NEWS ABOUT GM ISSUES • June 2007
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30 June 2007
Ireland: Claim that GM foods present health risk 'irrefutable'
Irish Medical News, 30 June 2007. By Julie-Anne Barnes.
The known health risks of genetically modified (GM) foods present a case that is "overwhelming and irrefutable" and it is now up to the biotech industry to provide rigorous scientific evidence "to show they are not risking the health of the population with food".
Mr Jeffrey M Smith, author of Genetic Roulete made this claim at a recent briefing on food safety and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) at the European Parliament Office in Dublin, where he said there are 65 documented health risks from GM foods. Mr Smith said there are now thousands of human beings complaining of toxic or allergic- type reactions from consuming, breathing or even touching GM produce.
"There are numerous ways in which the process of genetic engineering has been shown to create unpredicted side effects and many of the most fundamental assumptions that we use for the basis of safety claims have been truly wrong in the years since these crops were introduced," said Mr Smith.
His presentation coincided with the announcement by Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, with responsibility for Food and Horticulture, Mr Trevor Sargent that one of the Green Party's primary goals is to ensure that Ireland becomes Europe's first 100 per cent GM Free zone.
Mr Sargent said that the effects of GM foods on human health "are largely untested and potentially very dangerous" and "the use of GM animal feed is damaging our world famous clean green reputation as 'Ireland the food island'".
Ms Kathy Sinnott, MEP also addressed the meeting where she said the new government would need to stand up to the European Commission, which refuses to recognize the legal democratic right of member states and local authorities to have the final say on whether GM crops may be grown in their areas. During the course of the meeting Prof David McConnell, Department of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin challenged Mr Michael O'Callaghan, co-ordinator of the GM-Free Ireland Network and Minister Sargent.
He accused Mr O'Callaghan of "impugning" his scientific reputation during the briefing and said what Prof McConnell was arguing was that everybody interested in the GM debate should take scientific advice and that advice should represent the broad community of science "and you should not pin your view to one view or one expectation of scientific outcome".
He added that he found it very unfortunate that people claiming to be interested in science "really don't understand it and that is really quite serious".
Mr O'Callaghan said the notion that GM crops and non-GM crops can co-exist "is like the notion you can have a person with an infectious disease running around in a population where other people will [not] be contaminated". The meeting was also addressed by Dr Ricarda A Steinbrecher, PhD, developmental biologist and geneticist, EcoNexus.
Note from GM-free Ireland:
Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM 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 or by mailorder from http://www.GeneticRoulette.com.
Ireland: Green GM stance to up feed prices
The Irish Farmers Journal, 30 June 2007. By Pat O'Keeffe.
Feed prices, which have already increased by between 40 and 60% in the past year, look set to increase even further following a controversial EU vote on Monday to reject the use of a variety of Genetically Modified (GM) maize.
In a move that has caused anger in the feed trade, Ireland abstained from Monday's vote at the EU Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health. As recently as last Thursday, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan had signalled that Ireland would be voting in favour of allowing the importation of "Herculex" maize into Europe. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had deemed to product to be safe. "Herculex" is a maize variety produced by Pioneer and it is now authorised in ten countries. It is modified with a gene that makes it resistant to maize rootworm.
Junior Minister for Agriculture Trevor Sargent confirmed to the Farmers Journal that over the weekend he had discussions on the matter and that "these discussions resulted in a longer term view been taken on the issue." "If we had voted to roll-over on Herculex we'd find it impossible to get GM free status." He rejected any suggestion that the decision would lead to a scarcity in supplies of GM-free animal feed ingredients and said that there were ample supplies available. However, sources in the feed trade strongly disagree. "There is only one certainty; the action of the Government is going to lead to far higher feed cost for farmers," according to animal feed consultant Michael Ennis.
He said that Ireland annually imports approximately 800,000 tonnes of corn gluten and distillers grains from the US, from a total import of about 2.9m tonnes.
IFA president Padraig Walshe said that the decision has to be rescinded by the Council of Ministers "as a matter of urgency". He said that, as recently as last Thursday, he had received assurances from the Department of Agriculture that Ireland would be voting in favour of allowing Herculex product to be used in Europe.
The decision to abstain was particularly annoying, given that Ireland had raised the issue with the Commission in the first place, Walshe said.
As of this week, merchants were being told that corn gluten is not available, while supplies of distillers grains are limited. Those products would generally make up 25-30% of a typical coarse beef ration. They will now have to be replaced by other ingredients, almost certainly at a higher cost.
The move comes against the background of a major EU Commission report (see page 4) which warns that European agriculture will find it increasingly difficult to source non-GM feed, as major exporters such as the US, Brazil and Argentina plant increased acreages of GM crops.
The report warns that if major producers continue to adopt the use of non-EU approved GM varieties, it will have drastic consequences for the EU pig and poultry sectors in particular. Ironically, EU produced pork and poultry would then be replaced by imported meat product - produced using the same GM feeds banned from Europe.
The report identifies major feed importers such as Ireland as being vulnerable. Concerning soybeans and soybean meal, the EU imports vast volumes of these feed products which would be difficult to replace by alternative protein rich feed.
Feed price across the world have already risen sharply due to increased demand from the feed and biofuel trades. Figures obtained by the Farmers Journal show that in the past 12 months, the price of distillers grains has surged by 59%, while the important corn gluten is up a massive 59%.
Ireland: Sargent acknowledges role in retaining ban on Herculex
The Irish Farmers Journal, 30 June 2007. By Mairead Lavery.
Junior Minister for Agriculture, Trevor Sargent, has rejected claims that farmers are facing substantial increases in the price of animal feed this winter because of a decision not to certify a variety of GM maize.
Defending the decision to continue the ban on Herculex, Minister Sargent said that a consignment of animal feed containing the banned ingredient had been sent to the EU in May in full knowledge that it hadn't been approved.
"The EU was put in a position of having to consider legitimising this consignment of feed. That was a dangerous precedent and the EU was right to to say it did not want to encourage this sort of activity." Minister Sargent told the Farmers Journal that over the weekend he had had discussions on the matter and that these discussions resulted in a longer term view being taken on the issue.
"If we had voted to roll-over on Herculex we'd find it impossible to get GM free status. It would make it more difficult to have choice in this important matter."
He rejected any suggestion that the decision would lead to a scarcity in supplies of GM-free animal feed ingredients and said there were ample supplies available. He also rejected claims that farmers were facing massive increases in the price of animal feed because of the decision.
"Certified premium GM-free animal feed ingredients are trading at $15 a tonne above the fluctuating daily price on the Chicago market. I take seriously my responsibility to ensure that returns to Irish farmers will be able to offset that premium on feed prices." Minister Sargent said the that markets in France and Italy are increasingly requiring that produce be GM-free feed.
"Our future is in these high end markets. The choice we face is either stay ahead in that race or compete on the quantity market with the likes of Brazil and that's impossible."
Comment on the above article from GM-free Ireland:
Brazil's largest exporter of certified non-GMO soya products, IMCOPA, can supply all of Ireland's needs for soya animal feed certified at the 0.1% detection threshold for a premium – including shipping costs of delivery to any port in Ireland – of approx US$15 per metric tonne above the global commodity price set by the Chicago Board of Trade, which fluctuates daily.
Unlike the GM soya animal feed promoted by the Irish Farmers Journal (which often involves massive use of toxic weedkiller, tropical deforestation, topsoil erosion, displacement of indigenous peoples, virtual slave labour, and contamination of the European food chain with illegal GM varieties), IMCOPA's non-GMO soya production methods are environmentally, ethically and socially compliant with the Basel Criteria for Responsible Soy Production, initiated by WWF Switzerland and Coop Switzerland, certified to the ProTerra Standard.
Feed importers, feed compounders and farmers wishing to secure GM-free soya animal feed may wish to contact IMCOPA's European office in Switzerland:
Jochen Koester, Director
IMCOPA Europe SA
14 Rue du Rhône
Geneva
Switzerland
Tel + 41 22 819 1729
Email: jk(at)imcopa.com
Website: www.imcopa.com
Ireland: GM food policy: Hypocrisy must be faced down
The Irish Farmers Journal, 30 June 2007.
The GM (Genetically Modified) Food Policy is reaching farcical proposals. If Europe decides to effectively ban the technology, not just in the production of plants but also bans the importation of feedstuffs made from GM plants, then it has to live with the consequences.
It is hypocritical to then import animal products, mainly pigs and poultry, fed with the same feedstuffs banned in Europe.
Mary Coughlan's decision to abstain on this issue on Monday is simply not logical, except perhaps in domestic political terms.
Already we are seeing serious supply fears for corn gluten with significant price increase already being factored in.
With huge acreage of new varieties and Round Up Ready soya being sown in the US and South America, we will, unless some kind of sanity is imposed, face even more difficult problems with soya supplies in the future.
It is time for this double speak and hypocrisy to be faced down.
Ireland: Why GM feed issue could be costly for Ireland
The Irish Farmers Journal, 30 June 2007. By Pat O'Keefe, News Editor.
The following is the executive summary of a recently published EU Commission report on "the economic impact of unapproved GMOs on EU feed imports and livestock production."
GM crops are increasingly cultivated in major crop exporting countries. Due to the differences in the GMO authorisation regimes between the EU and exporting countries, asynchronous authorisations of GMOs have already occured. They are likely to become more frequent and to affect a greater range of crops in the future.
The EU applies a zero-tolerance policy for non-approved GMOs in food and feed imports. This implies that the presence on non-approved GMOs has been kept below the technical detection threshold in imports, which is very difficult in practice.
The presence of EU non-approved GMOs has already affected imports of maize feed products (corn gluten feed and distillers dried grain) with, however, limited overall economic implications for EU livestock production. However, as these producs are mainly imported by a few Member States, the economic impact may be more pronounced in these countries.
Concerning soybeans and soybean meal, the EU imports vast volumes of these feed products which would be difficult to replace by alternative protein rich feed. Only 10-20% of imports could be replaced by substitutes.
For this study, the economic impact of a potential ban on soybean/meal imports from the three major exporting countries (USA, Argentina and Brazil) was modelled. Three scenarios were distinguished depending on whether soybean/meal imports from one, two or all three of these countries are banned.
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If EU-non approved GM soybeans were cultivated only in the USA, but not in Argentina and Brazil, the impact on the EU market of a ban on US supplies would be small due to the moderate US import volumes.
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However, if these GMOs were also cultivated in Argentina (medium impact scenario) or in Argentina and Brazil (worst case scenario), the estimated economic impact of a two-year import ban would be severe, cutting EU feed supply (in soybean meal equivalent) by 3.3 million t and 25.7 million t. respectively. Feed expenditure would rise by 22.8% and by more than 600% in the two scenarios.
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The short-term impacts in the pig meat and poultry sectors would be a substantial reduction in production, exports and consumption, and an increase in imports. For beef meat, production would be less affected, but exports would be significantly reduced (by 100% in the worst case scenario).
Assuming that after two years (2009-2010) the import restrictions would be lifted again, there would be a more moderate but still significant medium-term impact beyond the period of the ban. EU meat production and consumption would almost recover by 2013, but EU output and consumption would still remain below baseline levels.
Corn gluten feed pellets 2007 146 59% increase 2006 92 Palm kernel expeller 2007 128 83% increase 2006 70 Dried distillers grain 2007 154 31% increase 2006 117 Citrus pulp pellets 2007 163 57% increase 2006 104 Beet pulp pellets 2007 188 85% increase 2006 101 Beet pulp molasses 2007 102 2% increase 2006 102 Soybean hull pellets 2007 125 39% increase 2006 90 Soybean meal (Arg.) 2007 200 29% increase 2006 155 Soybean meal (Braz.) 2007 209 23% increase 2006 170 EU soybean meal 2007 219 24% increase 2006 177 Rapeseed meal 2007 122 36% increase 2006 90 Sunflower pellets 2007 135 61% increase 2006 84 Tapioca hard pellets 2007 150 46% increase 2006 103 Feed peas 2007 200 48% increase 2006 135 Feed barley 2007 174 58% increase 2006 110 Feed wheat 2007 174 34% increase 2006 130 Feed wheat 2007 173 37% increase 2006 127 Feed rye 2007 156 29% increase 2006 121
Implications
Given the EU livestock production accounts for about 40% of agricultural income a loss in competitiveness of the UE [sic][ livestock sector, as indicated in the medium and worst case scenarios, would have important implications for agricultural incomes and employment, with considerable knock-on effects in the upstream and downstream industries, and significant increases in meat prices for the consumer.
As a result of the import bans for soybeans/meal from the USA, Argentina and Brazil, animal production would expand in the overseas countries, as producers could take advantage of cheaper GM protein feed, while the EU would increase its imports of meat from animals fed with GM soybeans in these countries (meat from animals fed with GM feed is not subject to GMO labelling in the EU).
The prevention of the economic impact of asynchronous approvals of new GM soybeans on the EU market will depend on whether feed exporting countries refrain from the use of these GMOs until authorisation is also granted in the EU.
Soybean varieties
While it can not be expected that the USA will limit the use of novel GMOs, Brazil and Argentina are more likely to be willing to wait with the introduction EU-non approved soybean varieties, as their industries are much more dependent on exports to the EU. However, given the past experience with illegal GMO plantings in Brazil, it is doubtful that Brazil would be able to enforce a policy of non-adoption vis a vis its farmers.
Moreover, with the emergence of China as a major soybean importer, Argentina and Brazil will become less reliant on the European market for their soybean production.
The willingness of feed exporting countries to delay the production of GMOs until EU approval is granted may be greater if they have confidence that the EU authorisation regime for GMOs works smoothly and efficiently.
In general, if can be expected that the presence of EU non-approved GMOs will become an increasingly important factor that will limit the possibilities for animal feed imports. Even if exporting countries take their exports to the EU into account in their GMO approval strategies, unwanted mixing resulting from illegal or experimental cultivation may render these policies less effective.
Flexibility
From an economic point of view, the EU will certainly profit if it can ensure greater flexibility in maintaining imports for different countries, by limiting the potential impact of, and by avoiding asynchronous approvals of GMOs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to take action in order to avoid negative implications for EU livestock production and agriculture overall.
In particular, it should be considered how the authorisation procedure, which is significantly longer than in the USA and other countries, could be accelerated. A limiting factor at present is the risk assessment procedure by EFSA. There is a long backlog of GMO applications following the modification of the GMO legalisation. It should be examined why the risk assessment procedure takes so much time, and how it can be accelerated without compromising the validity of the risk assessment.
We should furthermore look at possible approaches on hwo to deal with imports containing minute or just detectable traces of GMOs that are fully approved in exporting countries according to internationally agreed standards.
In this regard, the discussions at the level of the Codex Alimentarius are important and should be pursued.
Commodity prices (€) on 15 June 2007
compared to last year's prices on the same date
Prices quoted are ex-Amsterdam/Rotterdam
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Preliminary comments on the above article from GM free Ireland:
The Irish Farmers Journal fails to specify the title and author(s) of the study to which it refers, and does not make clear if the "executive summary" was written by the study's author(s) or by the news editor, Pat O'Keefe.
The article relies on a number of false and/or misleading assumptions and claims:
•
The article's use of the term "asynchronous authorisation" implies that GMO products approved in the USA automatically become approved in the EU. This is certainly not the case, for the very good reason that the EU approvals process is considerably more rigorous than the US version.
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The statement that the EU applies a zero-tolerance policy for non-approved GMOs in food and feed imports is so in theory, but not in practice because of false certification and inadequate testing procedures (as in the thousands of tonnes of animal feed contaminated by the unauthorised Herculex GM maize gluten which the Irish and Dutch authorites illegally allowed to enter the European food chain in April 2007).
•
The article falsely claims that it would be difficult to replace GM soybeans and soya meal with alternative (GM-free) protein rich feed, and that "only 10-20% of these imports could be replaced by substitutes". In reality, 50% of the brazil soya crop is GM-free. Non-GMO soya meal certified at the 0.1% detection threshold is available now for a premium of around US$ per metric tonne (including delivery costs to any port in Ireland). The management of the Irish Farmers Association is well aware of this fact.
•
Unlike maize and rapeseed, soya is self-pollinating. This means that farmers who currently grow GM soya can convert back to GM-free soya in the following season in response to EU market demand. This shift from GM to GM-free soya has already happened in Romania, and can take place in the USA, Argentina and Canada as well.
•
It appears that Brazil alone could meet the entire European demand for soya animal feed from non-GMO soya.
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The notion of the EU placing hypothetical country-specific bans on soybean/meal imports from the USA, Argentina and Canada is fantastic. EU bans on GMOs apply to the product, not to the country of origin (except in emergencies when a particular country's seed supply or food/feed exports have been contaminated by illegal GM varieties, as happened with up to 40% of the US long-rain rice supply which was contaminated by Bayer's illegal GM varieties between 1998 and 2007.
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The projection that bans on GMO soya imports from Argentina, or Argentina and Brazil together, would create feed expenditure rises of 22.8% and over 600% respectively is absurd, given that non-GMO soya is available at minimal extra cost from Brazil.
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The statement that "it can not be expected that the USA will limit the use of novel GMOs" beggars belief, since US farmers have already prevented the release of various GM varieties including wheat and alfafa in order to avoid contamination and loss of market share.
