritious, are treated the same as non-genetically modified foods with regard to labelling requirements.

"In cases where a product has been intentionally modified, special labelling is required to inform consumers of the change to the product."

About 40 countries around the world already have mandatory labelling legislation, Brandon said.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace is promising to compensate the Abbotsford farmer for the full market value of the loss due to the circle, Brandon said.

Finland's LSO faces GM demo

NewsRoom Finland, 6.8.2007

A group of some 50 demonstrators gathered in Forssa in southern Finland to demonstrate against an earlier decision by LSO Foods to import genetically modified soy protein to make pig feed.

Hannes Tuohiniitty, a spokesman for a campaign against genetically modified food and feed, said the activists had been joined by ordinary consumers who did not want to eat GM-sourced food.

The demonstrators underlined that the pig feed imported by LSO was the first GM product taken into widespread use in Finland and urged consumers to boycott the products of HKScan and J”rvi-Suomen Portti, both customers of LSO.

The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation joined the call for a boycott.

The Meat Board, part of the Finnish Food and Drink Industries' Federation, said in a statement that the use of genetically modified soy protein could not be avoided given the present competitive situation.

It added that most of the meat imported into Finland came from countries where GM feed was already used.

8 August 2007

New rules for GMO crops in Germany

Reuters, 8 August 2007.

The German government has agreed new draft rules for cultivation of genetically modified (GMO) crops, including a minimum buffer zone from conventional plantings.

The cabinet approved a draft law from Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer for local German rules for cultivation of GMO crops which the European Union has already authorised.

Under the rules, there must be a 150-metre gap between GMO crops and conventional crops to prevent cross-pollination. A 300-metre gap must be kept from fields with organic crops.

Changes in the minimum distances would be permitted if neighbouring farmers agreed.

Farmers growing GMO crops will be liable to pay financial compensation if neighbouring plantings are tainted with more than 0.9 percent GMO content.

The precise form of liability is still being examined.

Seehofer said on German radio that some form of insurance for GMO farmers was being considered. The national register of GMO plantings would continue.

Germany's parliament is set to debate the draft law later this year. Seehofer said the proposals would create a legal framework for cultivation of and research into GMO crops which the EU has legalised.

German farmers' association DBV criticised the proposals, saying in a statement that the rules would be too complex and that a single unified buffer zone for conventional and organic crops was needed.

The DBV also criticised the lack of detail about financial liability. "Neither farmers nor the insurance industry has been given a sufficient basis for the calculation of possible liability," the DBV said.

The European Union has authorised commercial production of several GMO maize varieties. But the lack of a legal framework in Germany has kept cultivation low. Official estimates show that only about 3,700 hectares of GMO maize was planted this year in Germany, up from 955 hectares in 2006.

The draft law was criticised by environmental pressure groups. The BUND said the buffer zones were too small and would permit uncontrolled cross-pollination of conventional crops.

Organic farming association Naturland said the GMO contamination level of 0.9 percent was too high and that its members would be unable to sell such crops as organic.

USA: Wednesday Morning Corn Update

The Linn Group Inc, 8 August 2007.

The corn market rallied higher on the back of the bean market and the lack of rain in central and southern areas of the corn belt and the hot weather starting to show some damage. Firming corn values across the world and feed wheat issues also contributed to the rally. Many traders didnøt feel we would see much price action before the release of the USDA report on Friday morning, but outside conditions helped push prices higher. The world is dependent on a huge US corn crop and any threat to this crop will cause price jumps because there is very little room for error. Monday, the corn market sold off on the big rains over the weekend across the northern corn belt and those areas have received rains all week, but the central and especially the southern belt have received not rain and are having mid 90øs to 100 degree temps this week. Some traders also said we could be seeing some short covering in front of the USDA report as many funds and traders have been short the corn market are were not worried about a rally. Volume was moderate/heavy and funds came after the corn buying almost 10,000 contracts by the end of the trading session. The average bu. per acre yield estimated by analysts ranges from 148.5 to 154.4 vs. the USDA July estimate of 150.3 bu per acre.

Demand for world corn remains strong as many European feed needs canøt be met by the US because of anti-GMO laws, so they are scouring the rest of the world for their feed needs, thus pushing up corn prices.

Ireland's food policy

Letter to the Editor of the Belfast Telegraph

Sir,

Your article :"GM 'vital for cheap food;" (6 August) failed to mention that half the animal feed compounds used by farmers on this island is made up of non-GMO ingredients. Most of the other half comes from GM maize and GM soya. That means less than half of the total is GM, and certified non-GMO substitutes are available and affordable now. Moreover, unlike many other EU countries, these feed compounds make up only a small part of the diet of our cattle and sheep which are mostly grass-fed.

The Herculex GM maize is an unapproved variety that was illegally imported into Ireland and sold to Irish farmers in April. The claim that the EU's recent decision to not retroactively legalise it "could mean that feed costs in Europe could reach an increase of 25% by 2009" is part of a biotech industry propaganda myth that is being widely disseminated in the Irish and UK media. 95% of the maize and soya feed products imported to the Republic already come from other genetically modified varieties, none of which are affected by the Herculex decision.

The agri-biotech industry is freaking out because GM crop patents are being revoked by the European and US patent offices, GM crops are banned in all or parts of 22 EU member states, there is no market for GM food in Europe, and leading retailers are starting to exclude meat, poultry and dairy products from livestock fed on GM ingredients.

EU maize imports have greatly declined in the last decade, and half the US crop remains GM-free. There is a current surplus of GM-free maize grown in Europe, and certified non-GMO soya is widely available at minimal extra cost. Farmers and food exporters who avoid GM animal feed are already recouping this by premia from the retail sector.

If American farmers can't sell their unwanted GM feed in Europe, let them grow conventional crops instead! Besides, peak oil and the divertion of US maize to biofuels means that farmers on this island will need to become more self-reliant for animal feed in the coming years.

Declaring the whole island of Ireland off-limits to GMO crops, with a voluntary phase-out of GM animal feed, will give farmers on both sides of the border a clear competitive advantage over their EU neighbours in providing EU consumers with the high quality, safe GM-free food which the market demands. For details, see the article "Declaring Ireland a GMO-free zone" published in the Irish Examiner farm supplement on 26 July at http://www.gmfreeireland.org/news/2007/july.php#moc.

Yours etc

Michael O'Callaghan
Co-ordinator
GM-free Ireland Network

6 August 2007

Ireland: GM 'vital for cheap food'

Belfast Telegraph, August 6, 2007. By Linda McKee

Animal feed costs could rocket by 25% in the next two years if the EU does not approve a genetically modified strain of maize. That's the message from the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association (NIGTA), which is warning that food production in the EU could become uncompetitive as a result.

Ulster consumers will no longer be able to choose between imported meat and competitively priced local meat, but will instead have to pay high prices for local produce, NIGTA president Robin Irvine warned yesterday.

In a briefing to food processors and retailers, he insisted that a lack of decision-making in Brussels is putting European food production and safety at risk.

The GM maize trait Herculex was pronounced safe for import for animal and human food, but EU approval is pending.

Mr Irvine said: "The EU and particularly Northern Ireland is dependant on the import of protein-rich feeds such as soya and maize products, and predictions by Brussels officials are that approval delays could mean that feed costs in Europe could reach an increase of 25% by 2009. This will make food production in the EU completely uncompetitive."

Japan: Spilled GM canola growing in Japan - Citizens' survey results 2007

No GMO Campaign, 6 August 2007. By Keisuke Amagasa.

On July 7, 2007, NO! GMO Campaign published the findings of a survey of spilled GM canola found growing in Japan. The survey was carried out from March 2007 onwards by citizens in 43 out of the total of 47 prefectures in Japan. In total, 1617 samples were tested and of these 37 showed up as GMO positive. A similar survey was also conducted in South Korea *.

The samples were collected not only around ports where canola (oilseed rape) is imported, and around factories where canola oil is extracted, as well as along canola transportation routes, but also in some urban areas and on farmland.

Oilseed rape is not cultivated much in Japan, so Japan mostly imports it from Canada and Australia. 80% of the canola imports come from Canada, and are presumably GM. Non-GM canola is imported from Australia.

GM canola produced in Canada is all herbicide tolerant - half to Monsanto's 'Roundup' and half to Bayer CropScience's 'Basta'.