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The statement that "the willingness of feed exporting countries to delay the production of GMOs until EU approval is granted may be greater if they have confidence that the EU authorisation regime for GMOs works smoothly and efficiently" rests on the flawed assumption that the EU will continue to legalise GM products which have been already approved in the USA. In reality, resistance to GM food and animal feed is increasing rapidly across the EU's 22 member states.
The article's final three paragraphs reveal the agri-biotech industry intention to obtain more control of the world's agricultural seeds by dismantling the European Food Safety Authority's GMO risk assessment procedures and lowering EU's GMO contamination thresholds, inter alia through changes in the Codex Alimentarius.
The Irish Farmers Journal's uncritical adoption of agri-biotech industry propaganda revealed in this and other articles in the same issue of the paper clearly shows that the Journal places the commercial interests of the agri-biotech industry above those of Irish farmers and consumers.
Moreover, the article completely fails to mention the issue of peak oil, which will eventually make industrial monoculture production of cash crops for animal feed – and their transportation across the atlantic – and the overproduction of Irish meat and dairy produce for long-distance shipping to overseas export markets – physically impossible.
Instead of propping up the global "free trade" industrial biotech agribusiness model which is doomed to failure, we should focus on bringing the food economy home with a more sustainable and organic agriculture that has the capacity to guarantee the world's food security and national food self-sufficiency in the post-petroleum age.
29 June 2007
The health risks of GM foods
Letter sent to the Editor of the Irish Times, 29 June 2007
Shane Morris' bizarre, rambling attack of me (Letters, June 29th) is
predicted on page 252 of my book Genetic Roulette. The book begins with 65
health risks of genetically modified (GM) foods, including links to
thousands of sick, sterile and dead animals and thousands of people with
toxic or allergic-type reactions. With input from more than 30 scientists,
it documents dozens of ways that GM crops create unpredicted side effects
and numerous incorrect assumptions that were used as the basis for safety
claims. It reveals how government assessments are not competent to identify
most of the health risks and how industry-funded studies are meticulously
rigged to avoid finding them.
The book is being presented to governments worldwide as evidence that GM
foods are unsafe. If biotech advocates are unable to provide data to counter
each of the 65 risks (see www.geneticroulette.com), the foods should be
banned. I alert readers, however, that industry advocates, having lost the
debate on health risks long ago, rarely address the science. I describe 10
tactics they use instead, 3 of which are illustrated in Morris's ranting:
Sweeping dismissal, Invoking of scientific organizations, and Personal
attack. The last is used in response to "a particularly strong argument or
evidence that can damage the industry position." Morris' strong personal
attack demonstrates his weak position.
Further, his accusations were twisted, at best. He claims that Genetic
Roulette is not scientific, yet each section was reviewed by at least three
scientists and is supported by more than 1000 endnotes. Although Morris is
correct that my first book, Seeds of Deception was self-published, he
neglected to say that it is the world's bestselling book on GM foods, put
out in 10 languages by 13 publishers, including the largest. It exposes how
GM approvals were based on industry manipulation. At the US Food and Drug
Administration, for example, Monsanto's former attorney was put in charge of
policy. He disregarded agency scientists, whose consensus was that GM foods
might create the type of allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional
problems that we are now seeing. A complete ban of GM food and feed is
overdue.
Jeffrey M. Smith
Executive Director
Institute for Responsible Technology
P.O. Box 469
Fairfield, IA 52556 USA
www.responsibletechnology.org
Author, international bestseller Seeds of Deception (www.seedsofdeception.com)
and the new Genetic Roulette
www.geneticroulette.com
Tel +1 641 472 8338
Cell +1 561 951 7877
The health risks of GM foods
Letter sent to the Editor of the Irish Times, 29 June 2007
Madam,
"Genetic Roulette - the documented health risks of genetically engineered food," as the title suggests deals with the unexpected outcomes of the very imprecise way in which genetic modification moves genes around and disrupts normal gene function about which so little is known.
I therefore understand why, that rather than engage in argument on this topic Mr. Morris prefers to attempt to "slay the messenger" Mr. Smith who compiled the evidence, by reference to his politics and beliefs.
What was called for was a response through the forum for discussion on the books web-site where scientific views maybe aired and held up to scrutiny. In the next ten years the bio-tech industry believes that G.M. cropping will pass the point of no return, is this to be allowed happen without pressing its advocates to explain their presumption about genetics?
As a farmer, I object to natural plant genetics, part of the tools of my trade, being given so little respect by people who don't understand them and who don't feel the need to explain the apparent failings of their scientific presumptions.
Yours etc
Nick Cullen
Ballysax
The Curragh
Co. Kildare
087 6203941
The health risks of GM foods
Letter sent to the Editor of the Irish Times, 29 June 2007
Madam,
Shane Morris's attack on Jeffrey Smith's book Genetic Roulette - The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Modified Foods (Letters, June 29th) employs the "shoot the messenger" strategy favoured by agri-biotech industry spin doctors who are no longer able to deny the growing scientific evidence which links GM food and animal feed to deaths and disease in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population.
Morris and his biotech colleage and mentor Doug Powell (a well-known GM industry lobbyist) have co-authored a number of pro-GMO papers, one of which received the GM Watch Propaganda Lab Award 2006 for its [XXXXXXXXXX *] scientific claims, triggering a controversy reported by New Scientist magazine.
Morris wrote his letter in response to the Kildare-based farmer Nick Cullen (Letters, June 28th), who critiqued your newspaper's coverage of the briefing on Food Safety and GMOs which I recently organised with Kathy Sinnott MEP at the EU Parliament Office in Dublin ("Sargent says GMO-free pledge is a 'huge step'", June 16th).
As Nick Cullen rightly pointed out, that article avoided any reference to the peer-reviewed scientific papers presented at the briefing, including those summarised in Genetic Roulette, but quoted instead from statements from the floor by the Chairman of the Irish Times Trust, Prof David McConnell, who attempted to portray Trevor Sargent [Ireland's new Minister of State for Agriculture and Food] – and anyone else who disagrees with his views on GMOs – as scientifically illiterate.
In the interests of transparency, your article should have mentioned that Prof McConnell's Smurfit School of Genetics at TCD is part-funded by the agribiotech industry, and that he is also the Co-Chair of EAGLES (European Action on Global Life Sciences), a biotech industry lobby group which promotes GM food and crops in the developing countries.
Our new government's aim to keep the whole island of Ireland free of GM crops and livestock will help our food and farm sectors retain access to the EU market for safe food, which increasingly prohibits or restricts the use of any food (including meat and dairy produce) containing or derived from genetically modified ingredients.
Our media should not encourage us to abandon this long-term competitive advantage because of vested interests.
GM foods and farming present a variety of extremely serious health, agronomic, environmental, legal, economic and food security risks. Please provide some more balanced coverage of these issues in the Irish Times!
Yours etc
Michael O'Callaghan
Co-ordinator, GM-free Ireland Network
Background information (not included in the letter):
The deleted adjective used to describe the scientific paper has been censored following a threat of libel action by a Canadian Government agent called Shane Morris!
Canada is the world's second largest producer of GM crops. Morris is currently employed as Senior Consumer Analyst at the Consumer Analysis Section of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, as shown on the Canadian Government Electronic Directory Services on 22 July 2007: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/morris/ShaneMorris.pdf.
He maintains a web blog at http://www.gmoireland.blogspot.com designed to discredit the GM-free Ireland Network with personal attacks on Michael O'Callaghan, Percy Schmeiser and others. He persuaded Bord Bía to withdraw agreed sponsorship for the Green Ireland conference in 2006, he complained to the Ireland Funds for their 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, and he has had many pro-GMO letters published in Irish newspapers.
The scientific paper "Agronomic and consumer considerations for Bt and conventional sweet-corn", was co-authored by D.A. Powell, K. Blaine, S. Morris and J. Wilson, and was published in the British Food Journal, Volume 105 Number 10, 2003, pp. 700-713.
The paper won the following awards:
•
"British Food Journal's Award for Excellence for Most Outstanding Paper in 2004"
•
"GM Watch Propaganda Lab Award 2006"
The paper and its authors have been criticised in the following documents (note that these documents are published by third parties and do not necessarily reflect the views of the GM-free Ireland Network or those our internet service provider):
•
Secret Ingredients: The Brave New World of Industrial Farming. By Stuart Laidlaw, 288 pages 1st ed. (15 April 2003) McClelland & Stewart; ISBN: 0771045956.
•
Altered food tested at the market. By Stuart Laidlaw, Toronto Star, 8 October 2000.
•
Rude Science. By John W. Morris, The Manitoba Co-operator, June 21 2001. This article strongly criticizes Morris and Powell for their attack dog antics, particularly against the Royal Society of Canada for raising concerns about GMOs.
•
"Controversy over claims in favour of GM corn", New Scientist, issue 2553, 27 May 2006
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19025533.300&feedId=gm-food_rss20:
•
"The GM Propaganda Lab" (originally titled "Award for a Fraud"), published by GM Watch:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=72&page= 1
•
"Propaganda Lab Award 2006", published by GM Watch:
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7495
•
Related editor's note and correspondence published in the British Food Journal, Vol 108, Issue 8, 22 August 2006:
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/en/article-details.php?a=3&c=9&sc=62&id=897
•
GM Watch profile of Doug Powell
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=257 (extract):
_______________________
Genetically modified crops
The Irish Times, Letters to the Editor, 29 June 2007
Madam,
Nick Cullen requests a scholarly response to Jeffrey Smith's book Genetic Roulette (Letters, June 28th). However I fear he maybe waiting some time considering the book is not scientifically peer reviewed and is riddled with misinformation. In addition, the publisher, Yes Books, is run by Jeffrey Smith himself and is a vanity publisher that has only ever published two books, both by Mr. Smith.
Jeffrey Smith has never published a peer-reviewed scientific article and is a member of the Natural Law Party his past so-called "scientific" statements include "the minds of yogic flyers are like radio transmitters that radiate a positive influence, resonating through the surrounding mental environment... Smith presented charts with evidence of a correlation between the presence of yogic flyers and in increas in the quality of life and a decrease in crime... Smith said more than 500 studies have shown transcendental meditation has its benefits including more creativity, intelligence and energy, better health and higher IQ over the long term" (Daily Illini, Oct 28th, 1996).
Mr Cullen also fails to point out that Jeffrey Smith was also recently the vice-president of marketing communication for Genetic ID, a US company that has strong links to the Natural Law Party that tests for the presence of genetically engineered products, with contracts in the past with Greenpeace. The New York Times (October 11th, 2000) stated "Genetic ID, many in the industry say, is trying to create a biotech scare to increase the demand for testing". Clearly, it still pays Jeffrey Smith to scaremonger on genetically engineered foods in terms of book sales. Personally I prefer to rely on the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, the European Food Safety Authority and the large number of peer-reviewed scientific publications that agree that approved genetically engineered foods are safe.
Yours etc
Shane Morris B.Sc
Coolkill
Sandyford
Dublin 18
USA: Synthetic Biology: Venter's Trillion-Dollar Dream Spotlights Dangers of "Self-Regulation"
Genetic Crossroads Newsletter of the Center for Genetics and Society, 29 June 2007.
Yesterday's announcement that biotech entrepreneur Craig Venter is one step closer to constructing a self-replicating artificial life form should be a wake-up call.
http://www.nytimes.rsvp1.com/2007/06/29/science/29cells.html?mghost=http%3A%2F%2F
www.nytimes.com&mglogexit=1&mgfixit=1
Venter's move to construct a synthetic bacterial species paves the way for the deliberate or accidental creation of pathogens of unprecedented virulence. Currently there are no laws or treaties, and few regulations, to bring this set of powerful new biotechnologies under responsible social oversight.
In 1975 scientists gathered at an emergency meeting in Asilomar, California to reluctantly impose a voluntary, short-term moratorium on their own research in the then-new field of genetic engineering. Now, 32 years later, scientists promoting the new field of synthetic biology appear far less willing to abide by even minimal precautionary values.
In March 2006 synthetic biologists at the "SynBio 2.0" conference in Berkeley, California downplayed the risks that synthetic biology poses, and resisted calls for moratoria or any effective public oversight. Those sentiments have been reinforced at the "SynBio 3.0" conference being held this week in Zurich, Switzerland.
The profound dangers of synthetic biology have been widely noted. As early as 2003, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warned [PDF] that synthetic biology could be used to produce biological agents whose effects "could be worse than any disease known to man."
http://www.fas.rsvp1.com/irp/cia/product/bw1103.pdf?mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fas.org
&mglogexit=1&mgfromtag=a&mgfixit=1
A leading MIT synthetic biologist has acknowledged [PDF] that synthetic biology might allow people with a high school biology education to create "a pathogen that could cause millions of deaths."
http://thebulletin.metapress.rsvp1.com/content/c6h4437658546m25/fulltext.pdf?
mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fthebulletin.metapress.com&mglogexit=1&mgfromtag=a&mgfixit=1
Nonetheless, the only safeguards that most synthetic biologists appear willing to accept are a series of "self-regulatory" procedures that provide little or no protection. Their proposals for self-regulation are more public relations than a serious approach to social oversight.
For the past two decades the links between the bioscience research community and the commercial biotechnology industry have become increasingly strong. Commercial motives have been present at the creation, so to speak, of synthetic biology. Earlier this month it was disclosed that Venter had applied for both US and international patents on his proposed synthetic bacterium. He has declared his hope that it will be the world's first "trillion dollar organism."
http://www.msnbc.msn.rsvp1.com/id/18882837/site/newsweek/?
mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.msnbc.msn.com&mglogexit=1&mgfixit=1
Organizations including the ETC Group, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have already begun to educate and activate [PDF] key constituencies around the immense risks posed by synthetic biology. With researchers and biotech entrepreneurs refusing to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, it's up to civil society, national governments and international governing bodies to ensure that biotechnology is developed in ways that enhance rather than endanger the well-being of the human community and all life on earth.
Resources:
ETC Group: Extreme Genetic Engineering
http://www.etcgroup.rsvp1.com/en/materials/publications.html?
pub_id=602?mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.etcgroup.org&mglogexit=1&mgfixit=1
Civil Society Sign-On Letter [PDF]
http://www.etcgroup.rsvp1.com/upload/publication/pdf_file/8?
mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.etcgroup.org&mglogexit=1&mgfixit=1
Richard Hayes, "Our Biopolitical Future: Four Scenarios," WorldWatch [PDF]
http://www.genetics-and-society.rsvp1.com/media/WWBiopolfut.pdf?mghost=http%3A%2F%2F
www.genetics-and-society.org&mgfromtag=a&mgfixit=1
SynBio 3.0
http://www.syntheticbiology3.ethz.ch.rsvp1.com/index.htm?
mghost=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.syntheticbiology3.ethz.ch&mglogexit=1&mgfixit=1
EU: Cyprus wines to benefit from EU promo
Financial Mirror (Cyprus), 29 June 2007.
Agriculture sector in Europe can better survive if it sets as its goal the production of high quality products, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Mariann Fischer Boel said, noting that Cyprus can contribute towards the achievement of this goal.
In a press conference she held with the Cypriot Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Fotis Fotiou, after the meeting, Boel called upon the Cypriot farmers to aim for high quality products.
She also said that she was informed on Cyprus' intention to apply for registering Cyprus halloumi cheese as a protected product.
"I heard during our conversation about the halloumi cheese, for which you will apply for geographical indication. I think that the idea to go for high quality products is the only way to go forward for the EU agriculture", she said.
During the meeting, EU Common Agriculture Policy was discussed, as well as other issues, such as the problems faced by the Cypriot farmers, the promotion of the European wines and the bad weather conditions all over Europe.
Boel said that the European Commission will present on July 4 a proposal for the promotion of European wines in third countries.
"We have afforded 120 million euros for the promotion of the wine sector each year to the third markets", she explained, adding that Europe is facing "huge competition from outside".
Answering to questions regarding Genetically Modified Organisms and Cyprus' intention to declare itself a GMO free area, she said that this can be done without any previous approval by the EU.
"If Cyprus wants to declare itself GMO free this will depend on the support from the farmers. If a voluntary agreement can be made, then this is possible. But it is not possible to introduce a compulsory or legislative proposal that prohibits the farmers to use GMO production", she said.
EU: EFSA reaffirms its risk assessment of genetically modified maize MON 863
EFSA's GMO Panel has concluded that this re-analysis of the data does not raise any new safety concerns
EFSA News, 29 June 2007.
At the request of the European Commission (EC), EFSA has examined a paper by Séralini et al. on the statistical evaluation of a 90-day feeding study in animals with genetically modified maize MON 863, to identify any consequences for EFSA's risk assessment of the safety of MON 863. The paper presents an alternative statistical analysis of the 90-day rat study that was considered in the original risk assessment. Following a detailed statistical review and analysis by an EFSA Task Force, EFSA's GMO Panel has concluded that this re-analysis of the data does not raise any new safety concerns.
EFSA undertook a series of actions to give a considered response to the European Commission on this issue:
•
Member States (MS) were asked to provide any analyses and comments that may contribute to consideration of this issue.
•
EFSA set up a Task Force of internal and external statistical experts to help assess the statistical methodology applied by authors of the publication in their re-analysis of the original data from the 90-day rat feeding study and to consider the contributions received from MS. As part of that work a meeting was held with the authors of the paper.
•
EFSA's GMO Panel has reviewed all the available evidence.
Following this work, EFSA has responded to the Commission, published a statistical report and issued a scientific statement from its GMO Panel. The main conclusions are:
•
The statistical analysis made by the authors of the paper did not take into account certain important statistical considerations. The assumptions underlying the statistical methodology employed by the authors led to misleading results.
•
EFSA considers that the paper does not present a sound scientific justification in order to question the safety of MON 863 maize.
•
Observed statistically significant differences reported by Monsanto, SÈralini et al., and EFSA, were considered not to be biologically relevant. In the absence of any indications that the observed differences are indicative of adverse effects, the GMO Panel does not consider that this paper raises new issues with respect to the safety of MON 863 maize. Therefore, the GMO Panel sees no reason to revise its previous Opinions that the MON 863 maize would not have an adverse effect in the context of its proposed use.
Prior to this most recent work, MON 863 maize has been subject to a comprehensive risk assessment by EFSA and by other authorities which did not identify any adverse effects on human and animal health or the environment. The 90-day rat study analysed by this paper is one element of the comprehensive risk assessment of MON863 maize. In addition to the original Opinion in April 2004, this study has been reviewed again twice since then, prior to this recent work.
The letter to the Commission, the GMO Panel statement, EFSA statistical analysis of the Monsanto data are available on the EFSA website at the following links:
Letter to the Commission
The GMO Panel statement
EFSA statistical analysis of the Monsanto data
www.efsa.europa.eu
EU: EFSA rejects concerns over Monsanto maize
FoodNavigator.com, 29 June 2007. By Stephen Daniells
The European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) GMO panel has no safety concerns after reviewing data from French scientists suggesting toxicity concerns in rats fed the MON863 variety of GM maize from Monsanto.
"Following a detailed statistical review and analysis by an EFSA Task Force, EFSA's GMO Panel has concluded that this re-analysis of the data does not raise any new safety concerns," stated the authority.
The statement draws a line under the issue, raised when new data from a 90-day rat study, published in the peer-review journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology in March, indicated liver and kidney toxicity in the rats, as well as differences in weight gain between the sexes as a result of eating the transgenic maize.
MON863 is a transgenic maize genetically modified to express the Bt-toxin (Cry3Bb1) which enables the plant to be insect repellent against the corn rootworm pest. It is different from other GM corns of the market since these express the Cry1Ab toxin which is toxic to the European corn borer.
It received European approval for use in animal feed in 2005 and for human consumption in 2006. The corn is also authorised in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines and the USA.
In the US, no re-evaluation of the data was announced by FDA.
The researchers behind the study, led by Professor Gilles Eric SÈralini from the independent CRIIGEN (Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering) based at the University of Caen, questioned the methods used by Monsanto to initially show the safety and non-toxicity of the corn, saying that the statistical methods used were insufficient to observed any possible disruptions in biochemistry.
"Monsanto's analyses do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny - to begin with, their statistical protocols are highly questionable. Worse, the company failed to run a sufficient analysis of the differences in animal weight. Crucial data from urine tests were concealed in the company's own publications," said SÈralini in March during a joint press conference with environmental group Greenpeace in Berlin.
After re-evaluating the safety data relating to MON863, EFSA however have come to different set of conclusions, stating:
"The statistical analysis made by the authors of the paper did not take into account certain important statistical considerations. The assumptions underlying the statistical methodology employed by the authors led to misleading results.
"EFSA considers that the paper does not present a sound scientific justification in order to question the safety of MON 863 maize.
"Observed statistically significant differences reported by Monsanto, SÈralini et al., and EFSA, were considered not to be biologically relevant. In the absence of any indications that the observed differences are indicative of adverse effects, the GMO Panel does not consider that this paper raises new issues with respect to the safety of MON 863 maize.
"Therefore, the GMO Panel sees no reason to revise its previous Opinions that the MON 863 maize would not have an adverse effect in the context of its proposed use," said the authority.
This was not the first time that EFSA was requested to look at MON863. Indeed, the authority released a statement in October 2004 following a request by the German authorities following a 13-week rat study that suggested kidney toxicity.
"Following [the GMO Panel's] investigation of the report, and of the retrospective evaluation of renal tissues and data derived from the 13-week rat feeding study performed by independent peer reviewers, the GMO Panel concludes that there is no evidence presented in the report that changes the conclusions already reached by the GMO Panel earlier this year in its Opinions on the safety of the insect-protected genetically modified maize MON 863 (EFSA 2004a, b)," read the October 2004 statement.
Ireland: Gormley must explain Euro vote on GMO content in organic food
Statement by Proinsias de Rossa MEP
Labour Party MEP for Dublin
Friday, 29 June 2007
Proinsias De Rossa has called on the Minister for the Environment John
Gormley to explain why he voted in favour of a draft regulation at
yesterday's Environmental Council in Luxembourg allowing products to be
labelled as organic even if they contain GMOs to a maximum 0.9%
threshold.
The European Parliament had called for the lowest detectable limit -
0.1% - but this was formally rejected at yesterday's Environment Council
by Minister Gormley and his colleagues.
Mr De Rossa said: 'The minutes of Thursday's Environmental Council
released this morning indicate that Minister Gormley did not follow the
environment ministers from Belgium, Greece, Hungary and Italy and vote
against the draft EC Regulation on organic production and the labelling
or organic production. This will permit products to be described as
organic even if they contain GMOs to a maximum threshold of 0.9% from
January 2009 onwards.
'By contrast in its 22 May vote on this proposal, the European
Parliament had voted in favour of a maximum 0.1% threshold, the lowest
level detectable.
'All MEPs have received a huge amount of correspondence from organic
producers arguing against the 0.9% limit and in favour of 0.1% limit.
'It is regrettable that when this matter came up for adoption in the
Council, John Gormley failed back the organic producers' and the
European Parliament's position. As Friends of the Earth Europe have
warned, 'organic farmers will find it increasingly difficult to keep
their crops GM-free'.
'At the very least, Minister Gormley could have abstained and/or entered
a declaration indicating his support for the lower limit.
'I welcome the Minister's signalling of a change in Ireland's
environmental policy but it seems that he's failed to follow through on
this promised change at one of the very first opportunities."
28 June 2007
Ireland: Genetically engineered crops
The Irish Times, 28 June 2008.
Madam,
I would like to take issue with your paper's coverage of the event at which Trevor Sargent outlined Government policy on genetically engineered crops (June 16th). Your reporter chose to focus on Prof McConnell's opinion that people opposed to the outdoor release of genetically engineered organisms did not understand science, while failing to mention the presentation by respected geneticist Dr. Ricarda A. Steinbrecher or the Irish launch of Genetic Roulette - The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Food which was also part of the event. However, as the Professor was presented with a copy, I await a scholarly response to the documented evidence of adverse health effects from genetically engineered food contained in the dossier, using the forum provided by its author in the website www.GeneticRoulette.com
Yours etc
Nick Cullen
The Curragh
Co. Kildare
Pharma investment in Ireland 'unbelievably significant'
www.in-pharmatechnologist.com, 28 June 2007. By Anna Lewcock.
Ireland has successfully established itself as a hub for
the pharma and biotech industries, and the trend to invest in high
value-added activities on the green isle shows no sign of slowing,
according to Ireland's Industrial Development Agency (IDA).
With numerous big names in the industry setting up shop in Ireland
(Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, Amgen and Abbott to name but a few),
the region is basking in the glow of its increasing popularity, the
result of a determined drive to establish itself as a prime location
for pharmaceutical and biotechnology activities.
Over recent years, billions of euros have poured into Ireland as a
result of investment by the sector; in 2006 Ireland saw capital
investment projects that totalled §2.6bn, the bulk of which came from
the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, according to Brendan Halpin
of the IDA.
"The last couple of years have been particularly good in terms of
pharmaceutical and biotech investments," Halpin told
in-PharmaTechnologist.com.
"There has been a major increase in high added value manufacturing and
R&D, with companies like Pfizer, Wyeth, GSK and more recently Gilead
Sciences investing in Ireland."
Ireland has indeed become a real focal point for the industry, and has
established itself as the most popular destination for development and
manufacture outside the US. Fourteen of the top fifteen pharma
companies are present in Ireland, according to Halpin, and seven of the
world's top ten blockbuster drugs are manufactured there says Barry
O'Leary, senior vice president of life sciences and ICT at the IDA.
"Life sciences are the largest source of foreign investment in
Ireland," said O'Leary.
"We have a strong life sciences cluster and very strong market share; a
lot of investment is driven by the existing client base."
This claim is strongly supported by the fact that many of the pharma
companies present in Ireland have opted to establish several bases in
the region: Abbott has no less than seven sites, J&J has six, Pfizer
comes in with five, and Schering Plough and GlaxoSmithKline have four
apiece.
Over the decade there has been a shift in seeing Ireland purely as a
destination for low-level manufacturing operations to a location that
focuses on a different area of companies' value chains, and can offer
distinct advantages to firms looking for expertise, an attractive
infrastructure and all-important tax breaks.
"We've followed a very targeted and focused business model to attract
companies by helping them increase value in areas such as R&D, supply
chain management, logistics and high value-added innovations," said
Halpin.
"We've moved on from a location from which companies can serve not only
the European market but one that can serve globally."
The move towards biopharmaceuticals and drugs produced by chemical
synthesis has also proved good for Ireland, with steady growth over the
last five years and the region having again established itself as the
number one location outside the US for development and manufacturing of
biopharmaceuticals.
Ireland has spent considerable time and effort in establishing its
reputation as a high quality destination offering the expertise and
infrastructure to attract investment. This is an aspect where it can
offer significant advantages over low-cost destinations such as Asia or
Africa where some companies are choosing to set up operations.
"Companies have huge confidence in Ireland and the support they receive
here," said Halpin.
"It takes time to build a business environment that is reliableÖthe
system [in Ireland] has been built up over 25 years."
Although some companies have been shifting their investments to
low-cost destinations, according to Halpin these have been the more
cost-sensitive manufacturing aspects of their businesses. For projects
that are less cost-sensitive but still need to be competitive, Ireland
is establishing itself as an attractive option, with many companies
expanding their presence in the region rather than leaving.
The IDA has a great deal of confidence in the pharmaceutical and
biotech industries and future growth in Ireland generated from the
sector. The investments that continue to take place from pharma and
biotech firms are "unbelievably significant for [Ireland] and the
companies involved" says Halpin, and neither he nor O'Leary see the
pattern of growing investment dwindling.
"Things are looking bright," said Halpin.
No to the agrofuels craze!
New from GRAIN, June 2007
http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=502
GRAIN has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as we like to call them, agrofuels - over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world.
In the process of gathering material from colleagues and social movements around the world, we have discovered that the stampede into agrofuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, much more than we realised earlier. Precious ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities are being thrown off their land.
Worse lies ahead: the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha (an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be manufactured), the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares available for biofuels, and lobbyists in Europe are speaking of almost 400 million hectares being available for biofuels in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.
We believe that the prefix bio, which comes from the Greek word for 'life', is entirely inappropriate for such anti-life devastation. So, following the lead of non-governmental organisations and social movements in Latin America, we do not talk about biofuels and green energy. Agrofuels is a much better term, we believe, to express what is really happening: agribusiness producing fuel from plants as another commodity to in a wasteful, destructive and unjust global economy.
In this special issue of Seedling, launched today, we zoom in on the situation in different parts of the world: Latin America, Asia and Africa. We analyse what is happening and talk to the people involved. The conclusion is pretty much the same across the board: the push for agrofuels amounts to nothing less than the re-introduction and re-enforcement of the old colonial plantation economy, redesigned to function under the rules of the modern neoliberal, globalised world. Indigenous farming systems, local communities and the biodiversity they manage have to give way to provide for the increased fuel needs of the modern world.
One of the main justifications for the large-scale cultivation of agrofuels is the need to combat climate change, but the figures make a mockery of this claim. According to the US government, global energy consumption is set to increase 71 per cent from 2003 to 2030, and most of that will come from burning more oil, coal and natural gas. By the end of this period, all renewable energy (including agrofuels) will only make up 9 per cent of global energy consumption. It is a dangerous self-delusion to argue that agrofuels can play a significant role in combating global warming.
As is spelt out in this special edition, the wide-scale cultivation of agrofuels will actually make things worse in many parts of the world, notably South-east Asia and the Amazon basin where the drying of peat lands and the felling of tropical forest will release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than will be saved by using agrofuels.
One of the main causes of global warming is agro-industrial farming itself, and the global food system associated with it. Although it is scarcely ever mentioned, farming is responsible for 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Within farming, the largest single cause is the use of chemical fertilisers, which introduce a huge amount of nitrogen into the soil, and nitrous oxide into the air. Changing land use (mainly deforestation and thus linked to the expansion of crop monoculture) is responsible for another 18 per cent. And a large part of global transport, which is responsible for a further 14 per cent of emissions, stems from the way in which the agro-industrial complex moves large quantities of food from one continent to anther.
It is abundantly clear that we can only halt climate change by challenging the absurdity and the waste of the globalised food system as organised by the transnational corporations. Far from contributing to the solution, biofuels will only make a bad situation worse. GRAIN believes it is time to declare unambiguously 'No to the agrofuels craze!'
Agrofuels resource page: http://www.grain.org/go/agrofuels
Islands at Risk: Genetic Engineering in Hawaii
A film by Earthjustice, 2006
The film can be viewed in its entirety online at:
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/multimedia/video1/page.jsp?itemID=29841806
To purchase the DVD:
http://www.namaka.com/catalog/environment/genetic.html
Review by Claire Robinson
In my corner of England, the growing season starts in June and lasts for four short months. It's an achievement if once a week I get enough tiny veg from the garden to make a meal. So when I briefly lived in Hawaii in the early 90s, I felt as if I'd died and woken up in God's garden. My host's home was set in a jungle of coconut, banana, avocado, pineapple, mango and papaya trees. He hadn't planted anything himself, nor did he tend the plants. Nature was in charge. The plants produced so much food that it would fall off the loaded trees every night. In the morning we had to pick it up before the wildlife got to it, and eat it or give it away before it rotted.
As for weeds, I couldn't see anything that I could identify as one. Amongst the cropping trees were huge, extravagantly beautiful flowering and foliage plants. They looked strangely familiar and yet alien. Eventually, I realized that I recognized them from home as garden exotics. But in Hawaii, they grew wild and supersized, and you didn't have to buy, plant, feed, or weed them. Summer lasted all year round, so the plants enjoyed an endless growing season. This was their home, and the Creator had given them everything they needed.
How did a place so blessed by nature find itself targeted, in the chilling words of one activist, as a "national and international sacrifice area for biotech and genetic modification research"? How did its fertile fields get to be occupied by monocultures of experimental plants with Guantanamo-style bags over their heads? Answer: by stealth. A film by the Hawaiian nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, Islands at Risk, features an interview with local hunter and activist Walter Ritte, who says, "We knew nothing about GMO until one day there was a rumour that there were strange things being grown in our cornfields. The whole farming community was changing and we didn't even know." In a process subsidized by US taxpayers and assisted by the state government of Hawaii, the islands' soils have become the open-air laboratories of chemical and biotech giants DuPont, Monsanto, Dow, and Syngenta, for the testing of GM crops.
The film shows that the entire enterprise has been cloaked in secrecy from the start. Even lawmakers are not allowed to know what is being planted and where. What is known is that on the island of Oahu, over 2000 field tests of GM crops have taken place. These include pharma plants producing AIDS, hepatitis and swine diarrhoea vaccines, and crops producing industrial compounds. And the experimental fields are within spitting distance of residential areas, schools and old people's homes. The industry claims it's safe as there is no rising incidence of disease. But this is exposed in the film as a lie. Lorrin Pang, MD and consultant to the World Health Organization, points out that the ten years since GMOs have been introduced have seen rises in prematurity, cancers, attention deficit disorder, and adult onset diabetes in children. Pang adds that no one can draw any conclusions as to the cause, as GMOs in food are not labeled.
If you think such criminal disregard for people's health and well-being should be against the law, well, it is. Earthjustice has had some success fighting the industry and government's GM contamination plans in court. In 2003, a biotech company wanted to produce GM drug-producing algae off the pristine Kona coast. The drug that was to be made in the algae had never been assessed for its impact on human health. Earthjustice took the State Board of Agriculture to court to enforce environmental laws relating to pharma crops. After two and a half years of costly litigation, the judge ruled in Earthjustice's favour and said the state has to conduct a study assessing impacts of such crops on the environment before allowing companies to produce them.
As a telling postscript, the film points out that a few months after the court judgment, a GM drug made from a product similar to the one proposed for testing in Kona was given to six healthy men in a human trial in London. All six were rushed into intensive care with multiple organ failure and continue to suffer severe ill effects.