Imported canola seeds are stored in port warehouses, then driven to oil extraction facilities by trucks. Seeds are easily spilled during transportation to warehouses and factories, and also during loading and unloading.

Surveying spilled GM canola began in 2005, so this is the 3rd year of citizens' surveys. In 2005 and 2006, GM canola was confirmed to be growing around Chiba port, Kashima port, Nagoya port, Shimizu port, Yokkaichi port, Kobe port, Uno port, and Hakata port. Moreover, high proportions of the GM canola were confirmed to be growing around oil extraction facilities and near to transportation routes. There were some cases where GM canola was found growing away from transportation routes, including along residential streets in Nagano prefecture and Oita Prefecture. This confirms that GM canola pollution is much more widespread than expected.

According to this year's findings, GM canola found near to an oil extraction factory in Chiba prefecture was tolerant to both Roundup and Basta. As there is no GM canola variety currently available which has transgenes for both types of herbicide tolerance, this GM canola must have been crossed at a seed or cultivation stage, or possibly at the spot where it was spilled.

Another finding, according to surveys conducted by a team lead by Professor Masaharu Kawata (Yokkaichi University) in Mie prefecture between 2005 and 2007, is that GM canola is becoming perennial. It is not common for canola to be biennial due to the cold Canadian winters, but in the warmer winters in Japan, canola can survive for several years and became like a bushy tree, and pollen from GM canola then continues to spread year after year. Thus, the environmental impact caused by spilled GM canola seeds is potentially very serious in Japan.

According to Professor Kawata, "There are leaf mustard and conventional rapeseed growing around the spilled GM canola plants, so it is only a matter of time before they are crossed and contaminated by GMOs. Also, some other cruciferous vegetables like Japanese radish and Chinese cabbage are in danger of GM contamination."

A common finding in 2007 was that the GM positive canolas were found growing around ports in Yashiro City in Kumamoto prefecture and Shibushi City in Kagoshima prefecture where animal feed factories are situated. Rapeseed meal is produced after the oil is extracted and is then used for animal feed.

From now on, samples will also need to be collected around ports near feed factories.

Japan does not produce any GM crops. However, because Japan imports GM canola from Canada, GM contamination has already occurred and it is spreading to a much greater degree than one could imagine. If GM crops are cultivated, then this kind of pollution will spread even more. Judging by the ominous precedent of Canada, once GM crops are cultivated, segregation between GM and non-GM will become almost impossible, and keeping pure non-GM varieties away from GM contamination will be very hard.

The clear conclusion from the findings is that cultivating or importing GM crops, leads to GM pollution and once this pollution begins, it can cause irreversible damage.

The nationwide survey of spilled GM canola in 2007 (Prefecture / samples / Roundup) Basta Fukuoka / 402 / 14 / 9
Kumamoto / 37 / 0 / 1
Kagoshima / 22 / 0 / 1
Hyogo / 27 / 1 / 1
Osaka / 114 / 0 / 1
Chiba / 170 / 3 / 2 > Shizuoka / 43 / 2 / 2 Other 36 prefectures / 802 / 0 / 0
Total / 1617 / 20 / 17

This survey was conducted by citizens all over Japan. 1500 people participated.

Zambia: Angry African Reaction to GMO Industry Press Statement
In reality, Africa spoke with one voice against the US and Europe on GMO products.

Rallyround, 6 August 2007. By Trevor Wells.

"We in the alliance will not incorporate GMO's in our programmes. We shall work with farmers using traditional seeds."

According to the Africa News Network the Zambian Government today reacted angrily to a presumptuous press release by the industry front "African Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum" (ABSF).

The Zambian Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Ben Kapita, said, "We have always said that Zambia will not be used as a dumping place for GMO products."

The press release issued by the industry backed ABSF confirms "the stay away from GMO's" approach of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) announced by the newly appointed Chair Kofi Annan.

This hands off approach was confirmed at the annual conference of the Grantmakers Without Borders (GWOB). Roy Steiner, Senior Program Officer Agricultural Development, Gates Foundation and Gary Toenniessen of the Rockefeller Foundation, reaffirmed,clearly and uncategorically that " AGRA is not investing in GM breeding."

Read the full article: http://www.flag-sa.org/blog/rallyround.html

India: GMO crops launch delay hurts seed industry

The Economic Times (India), August 6 2007

MUMBAI: India's hesitation to allow sale of genetically modified food and cash crops other than cotton is cramping growth of the biotech-based seed industry, players said.

After Bt Cotton received the nod in 2002, the federal government has withheld approval for the commercialisation of any other genetically modified (GMO) crop.

Read the full article.

5 August 2007

UK: Monsanto goes GMO-free in its cafeteria

www.bioethica.com, 5 August 2007. By Ingrid Naiman.

From now on, staff at the British Headquarters of biotech giant Monsanto will be eating only non-genetically modified products on their lunch breaks. Foods containing genetically modified soy and corn are no longer available in the company cafeteria. Granada Food Services, which maintains the canteen, is said to be concerned about health risks. Monsanto's press department contends that the action was not the result of a boycott initiated by the worried employees of the U.S. multinational.

USA: Grocery giant switching to milk free of synthetic hormones

The Associated Press, August 5 2007

ST. LOUIS - One of the nation's largest retail grocery chains has announced plans to switch to milk free of synthetic [genetically engineered] hormones.

The announcement Wednesday from Kroger Co. is another blow to Monsanto Co., which already had been reducing inventory of its milk production-boosting hormone as Starbucks Coffee Co. and other retailers rejected it.

Monsanto markets the hormone rBST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin, under the brand name Posilac. The Food and Drug Administration and the company insist the hormone is safe.

Kroger said consumer preference prompted its decision. The retailer began moving toward rBST-free milk this year in Louisiana and Texas stores. By February, Kroger plans to sell only milk certified as free of synthetic hormones at the 2,458 stores it operates in 31 states

4 August 2007

Australia: Trans-Tasman rift emerges over GE corn

ABC News, August 4 2007

A split has emerged between New Zealand and Australia over the approval of a type of genetically-engineered (GE) corn.

The New Zealand Food Safety Minister has overridden the joint food authority's approval of the corn for human consumption.

New Zealand has deferred the approval of Monsanto's high lysine genetically-engineered corn under its Food Safety guidelines.

The corn is engineered to add weight to pigs and poultry but has been approved for human consumption by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).

FSANZ's Lydia Buchtmann says the GE corn is safe for humans.

"We've gone out and done additional work on this, and had it peer reviewed so we're highly confident that it's safe," she said.

Greenpeace's Louise Sales says only uncooked GE corn has been tested on animals.

"It's the cooking process that can actually cause the formation of dangerous compounds," she said.

The joint food authority says the approval is in case the GE corn is accidentally mixed with food products.

The New Green Revolution in Africa: Trojan Horse for GMOs?

BiosafetyAfrica.net, 4 August 2007. By Mariam Mayet

[EXTRACTS FROM INTRODUCTION]

After more than 10 years of genetically modified (GM) crop plants being grown in the world, only South Africa out of 53 countries on the African continent have commercial plantings of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) [but]... a multitude of genetic engineering and biosafety projects have been initiated in Africa, with the aim of introducing GMOs into Africa's agricultural systems.

[EXTRACT FROM CONCLUSION]

As the Makhathini GM cotton project shows, technological fixes such as improved seeds, pesticides, herbicides, inorganic artificial and GM crops merely serve as 'stop-gap' measures that deflect attention away from the structural problems facing small scale farmers. The Green and Gene revolutions are nothing more than red herrings to avoid sustainable development interventions that address historical inequalities and give farmers real choices within an ecologically sustainable framework built on people centred and traditional and cultural value systems.

Download the report:

http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/portal/images//newgreenrevolutionandgmos.pdf

USA: Reader disputes Roundup Ready alfalfa claims

The Prairie Star, August 4 2007

To the editor:

On June 22, Mike Waters of Growers for Biotechnology wrote about a March 2007 court decision that banned future sales and planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa, a genetically engineered variety initially commercialized in June 2005.

In his piece, Waters deplores the judge's ruling, and credits the "organic activists and environmental extremist groups" and their "all organic, no biotech crop agenda" for the ruling. Yet, a landmark lawsuit such as this (a court has never before vacated a USDA decision to approve a genetically engineered crop) deserves a deeper examination. The nature of alfalfa and its significance to the organic industry points toward a reality different than the one Waters paints.