You won't find anyone from industry or government talking about such disasters in Hawaii, however, where hype has replaced fact. Biotech promoters claim that GM virus-resistant papaya saved the papaya industry, whereas organic farmer Melanie Bondera points out that according to the figures, the opposite is true. Since GM papayas were introduced in Hawaii, 60% of the Hawaiian market (mainly Japan) has been lost due to consumer rejection of GMOs, and the small farmers have gone out of business. It's doubtful whether Hawaii's papaya industry can ever recover. Fifty per cent of the papayas never intended to be GM are now GM-contaminated, as is the seed source at the University of Hawaii.
The gene-bashers didn't have such an easy ride when they tried to "save" a Hawaiian sacred food plant, the taro. Hawaiians have been growing taro for over a thousand years, and there are hundreds of varieties adapted to different conditions. Plant experts knew which one to plant where. So when the University of Hawaii announced that it was going to "save" the taro by genetically engineering disease resistance into it, Hawaiians were not convinced. As Jerry Kananui of the Hawaii Island Taro Group says on the film, "It hurts me when I hear they're going to save the Hawaiian varieties of taro. Because they don't need to be saved. They're here." To add insult to injury, Hawaiians found out that the university had already patented the taro. Fury erupted. There's a traditional Hawaiian belief that the taro is the first-born, the body form of the god Kane, the giver of life. It's more important than man. Man's job is to ensure that the taro survives forever, because the taro's job is to feed man. So people got hold of copies of the patents and publicly tore them up, telling the university, "You cannot own our ancestors." The university backed down and gave up the patents.
As one of the farmers interviewed on the film points out, Hawaii is more than capable of supporting itself by selling its abundant non-GM crops: pineapples, flowers, bananas, organic crops. But there's no government support for such agriculture. The federal US government and the state of Hawaii prefer crops with bags over their heads, lethal algae, and papaya that no one wants. The Hawaiian GM experiment has been a recipe not for development but economic decline.
Ireland stands up to US pressure on GMOs
Ireland, France and Italy abstain in crucial EU vote on GM animal feed
ICMSA calls for 5-year moratorium on GM crops
GM-free Ireland press release, 28 June 2007.
DUBLIN ó The Irish Government stuck to its new policy goal of protecting this whole island as a GMO-free zone by abandoning its previously agreed intention to legalise a controversial GM maize at a crucial European vote in Brussels on Monday [1].
The decision to follow the new policy was made after intense negotiations last weekend between Mary Coughlan (the Minister of Agriculture and Food), Mary Harney (Minister for Health and Children), Trevor Sargent (the new Green Minister of Agriculture and Food), and Michael O'Callaghan (Co-ordinator of the GM-free Ireland Network) [2].
The illegal GM maize, called Herculex RW, is patented by Pioneer / Dow (of Agent Orange fame). It contains DNA from viruses and bacteria, and is modified to resist weedkiller and produce its own insecticide [3]. There are serious concerns about its impacts on animal and human health [4]. Although "deregulated" in the USA, it remains illegal in the EU.
The European Commisison requested member states to retroactively legalise this GM product after the Irish Department of Agriculture and Food failed to stop it from entering the European food chain in April. Up to 5,313 tonnes of maize gluten contaminated by the illegal GM corn have since been placed on the Irish market and sold to farmers as fodder which their livestock transform into meat and dairy produce, creating health risks for livestock and consumers, together with potential legal problems and liability lawsuits for the government, the feed importer, feed compounder, farmers, food retailers and food exporters [5].
Contaminate first, legislate later
The European Commission's sudden and rapid attempt to legalise Herculex GM maize suggests that the EC is more concerned with neutralizing an illegal GM food contamination scandal, rather than enforcing legal requirements on member states to rigorously test and prevent such contamination in the first place [6]. Monday's vote at the EC Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health was a new case of the "contaminate first, legislate later" strategy favoured by griant transnational agri-biotech corporations determined to genetically modify and patent the world's agricultural seeds so as to control the global food supply [7].
Following a preliminary "indicative vote" made by EU member states, the EC expected them to provide a Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in favour of legalising the GM maize for use as animal feed and food (but not for cultivation) on Monday. This would have provided a major PR victory for the US government and the agri-biotech industry, because it would have been the first time that EU member voted to legalise a GM product since 1998. Unless there is a QMV against legalisation, the Commission always automatically rubberstamps GMO approval in the end [8].
Prior to Monday's vote, the WTO, USA, EC and PR companies employed by the agri-biotech industry exerted huge pressure on the EU member states to vote in favour of placing this GM maize on the market [9], and have since put pressure on the Irish government to justify its reasons for abstaining. The Irish Grain and Feed Association vigorously lobbied Mary Coughlan, Mary Harney and policy makers in Brussels to vote yes, claiming it was "vital" that this GM maize be approved. A flurry of obvious or subtly pro-GMO stories also appeared in the media [10].
Irish farmers to the rescue
Last Friday, Trevor Sargent summoned Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland to negotiations with representatives of Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan, who had made preliminary agreements to legalise the GM maize under the previous governmnent. O'Callaghan provided the representatives with hard scientific evidence about the health risks of GMOs including the book "Genetic Roulette - The documented health risks of genetically engineered foods" [11] and copies of two scientic papers [12] on the health risks of GM foods from a recent briefing on the health risk of GM foods at the EU Parliament Office in Dublin [13].
On Sunday morning, Jackie Cahill of the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association [14] and Malcolm Thompson of the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association [15] telephoned Mary Coughlan to request her to vote NO.
Trevor Sargent finalised the negotiations in a meeting with Mary Coughlan and Mary Harney on Sunday.
As a result of this collective effort, Ireland abstained from Monday's vote, along with Italy and France, contributing to the lack of a Qualified Majority and thus shattering the biotech industry's expectations of an EU policy U-turn on GM food and feed [16].
Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland said "This small victory for Ireland and Europe is significant in the context of EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson's pressure for member states to cave in to WTO's claims that we must accept GM food and farming. We expect Ireland's new government will now take active steps to protect Irish farmers and consumers from the GMO invasion."
Ireland's new policy on GMOs
Trevor Sargent said "Fundamentally the issue is a sustainable future. The huge commercial pressure from the United States and some countries in South America for Europe to open up to GM foods is not what the people of Europe want. The consumers of Europe are specifying to their large mutliple retailers that they want GM-free produce. The trouble is that the markets we're trying to export to ‚ particularly in Europe - are adamant: they do not want GM! Up to now they have been saying 'just make sure it is not grown in Ireland', but now they're saying 'please don't feed your animals GM feed'. Some of the major supermarkets chains in Italy, France and Britain now actually require labelling that says this produce is fed on GM-free feed. So we have to be able to come up with that and guarantee it. We are at a cross-roads here. We can either go down the road of the Brazilians and have essentially a lower quality product, or else we can continue to make sure we have the high quality product which is going to get us the best price and the best return. So GM is really not any kind of solution to the challenges faced by our farmers, given that the price of their produce, like lamb, have gone down in the past 20 years. The fresh produce people that I'm talking to definitely want GM free. Alot of the farmers in the livestock area definitely want GM-free. The Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, and many of the farmers in the ICMSA and the IFA want GM free. But they also want a national strategy in place to deal with this, and that is what I intend to bring about."
The President of the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), Jackie Cahill, has called for a 5 year moratorium on GM crops.
Commenting on Monday's vote, Friends of the Earth Europe GM Campaign Coordinator Helen Holder said:
"Member states have already won the right to uphold high standards on food safety and the environment at the WTO. The US had tried to use trade laws to force GMOs into the European market. But this is a clear signal that Member States have put safety and the environment before US trade interests and that the concerns of EU citizens can prevail over formidable lobbying from biotech companies".
Refering to the illegal Herculex GM maize that entered the EU food chain through Ireland and the Netherlands in April [17], Helen Holder said "These contamination cases indicate more than ever just how important it is to show zero tolerance to countries that have lax measures on contamination and to ensure the right to GMO-free food and farming in the EU is upheld. There is a critical need for strict laws on growing GM crops and clear rules on who is liable for the costs of GM contamination."
There is still widespread public concern over the loophole in EU legislation that allows for consumers to remain unaware that they are eating meat and dairy products from animals fed with GMOs. Earlier this year one million Europeans called for labelling of foods from GMO-fed animals.
Notes for editors:
[1] Ireland's abstention contributed to the lack of a Qualified Majority Vote at the EC Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health on 25 June 2007. The company's authorisation request for Herculex will now be sent an upcoming EU Council meeting on 24 September when Ministers will vote on it a second time.
[2] GM-free Ireland Network: http://www.gmfreeireland.org
[3] Herculex Rootworm (RW) 59122 maize has been genetically modified by the introduction of a bacterial gene from Bacillus thuringiensis to produce Bt toxins (Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1) so as to make the crop resistant to the Western corn rootworm insect pest. It is also modified by the introduction of a second bacterial gene from Streptomyces viridochromogenes to make the crop immune to the broad-spectrum herbicide glufosinate. Virus DNA is added as a "promoter" to turn the bacterial genes on. Every cell of the maize becomes a tiny pesticide factory, and the entire plant is classified as an insecticide in the USA.
[4] For a detailed scientific critique of Herculex GM maize, see "Comments to the application under Regulation 1829/2003 for authorisation of 59122-maize in the European Union" published by Greenpeace, May 2007, available for download at
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/feed/documents/herculex/Maize59122Application.pdf (364kb PDF file).
Risk assessments on Herculex submitted to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) by Pioneer/Dow show important differences between animals fed with this GM maize and those fed with conventional maize, including liver weights in females in a 42-day study, and blood parameters following a 90-day rat feeding trial. Effects concerning the blood parameters in the 90-day feeding trial were noticed after a very short time, indicating potential for toxicity in the longer term. In other words, this GM maize could pose risks for human and animal health. Worryingly, EFSA did not look at these results in any detail: [ EFSA 2007. Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms on an application (Reference EFSA-GMO-NL-2005-12) for the placing on the market of insect-resistant genetically modified maize 59122, for food and feed uses, import and processing under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003, from Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. and Mycogen Seeds, c/o Dow Agrosciences LLC. (Question No EFSA-Q-2005-045) Opinion adopted on 23 March 2007. The EFSA Journal (2007) 470, 1-25 ].
Friends of the Earth Europe said the the risk assessment was incomplete and failed to act on key evidence which raised the possibility that this GM maize could pose risks for human and animal health.
EFSA has in the past dismissed similar concerns in positive opinions issued on MON863 and NK603 maize, leading to final authorization by the European Commission of these products. But the reliability of these EFSA opinions has been undermined by recent studies by independent scientists showing toxicological effects in both MON863 and NK603 which the EFSA failed to appreciate. EFSA's failures to exert due diligence in GMO risk assessments was raised by Michael O'Callaghan and by Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher in her review of the CRIIGEN paper (see note 13 below) at the briefing on Food Safety and GMOs co-hosted by GM-free Ireland and the EU Parliament Independence/Democracy Group at the EU Parliament Office in Dublin on 15 June 2007.
Compositional differences were also detected in the content of the Herculex GM maize and its kernels.
Despite additional serious concerns that all Bt crops are harmful for non-target organisms including beneficial soil bacteria, wildlife, livestock and humans, there have been virtually no independent analyses on the impact of Bt crops on biodiversity. EFSA has, yet again, ignored this in its Opinion on Herculex GM maize.
EFSA's failure to implement due diligence in its approvals of GMO feed and food has been criticised by the European Council, by the Commission and by NGOs, which have accused EFSA of ignoring significant scientific findings and for being unable to perform long-term environmental and health impact assessments on GMOs.
For details see:
The MON863 case: a chronicle of systematic deception: Greenpeace report, 13 August 2002:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/feed/documents/herculex/MON863_chronicle.pdf
The EFSA stakeholders challenge ‚ working with civil society:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/feed/documents/EFSA_stakeholders_challenge.pdf
European Food Safety Authority criticised for GMO bias: ISIS press release, 27 April 2006:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/feed/documents/EFSA-critique-ISIS.pdf
Commission for more transparency on GMO decisions. EuroActiv.com 12 April 2006:
http://www.euractiv.com/en/biotech/commission-transparency-gmo-decisions/art icle-154355
Commission proposes practical improvements to the way the European GMO legislative framework is implemented.
Europa Press Release, 12 April 2006:
http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?
reference=IP/06/498&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
European Commissioner Dimas speech at the Conference on GMO co-existence Vienna, 05 April 2006:
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?
reference=SPEECH/06/224&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
EU law on the standards and legal requirements for GMO risk assessment is not being respected at present by either EFSA or the European Commission. This could be rectified by:
a. Enforcing a strict, independent and transparent risk assessment of GMOs;
b. Suspending all earlier authorisations until the current system is reviewed;
c. Withdrawing the authorisation granted to MON863 maize, pending further investigation and a re-evaluation of Monsanto's dossier.
[5] GM-free Ireland and Greenpeace found a shipment of animal feed contaminated by the illegal Herculex and other varieties of GM maize being unloaded from a ship which arrived in Dublin port from New Orleans on 2 April. The shipment was accompanied by US lab certificates which claimed the maize gluten was free of Herculex. The Department of Agriculture waited 60 days before taking action, by which time up to 5,313 tonnes of the maize gluten contaminated by the illegal GM corn had already been placed on the market and sold to farmers as fodder which their cattle transform into meat and dairy produce. For details see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/pakrac and download GM-free Ireland press release "Irish GM food contamination scandal" at http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI-36.pdf
95% of the soya and maize currently imported into Ireland for use as animal feed is genetically modified.
[6] The Irish Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, issued a written statement to the D·il [Irish parliament] in December 2006, claiming that "since April 2004 all feed imports have been subjected to inspection for accuracy of GM labelling and very high levels of compliance have been detected". On 3 May 2007, her Department issued a written statement to GM-free Ireland, claiming that authorised officers from the Department of Agriculture and Food "take samples of all potential GM feed imports, such as soya, maize and OSR [oilseed rape] which are not declared as consisting of or containing GM ingredients and have them analysed for the presence of GM material". But on 18 May 2007, the Department admitted that it failed to test the shipment of maize gluten contaminated by the illegal Herculex GM maize which entered Ireland on 2 April before it was placed on the market.
Moreover, Liam Hyde of the Department's Animal Feedingstuffs Section admitted that imported animal feed is only tested for GM content on a random basis, adding that he was "unaware" of the scientific report that MON863 causes organ damage to laboratory animals. Mr. Hyde also said that all of the Department of Agriculture's records of GM animal feed imports for 2006 have been irretrievably lost due to a "computer database failure" making traceability and liability impossible in the event of related disease in livestock and the human population. (Personal communication from Mr. Hyde by phone to Michael O'Callaghan of GM-free Ireland, around 28 March 2007).
[7] As of 2005, worldwide, 10 companies controlled about 50 percent of the global seed business. At the top of the heap are just three companies, Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta. Industry concentration is continuing to proceed apace. Monsanto has since received US antitrust approval to complete its merger with the 11th largest seed company, Delta Pine & Land. All three companies have been snapping up smaller firms at every opportunity.
[8]: If EU ministers cannot agree, the European Commission usually issues its own approval, valid for 10 years, under an undemocratic legal default process known as the Comitology procedure. For many years, EU countries have been unable to secure the majority needed to vote through a new GMO approval. They last agreed to authorise a new GMO product in 1998.
[9] European Commission documents show US pressure to ignore risk assessment concerns and push GMOs ‚ including this GM Maize 'Herculex' of biotech company Pioneer ‚ onto the European market. For details, see the minutes of a meeting between the EU and the US obtained by Friends of the Earth Europe under a Freedom of Information request:
http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/May30_HH_EU_US_docs.htm
http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2007/FoEE_GMOS_US_pressure_on_EU_brief_May07.pdf
[10] Recent media coverage of GMOs:
•
GM crops: 'Point of no return in ten years'. The Scotsman, 26 June 2007. By Sybille de la Hamaide.
•
GMO stance hitting feed trade. Irish Farmers Journal, 23 June 2007. By Pat O'Keefe, News Editor.
•
Wall defends role in GMO's. Irish Farmers Journal, 23 June 2007. By Pat O'Keefe, News Editor.
•
GM-free cost up to € 40m. Irish Examiner, 21 June 2007. By Stephen Cadogan.
•
Sargent says GMO-free pledge is a 'huge step'. The Irish Times, 16 June 2007. By Ronan McGreevy.
•
Greens fulfill pledge to have Ireland free of GM crops. Irish Independent, 16 June 2007. By Fionnan Sheahan and Senan Molony.
•
EU Risks WTO Cases Over Biotech Food, Mandelson Says. Bloomberg, June 14 2007. By Jonathan Stearns.
•
Stand by science on GMO foods, EU trade chief says. Reuters, 14 June 2007.
•
Ireland aims to become a GMO-free zone: New coalition government adopts all-island GM-free policy; Farming groups agree to explore phasing out GM animal feed. GM-free Ireland Network press release, 14 June 2007.
•
EU Split Over Approvals Of Two GMO Maize Types. Reuters, 11 June 2007.
•
Monsanto Warns It May Withdraw From Wheat-Seed Market. Business Day (Johannesburg), 7 June 2007. By Neels Blom.
•
Don't mention the G word. The Guardian (Eco soundings), June 6 2007. By John Vidal and David Adam.
•
US still bullying EU to market GMOs - But avoid the dirty GMO word! advises US official. Friends of the Earth Europe press release, 30 May 2007.
[11] Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM 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 or by mailorder from http://www.GeneticRoulette.com.
[12] 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.
Download paper: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/health/SeralinPaper2007.pdf (124k pdf file.]
See related CRIIGEN press release at http://www.criigen.org/cp_march2007.pdf
and video of related press conference at http://www.criigen.org
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.
Download Summary: http://www.econexus.info/pdf/ENx-Genome-Scrambling-Summary.pdf (88 kb pdf file)
Download Report: http://www.econexus.info/pdf/ENx-Genome-Scrambling-Report.pdf (628 kb pdf file)
[13] Food Safety and GMOs: is the European Food Safety Authority downplaying the health risks of genetically modified food? Briefing co-hosted by the European Parliament Independence/Democracy Group and the GM-free Ireland Network, EU Parliament Office, Dublin, 15 June 2007. Speakers included Kathy Sinnott MEP, Jeffrey Smith (who will launch his new book Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM foods), and 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 genetically modified soybeans.
For details see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/EUP.php
[14] Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association, http://www.icmsa.ie.
[15] Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, http://www.icsaireland.ie. For details of the ICSA policy on GMOs, see transcript of speech by ICSA General Secretary Eddie Punch at the Green Ireland conference on branding for food, farming and ecotourism, June 2006:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/conference/trans/E.Punch.pdf
[16] The outcome of the vote was 15 countries in favour (197 votes), 7 against (52 votes), 4 abstentions + Poland absent (96 votes). The votes needed to block the decision was 91.
[17] Announced by Greenpeace and GM-free Ireland. See GM-free Ireland press release
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/pakrac/index.php
Contact
Michael O'Callaghan
GM-free Ireland Network
Tel + 353 (0)404 43885
mobile: + 353 (0)87 799 4761
email: mail@gmfreeireland.org
web: http://www.gmfreeireland.org
Orissa Government Decides To Prevent Entry Of The GM Crop, TI0706-28
Rajaram Satapathy I TNN
Bhubaneswar: The Orissa government will not allow Bt Brinjal inside the state because it fears that the genetically modified crop may endanger the bio-safety of native farm products.
"We are not for any genetically modified (GM) crop, let alone Bt Brinjal. There is no credible scientific study to stand by the GM crops. Nor are there reports from any where in the country about farmers welcoming it," agriculture minister Surendra Nath Nayak said. "On the contrary, public protests against GM crops are galore," he added.
Nayak made known the government stand in the backdrop of public protests against the reported move of the Centre for field trial of Bt Brinjal in the coastal Kendrapada, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri.
Reports said Bt Brinjal figures on the agenda of the genetic en-gineering approval committee (GEAC) under the Union ministry of environment and forests and intense lobbying has been going on for allowing field trial of it in several states, including Orissa.
Orissa, a few years back permitted Bt Cotton, now grown mostly in four tribal districts. "We allowed Bt Cotton because it was not a food item and would bring bigger gains to farmers. But reports are not very encouraging. Farmers caught in input, output and marketing riddles do not seem happy. We are closely watching the situation," the minister said.
Speculation is rife that the state government may not be able to put a rider on field trial of Bt Brinjal or for that matter any GM crop. Brinjals are said to have originated from India. Orissa alone has 226 known varieties of brinjals. There is no dearth of brinjals as a vegetable in the state and in and around Bhubaneswar scores of varieties of brinjals are grown.
It is feared that Bt Brinjal would contaminate the native varieties, beside causing genetic pollution to the estimated 700 varieties of paddy and the more than 7,000 species of flora in the state.
The minister maintained that the government would "surely in-tervene" as it involved the future of farmers and the state's rich biodiversity.
He said instead, the state government is encouraging "organic farming", particularly in veg-etable cultivation. "The use of fertiliser and chemical pesticide in vegetables is the root cause of many diseases. To counter this, the government has made budgetary provisions this year to give subsidy for popularising vermiculture in villages," the minister said.
27 June 2007
Ireland: Sargent to act quickly on issue of GM-free food
The Irish Times, 27 June 2007. By Seán MacConnell.
The first moves to have Ireland move to where it can claim its food is produced without the aid of GM feed will be made soon by Minister for Food Trevor Sargent.
On his first official engagement as Minister of State for Agriculture with responsibility for food and horticulture, Mr. Sargent said yesterday there was an urgency to move on the GM issue. "I have been getting reports from our markets in Italy and France that they are increasingly moving in the direction of requiring that produce be fed on GM-free feed," he said.
Ireland does not have a clear position in my mind, as yet, on the direction we are going in that regard," he said at the launch of the latest Bridgestone Guide.
"I want to bring together the farming organisations, the food retailers, the grain importers and the people in the Department of Agriculture so we can formulate a strategy in the best interests of the producers and the country."
He said countries which were already able to make this claim were threatening Irish exports and using GM-free status as a marketing tool.
He addressed issues raised by the joint editor of the Bridgestone guide, John McKenna, who sought changes in the regulations governing farmers markets and specialist portable abbatoirs for organic producers.
Mr Sargent said he would be working with the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, to bring about some standardisation in the regulations covering farmers markets.
He said he wanted to build a bridge between large-scale producers and the farmers' market system which would allow them to produce for the multiples and for the local markets.
There were not enough local abbatoirs and this was holding back the development of distinctive artisan food production, particularly in the organic sector and he would be looking at the mobile abbatoir system being used on the Continent.
GM Contamination At 21 km and Farther
No Co-Existence Possible
Researchers find GM pollen cross-pollinated non-GM plants at 21 km and
predict much worse.
ISIS Press Release 27 June 2007. By Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.
A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members'
website at http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php.
An electronic version of this report, or any other ISIS report, with
full references, can be sent to you via e-mail for a donation of GB£3.50.
Please e-mail the title of the report to: report@i-sis.org.uk
GM contamination rampant
Everyone knows by now that GM contamination of non-GM crops and produce
is inevitable. There have been142 contamination incidents recorded
worldwide since 1997, according to the GM Contamination Register [1].
This is an underestimate, as not every shipment of non-GM produce has
been tested, and not every incident registered.
Many wary consumers are buying organic to avoid eating GM food. But GM
contamination of organic produce is no longer a rarity.
A recent case of serious contamination involved a shipment of organic
soybeans to a processor in the United States. The processor had the
shipment tested after being tipped off by a buyer. The lab result showed
up a massive GM contamination of 20 percent. The organic certifier was
unable to prosecute the supplier, also in the US, who sent a different
sample for testing. The processor lost $100 000 in the incident, but the
supplier was still selling his crop [2].
Perhaps in anticipation of widespread contamination of organic produce,
the European Union Council of Agriculture Ministers voted in June 2007
that organic produce could contain up to 0.9 percent GM [3], despite the
fact that, in March the same year, the European Parliament passed a
directive setting the contamination threshold at 0.1 percent, which
effectively maintained the organic industry's insistence on "zero
tolerance" of GM contamination.
Current separation distances derisory
The current regulatory regime where GM and non-GM crops are allowed to
grow in adjacent fields separated by tens or hundreds of metres is based
on the assumption that the separation distances are sufficient to reduce
cross-pollination levels to the acceptable minimum.
Pollen flow is not the only means of GM contamination. Other means
involve GM seeds: impurities in the seed stock, volunteers from a
previous crop, seeds dropped during transport, seeds inadvertently mixed
by suppliers and during processing. Seeds persist much longer and can
travel much farther. When the same machinery is used in several fields
for harvesting, cultivation and spraying, seeds will be readily moved
around from one field to another.
But even the extent of cross-pollination is greatly underestimated, as
has been pointed out, pollen can remain airborne for hours and a 25
miles-per-hour wind speed is not unusual [4], which is why extensive
contamination of certified seed stocks had been detected as far back as
2003 (Transgenic Contamination of Certified Seed Stocks, SiS 19).
Two recent scientific studies have now confirmed that the extent of
cross-pollination has been greatly underestimated.
GM bentgrass pollen spreads 21 km or more
A research team led by scientists at the US Environment Protection
Agency in Corvallis, Oregon, used an atmospheric model of wind blowing
above fields planted with GM bentgrass to look at GM pollen dispersal,
combining modelling with actual analysis of cross pollination with
non-GM plants of the same or related species [4]. The GM bentgrass
carried the glyphosate tolerance trait, which provided a ready
selectable marker for cross-pollination.
During extensive greenhouse and laboratory testing, glyphosate-tolerant
progeny of non-GM test plants were found up to 21 km from the GM fields.
This was consistent with the model of wind direction and speed, which
showed movement of pollen up to 15 km from the GM fields by the first
hour; and maximum travel distances increased to 40 and 50 km after two
and three hours respectively. The three-hour cut off period was based on
previous findings that the viability of the grass pollen dropped to zero
within three hours.
These findings were at odds with previous small-scale experiments,
involving hundreds of GM plants in small plots, which showed pollen
dispersal limited to a few kilometres, basically because the source of
GM pollen was too small. It is like putting a drop of ink in an ocean,
which soon gets diluted.
In the present experiment, GM bent grass was planted in 162 hectares, at
about 2.8 million seeds per hectare. This provided realistically high
pollen concentration for the estimation of pollen dispersal. The maximum
potential spread of 21 km observed was an underestimate because pollen
trapping plants were not set much further than the distance observed.
According to the model, GM contamination could be as far as 75 km
downwind of the GM field.
Realistic modelling shows highly variable and unpredictable GM pollen
spread, but most studies underestimate the real extent
In a similar theoretical study, researchers at Exeter University in the
United Kingdom used records of wind direction and speed from 27 weather
stations across Europe to predict pollen dispersal and wind-borne
cross-pollination in maize, oilseed rape, sugar beet and rice [5]. Their
results showed that cross pollination rates vary greatly according to
the relative orientation of the GM and non-GM fields, and substantially
from year to year. The main determining factor is wind direction, which
accounts for most of the variation, 75 percent in the case of maize in
the UK.
For maize and rice, cross-pollination rates are relatively high only if
the non-GM field is downwind of the GM field with respect to the
prevailing winds over the short pollination period. In contrast,
contamination rates vary least with field orientation in crops with
relatively long flowering periods, such as oilseed rape and sugar beet,
because the distribution of wind directions becomes more even as the
flowering period lengthens.
"Consequently, even replicated field trials may inaccurately estimate
typical levels of cross-pollination, and therefore distort our
perception of the separation distances required to achieve sub-threshold
adventitious GM presence."
The best one could do is to predict the likely range in levels of
cross-pollination based on limited data typically available from field
trials, and to introduce time delays between the peak-flowering periods
in adjacent fields to reduce cross-pollination to a specific level.
What the model actually says is that a contamination rate measured in
any single experiment without knowing the prevailing winds is
unreliable, because the wind changes direction from day to day and year
to year. The model gives the mean maximum and minimum relative rates
based on prevailing conditions, not the absolute rates. For example,
suppose that a rate of 0.001 percent contamination was measured in a
single field trial and the necessary meteorological records were not
available. For the UK, the mean maximum and minimum relative
cross-pollination rates for maize were estimated by the model to be 7
and 0.0005 respectively, in the case of maize grown in fields of
dimension 500 x 200m, separated by 1 000 m. The maximum possible rate is
given by the ratio of the maximum and minimum rates multiplied by the
measures rate, i.e., 7/0.0005 x 0.001 = 14 percent, which is quite
substantial. If the prevailing weather and wind conditions were known,
then the estimate improves considerably. Suppose that the maize trial
was carried out in Leeds in 1998, and the relative orientation of the GM
and non-GM fields was 100o, and according to the prevailing wind
conditions, the minimum relative rate was 0.5 while the maximum relative
rate was 9.5, then a measured value of 0.001 percent would give a
maximum possible rate of 9.5/0.5 x 0.001 = 0.019 percent, substantially
less than the previous estimate. The moral in the example is that wind
speed and direction should be measured during future field trials. No
such data currently exist.
The researchers stress that their analysis is conservative, because if a
very large quantity of pollen is released in strong gusts of wind, then
cross-pollination rates will be even more extreme.
For oilseed rape, sugar beet and rice, contamination rates could be
reduced by 50 percent when the lag between the times of peak flowering
of the GM and non-GM fields is 13 days and by 90 percent when the lag is
24 days. For maize, similar reductions require lags of only 4 and 8 days
respectively because of the shorter flowering period.
Maize, sugar beet and rice are almost entirely cross-pollinated by wind,
whereas oilseed rape is cross-pollinated by both wind and insects.
Stop planting GM crops right now
It is clear that transgene contamination is inevitable and unavoidable
if GM crops are planted. We must make the choice to stop planting GM
crops right now, not only to avoid the massive economic losses involved
in transgene contamination incidents, but also on the basis of the now
irrefutable evidence that GM crops are neither safe not sustainable [6,
7] (Scientists for a GM Free Europe, No to GMOs, No To GM Science)
Is Africa being bullied into growing GM crops?
SciDev.Net, 27 June 2007, David Fig.
Africa must not let multinational corporations and international donors dictate its biotechnology agenda, says David Fig.
Africa is rapidly becoming a focal point for multinational crop and chemical corporations clearing the way for the extended uptake of their products and technologies. In particular, African governments are facing enormous pressure to endorse and adopt genetically modified (GM) crops.
Organisations like the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa - bankrolled by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations - are partly to blame through their heavy investment in infrastructure aimed at supporting the development and distribution of GM crops and seeds.
But the African Union (AU) itself is now also encouraging the adoption of GM technology. Working in tandem with its development wing, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), the AU's High Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology is soon to release a Freedom to Innovate plan - the clearest expression yet of the trend to back this controversial and risky technology. And it does so uncritically, rather than taking a more rational precautionary position that would safeguard Africa's rich biodiversity and agriculture.
The AU is also engaged in efforts to revise the carefully crafted African Model Law on Biosafety, which outlines the biosafety provisions necessary for African environmental conditions.
The revisions emanate from those seeking to make the biosafety content less stringent, placing Africa under even more pressure to conform to the needs of the gene corporations.
Saying no to the GM bandwagon
Support for GM technology, though, is by no means universal across the continent. The AU's efforts in shaping the Freedom to Innovate plan and model law contrast with the leadership role that the Africa Group took in developing the Cartagena Protocol to ensure more stringent biosafety precautions.
Indeed, a number of African governments and civil society organisations are increasingly speaking out against the pressures from gene companies - and the foundations that back them - to adopt their technologies.
For example Angola, Sudan and Zambia have resisted pressure to accept GM food aid, while nongovernmental groups such as the African Biodiversity Network, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, defend community and farmers' rights to reject GM seed. At one stage Burkina Faso implemented a moratorium on the planting of GM crops.
The Freedom to Innovate document does little justice to the debate raging around Africa. Instead it seeks to institutionalise the pro-GM position of larger countries like Nigeria and South Africa for the entire continent.
Offering unbiased advice
There is no question that Africa needs technology to develop. But it must be appropriate to a country's chosen path of development.
New technologies aimed at development must be evaluated in depth by, among others, scientists with no vested interests.
Natural scientists must assess GM technology's likely impacts on both the environment and human and animal health. Social scientists must also examine the potential socio-economic consequences of such innovation - such as impacts on local food security, trade or indebtedness. Stakeholders, including those who safeguard traditional knowledge, could further enrich such assessment by indicating proven alternatives.
This model of technological assessment could serve Africa very well. It could enable governments to formulate appropriate policies and development priorities.
Most importantly, if a technology is found to be questionable or negative in terms of its impacts - or if there are no clear development benefits to be derived from its adoption - a precautionary mechanism must exist that can delay and carefully regulate its introduction.
The freedom to choose
The Freedom to Innovate plan tries to advocate the idea that all biotechnology benefits Africa and fails to analyse the risks attached to their adoption. While some aspects of modern biotechnology might prove useful in African agriculture, this does not mean that one aspect of this - GM crops - can increase continental food security and farmer prosperity.
GM technology forces Africa into high-input, chemical-dependent agriculture which impacts on biodiversity and creates debt burdens for small farmers.
In addition, the regulatory steps required for control of GM crops are so demanding of resources that, even when other budgetary areas relating to food security may need more pressing attention, Africa is forced to prioritise their set up.
Gene corporations, together with the scientists that work for them, have invested a lot of time, effort and money in developing GM crops. Not surprisingly, they are the ones who propound the idea that transgenic crops can rescue Africa from poverty and underdevelopment.
But Africa must not let itself be bullied into accepting a technology that has yet to prove itself as appropriate for solving the continent's hunger problems. The AU's role should be one of providing governments with well-reasoned technological evaluation, rather than acting as a proxy for promoting a specific industry's commercial needs.
David Fig is an independent environmental policy analyst based in Johannesburg, and a trustee of Biowatch South Africa.
Packaging key to success in US
Bangkok Post, 27 June 2007. By Phusadee Arunmas.
Tapping into the lucrative US health-food market requires attractive and informative packaging, a clear message and knowing your target market, says an American marketing expert. Kevin Leibel, president of Innovation Management, a marketing research and consulting firm, said the US market for organic food and non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) products was currently booming.