The organic food industry was worth $17 billion in 2006, and continues to grow by about 20 percent each year (compared to the conventional food industry's rate of 2 to 3 percent). Organic alfalfa is an essential component to this growth. The total number of certified organic livestock, especially beef cattle and dairy cows, increased by a startling 572 percent between 1997 and 2003. And several events show this demand is growing. For example, the U.S. has experienced a chronic shortage of organic milk, and California now imports some of its organic feed to meet the state's demands. Implicit in the demand for more organic meat and dairy products is the need for more organic feed, especially alfalfa.

Because alfalfa is an open-pollinated crop, markets for alfalfa seed and hay that shun, or reject outright, genetically engineered material in seeds and feed (such as certified organic and some export markets) risk acquiring the Roundup Ready trait through gene flow. The USDA National Organic Program does not allow the use of agricultural biotechnology in certified organic farming systems, so cross-pollination of Roundup Ready alfalfa with organic crops could increase production costs, reduce profits, or even eliminate markets for organic alfalfa producers.

Unfortunately, no law or regulation requires farmers who plant Roundup Ready alfalfa for hay to implement practices that prevent cross-pollination with neighbors' crops. And farmers can't control the weather; meaning, they can't always avoid hay stands going to bloom, from producing viable pollen. Instead, the burden of protecting alfalfa plants and sensitive markets from transgenic traits, such as planting buffer areas, is completely transferred to the producer of non-Roundup Ready alfalfa.

As for Roundup Ready alfalfa seed production, segregation distances proved ineffective even before the judge made his decision. In December 2006, just over a year after Roundup Ready alfalfa was commercialized, the Idaho Alfalfa and Seed Clover Association reported that Roundup Ready alfalfa traits were found in conventional alfalfa seed in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, including foundation seed, which contained enough transgenic material to deem it useless as seed stock.

This foundation seed was two miles from the nearest Roundup Ready field. At the time of these tests, segregation distances were set at 900 feet. Also in 2006, The Colorado State University Extension tested feral alfalfa plants at 23 sites in Mesa County along roadsides, abandoned fields, and edges of active hay fields within two miles of Roundup Ready alfalfa seed fields. Transgenic gene flow was found at 83 percent of the collection sites. Complete segregation of Roundup Ready and conventional (including organic) alfalfa varieties is simply unlikely.

Although only a small percentage of U.S. alfalfa is exported, Pacific Northwest growers export a much higher percentage of their crop, and stand to lose a $480 million market. Roundup Ready alfalfa's introduction depicts a notable difference between an export country's government approval of a genetically engineered crop and export customers' approval. Even after Japan's government approved Roundup Ready alfalfa for import, Jap-anese customers continued to show resistance to the transgenic variety. Some U.S. export companies relayed that Japanese customers (Japan accounts for 75 percent of the alfalfa export market) were de-manding documents that verified alfalfa shipments as free of transgenic traits.

Both the organic and biotechnology industries are rapidly growing, quite literally, side-by-side. Although biotechnology firms claim there is a successful "coexistence" between conventional and genetically engineered crops, farmers have been dealing with unwanted transgenic material (be it through gene flow or human error) in their crops for a decade, with little recourse for damages.

A recent example is last year's finding of an unapproved genetically engineered long-grain rice variety in the food supply. Though only approved for field trials and not human consumption, the rice strain found its way into the commercial rice supply in all five of the Southern states where long-grain rice is grown. Shock-ingly, this discovery was made five years after the manufacturer stopped growing the variety in experimental plots. A lawsuit was filed against the manufacturer on behalf of 400 rice producers, and export losses were estimated at $150 million.

The lawsuit that found USDA's approval of Roundup Ready alfalfa illegal leveled the playing field, and said that a crop variety can't be grown at the expense of significantly impacting another.

In other words, if transgenic gene flow affects organic farmers' ability to grow organic alfalfa free of transgenic traits, then the impacts must seriously be considered.

Furthermore, the case was filed shortly after USDA's own Inspector General released a report citing numerous problems with USDA's oversight of genetically engineered crops, stating that current regulations and policies do not go far enough to ensure the safe introduction of genetically engineered crops. Performing a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), as was ordered by the court, seems the least the agency can do.

Kristina Hubbard

Missoula, Mont.

Era of the Bourgeois Romantic:
The facade of US Altruism, the biotech industry & those that buy into it

www.informationclearinghouse.info, 4 August 2007.

Those in favor of globalization please raise your hands! Does this include you? If it does there is good reason to believe that you are indeed a bourgeois romantic. What is a bourgeois romantic and why should you care? In the era of globalization, bourgeois romantics serve as the propellants of international corruption while operating under an altruistic facade. The ingenuity of the bourgeois romantic paradigm is that the individual is often unaware that he/she falls into the category at all. As of late, bourgeois romanticism has evolved as a social trend. Hollywood stars, politicians, NGO workers and civilians of all sorts propagate the system fully unaware of its adverse effects. Its popularity stems from its appeasement of both liberal "hippie" movements and corporate/political interests. Liberals and Conservatives are both subject to its seduction. So what truly defines a bourgeois romantic? And what are the tell-tale signs that you might be one? Let us take a look at the definition a little more thoroughly.

Bourgeois romantics are neo liberals who emphasize free market methods in lieu of a better global civil society. They envisage a global market composed of different ethnicities and cultures in which all will be able to trade and share resources in a mutually beneficial manner. They are the CEOs who give a portion of their profit to Southern aid programs. They are the corporate industrialists who argue modernity and technology will enhance Southern economies. They are even the so-called "humanitarians" that coerce third world markets into the global market arena promising to ameliorate mass poverty. They are everywhere. They exist in all forms, colors, professions, religions and political spheres. In short, a bourgeois romantic is a hypocritical capitalist: one whose intentions are socialist but whose priorities are capitalist. They are the "good intentioned" proponents of free trade.

What they refuse to acknowledge is that free trade is anything but free. Although it allows the global North free market range, it leaves the global South in shackles. Free trade is a modern euphemism for unrestricted global capitalism. We call it free trade when national and corporate interests unite to increase their profit margin while simultaneously manipulating international trade pacts. We call it free trade when established institutions like the IMF or World Bank, whose sole purpose is to aid the poorest of nations, operate under the biases of wealthy nations.

However, it is not just the WTO, IMF and World Bank that attempt to blur the line between corporate and humanitarian interests. The biotech industry is one of massive concern for the global community and definitely worth taking a look at. However, it is not surprising that very little dialogue regarding the issue exists within the U.S. This is largely due to the fact that humanitarian efforts are being used to shield the ploy of corporate profits. Corporations view the global South as an "untapped" market, whose dependency on foreign aid makes them convenient need-based consumers. Many aid and development programs, under the guise of federal governance, are largely aligned with corporate initiatives. Monsanto, the world's leading chemical company, invests millions each year by creating GM foods resistant to their best-selling weed killer, Round-Up. The super objective of Monsanto would be to make pesticides commonplace among agricultural production and consequently maximize their product sales. The problem now is that Monsanto has found a market in hunger and starvation. In attempts to play off the humanitarian sympathies of other nations and individuals, Monsanto launched an aggressive publicity campaign (1998) in Europe featuring the slogan, "Let the Harvest Begin." This campaign promoted the research and utilization of GM foods to feed the famished nations of Africa. The response by the global South was one of outrage!

Why? After all, from a bourgeois romantic's perspective: food is food! Especially for the starving and impoverished peoples of Africa! Ah, but a closer look at the true effect that these multi-national corporate interests have on developing economies explains the severe resistance to GM crops. The Institute for Food and Development Policy (IFDP) addresses three destabilizing factors that posit GM foods as a threat to the global South. These include 1) corporate welfare schemes, 2) the denial to the right of information, and 3) an inappropriate response to hunger.

Corporate welfare schemes are funds established to assist the poor, but in turn, serve the pockets of the corporate multinationals. The IFDP asserts that "taxpayer dollars are being used to turn countries in the South into alternative markets for GE products, particularly through foreign assistance programs." While USAID and the World Food Program continue to bask in the facade of altruism; they vehemently oppose the labeling of GM crops. In 2004, excessive US trade sanctions cost Thailand $8.7 billion US dollars - forcing them to begin the integration of unmarked GM crops.

The mass quantities of shipped food are not labeled "organic" or "genetically engineered" making it difficult for farmers and sustainable communities to survive. The patent rights of GM crops promote a dependent domestic economy. If a farmer attempts to plant GM seeds without consent, s/he is essentially violating the patent rights on MonsantoÇs GM seeds. In some cases, GM seeds have blown over into independent farms and put farmers at legal liability to compensate the corporate patent-holders. Not only is this a legal and economic stress, but it contaminates organic farming methods. Therefore, patent rights are viewed as an adversary to sustainable progress and economic stability in developing countries. This theory relies on two very false premises: that hunger is caused by insufficient food and that potential health benefits of GMOs outweigh that of their risk. However, research shows that the world pumps out more food per person than ever in history. It is definitely not an issue of food shortage. Thus, the problem is not the production of food, but the ability for the impoverished to access it.

Development programs continue to exploit the famished and impoverished countries of developing countries by coercing them to perform actions against their will: the acceptance of "aid" that counteracts the sustainable development process. Once GM food crosses the borders, developing countries will be unable to escape the financial power of corporate imperialism on their agricultural economy. Africa, is one example, in which a collective group of developing nations stand united in its opposition to the biotech industry and its exploitation of struggling nations. Catherine Bernini, Executive Director of the WFP exemplified the capitalist ideal when she said, "Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize." Meanwhile, the rest of us sit at home- complacent with the idea that our tax dollars are doing what we cannot- assisting those that really truly need it.

The fact is there are two casualties in this "foreign aid" facade: one being the exploited economies of developing nations and the other being us, the citizenry. However, we are only casualties in our convictions- equally exploited to serve, in turn, as the advocates of such misleading "foreign aid" and "assistance" programs. How do we escape such false convictions? The American people, complacent in their isolationist views of the world, rest assured that their government (one of the people, by the people and for the peopleðor so they say) is taking care of the "bigger" issues at hand. It is far past the time to re-educate ourselves. Not on just the issues pertaining to our own government and the big issues of war and conflict - but even in our international role as "humanitarians." Foreign "aid" programs are no more than misleading titles that alleviate the capitalist guilt of our citizenry while surreptitiously building entire markets on the strife of the third world. Do you still wonder why the rest of the world holds so much contempt for America? Bourgeois Romanticism has permeated past Foreign Aid efforts and even covertly into our non-profit sectors and religious missions. So, before you rest morally appeased on your stance with globalization, ask yourself: Have you escaped the deception of the Bourgeois Romantic? Or are you, like so many others, merely one of them?

3 August 2007

India: BT Cotton cultivation starts in Bengal: Agri Minister

United News of India, August 3 2007

Kolkata, Aug 3: The cultivation of Monsanto's BT cotton in Vidarbha, which resulted in disaster last year killing more than 540 farmers, is now making silent entry to Bengal.

The cultivation of Monsanto's BT cotton in Vidarbha--the main cotton growing belt of Maharashtra resulted in disaster. Literally hundreds of farmers committed suicide due to total failure of the Bt cotton crop and their resulting debts.

Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of a seminar on "Agri-biotechnology: Opportunities & Challanges" organised by ASSOCHAM, West Bengal Minister Agriculture Minister Naren Dey said,''We have started BT Cotton field trail.'' When asked about BT Cotton cultivation in the state, Agriculture Secretary Atanu Purakayashta said there is no bar on cotton cultivation.

''The Bengal government is increasing cotton cultivation from 500 to 5,000 hecatres by the end of the 11th plan period,'' he said.

Member Secretary and Advisor to Department of Biotechnology, under government of India, Dr KK Tripathi said, ''The biotechnological application can bring about a lot of scientific challanges in front of us.''

India: Vidarbha farmers' suicide toll crosses 550 mark with 11 more cases

TariqueIndia News Posted August 3 2007

[Shortened]

Bhopal : Eleven more distressed cotton growing farmers in Vidarbha region of western Indian state of Maharashtra, mostly from Prime Minister relief package covered six districts of west Vidarbha, have committed suicides in last 72 hours.

According to Nagpur-based Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, (VJAS), Press release now the total farmers' suicide since January 2007 has crossed 550 mark taking the toll to 551.

The Press release issued today stated that 1212 farmers have officially committed suicides after Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had announced a relief package of Rs. 37,500 millions last June-July to tide over the ongoing Vidarbha farm crisis. Thus, this has not served any purpose to reduce the prevailing distress of the affected farmers.

After the introduction of most costly Bt. cotton in Vidarbha in June 2007 and the subsequent withdrawal of advance bonus in the cotton monopoly scheme that is Rs. 2500/- per quintal, the rural economy has collapsed, the release charged. According to official reports million of cotton farmers are in deep distress and this agrarian crisis may go out of control of civil administration, the release apprehended.

Read the full article.

No GMO from feed found in meat or eggs: EU agency

Reuters, 4 August 2007.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Animals that have eaten genetically modified (GMO) feed show no residual traces in their eggs or meat, the EU's food safety agency said on Friday.

In February, the European Commission received a petition from international environment group Greenpeace and signed by one million EU citizens demanding special labels for dairy and other products where the animals had eaten GMO feed.

The Commission, the EU's executive arm, then asked the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for its views on the potential for transgenes or their products to be incorporated into animal tissues on food products such as eggs and milk.

"To date, a large number of experimental studies with livestock have shown that recombinant DNA fragments or proteins derived from GM plants have not been detected in tissues, fluids or edible products of farm animals like broilers, cattle, pigs or quails," EFSA said in a report analyzing 19 separate studies.

The European Union has thresholds for how much GMO material may be present in foods and animal feed before being labeled as biotech. But those rules, which came into force in 2004, do not apply to meat and dairy products coming from a GMO-fed animal.

For green groups, opposed to biotechnology and which have long complained about the issue, this exemption is a glaring hole in the EU's labyrinthine laws on GMO foods.

But for the biotech and animal feed industry it would be unthinkable and unacceptable to change the status quo since they insist their products are no different from conventional foods and therefore pose no health risk.

The bulk of EU feed imports, mainly soybeans and maize, comes from countries like the United States where GMO crops are common through the crop supply chain. Around 90 percent of the EU's imports of GMO grain and oilseeds are used as animal feed.

EU feed manufacturers say the constant need to import high-protein feed materials makes it impossible to supply non-GMO feed on a large scale.

Zambia adamant: no GM

SciDev.Net, 3 August 2007. By Michael Malakata.

[picture caption: Zambia will not grow GM crops]

[LUSAKA] The Zambian government has rejected a call made this week (30 July) by a group of scientific, agricultural and nongovernmental organisations to use genetically modified (GM) crops to reduce poverty and hunger.

The group - consisting of AfricaBio, the Africa Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum, Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International, Biotechnology-Ecology Research and Outreach Consortium (BioEROC) and the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) ò released a joint press statement endorsing the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which was published in the Times of Zambia on 30 July.

Responding to the statement, Zambian minister of agriculture and cooperatives, Ben Kapita, told SciDev.Net, "We have always said that Zambia will not be used as a dumping place for GMO products."

Earlier this year (3 April), the Zambian parliament adopted a biosafety bill aimed at preventing the entry of GMOs in to the country (see Zambia takes steps towards biosafety law).

But Wisdom Changadeya, executive director of BioEROC in Malawi said in a press release that nobody could deny Africa its right to a technology that would help its farmers solve some of its most serious and urgent problems.

Margaret Karembu, a researcher at the Kenya-based AfriCenter, run by the ISAAA, warned that African agricultural productivity could drop while the rest of the global community embraced new tools such as GM technology.

She said that African farmers should not be restricted to traditional methods of agriculture.

The same group of five organisations also welcomed a clarification from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) about its stance on GM technology.

Last month, many media outlets reported that AGRA and its president the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, had rejected the use of GMOs completely.

The reports came after a speech by Annan in Nairobi last month (16 July), in which he said that whatever the future potential of GM crops might be, conventional breeding represented an important path to food security (see Farmers and researchers: Annan urges stronger links).

AGRA has since clarified their position on GM technology, stating that although they are not currently funding research into GMOs, they support the use of science and technology - including GM - to aid African smallholder farmers.