He added that Thai food producers wanting to export to the US should innovate and design packaging with clear messages to tell consumers instantly about the product quality.
Exporters should also explore opportunities in the growing natural food market, and in niche products for the elderly, children and people with food allergies.
Thai food producers should improve their packaging design to highlight information such as nutritional supplements or non-GMOs on their product labels, he said.
He added that American consumers were weight-conscious and that local producers had introduced low-calorie soft drinks and various candy packages to appeal to the market.
Mr Leibel also recommended greater detail on the labels, eye-catching designs, easy-to-open containers and proper storage.
"Good packaging can influence consumer purchasing. Therefore, entrepreneurs should think about multiple sizes, shapes and package configurations," he told participants at a seminar organised by Kenan Institute Asia on "Designing Your Food Packaging to Capture the US Market", held yesterday.
Ron Farnum, founding partner of Spark Marketing Services Co, said brands and labels should discuss the product's history and the contents in detail.
"For example, a producer of ready-to-eat rice from Surin province might explain why Hom Mali fragrant rice from the province is better than other provinces. Consumers need to know that," said Mr Farnum.
Good packaging could mean a competitive advantage _ even over products with a lower selling price, he said.
Not many Thai companies and exporters pay much attention to packaging or US consumer behaviour, he added.
26 June 2007
Paraguay: Disappeared Campesino in Hands of Police
Written by El Movimiento Agrario y Popular, Tuesday, 26 June 2007
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/789/1/
On June 25th community leader of the campesino organisation MAP (Movimiento Agrario y Popular) disappeared from the community of Pariri in Paraguay.
According to witnesses, Perfecto Irala, was kidnapped by an official of the National Police named Vazquez of the commissariat of Santa Clara, in the district Vaqueria. Various people and representatives of the MAP have been trying to obtain information in the local commisariats, without any result so far. They denounced the disappearance in the Human Rights Commission of the Paraguayan Congress.
Perfecto Irala lives together with his wife and two children in a land occupation brought forth in Pariri on Februari 26th. Community members in support of Campesino Organisation MAP occupied 14 hectares of genetically manipulated to denounce the illegal transfers of public lands in their community to Brazilian soy producers. According to the Paraguayan Agrarian Statute, state Institution INDERT (responsible for land reform) Paraguayan families are entitled to these lands but by means of corruption many of these lands end up in the hands of large scale producers.
The MAP demands the government the immediate release of Perfecto Irala and a sentence for those responsible for these acts. As well as the immediate handover of the occupied lands to the landless campesinos of the MAP.
Photo: Placido sitting in front of his house prior to land ocupation in Pariri. His children are helping to move their few belongings (march 2007).
See www.lasojamata.org and Brutal Murder of Paraguayan Campesino for more information.
Greece Extends Biotech Ban
The Associated Press, June 26 2007
ATHENS, Greece - Greece on Tuesday extended for two more years a ban on
genetically modified maize seed developed by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto.
A decision also expanded the sale-and-cultivation ban from 31 to 51 varieties
of the MON810 seed type, Deputy Agriculture Minister Alexandros Kondos said.
"The ministry strongly opposes the circulation of genetically modified
organisms," Kondos said.
"Our target is to produce quality products, and under no circumstances do
modified products qualify as such."
Despite pressure from the European Union, Greece has implemented and extended
bans on the MON810 strain since April 2005. This month, EU Trade
Commissioner Peter Mandelson warned that member states could invite legal
action against the bloc from the World Trade Organization by adopting
individual bans on biotech food instead of deciding on common rules.
But Greece insisted its action was well-advised.
"(The new ban) is founded on the same solid scientific and legal basis, but
also includes new scientific data and finds," an Agriculture Ministry
statement said. "These concern a possible threat to human health, and well
as to the beekeeping industry."
It said EU member-states "need to be granted a satisfactory time frame to
assess the dangers from growing genetically modified strains."
GM crops: 'Point of no return in ten years'
The Scotsman, 26 June 2007. By Sybille de la Hamaide.
EUROPE will increase its genetically modified (GMO) crop area by 50,000-100,000 hectares a year over the next decade, US biotech giant Monsanto has said.
"It will be slow but within ten years GMOs will have reached the point of no return," said Jean-Michel Duhamel, Monsanto's director for southern Europe.
"The technology will not impose itself on consumers but consumers will better understand the usefulness of GMO technology as farmers increasingly adopt it," he added.
In France, the world's largest seed maker, GMO maize - the only biotech crop allowed in the country - was expected to be grown on 600,000 hectares in ten years, against 25,000 in 2007, despite fierce opposition to GMOs in the country.
"It is more complicated in France than elsewhere but if we reach a 50 per cent rise (in area) per year it wouldn't be bad, as at world level we expect it to rise 20 per cent," Duhamel said.
French consumers are well known for their scepticism, if not hostility, to GMO crops. "Within the next few years there will likely be some turbulence," Duhamel said. "Consumers receive false information on what GMO crops are so they are afraid. But I'm sure that within ten years they will have accepted them."
This year, French farmers have sown 25,000 hectares of special maize, which has been modified to resist insect pests.
Comment from Ian Forrester, Alberta, Canada:
"Consumers receive false information on what GMO crops are." So very true, unfortunately, most of this false information is put out by the very companies selling the GM seeds. One need only refer to the report by Monsanto on their MON 863 maize to see how they distort information. The report, finally released after a legal battle showed up the same types of abnormalities originally reported by Dr. Arpad Pusztai. The GMO zealots vilified Pusztai when his report was published almost 10 years ago.
The spin doctors at Monsanto claimed that the effects caused by their MON 863 maize were due to "normal biological variation."
The moral of this is "DON'T BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT MONSANTO SAYS."
Anyone who is seriously interested in obtaining factual information should visit the GMWatch.org website.
25 June 2007
UK: Poverty and environment -- billions could be wasted
New research to make science and technology work for the poor
Economic & Social Research Council press release, 25 June 2007
Out-of-date policies are undermining unprecedented opportunities for recent aid commitments to improve the environment and combat poverty, according to scientists at a new global research centre launched today. The warning comes from the STEPS Centre, whose urgently needed new approach to development aims to respond to 21st century conditions.
We live in an era of unprecedented environmental and technological flux; apocalyptic predictions of climate change-induced drought and floods, avian flu and HIV/AIDS pandemics, unsafe food and scarce water supplies hit the headlines daily. Rapid change is creating new interactions between people, environment and technology, but also new problems, such as novel strains of avian flu and HIV drug resistances. Yet billions in aid could be wasted because current policy is failing to respond.
The STEPS Centre's new approach sees natural and social scientists working together, instead of separately. STEPS research connects, social, technology and environment issues, rather than dividing them. It creates solutions that are adaptive to change, build resilience to uncertainty and meet the priorities of poor and marginalised people in different settings.
With GBP4m of funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, STEPS's five-year programme of research, with partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America, focuses on agriculture, water and health. Initial projects include investigating the effects of climate change on maize crops in Kenya, urbanisation in India and drug regulation in China and Latin America.
Professor Melissa Leach, Director of the STEPS Centre explains: 'Silver bullets for poverty reduction are failing the poor and risk failing altogether. They assume one-size-fits-all solutions can be applied across a stable world. But we live in a world of dynamic change and uncertainty. The STEPS Centre aims to tackle these challenges head on, combining new theory with practical solutions that make science and technology work for the poor and environmental sustainability, building on people's own knowledge.'
Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr, speaking at the launch, said STEPS' work was 'crucial':
"Meeting the needs of billions of people in ways compatible with a livable planet is a moral imperative but a huge challenge to our standard ways of thinking and working, in both North and South. Research which challenges assumptions underpinning failed, outmoded and unsustainable models of development is crucial to making the future work.
Unprecedented opportunities to address these global challenges exist right now, with international interest and investment higher than ever: The G8's $60bn pledge to fight disease in Africa; record levels of philanthropy - $1.5bn from the Gates Foundation in 2006; a GBP200m a-year search for global warming-proof crops by a consortium of governments.
But globalised one-size-fits-all solutions ignore differences on the ground and remain compartmentalised by geography, sector and discipline at a time when unparalleled interaction between people, the environment and technology demand interdisciplinary solutions.
Recent examples of these failings include the UN's polio eradication programme in Nigeria which backfired because Muslims believed vaccination was a ploy to inject people with anti-fertility drugs. Polio is now resurgent in Nigeria; Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's claims to cure AIDS with herbal medicine which risks derailing anti-retroviral treatments; and local opposition to large dam building and the GM crop Bt cotton in India.
Dr Ian Gibson MP, chairing the STEPS Centre launch, said: 'Science makes a massive contribution to our modern world. If we are to respond to the challenges of the twenty-first century, research like the STEPS Centre's, that makes science and technology work for poor and marginalised people, is essential. Economic development, matters of health and disease, climate change; it is hard to see where science and technology will not be a major component for poverty reduction programmes.'
James Wilsdon, head of science and innovation at think tank Demos, speaking at the launch, said STEPS fills a 'vital gap': 'The global landscape for science, technology and innovation is changing at an astonishing pace. But while the frameworks we use for analysing these changes are good at asking "how much" and "how fast" they are useless at asking questions about direction, the diversity of outcomes to which all of this activity and investment could lead. So the STEPS Centre will fill a vital gap: it will be a place where these questions can be asked and answered. I'm excited by the Centre's vision, and I hope it will shake up established thinking about the relationship between science, technology, poverty and sustainability.'
STEPS will partner Demos in the second phase of the Atlas of Ideas project, which is mapping changes in the global geography of science and innovation.
Andrew Scott, policy director at charity Practical Action, also speaking at the launch, said:
'The STEPS centre will help us understand how we can make technology development work in the interests of people living in poverty, rather than pander to the wants of the affluent.'
Notes to editor:
THE STEPS CENTRE (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is a new interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement hub uniting development studies with science and technology studies. We aim to develop a new approach to understanding, action and communication on sustainability and development. The STEPS Centre is collaboration between the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex with a network of partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Find out more:
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It supports independent, high quality research relevant to business, the public sector and voluntary organisations. The ESRC's planned total expenditure in 2007- 08 is £181 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and research policy institutes. More at http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk
Contact:
Julia Day, STEPS communications officer
T: +44 (0)1273 876814 / M: +44 (0)7974 209148 / E: j.day@ids.ac.uk
Russia: Moscow to Mark GM-Free Foods
Reuters, June 25 2007. By James Kilner.
Moscow will introduce a citywide label to identify GM-free foods next week, a move environmentalists hail as ground-breaking but that foreign producers say is complex and costly.
A handful of individual food producers around the world already use labels certifying their food is free of genetically modified elements -- but this is the first large-scale political effort to introduce such a system, Greenpeace said, expecting it to be watched by others as a test-case.
"These labels are important for consumers so they know which companies keep a tight control on ingredients in their products," said Greenpeace's GM researcher in Russia, Natalya Olefirenko.
After an official -- voluntary -- inspection, producers will have the right to carry Moscow's GM-free label for a year.
The European Union already insists products that contain more than 0.9 percent of GM-enhanced ingredients must say so on the packaging, but environmentalists argue that does not go far enough.
"It's very important for the rest of the world to watch Moscow," Olefirenko said.
Greenpeace estimates around 80 percent of Russian produce contains no genetically enhanced [!] ingredients, in line with other developing countries, compared to only about 20 percent in the EU and richer countries.
But Greenpeace said parts of the EU could follow Moscow's lead if it is a success, although the label should remain voluntary.
Foreign food producers say that is just one of the problems the label brings.
Supermarkets eager to curry favor with the Moscow city government have hinted they will only stock products carrying the GM-free label -- and signals from the authorities suggest the label will effectively be obligatory, producer lobby groups said.
"And it's all extra costs," said Alexei Popovichev, head of Rusbrand, which represents big Western producers such as Nestle and Kraft. "It involves special testing, special packaging, and the costs will be passed on to the consumer."
Small domestic producers will probably feel the burden of the extra costs hardest as they will not be able to spread them through economies of scale, he said.
Western businesses also argue the GM-free label could mislead customers into buying poorer products because the assertion that foods contain no GM-ingredients could be misread as a signal that all the ingredients are of high-quality.
Greenpeace does warn there is a potential flaw in the Moscow GM label, saying the testing system chosen by Moscow is untried even though it says more than $2 million has already been spent buying equipment for laboratories owned by a Moscow businessman.
The project, an initiative of Mayor Yury Luzhkov, comes to a city where environmental concerns are not typically high: traffic chokes Moscow's roads, residents throw out garbage with scant regard for recycling, and the centrally controlled heating grinds out warmth during even the mildest winter.
Russia lags behind in the growing multimillion-dollar organic food industry -- Moscow has just one self-styled organic supermarket, Grunwald, tucked away under an 18-story concrete apartment block on 30/1 Rublyovskoye Shosse, near the Molodezhanaya metro station. The store was founded by Nikolai Tsvetkov, president of UralSib Financial Corp.
Foreigners and wealthy Russians who live in nearby gated communities and dachas form the bulk of the customers, said Marina Goldinberg, the supermarket's marketing manager.
All the products in the store -- and everything is foreign -- have been certified to be GM-free.
On a weekday mid-afternoon visit the handful of middle-aged women browsing the displays wore designer sunglasses on their heads and the latest fashion from London and Paris.
They inspected GM-free apples from Argentina, which cost around 325 rubles ($12.50) per kilogram, and wild salmon from Sweden at 2,080 rubles ($80) per kilogram.
"When this new law comes in we will stock locally grown and produced food, prices will drop, and more and more people will shop here," Goldinberg said.
Dmitry Yanin, head of consumer group KonFOP, said research appears to suggest GM-free produce is not a priority for most Russians.
He said research last year showed 60 percent of food buyers said price was the most important factor in choosing what to buy.
Just over 5 percent picked ingredients.
NZ Won't Follow EU Lead On GMO Organics
Epoch Times, 25 June 2007. By Barry Mills.
[image caption: NO GMO: New Zealand will not follow the EU to allow genetically modified organisms to be classed as organic food. (David Silverman/Getty Images)]
New Zealand may become the world leader in organics after European Union ministers decided to allow the contamination of organic food with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
The new law adopted by the European Union's (EU) Agriculture Council allows organic food containing up to 0.9 percent GMO content to be classed and labeled as organic.
The Soil & Health Association said allowing GE contamination in Europe has given New Zealand a point of difference in the world as a GE-Free crop producer.
Co-Chair of the association, Steffan Browning, said this was a fantastic opportunity for New Zealand's organic and conventional farmers.
"The European Parliament and environmental groups had called for the threshold of contamination of organic food to be 0.1 percent. This is the lowest level at which genetically modified organisms can be technically detected. Due to our increasingly stringent bio-security and unique geographical isolation, New Zealand's zero tolerance need not be altered," Mr Browning said.
Ongoing field trials of GMOs in NZ could endanger this unique position, he said.
A recent application by Crop and Food for a GE Brassica field trial was allowed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. Crop and Food want to field test broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and forage kale genetically engineered with the toxin derived from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).
However submissions from groups opposing the trial could stop it. One opponent of the trials is Organics Products Exporters of New Zealand (OPENZ).
Organics Aotearoa New Zealand executive director Ken Shirley said in a recent newsletter the containment requirements that Crop and Food will use to prevent the spread of GMO material will not safe guard farmers and growers.
"Our argument is that GM is not compatible with organic management systems," Mr Shirley said.
He said any release of GM products would not only threaten the certified organic brand, but could also jeopardize New Zealand's clean, green image.
"Our submission was based on market returns to New Zealand. Organics give us a better overall return. We come from a marketing perspective. Overseas markets don't want GMO products. These are commodity-based with low returns to producers," Mr Shirley said.
Crop and Food are likely to apply for further field trials, including onions, garlic and leeks later this year.
"The reason our Crown Research Institutes are applying for these trials is to keep their scientists engaged in this type of work," Mr Shirley said.
Mr Shirley said that at a rough assessment New Zealand's organic market is worth $100 million.
"We want to grow this to $1 billion by 2013," he said.
He said markets in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States are growing at about 20 percent.
The global market for organic food and drink reached US$23 billion in 2002, according to the Organic Monitor 2003, with increasing demand in North America fuelling a 10.1 percent increase on the previous year.
New Zealand: GE Brassica Trials - High Court Papers Filed Today
GE Free NZ press release, 25 June 2007
After much consideration papers will be filed today in relation to errors in law relating to approvals for field trials of GE Brassica.
GE Free NZ (in food and environment) has decided that flawed decision making cannot go unscrutinised.
Unfortunately there is no other legal redress for those making public submissions to challenge what appears to be an approach by ERMA that justifies why an experiment should go ahead instead of considering all points and then finding solutions to best address them.
ERMA received 940 submissions asking that the application be declined in light of known dangers to the New Zealand economy, public and animal health making a commercial release at any stage in the future impossible to envisage.
The ERMA hearing was initially disrupted as people protested the farcical nature of the process and expressed concern that ERMA would approve the application regardless of submissions. The hearing cost NGOs many thousands of dollars to participate. The submitters provided well researched scientific evidence that was not previously included in the application. However key concerns were judged "negligible".