Norah Olembo, chief executive officer of Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International in Nairobi, Kenya, welcomed AGRA's clarification that GM technology has an important role to play in fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

But others believe that not researching GM technology at this stage could undermine the future of biotechnology in Africa.

This week (27 July) the Netherlands-based Public Research and Regulation Initiative wrote to Annan, saying they were concerned about AGRA's focus on conventional plant breeding methods.

USA: Monsanto seeks $100M from Sandoz

St. Louis Business Journal, August 3 2007

Monsanto Co. said Friday that it is seeking to recover "in excess" of $100 million in damages from pharmaceutical company Novartis AG's Sandoz subsidiary.

In a release, Monsanto officials said the firm filed an arbitration claim against Sandoz in an effort to recover damages it says were caused by "Sandoz's inadequate quality assurance program and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issuance of a warning letter to Sandoz's pharmaceutical facility in Kundl, Austria, which contracted to supply Monsanto's dairy product, POSILAC bovine somatotropin."

POSILAC, or bovine somatotropin, is a protein hormone used to enhance milk production in cows.

The arbitration complaint said that as a direct result of Sandoz's quality assurance failures, it did not fulfill its contractual supply agreements and Monsanto suffered extensive financial loss.

In November 2003, the FDA inspected the Sandoz manufacturing facility in Kundl, Austria, and found problems with the facility and systems that led to the issuance of an FDA warning letter. The process of making necessary changes and corrections addressed quality assurance, but required shut-downs and limited manufacturing capabilities at the Sandoz plant. The FDA conducted a follow-up regulatory inspection in 2006 and lifted its warning letter in August 2006.

St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. develops insect- and herbicide-resistant crops and other agricultural products.

2 August 2007

Italy: National consultation on GMOs
15 September - 15 November 2007

Italia-Europa Liberi da OGM announcement, 31 July 2007.

From 15 September to 15 November 2007 the "ITALIAEUROPA - LIBERI DA OGM" Coalition, which for the first time brings together 28 leading organisations representing farmers, cooperatives, large distribution, small and medium sized businesses, consumer, environmental, scientific, cultural and international cooperation interest groups, will be promoting and organising a National Consultation on the question "Do you want the agro-food sector, foodstuffs and their authenticity to be at the heart of development, which includes people and regions, health and quality, and that it be sustainable and innovative, based on bio-diversity and GMO free?".

In the thousands of events and initiatives that will take place across Italy, citizens will have the chance to vote for a quality agro-food model. Citizens can participate in meetings, conventions, seminars, shows, cultural events, wine and food fairs to take a closer look at questions relating to the world of food and health. All these initiatives will take place on a local, national and European level, and will be organised by the promoting associations and their regional committees, which have gone on to form a far-reaching organisational network.

The preparation for this initiative has taken some four months of work in coordinating and establishing the coalition, setting up the organisational structures and meetings with political and institutional representatives and the media. Meetings were in fact held with the leaders of the two Chambers of Parliament, with Government representatives, the majority and opposition parties, Regional Ministers, editors of the main newspapers and television stations, and the Chairman of RAI's [public television broadcaster] Regulating Committee. Debates have also taken place with the leaders of economic sectors that were not called to take part in the coalition, such as the organisations representing the big industry.

The organisational structure of the coalition is set up at different levels, with one working group (responsible for the political standpoint) consisting of the chairpersons of the promoting organisations, another one with the 'plenipotentiary' directors (appointed to oversee the organisational details), and a third one for the media. Regional coalitions with their own organisational structures have also been established in the 20 regions of the country, (the various local interest groups not represented on a national level can join these).

A record will be kept of all events promoted by the Coalition, noting the number of participants, the matters discussed, and opinions expressed. The consultation process will make use of the attached ballot paper, similar to the one used in Italy during referendums: these 'ballot papers' will be handed out to the public during events and collected afterwards. 3 million votes is the ambitious stated numerical goal of the Consultation. They will be collated and stored at a regional level, and once the two month public debate period is over, they will be handed over to the national Coalition for future political use.

The www.liberidaogm.org web site will be updated in real time, indicating the progress of the various initiatives, publishing voting results, the calendar of events, as well as information material, files on specific topics and making it possible to vote on-line.

The press conference on 24 July at the offices of the Promoting Committee of the Coalition in Rome [c/o Genetic Rights Foundation] has set things in motion. The internet site of the initiative is on-line from that day.

This will be followed in Rome on 10 September with a national assembly of the 600 national and local directors of all the promoting organisations, in order to share the objectives and spirit of the Coalition, and fine-tune the multilevel organisational structures required before consultation.

On 15 September 5 large events in Milan, Bologna, Florence, Bari and Naples will simultaneously mark the official launch of the National Consultation.

Between September and November, the associations representing each sector - agriculture, environment, consumers, craftsmanship and international cooperation - will hold discussions with their European and international counterparts.

A number of these events have already been scheduled:

•

12 October - international meeting of the co-operative sector

•

16 October - (on World Food Day) Food Sovereignty Day, organised by the development NGOÇs

•

23 October - Artisanship Day

•

31 October - Environmental Day

•

8 November - European debate on organic farming

A debate entitled: "Food sovereignty and politics" will be held on 8 October involving the political institutions. The leaders of the main majority and opposition political parties have already agreed to take part in this.

At the same time, over the 62 days of consultation, thousands of single events will be taking place at a local level, either initiated specifically for the consultation drive, or which will be making the most of existing events.

From the launch of the national consultation, we will occasionally be sending out updates in English on the progress and impact that the consultation is having on the political and social life of the country. We shall however be available should you consider the Italian mobilisation drive useful beyond our national borders.

Luca Colombo
Fondazione Diritti Genetici
Via Garigliano 61a
00198 Roma
tel. +39 06 45 43 82 76
cell. +39 348 39 88 618
www.fondazionedirittigenetici.org

Ireland: No evidence GM feed is harmful

Irish Examiner (Farm Supplement), 2 August 2007.

There is no evidence that genetically modified (GM) animal feed can have a harmful effect on meat, according to a new repoert from the European Food Safety Authority.

The research followed a public petition to have meat, milk and eggs labelled, if it came from animals that have been fed genetically modified food.

The European Commission wanted to know if transgenes or their products could be incorporated into animal tissues. The study also looked at whether the DNA from GM foods could be absorbed by humans. Following a survey of literature on the matter, the EFSA concluded that the digestion process rapidly breaks recombinant DNA into small fragments, reducing the chance of them being absobed intact into the muscle, milk, or eggs of animals. "After ingestion, a rapid degradation into short DNA or peptide fragments is observed in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and humans," the report states.

"To date, a large number of experimental studies with livestock have shown that recombinant DNA fragments or proteins derived from GM plants have not been detected in tissues, fluids or edible products of farm animals like broiles, cattle, pigs or quails."

It was also observed that the DNA introduced into animals through recombinant DNA technology is no different from other sources of DNA in their diet. "Biologically active genes and proteins are common constituents of foods and feed in varying amounts", said the statement.

The EFSA said that "recombinant DNA did not survive passage through the intact gastrointestinal tace of healthy human subjects fed GM soya."

Comment by GM-free Ireland:

In reality there is growing scientific evidence linking GM animal feed and food to deaths and disease in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population. Speaking at the launch of his book 'Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM food" in Dublin recently, the author Jeffrey M. Smith, described the evidence of health risks as 'irrefutable", including new diseases, allergies, inflammatory responses, antibiotic resistance, reduced immunity, and pre-cancerous growths. There is also evidence that transgenic DNA in food can survive digestion and activate inside your body; if such DNA came from the many varieties of Bt crops which are modified to produce their own pesticide, this could potentially turn you into a living pesticide factory. A leaked European Commission document admits, 'there is no unique, absolute, scientific cut-off threshold available to decide whether a GM product is safe or not".

But the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) claims GM animal feed and GM foods are safe, although it is being challenged for routinely approving such products based on risk assessments provided to it by the companies it is paid to regulate, for not making the relevant data available for independent scientific scrutiny, and for failing to address the concerns of member states. In April 2006, the European Commission issued a statement calling for better test protocols and more research into the long-term effects of GMOs. The European Council has also repeatedly voiced concerns about EFSA's work. EFSA's recommendations on GMOs have never achieved formal backing by the required two-thirds majority of EU member states. No long-term human health studies prove GM foods are safe, and a recent study found that one variety of GM animal feed widely sold to Irish farmers causes liver and kidney damage to laboratory animals.

On 15 June, the GM-free Ireland Network and the European Parliament Independence/Democracy Group co-hosted a briefing entitled 'Food Safety and GMOs: is the European Food Safety Authority downplaying the health risks of genetically modified food?" at the EU Parliament Office in Dublin. Speakers included Trevor Sargent, 'Genetic Roulette" author Jeffrey M. Smith, Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher PhD of EcoNexus, (who is part of the legal and scientific team which recently convinced the European Patent Office to revoke Monsanto's species-wide patent on GM soybeans).

For more information see:

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Genetic RouletteÇ The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods, by Jeffrey M. Smith. Yes! Books. Fairfield, Iowa, USA, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9729665-2-8. Hardcover, 336 pages, € 23. Available at the Cultivate Centre, 15-19 Essex St. West, Temple Bar, Dublin 8, tel (01) 674 6415.

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New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity, Journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Publisher Springer New York. ISSN 0090-4341 (Print) 1432-0703 (Online). DOI 10.1007/s00244-006-0149-5. By Gilles-Eric SÈralini, Dominique Cellier, and Joel Spiroux de Vendomois. http://www.gmfreeireland.org/health/SeraliniPaper2007.pdf

See related CRIIGEN press release at
http://www.criigen.org/cp_march2007.pdf
and video of related press conference at http://www.criigen.org

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Genome Scrambling - Myth or Reality? Transformation-Induced Mutations in Transgenic Crop Plants. By Allison Wilson, PhD, Jonathan Latham, PhD and Ricarda Steinbrecher, PhD. Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews, Vol 23, December 2006. http://www.gmfreeireland.org/health/BSR-2-BGERvol23.pdf

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The transcripts of two presentations given at the Green Ireland Conference in 2006, by Dr. Stanley Ewen, a Consultant Histopathologist with Grampian University Hospitals Trust in the UK. He is also a member of the Independent Science Panel (www.indsp.org), an international transdisciplinary network of scientists working for the public good. He and Dr. Arpad Pusztai coauthored a landmark paper on the health risks of GM food published in The Lancet in 1998:

Potential adverse human health effects of GM foods: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/conference/trans/S.Ewen1.pdf
3 Key papers on GMOs in the last 6 months: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/conference/trans/S.Ewen2.pdf

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1 August 2007

UK: The low-fat ice cream that has something fishy about it

The Daily Mail, 1 August 2007. By Sean Poulter.

(Magnum: GM technology will be used in a low-fat version)

Wall's has been given the go-ahead to use GM technology to make low-fat ice cream.

The company will use an artificial version of a protein found in a deep-sea fish to create healthier versions of popular brands such as Magnum and Cornetto.

But it faces a backlash from consumers and food campaigners over its decision to champion the controversial technology.

Currently, just a handful of GM products are on sale in this country after the so-called Frankenstein Foods were rejected by consumers and supermarkets.

The protein which will be used in the low-fat ice creams is a synthetic version of one found in the blood of the ocean pout fish.

This chemical - effectively a type of anti-freeze - allows the fish to survive in extremely cold water just above the sea bed.

Wall's parent company Unilever has found a way to synthesise the protein, which is grown on yeast in large vats.

The resulting brownish thin liquid is added to the ice cream and lowers the temperature at which ice crystals form. It also alters the shape they take.

According to the manufacturers, this means that ice cream of a suitably thick consistency can be created without using as much fat in the process.

Food campaigners argue that Unilever's decision to apply for the right to use the GM technology is at odds with an increasing desire among consumers for a more natural diet.

However, bosses at the company believe that the appeal of low-fat ice cream outweighs any doubts the public has about GM technology.

The decision to approve the technology was made by the Government's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, which reports to the Food Standards Agency.

The committee carried out a public consultation before reaching its decision, in which one contributor suggested that using GM technology would tarnish the reputation of Unilever's 'ethical' brands such as Ben & Jerry's.

Two others argued that the GM ingredient was unnecessary and the natural product - real cream - was a better option.

The Soil Association, which monitors organic food standards, said it had many concerns about the use of the new ingredient.

It added: "Protein by-products generated by the fermentation of GM micro-organisms represent a major health risk."

The committee has, however, imposed one condition on Unilever - that it must identify the use of GM technology on the product labels.

The company had argued it would be enough to mention the controversial process on its websites and customer care lines.

The use of the protein will now have to be approved by other EU states, which will delay Unilever's ability to launch products using it for at least a year.

South Africa: Public Interest Drives Debate On Modified Crops

AllAfrica.com, 1 August 2007. By Linda Ensor.

Cape Town -- SA had to adopt a "cautious" approach to the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to protect the public interest, Parliament's environmental and tourism committee chairman Langa Zita stressed yesterday.

Zita opened the committee's public hearings on the safety of GMOs and the lack of mandatory labelling of GMO foods.

The hearing provided a public platform for a renewed outbreak of the raging debate between proponents and opponents of the use of GMO products.

Proponents included biotechnology and agricultural research institutes and GM crop production companies, while a host of NGOs voiced their opposition.

Zita stressed that Parliament would ultimately adopt a resolution arising out of the public hearings which were not, therefore, simply an "academic exercise".

SA's GMO legislation, which dates back to 1997, was amended this year.

Biowatch director Leslie Liddell said SA's regulation of GM crops or products "fell far short of the caution required in dealing with a new technology with unknown long-term risks for humans and the environment".

The GMO Amendment Act promulgated this year was deficient, Biowatch said, because it perpetuated the weak regulation of genetically modified crops.

"The act continues to make it discretionary -- not obligatory -- for the regulator to take account of public objections and input when permitting GM crops.

"The regulator is also not obliged to consider environmental impact assessments or the potential socio-economic impact of GM crops."

Another shortcoming of the current legislation was that it did not address the compulsory labelling and traceability of GM crops and ingredients.

This undermined consumer choice and prevented users from protecting themselves against liability.

No GM food in SA met the criteria for mandatory labelling.

"Existing legislation favours the GM industry at the expense of consumers and farmers who choose the non-GM or organic option," Liddell argued.

Several organisations, such as the South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic Engineering, called for "mandatory and meaningful labelling of foods containing or derived from genetically modified techniques".

It should also be possible to track the use of GMO goods "from farm to fork" and environmental impact assessments should be mandatory for GM crops.

On the other hand, agricultural analyst Hans Lombard dismissed the "fear-mongering" campaign of anti-GMO activists.

He noted that GM production was expanding at an unprecedented rate.

He said last year SA planted 1,4-million hectares of GM crops, 180% more than in the previous year.

Already 50% of the maize crop, 92% of cotton and 75% of soya was genetically modified.

Environmental affairs and tourism deputy director-general Fundisile Mketeni said the department was assessing the environmental risk of the contained use of GMOs and was monitoring GMOs released into the environment.

The department was also actively participating in a process to develop standards to preserve the identity of GMOs produced in SA. Mketeni stressed that developing an effective management framework for GMOs was the "main priority for building public confidence".

The great biofuel fraud

Asia Times, August 1 2007. By F William Engdahl.

That bowl of Kellogg's cornflakes on the breakfast table or the portion of pasta or corn tortillas, cheese or meat on the dinner table is going to rise in price over the coming months as sure as the sun rises in the East. Welcome to the new world food-price shock, conveniently timed to accompany the current world oil-price shock.

Curiously, it's ominously similar in many respects to the early 1970s when prices for oil and food both exploded by several hundred percent in a matter of months. That mid-1970s price explosion led the late US president Richard Nixon to ask his old pal Arthur Burns, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, to find a way to alter the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation data to take attention away from the rising prices.

The result then was the now-commonplace publication of the absurd "core inflation" CPI numbers - sans oil and food.

The late American satirist Mark Twain once quipped, "Buy land: They've stopped making it." Today we can say almost the same about corn, or all grains worldwide. The world is in the early months of the greatest sustained rise in prices for all major grains, including maize, wheat and rice, that we have seen in three decades. Those three crops constitute almost 90% of all grains cultivated in the world.