"The lack of necessary research protocols and experimental procedures over the ten years of the trials means that little knowledge of value will come out of the field tests," says Claire Bleakley from GE free NZ ( in food and environment). "We are ask anyone concerned to support and donate to this challenge."
ENDS:
Claire Bleakley 027 348 6731 (06) 3089842
Jon Carapiet: 021 050 7681
References:
www.gefree.org.nz for information behind this decision.
EU stands up to US pressure – unfazed by genetically modified 'Herculex'
Friends of the Earth Europe press release, 25 June 2007.
Brussels, June 25 2007 – EU member states today stood up to intense
pressure from the US and refused to allow a new strain of genetically
modified maize to be imported into the EU. The move has been welcomed by
Friends of the Earth Europe. [1]
European Commission documents show US pressure to ignore risk assessment
concerns and push GMOs – including this GM Maize 'Herculex' of biotech
company Pioneer – onto the European market [2] [3].
Helen Holder Friends of the Earth Europe GM Campaign Coordinator said:
"Member states have already won the right to uphold high standards on
food safety and the environment at the WTO. The US had tried to use
trade laws to force GMOs into the European market. But this is a clear
signal that Member States have put safety and the environment before US
trade interests and that the concerns of EU citizens can prevail over
formidable lobbying from biotech companies".
Friends of the Earth Europe and other NGOs have raised a number of
concerns on this GM maize:
•
The risk assessment was incomplete and failed to act on key
evidence which raised the possibility that this GM maize could
pose risks for human and animal health. [4]
•
The reliability of EFSA opinions on other related GM maize has
been undermined by studies of independent scientists detecting
toxicological effects in the same products. [5]
•
Herculex Maize has been at the centre of a number of contamination
scandals including the contamination of US animal feed imported
into Ireland. [6] The sudden and rapid move to try and authorize
Herculex maize suggests that the European Commission is more
concerned with 'neutralizing' a potential legal problem of illegal
GM contamination rather than dealing with contamination by
unauthorized GMOs.
Helen Holder added, "These contamination cases indicate more than ever
before just how important it is to show zero tolerance to countries that
have lax measures on contamination and to ensure the right to GMO free
food and farming in the EU is upheld. There is a critical need for
strict laws on growing GM crops and clear rules on who is liable for the
costs of GM contamination."
There is still widespread public concern over the loophole in EU
legislation that allows for consumers to remain unaware that they are
eating meat and dairy products from animals fed with GMOs like Herculex
maize. Earlier this year one million Europeans called for labelling of
foods from GMO-fed animals.
Notes for editors:
[1] The vote resulted in a Non Qualified Majority, insufficient votes to
reach a decision. The company's authorisation request will now be sent
an upcoming EU Council meeting where Ministers will vote on Herculex.
[2] Herculex Rootworm (RW) 59122 maize has been genetically modified to
produce Bt toxins (Cry34Ab1 and Cry35Ab1) in order to be resistant to
the Western corn rootworm insect pest.
[3] Minutes of a meeting between the EU and the US were obtained by
Friends of the Earth Europe under a Freedom of Information request:
http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/May30_HH_EU_US_docs.htm
[4] The studies by Pioneer/Dow submitted to the EU show important
differences between animals fed with GM maize and those fed with
conventional maize, including liver weights in females in a 42 day
poultry study, and blood parameters following a 90 day rat feeding
trial. Effects in the 90 day feeding trial were noticed after a very
short time, indicating potential for toxicity in the longer term.
[5] The EFSA has in the past issued positive opinions on MON863 and
NK603 maize, leading to final authorization by the European Commission
of these products. But the reliability of these EFSA opinions has been
undermined by recent studies by independent scientists showing
toxicological effects in both MON863 and NK60.
[6] Announced by Greenpeace and GM-free Ireland. See GM-free Ireland
press release
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/pakrac/index.php
For further information:
Helen Holder, European GMO campaign coordinator, Friends of the Earth Europe:
tel: +322 542 01 82, mobile: +324 74 857 638
Monsanto nailed in South Africa
Monsanto tells a pack of lies to the Advertising Standards Authority and gets nailed
Mathaba.net, 25 June 2007. By Trevor Wells, Farmers Legal Action Group - South Africa.
Mark Wells, an organic farmer from Cintsa on the Wild Coast, South Africa, challenged the words in bold in the [] advert [at the end of this article] which appeared in the widely read "You Magazine" and produced evidence to repudiate the claim.
An arbitration panel consisting of eight members and chaired by former High Court Judge Mervyn King SC whose cutting edge 'King Report on Corporate Governance' is hailed as the best practice corporate governance bible.
In view of the prima facie evidence produced by the complainant the ASA opened the proceedings by stating that the matter before them for consideration was whether the advert was in breach of two sections of the Code of Practice
1. Substantiation
2. Misleading claims
Dealing with the substantiation section first the ASA ruled that the onus is on the advertiser to substantiate the claim.
Monsanto addressed the ASA at length and submitted inter alia that it had a strict code of conduct and that MON 863 was not their product.
The complainant then submitted evidence that MON 863 was indeed a product of Monsanto and that Monsanto had suppressed the evidence of serious damage to the liver and kidneys of rats in their own GM maize trials until ordered to release this evidence by a German Court. Furthermore Monsanto had applied to the South African GM regulatory authority for a commodity release permit for MON 863.
Having lost all credibility Monsanto instructed their lawyers to soldier on.
Monsanto then argued that five independent scientists had assessed the data presented by them and concluded that MON 563 had no adverse effect as claimed by the complainant. The complainant stated that that these spurious claims were not independent and that it was obvious that these scientists were specifically contracted to diminish the evidence of the damage to rats in the suppressed report. The complainant argued that the facts speak for themselves and the onus was on Monsanto to prove that the people they had contracted were independent.
Monsanto then changed their tack in mid-stream and argued that rather than focus on the two conflicting studies the ASA should focus on the benefits of GM maize.
The substantiation section of the code provides that any advertiser must be able to substantiate any claim objectively with documentary evidence which emanates from an independent, credible and expert source acceptable to the ASA. The ASA then invoked this clause.
Monsanto's lawyers then pulled a letter out of the hat from Covenance Laboratories in the USA which inter alia stated that they were not affiliated with Monsanto.
After applying their minds to the letter from Covenance in the USA, Justice King ruled that the benefits of "GM-Corn" had nothing to do with the case in front of them. After having given Monsanto every opportunity to substantiate their claim they had failed to do so. The letter from Covenance made no mention of the issue which was before the ASA for consideration.
"The statement which the complainant alleges is false, to wit: 'This is one of the most extensively tested and controlled types of food, and no negative reactions have ever been reported.' goes beyond merely indicating safety. It expressly states that out of all the studies done in this field no negative effects have ever been reported."
Without reference to the fact that Monsanto had wasted the time of an eight member panel and come to the hearing with dirty hands, Monsanto was politely informed that their claim was unsubstantiated and in breach of the Code of Practice. The ASA further ruled that as the claim was unsubstantiated it was not necessary to consider whether it was misleading.
Monsanto was ordered to immediately withdraw their claim and given the standard polite warning, which applies to all advertisers, that in future they must make sure that they can substantiate any claims before they publish them.
In January, this year, Monsanto was fined 15,000 euros (19,000 dollars) in a French court Friday for misleading the public about the environmental impact of herbicide Roundup..
A former chairman of Monsanto Agriculture France was found guilty of false advertising for presenting Roundup as biodegradable and claiming that it left the soil clean after use. Monsanto's French distributor Scotts France was also fined 15,000 euros.
In 2005 Monsanto was caught smuggling South African produced GM Bollgard cotton seed into Indonesia disguised as rice. Monsanto was fined for bribing Indonesian officials.
More recently in June this month, a second peer reviewed case involving another variation of Monsanto's GM maize, namely, NK603,has been shown by studies to be potentially toxic to humans. NK 603 has been approved for food, feed, processing, and propagation in Europe and the Philippines The new research, carried out by a French scientific research institute(1), involves biotech firm Monsanto's NK603 GMO corn (marketed commercially under the name Round-up Ready) which was approved as food and feed in the country in 2003, and for propagation in 2005.
Rats that were [missing text] measurements, as well as significant weight differences compared to those fed with normal maize. Almost 70 statistically significant differences were observed and reported - 12 for hematology parameters, 18 for clinical chemistry parameters, nine for urine chemistry parameters, six for the organ weights (brain, heart, liver), 14 for body weights and body weight changes, and eight for food consumption. toxicity, The most alarming was the diminished brain size. Scientists warned that this was a danger warning for growing children.(1). Comite de Recherche et d'Information Independantes sur le genie Genetique (CRIGEN).
Here is Monsanto's advert
Is your food safe? Biotechnology - the true facts
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24 June 2007
GMOs rejected in Mexico, Brazil and Paraguay
The People's Voice - Agencia Digital Independiente de Noticias, , 24 June 2007.
Translated by Jordan Levinson, member of Tlaxcala
http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=3595
Brazilian judge Pepita Durski has forbidden the commercial release of transgenic corn by the National Technical Biosecurity Commission (CTNBio). The decision was made after a public civil action undertaken by the NGOs Land of Rights, Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute (Idec), Consultancy and Services for Alternative Agricultural Projects (AS-PTA) and the National Small Farmers association (ANPA). The CTNBio has gathered today, and on the agenda is the commercial release of ten items, as well as two requests for Certificates of Quality in Biosecurity.
Farmworkers from Mexico, Brazil and Paraguay rejected the planting of transgenic crops, considering that they put the population at risk, as much in terms of food cultivation as in terms of social security. The latter is a consideration due to the numerous cases of illnesses and even deaths -- such as that of the baby Silvino Talavera in Paraguay -- resulting from fumigation with the poison Glyphosate, which is used to complement transgenic soy.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, The National Technical Biosecurity Commission (CTNBio), which has been meeting since June 19th, received a prohibition on the release of any of the commercial varieties of transgenic corn. The decision was taken, during a preliminary hearing, by the substitute federal judge of the Environmental Court in Curitiba, Pepita Durski, this past monday (the 18th), after a public civil action undertaken by the NGOs Land of Rights, Brazilian Consumer Defense Institute (Idec), Consultancy and Services for Alternative Agricultural Projets (AS-PTA) and the National Small Farmers association (ANPA). The CTNBio has gathered today, and on the agenda is the commercial release of ten items, as well as two requests for Certificates of Quality in Biosecurity.
In Mexico the farmworkers refused the experimental cultivation of transgenic corn and defended the mexican strains of the crop. In Paraguay, it was affirmed that the lack of control over transgenic crops is a threat to the country's foodstuffs sovereignty. The farmworkers of Mexico, together with rural workers' and ecological organizations, made a new call to the official in charge of the Secretariat of Agriculture, Cattle, Rural Development, Fishing, and Food (Sagarpa) in that country, Alberto C·rdenas JimÈnez, asking that he prevent the commencement of the experimental planting of transgenic corn. They also warned of 'trickery' by Monsanto and the National Farmworkers' Confederation (CNC) being used to get them to accept the cultivation of those crops and their commercialization for the fall-winter agricultural season of 2007-2008. The farmworkers affirmed that the company undertook bribery and cooptation to get the mexican government to accept the planting of genetically modified yellow corn, in spite of the risk it implies for the hundreds of different strains of corn that exist today.
The increased demand for corn, after the announcement by the United States that it was going to devote a large amount of its harvests to the production of ethanol, the lack of controls on agribusiness monopolies, and the various pressures on people to plant transgenic corn now constitute a 'threat to the quality, quantity, and price of the corn that we bring to people's tables, and of all the foods that depend on it,' according to the National Association of Commercial Farm Production Businesses (Anec), member of the National Council of Farmworker Organizations (Conoc).
The situation puts white, red, and blue corn strains at risk, strains that are the basis of the indigenous farming economy, and of mexican cookery. According to Anec and the Conoc groups, the people would be forced to consume genetically modified yellow corn, used as food for cattle, and to pay the price that the monopolies set on it.
During this month, producers working with the environmental organization, Greenpeace, organized a virtual campaign in defense of corn and of a 'countryside with farmworkers.' The affirmed that without a healthy and fair national production of the grain, the country will not be able to go on existing as a super-diverse and rich nation. And it certainly won't be able to go on being called such if the indigenous people and the farmworkers are kicked off the farmland, as is the dream of the neoliberals.
Playing God
The Ecologist magazine, June 2007. By Hope Shand, Jim Thomas and Kathy Jo Wetter.
Scientists are on the brink of creating the world's first artificial life form ‚ a living organism never before found in nature. They promise solutions to everything from malaria to climate change. Salvation? Or a step too far?
Transgenics, the kind of engineering you find in genetically modified crops, is suddenly so last-century. As recombinant DNAsplicing techniques pass the 30-year mark, researchers are moving at breakneck pace to the next frontier in the manipulation of life: building it from scratch. Its called synthetic biology, and its poised to revolutionise our life sciences.
Under the paradigm of transgenics, genetic engineering was a cut-and-paste affair. Biotechnologists manually shuffled pieces of DNA the self-assembling molecule that instructs living organisms how to carry out every biological process between existing species. Over much of the past 20 years, genetic technology has focused on deciphering DNA code the sequence of base pairs that make up DNA's double helix in order to identify genes and understand their role in plant and animal life. As a result of this race to read and map genomes, it is now possible to decode, or sequence tens of thousands of base pairs per minute, and to do it relatively cheaply.
Synthetic biology represents a seismic shift in this landscape. Attention is being switched from reading to writing genetic code, with synthetic biologists beginning to scorn nature's designs in favour of made-to-order life forms. At the core of synthetic biology is a belief that life's components can be made synthetically (that is, by chemistry), engineered and assembled to produce working organisms.
Born in the dot-com communities of Boston and northern California, much of the vision of synthetic biology is articulated via computing metaphors. Using concepts borrowed from electronics and computing, synthetic biologists are building simplified versions of bacteria, re-programming DNA and assembling new genetic systems. DNA code is now regarded as the software that instructs life, while the cell membrane and all the biological functions within the cell are seen as the hardware that must be snapped together to make a living organism. Using gene synthesisers, they write the text of DNA code one letter at a time sometimes inventing their own alphabet to come up with new genetic networks bundled together in an artificial chassis a living, self-replicating organism made from scratch. The world's first synthetic biology conference, Synthetic Biology 1.0, convened in June 2004 at the University of California at Berkeley. Two months later, Berkeley announced it was establishing the world's first synthetic biology department. In 2005, three synthetic biology start-ups attracted more than US$43 million in venture capital, and in late 2006 there was talk of establishing an industry trade group for gene synthesisers. While most of the formal activity self-identified as synthetic biology has taken place on US soil, such extreme genetic engineering is happening all around the world. 2007's conference (SynBio3.0) will be held in Zürich, hosted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).
Millions of dollars of government and corporate funding are already flowing into synthetic biology labs. Venture capital and government funding have nurtured the field and the first pure-play synbio companies are now open for business. They hold growing patent portfolios and foresee industrial products in fields as diverse as energy production, climate change remediation, toxic cleanup, textiles and pharmaceuticals. Indeed, synthetic biology's first commercial products may be only a few years from market.
In the beginning...
It's not quite the biblical feat described in Genesis; but if you give $1,000 to Epoch Biolabs of Houston, Texas they can make an entire gene and post this little bit of life to you within seven days. From Moscow to Montreal, Norway to Nashville, a young industry of gene synthesis companies crank out the main ingredient for artificial life one chemical at a time and ship it to research labs that are pushing the limits of what is possible in the biotech field.
Building synthetic DNA isn't new. In the 1960s an Indian-American Nobel Prize winner, Har Gobind Khorana, first developed a chemical protocol for building chains of DNA to order arranging its four compounds, known as the nucleotide bases (adenine,
cytosine, guanine and thymine, represented by the letters A, C, G and T) into the spiralling ladder of the DNA molecule via some fairly slow, complicated chemistry. Back in 1973, it would take one scientist a whole year to make a length of DNA of 11 base pairs long. Today it would take minutes and cost around $200.
For the past 30 years the primary use of custom gene synthesis technology has been theproduction of oligonucleotides (oligos) short strands of DNA that genetic engineers use as hooks to copy the natural DNA of interest, in order to decipher a sequence and amplify it. Oligos usually have fewer than 200 bases and are single-stranded (DNA is doublestranded). The DNA itself is constructed from cheaply-produced sugar isolated from sugar cane. Although do-it-yourself desktop DNA synthesisers are used in laboratories to make short stretches of DNA, it is more common for researchers to go on the internet and order a desired DNA sequence from one of dozens of commercial oligo houses worldwide.
Gene foundries around 66 commercial firms worldwide ‚ produce longer pieces of double-stranded DNA (including whole genes or genomes). According to one industry estimate, the market for gene synthesis in late 2006 was only $30 to $40 million per year ‚ a tiny fraction of the $1 to $2 billion spent on acquiring and modifying DNA. Although the USA is currently home to more gene foundries than any other country, the industry is rapidly spreading. According to Hans Buegl of GeneArt (Regensberg, Germany), the market for gene synthesis has doubled in the past year.