Washington's calculated, absurd plan

What's driving this extraordinary change? Here things get pretty interesting. The administration of US President George W Bush is making a major public relations push to convince the world it has turned into a "better steward of the environment". The problem is that many have fallen for the hype.

The center of Bush's program, announced in his January State of the Union address, is called "20 in 10", cutting US gasoline use 20% by 2010. The official reason is to "reduce dependency on imported oil", as well as cutting unwanted "greenhouse gas" emissions. That isn't the case, but it makes good PR. Repeat it often enough and maybe most people will believe it. Maybe they won't realize their taxpayer subsidies to grow ethanol corn instead of feed corn are also driving the price of their daily bread through the roof.

The heart of the plan is a huge, taxpayer-subsidized expansion of use of bio-ethanol for transport fuel. The president's plan requires production of 35 billion US gallons (about 133 billion liters) of ethanol a year by 2017. Congress has already mandated with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that corn ethanol for fuel must rise from 4 billion gallons in 2006 to 7.5 billion in 2012.

To make certain it will happen, farmers and big agribusiness giants like ADM or David Rockefeller get generous taxpayer subsidies to grow corn for fuel instead of food. Currently ethanol producers get a subsidy in the US of 51 cents per gallon (13.5 cents per liter) of ethanol paid to the blender, usually an oil company that blends it with gasoline for sale.

As a result of the beautiful US government subsidies to produce bio-ethanol fuels and the new legislative mandate, the US refinery industry is investing big-time in building new special ethanol distilleries, similar to oil refineries, except they produce ethanol fuel. The number currently under construction exceeds the total number of oil refineries built in the US over the past 25 years. When they are finished in the next two to three years, the demand for corn and other grain to make ethanol for car fuel will double from present levels.

And not just US bio-ethanol. In March, Bush met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to sign a bilateral "Ethanol Pact" to cooperate in research and development of "next generation" biofuel technologies such as cellulosic ethanol from wood, and joint cooperation in "stimulating" expansion of biofuel use in developing countries, especially in Central America, and creating a biofuel cartel along the lines of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with rules that allow formation of a Western Hemisphere ethanol market.

In short, the use of farmland worldwide for bio-ethanol and other biofuels - burning the food product rather than using it for human or animal food - is being treated in Washington, Brazil and other major centers, including the European Union, as a major new growth industry.

Phony green arguments

Biofuel - gasoline or other fuel produced from refining food products - is being touted as a solution to the controversial global-warming problem. Leaving aside the faked science and the political interests behind the sudden hype about dangers of global warming, biofuels offer no net positive benefits over oil even under the best conditions.

Their advocates claim that present first-generation biofuels save up to 60% of the carbon emission of equivalent petroleum fuels. As well, amid rising oil prices at $75 per barrel for Brent marker grades, governments such as Brazil's are frantic to substitute home-grown biofuels for imported gasoline. In Brazil today, 70% of all cars have "flexi-fuel" engines able to switch from conventional gasoline to 100% biofuel or any mix. Biofuel production has become one of Brazil's major export industries as well.

The green claims for biofuel as a friendly and better fuel than gasoline are at best dubious, if not outright fraudulent. Depending on who runs the tests, ethanol has little if any effect on exhaust-pipe emissions in current car models. It has significant emission, however, of some toxins, including formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, a suspected neurotoxin that has been banned as carcinogenic in California.

Ethanol is not some benign substance as we are led to think from the industry propaganda. It is highly corrosive to pipelines as well as to seals and fuel systems of existing car or other gasoline engines. It requires special new pumps. All that conversion costs money.

But the killer about ethanol is that it holds at least 30% less energy per liter than normal gasoline, translating into a loss in fuel economy of at least 25% over gasoline for an Ethanol E-85% blend.

No advocate of the ethanol boondoggle addresses the huge social cost that is beginning to hit the dining-room tables across the US, Europe and the rest of the world. Food prices are exploding as corn, soybeans and all cereal-grain prices are going through the roof because of the astronomical - US Congress-driven - demand for corn to burn for biofuel.

This year the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report concluding that using corn-based ethanol instead of gasoline would have no impact on greenhouse-gas emissions, and would even expand fossil-fuel use because of increased demand for fertilizer and irrigation to expand acreage of ethanol crops. And according to MIT, "natural-gas consumption is 66% of total corn-ethanol production energy", meaning huge new strains on natural-gas supply, pushing prices of that product higher.

The idea that the world can "grow" out of oil dependency with biofuels is the PR hype being used to sell what is shaping up to be the most dangerous threat to the planet's food supply since the creation of patented genetically manipulated corn and other crops.

US farms become biofuel factories

The main reason US and world grain prices have been soaring in the past two years, and are now pre-programmed to continue rising at a major pace, is the conversion of US farmland to become de facto biofuel factories. Last year, US farmland devoted to biofuel crops increased by 48%. None of that land was replaced for food-crop cultivation; the tax subsidies make it far too profitable to produce ethanol fuel.

Since 2001, the amount of corn used to produce bio-ethanol in the US has risen 300%. In fact, in 2006 US corn crops for biofuel equaled the tonnage of corn used for export. In 2007 it is estimated it will exceed the corn for export by a hefty amount. The United States is the world's leading corn exporter, most going for animal feed to EU and other countries. The traditional US Department of Agriculture statistics on acreage planted to corn is no longer a useful metric of food prices, as all marginal acreage is going for biofuel growing. The amount available for animal and human feed is actually declining.

Brazil and China are similarly switching from food to biofuels with large swatches of land.

A result of the biofuel revolution in agriculture is that world carryover or reserve stocks of grains have been plunging for six of the past seven years. Carryover reserve stocks of all grains fell at the end of 2006 to 57 days of consumption, the lowest level since 1972. Little wonder that world grain prices rose 100% over the past 12 months. This is just the start.

That decline in grain reserves, the measure of food security in event of drought or harvest failure - an increasingly common event in recent years - is pre-programmed to continue going as far ahead as the eye can see. Assuming a modest world population increase annually of some 70 million over the coming decade, especially in the South Asian subcontinent and Africa, the stagnation or even decline in the tonnages of feed corn or other feed grains, including rice, that is harvested annually as growing amounts of bio-ethanol and other biofuels displaces food grain in fact means we are just getting started on the greatest transformation of global agriculture since the introduction of the agribusiness revolution with fertilizers and mechanized farming after World War II.

The difference is that this revolution is at the expense of food production. That pre-programs exploding global grain prices, increased poverty, and malnutrition. And the effect on gasoline import demand will be minimal.

Professor M A Altieri of the University of California at Berkeley estimates that dedicating all US corn and soybean production to biofuels would only meet 12% of gasoline and 6% of diesel needs. He notes that although one-fifth of last year's US corn harvest went to bio-ethanol, it met a mere 3% of energy needs. But the farmland is converting at a record pace. In 2006 more than 50% of Iowa and South Dakota corn went to ethanol refineries.

Farmers across the US Midwest, desperate for more income after years of depressed corn prices, are abandoning traditional crop rotation to grow exclusively soybeans or corn, with dramatic added impact on soil erosion and needs for added chemical pesticides. In the US some 41% of all herbicides used are already applied to corn. Monsanto and other makers of glyphosate herbicides such as Roundup are clearly smiling on the way to the bank.

Going global with biofuels

The Bush-Lula pact is just the start of a growing global rush to plant crops for biofuel. Huge sugarcane, oil-palm and soy plantations for biofuel refining are taking over forests and grasslands in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Soy cultivation has already caused the deforestation of 21 million hectares in Brazil and 14 million hectares in Argentina, with no end in sight, as world grain prices continue to rise. Soya is used for bio-diesel fuel.

China, desperate for energy sources, is a major player in biofuel cultivation, reducing food-crop acreage there as well. In the EU, most bio-diesel fuel is produced using rapeseed plants, a popular animal feed. The result? Meat prices around the globe are rising and set to continue rising as far as the eye can see. The EU has a target requiring minimum biofuel content of 10%, a foolish demand that will set aside 18% of EU farmland to cultivate crops to be burned as biofuel.

Big Oil is also driving the biofuels bandwagon. Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University and other scientists claim that net energy output from bio-ethanol fuel is less than the fossil-fuel energy used to produce the ethanol. Measuring all energy inputs to produce ethanol, from production of nitrogen fertilizer to energy needed to clean the considerable waste from biofuel refineries, Pimintel's research showed a net energy loss of 22% for biofuel - they use more energy than they produce. That translates into little threat to oil demand and huge profit for clever oil giants that re-profile themselves as "green energy" producers.

So it's little wonder that ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP are all into biofuels. This past May, BP announced the largest ever research-and-development grant to a university, $500 million to the University of California-Berkeley, to fund BP-dictated R&D into alternative energy, including biofuels. Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Program got $100 million from ExxonMobil; University of California-Davis got $25 million from Chevron for its Bio-energy Research Group. Princeton University's Carbon Mitigation Initiative takes $15 million from BP.

Lord Browne, the disgraced former chief executive officer of BP, declared last year, "The world needs new technologies to maintain adequate supplies of energy for the future. We believe bioscience can bring immense benefits to the energy sector." The biofuel market is booming like few others today. This all is a paradise for global agribusiness industrial companies.

All this, combined with severe weather problems in China, Australia, Ukraine and large parts of the EU growing areas this harvest season, guarantees that grain prices are set to explode further in coming months and years. Some are gleefully reporting the end of the era of "cheap food". With disappearing food-security reserves and disappearing acreage going to plant corn and grains for food, the biofuel transformation will impact global food prices massively in coming years.

Another agenda behind ethanol?

The dramatic embrace of biofuels by the Bush administration since 2005 has clearly been the global driver for soaring grain and food prices in the past 18 months. The evidence suggests this is no accident of sloppy legislative preparation. The US government has been researching and developing biofuels since the 1970s.

The bio-ethanol architects did their homework, we can be assured. It's increasingly clear that the same people who brought us oil-price inflation are now deliberately creating parallel food-price inflation. We have had a rise in average oil prices of some 300% since the end of 2000 when George W Bush and Dick "Halliburton" Cheney made oil the central preoccupation of US foreign policy.

Last year, as bio-ethanol production first became a major market factor, corn prices rose by some 130% on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 14 months. It was more than known when Congress and the Bush administration made their heavy push for bio-ethanol in 2005 that world grain reserves had been declining at alarming levels for several years at a time when global demand, driven especially by growing wealth and increasing meat consumption in China, was rising.

As a result of the diversion of record acreages of US and Brazilian corn and soybeans to biofuel production, food reserves are literally disappearing. Global food security, according to Food and Agriculture Organization data, is at its lowest since 1972. Curiously, that was just the time that Henry Kissinger and the Nixon administration engineered, in cahoots with Cargill and ADM - the major backers of the ethanol scam today - what was called the Great Grain Robbery, sale of huge volumes of US grain to the Soviet Union in exchange for sales of record volumes of Russian oil to the West. Both oil and corn prices rose by 1975 some 300-400% as a result. Just how that worked, I treated in detail in A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics.

Today a new element has replaced Soviet grain demand and harvest shortfalls. Biofuel demand, fed by US government subsidies, is literally linking food prices to oil prices. The scale of the subsidized biofuel consumption has exploded so dramatically since the beginning of 2006, when the US Energy Policy Act of 2005 first began to impact crop-planting decisions, that there is emerging a de facto competition between people and cars for the same grains.

Environmental analyst Lester Brown recently noted, "We're looking at competition in the global market between 800 million automobiles and the world's 2 billion poorest people for the same commodity, the same grains. We are now in a new economic era where oil and food are interchangeable commodities because we can convert grain, sugarcane, soybeans - anything - into fuel for cars. In effect the price of oil is beginning to set the price of food."

In the mid-1970s, secretary of state Henry Kissinger, a protege of the Rockefeller family and of its institutions, stated, "Control the oil and you control entire nations; control the food and you control the people." The same cast of characters who brought the world the Iraq war, and who cry about the "problem of world overpopulation", are now backing conversion of global grain production to burn as fuel at a time of declining global grain reserves. That alone should give pause for thought. As the popular saying goes, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

F William Engdahl is author of the book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, about to be released by Global Research Publishing, and of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, Pluto Press. He may be reached via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

Canada: Organic Farmers Seek Supreme Court Hearing

Organic Agriculture Protection Fund, Canada, Press Release, 1 August 2007

Today papers were filed with the Supreme Court of Canada by the Saskatchewan organic farmers seeking leave to appeal the May 2, 2007 Saskatchewan Appeal Court decision which denied them class action status in their GMO liability suit against Monsanto Canada and Bayer CropScience.

Applicants Larry Hoffman and Dale Beaudoin are seeking compensation for the loss of canola as a certified organic crop due to the extensive contamination of canola seed and cross-pollination by GMO varieties belonging to Monsanto Canada and Bayer CropScience. They are also seeking compensation for the losses due to contamination of other organic crops due to the spread of GMO canola volunteers into organic fields. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal, and it is successful, the case will be certified as a Class Action under Saskatchewan's Class Actions Act, allowing the farmers to go to trial on these issues.

'Sometimes when you're wanting to be heard, or want to get action with people, you don't get anywhere until you go to the boss or the owner,' says Dale Beaudoin. 'By putting forth our application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court we are now going to the top.' Commenting on the Saskatchewan Appeal Court's decision, Larry Hoffman stated 'The bar was set too high for class actions in Saskatchewan. We have to appeal to the Supreme Court because the lower court decisions as they stand make it futile for the common person to make a claim.' In his Memorandum of Argument, Council Terry Zakreski states: This case seeks to ask whether biotechnology companies incur responsibility when their patented genetically modified seed, pollen and plants infiltrate farmland, causing harm. While Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser confirmed that these companies have significant exclusive rights to GMO seed and plants -- the question remains whether they have any corresponding duties.

The case involves legal questions of significant importance to the public, namely liability and rights associated with the development, marketing, sale and dispersal of GMOs, as well as public access to justice through class certification. The prevalence of open-pollinating GM crops on the landscape is a matter of significant environmental and public interest. These issues transcend provincial or territorial boundaries, as organic farmers in Saskatchewan can no longer grow and sell certified organic canola as a crop.

Dale Beaudoin concludes, 'Our lawyer, Mr. Zakreski, is one of the most knowledgeable in the world on the subject of GMO crops. We are looking forward with the hope that our application for leave to appeal will be accepted.' Now that the farmers' papers have been filed, the defendants have 30 days to respond. Then the Supreme Court will make its decision as to whether or not leave to appeal will be granted.

India: No safety checks for GM seeds

The Statesman, 1 August 2007. By Anindita Chowdhury. Kolkata, Aug. 1: The field trials for genetically modified seeds were permitted in the state even though West Bengal is yet to put in place its bio-safety regulatory system.

According to rules framed by union ministry of environment and forest for the manufacture, import, use, research and release of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in 1989 under Environment (protection) Act six competent authorities were required to be set up for advisory, regulatory and monitoring purposes. The monitoring aspect was left at the state level with two authorities, State Bio safety Coordination Committee (SBCC) and district level committees (DLC). However, in case of West Bengal, the SBCC was set up just a few months back and has till date, held only one meeting.

The DLCs are yet to be formed. "The committee was to be set up long time back but we have finally set it up three months back with the chief secretary as the chairman and the secretaries of other departments and experts as members. We have held one meeting so far and but we still need to form the district-level committees," said an official of the state environment department.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) at the national level authorises large scale production and release of GMO and products and carries out supervision through SBCC and DLC. While SBCC investigates and takes punitive actions in case of violation of DLC, more importantly, it is the smallest authoritative unit to monitor safety regulations in installations.

Incidentally, in a letter to Prof. TK Bose, member, state agricultural commission, Dr KK Tripathi, advisor to the department of biotechnology under Union Science and technology ministry, had contended: "The regulatory system put in place by the government as on date is responsible for overviewing the safety of environment, human, and animal health and has been functioning effectively in regulating the DNA research and GM product commercialisation in the country."

Prof. Bose argues that the permission to Mahyco for conducting field trials for Bt rice and Bt Okra on 11 July, 2006 at North 24-Parganas was illegal since the state government was yet to set up the SBCC and DLC for monitoring purpose.

Although the chief secretary and agriculture commissioner were informed, the absence of experts have raised apprehension of the violation of biosafety protocols for the use of GM crops, particularly after a team from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidaya reported that the protocols were not adhered to.

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