As the industry grows, its products become cheaper. In mid-2006 most gene synthesis companies were charging between $1 and $2 per basepair (around 'a buck a base', as they like to say). At a synthetic biology conference in May 2006, gene synthesis companies were confidently predicting that the price would drop to $.50 per base pair by the end of 2007.
Some companies boast that there are no technical limits to the length of DNA they can produce (although most synthesised sequences are no error-free). GeneArt claims that it can produce 500,000 base pairs of DNA per month. In July 2006, Codon Devices manufactured and sold a strand of DNA exceeding 35,000 base pairs ‚ what they then claimed was the largest commercially produced fragment to date.
Synthetic biologists predict that a one million base pair bacterial genome will be constructed within the next two years, that a yeast genome of around 12 million base pairs could be synthesised in 18 to 24 months, and a plant chromosome would not take much longer. Rob Carlson, a synthetic biologist at the University of Washington (USA), says gene synthesis machines are improving in efficiency so fast that, 'Within a decade, a single person could sequence or synthesise all the DNA describing all the people on the planet many times over in an eight-hour day, or sequence his or her own DNA within seconds.'
Future Perfect?
The grand vision of synthetic biology is to create a novel, living system. The work of two US-based research teams illustrates two different approaches to realise this goal.
At the University of California at Berkeley, the synthetic biology department led by Jay Keasling is engineering cellular genetic pathways to produce valuable drugs and industrial chemicals. Chemical engineers are good at integrating lots of pieces together to make a large-scale chemical plant, and that is what we're doing in modern biological engineering ‚ we're taking lots of little genetic pieces and putting them together to make a whole system,' explains Keasling.
Keasling's team has synthesised around a dozen genes that work together to reproduce the chemical pathways behind a class of compounds called isoprenoids ‚ high-value compounds important in drugs and industrial chemicals. Isoprenoids are natural substances produced primarily by plants. Because of their structural complexity, chemical synthesis of most isoprenoids has not been commercially feasible, and isolation from natural sources yields only very small quantities. Synthetic biologists at Berkeley hope to overcome these limitations by designing new metabolic pathways in microbes, turning them into 'living chemical factories' that produce novel or rare isoprenoids.
Most notably, they are focusing on a powerful anti-malarial compound known as artemisinin. Backed by a $42.5 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Berkeley team believes that synthetic biology is the tool that will allow unlimited and cheap production of a currently scarce natural compound to treat malaria in the developing world. In 2003, Keasling and colleagues founded a synbio start-up called Amyris Biotechnologies, to bring the project to fruition. The promise of unlimited supplies of a drug that can roll back a global killer has become the raison d'Ítre for synthetic biology and given the field a philanthropic sheen. Though they've produced only tiny quantities of artemisinic acid so far, Jay Keasling's bacterial factories are already churning out copious amounts of priceless PR for the fledgling synbio industry. The December 2006 issue of Discover named the Berkeley professor its first-ever Scientist of the Year and the magazine's editors oozed with admiration: 'Through his significant synthetic biology advancements, Keasling is changing the world, making it a better place with every new discovery he makes.'
In reality, large-scale production of synthetic artemisinin still faces significant technical hurdles. What's more, a 2006 report by the Royal Tropical Institute of the Netherlands points out that it is technically possible to cultivate sufficient amounts of wormwood to produce enough artemisinin to treat all the malaria patients in the world. An estimated 17,000-27,000 hectares of Artemisia annua would be required to satisfy global demand, which could be grown by farmers in suitable areas of the South. The Institute's report warns, however, that the prospect of synthetic artemisinin production could destabilise a very young market for natural artemisia, undermining the security of farmers just beginning to plant it for the first time: 'Growing Artemisia plants is risky and will not be profitable for long because of the synthetic production that is expected to begin in the near future.'
Will betting on synthetic biology's medicinal microbes to tackle malaria divert attention and resources from other approaches that are potentially sustainable and decentralised?
Amyris hopes to use the same technology platform to produce drugs far more lucrative than artemisinin. 'We've essentially created a platform that will allow you to produce many drugs cheaper,' explains Keasling. 'Down the road, we will be able to modify enzymes to produce a number of different molecules, even some that don't exist in nature.'
According to the company's website, Amyris 'is now poised to commercialise pharmaceuticals and other high-value, fine chemicals taken from the world's forests and oceans by making these compounds in synthetic microbes.' Amyris plans to use synthetic biology to produce commercial drugs, plastics, colorants, fragrances and biofuels. The Berkeley lab is also attempting to re-engineer the metabolic pathways that produce natural rubber. If commercially successful, rubber-producing microbes could dramatically impact the demand for natural rubber If commercially successful, rubber-producing microbes could dramatically impact the demand for natural rubber and the livelihoods of people and economies that depend on this commodity.
Pathway engineering is already being used for commercial applications. For example, California-based Genencor has been working with chemical giant DuPont to add synthetic genetic networks to the cellular machinery of E. coli. When mixed with corn syrup in fermentation tanks, their modified bacterium produces a key component in Sorona, a spandex-like fibre. DuPont hopes that its new bio-based textile will cause as much fuss as the introduction of nylon back in the 1930s. DuPont plans to build additional Sorona production factories, probably in the global South. According to John Ranieri, Dupont's vice-president of bio-based materials, one thing is for sure: we need to be close to the agricultural producing centres, in Brazil, India or the USA.
Dr frankenstein, I presume?
In the race to synthesise life, the genomics mogul J Craig Venter often overshadows the rest of the pack. Venter, dubbed Biology's Bad Boy, led the private company Celera in the race to map the human genome. Venter is notorious for pushing the boundaries on the commercial exploitation of life. His newest commercial venture, Synthetic Genomics Inc., founded in 2005 with $30 million of venture capital, aims to commercialise a range of synthetic biology applications, starting with energy production. The company received half its start-up capital from Alfonso Romo Garza, the Mexican billionaire who owns agribusiness giant Savia.
In the mid-1990s, Venter's non-profit outfit, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), pursued a Minimal Genome Project to discover the fewest number of genes necessary for a bacterium to survive. The bacterium they chose was Mycoplasma genitalium, a bug that causes urinary tract infections. It has one of the smallest known genomes of any living organism (517 genes, made up of around 580,000 DNA base pairs). By contrast, the human genome is estimated to comprise around 22,000 genes, made up of some three billion base pairs. The yeast genome (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) has around 6,000 genes and 12 million base pairs. For Venter's team, the ultimate goal of creating aminimal microbe is to use it as a platform for building new, synthetic organisms whose genetic pathways are programmed to perform commercially useful tasks such as generating alternative fuels.
Venter and his research team, which includes Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith, are now attempting to synthesise their streamlined version of the Mycoplasma genitalium genome so it could be used as a chassis for novel, synthetic organisms. If it can operate as a viable, self-replicating organism, their synthetic microbe, dubbed Mycoplasma laboratorium, would amount to an entirely new species of bacterium the first fully synthetic living species ever created.
Venter calls Mycoplasma laboratorium a synthetic chromosome and his intention is to use it as a flexible bio-factory into which custom-designed synthetic gene-cassettes of four to seven genes can be inserted, genetically programming the organism to carry out specific functions. As a first application, Venter hopes to develop a microbe that would help in the production of either ethanol or hydrogen for fuel production. In the case of ethanol production, for example, the synthetic biology approach is to custom-design a microorganism that can perform multiple tasks, incorporating built-in cellulose-degrading machinery, enzymes that break down glucose, and metabolic pathways that optimise the efficient conversion of cellulosic biomass into biofuel. With more than $12 million in funding from the US Department of Energy, Venter expects to harness the mechanisms of photosynthesis for ways to more effectively sequester carbon dioxide, ostensibly as a means of slowing climate change.
In May 2006, Venter predicted that his team would deliver a living Mycoplasma laboratorium in two years, but he admitted that its ETA has been a rolling two years for some time now. When an interviewer asked Hamilton Smith if he and Venter were playing God, Smith gave a characteristically hubristic response: We don't play.
Synthetic Governance?
Advocates promote synthetic biology as the key to cheap biofuels, a cure for malaria, cheaper drugs and climate change remediation a strategy that aims to preempt public concerns about a dangerous and controversial technology.
However, a growing number of civil society organisations and social movements, particularly those that have campaigned against genetic engineering and the patenting of life, recognise that such extreme biotech is a technology that could pose grave threats to people and the planet, despite its mediafriendly gloss. For some, the quest to build new, living organisms in the laboratory crosses unacceptable ethical boundaries the ultimate reductionist science. Concerns were heightened in May 2006 when proposals for self-governance were put forward by synthetic biologists meeting at Syn Bio 2.0 in Berkeley measures that would serve as pre-emptive action to avoid potentially more stringent government regulations. In response, 38 civil society organisations from around the world signed an open letter to the synthetic biology community, expressing concern that this potentially powerful technology is being developed without proper societal debate concerning socio-economic, security, health, environmental and human rights implications. The letter dismissed the self-governance proposals as inadequate and noted that the implications are too serious to be left to wellmeaning but self-interested scientists.
Synthetic biologists counter that the field of synthetic biology is one of the most open, outgoing and self-critical fields of research that's ever existed, citing wiki discussions (editable web pages), lectures and town hall meetings(one held at MIT, the other at Berkeley) as examples. While these attempts at openness are important, the discussion of synbio's impacts has yet to extend much beyond a small circle of scientists, many of whom are invested in the unfettered development of the field, both professionally and often financially through their own or colleagues start-up companies.
Synbio's self-governance has focused primarily on biosecurity threats, especially the potential for a rogue scientist to cause harm. In fact, the mad scientist scenario is evoked as an argument for governments not to regulate the industry because, synthetic biologists argue, efforts to control the technology will drive it underground. The more likely scenario is that risks to society will come from unforeseen and unintended consequences.
Ultimately, it is not for scientists to control public discourse or determine regulatory frameworks. Whether by deliberate misuse or as a result of unintended consequences, synthetic biology will introduce new and potentially catastrophic societal risks. In keeping with the Precautionary Principle, synthetic microbes should be treated as dangerous until proven harmless. At a minimum, environmental release of de novo synthetic organisms should be prohibited until wide societal debate and strong governance are in place. Public debate must go beyond biosecurity (bioweapons/bioterrorism) and biosafety (worker safety and environment). There must be a broad societal debate on synthetic biology's wider socio-economic and ethical implications, on control and ownership of the technology and whether it is socially acceptable or even desirable.
Building a Better Bio-Weapon
I expect that this technology will be misapplied, actively misapplied and it would be irresponsible to have a conversation about the technology without acknowledging that fact. Drew Endy, Synthetic Biologist, MITag'
Gene synthesis technology vastly enhances the potential to construct deadly, designer pathogens in the laboratory using mail-order DNA. In 2002, a team of researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, led by molecular geneticist Dr Eckard Wimmer, mail-ordered synthetic DNA strands (oligonucleotides) and pasted them into a functional poliovirus. This is a wake-up call, Wimmer told the Washington Post in July 2006.
In 2005, another team of researchers announced that they had resurrected the lethal H1N1 flu virus that killed up to 50 million people worldwide in 1918-19 (the Spanish flu. Although the H1N1 strain had vanished from the earth with its last victims, researchers were able to recover and sequence fragments of the viral RNA from preserved tissues of 1918 flu victims buried in the Alaskan permafrost. Today, the full genome sequences of the H1N1 flu virus and the poliovirus are publicly available on the Internet-accessible database, GenBank.
Eckard Wimmer bluntly describes the potentially deadly combination of accessible genomic data and DNAsynthesising capabilities: If some jerk then takes the sequence [of a dangerous pathogen] and synthesises it, we could be in deep, deep trouble.
23 June 2007
India: No permission for GM bt rice field-trials
New India Express, June 23 2007
T'PURAM: The State Government declared on Friday that it had neither permitted the multi-national corporation (MNC) Mahyco to conduct field trials for genetically modified (GM) bt rice nor taken any decision relating to that.
The clarification was given by Law Minister M Vijayakumar on behalf of Chief Minister V S Achutanandan, in reply to a submission brought to the notice of the Assembly by Shreyamskumar MLA on Friday.
The submission was in response to this website's newspaperreport on Thursday alerting farmers against the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee's (GEAC) move to give nod for field trials in GM crops.
In his submission, Shreyamskumar warned that the GEAC's agenda released on Friday approving MNCs for GM crops multi-locational research trials (MLRT) would prove disastrous to Kerala's agriculture and environment.
According to the agenda, Mahyco has been permitted to conduct field trials in six transgenic Bt rice hybrids in Palakkad and it would be effective through an agreement slated to be signed on Saturday.
The GEAC's decision is in violation of the Supreme Court order dated September 22, 2006.
The appeal in this regard by the Union Environment Ministry was also turned down by the Supreme Court. A Biotech Task Force led by M S Swaminathan had declared the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats as 'GM Free region' to protect the bio-diversity of the region and submitted its report to the Kerala Chief Minister.
That apart, Kerala Biodiversity Board in its report has also recommended the government not to permit GM field trials in the state. A Bio-safety Committee constituted in the Kerala University has also prepared a 'Biosafety Code'. According to the code, no GM field trials can be conducted in the state without the verification of the Bio-safety Committee and prior approval from the State Government.
Shreyams Kumar also sought the intervention of the Assembly members to bring it to the notice of the Prime Minister and to prevent the Union Government from permitting such field trials with disastrous consequences.
India: GM crops will not be allowed in Kerala declares Kerala Agriculture Minister.
Environmental and Farmers Organisations hail decision.
Thanal Press Release, 23rd June 2007.
Trivandrum -- Environmental organisations and Farmers Organisations in Kerala today hailed the Kerala Government and welcomed the declaration of the Kerala Agriculture Minister Sri Mullakara Rathnakaran not to allow Genetically Modified Crops in the State.
"No GM crop trials and cultivation will be allowed in Kerala" the Agriculture Minister stated in the 9.30 pm News Hour discussions in the Malayala Manorama channel yesterday. He detailed the reasons for this decision, stating that farmers in Vidharbha and Andhra Pradesh were led to suicide by the planting of Bt-Cotton and that he will not allow anything like that to happen in Kerala. He was responding to the issue of the 78th Genetic Engineering Approval Committee's agenda for approving field trials of six hybrids of Bt-rice in Palakkad region. "Kerala is a State with rich agro-biodiversity and the government see it as its top priority to protect it" he said. According to the Minister, farmers from other states like Tamilnadu are resisting the entry of GM crops. "Here the Government and the Agriculture department will take up the issue along with farmers not to allow genetically modified crops in to the field ", he said.
Earlier in the day, the Kerala Assembly heard the official statement of the Government on the issue. The Kerala Law Minister Sri M Vijaykumar, speaking for the Chief Minister, responded to submissions by Sri M P Shreyams Kumar, MLA. He stated that "Kerala Agriculture Department has not given permission to the company Mahyco to conduct field trails of GM crops in the State. The Supreme Court has also not allowed any fresh approvals of field trials. Moreover, the M.S. Swaminathan task force on biotechnology has clearly pointed out that the agro-biodiversity rich regions like Western Ghats should be kept free from GM crops. The State Biodiversity Board also recommends in its Strategy and Action Plan to avoid experiments of GM crops in such biodiversity rich areas". The Minister also pointed out that such experiments can only be conducted under the supervision of the Bio safety Committee of the Kerala Agriculture University upon following their Bio safety Code. The permission of the State and the Panchayath where the trials are to be conducted is mandatory before approval is given.
While appreciating the decision of the Agriculture Minister, Thanal along with Desiya Karshaka Samithi and Ecological Protection Forum Palakkad and other environmental and farmers organisations across the State, pointed out that a farming in Kerala can be made sustainable only by supporting local initiatives in Organic and ecological farming, reviving high yielding and resistant, locally specific traditional seeds and practices and local production of organic manure and ecological pest control methods. This will reduce cost of production while giving good nutritional and economic value to the final produce. Research support that is being siphoned off for biotechnology and other frontier sciences is not going to help feed the State, they said, and so more support must be sought from the Centre for locally specific agriculture revival initiatives.
For more information contact
S Usha, Thanal Ph : (0)9447022775
Sridhar R, Ph : (0)9995358205
Thanal
H-3 Jawahar Nagar, Kawdiar,
Thiruvananthapuram - 695003,
Kerala, India.
Ph : +91-471-2727150, 5543001
Email : thanal@md4.vsnl.net.in
website :
www.thanal.org
EU's GMO stance hitting feed trade
Irish Farmers Journal, 23 June 2007. By Pat O'Keefe, News Editor.
The animal feed trade in Europe will find it increasingly difficult to source non-Genetically Modified feed crops, putting Europe's agriculture Industry under threat.
That was the warning from EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson last week, speaking at the European Association for Bio-industries Conference in Brussels.
"Unless the EU closes the gap between GM approvals in the EU and in the feed exporting countries, such as the US, Argentina and Brazil, we may have hungry cows and struggling farmers. Isolation from international trade in agricultural biotech products that have passed credible safety assessments in other jurisdictions simply may not be a viable option for the EU and we have to face up to this reality," Mandelson said.
He told the conference that his colleague, Marian Fischer Boel, the EU Agriculture Commissioner, has just conducted a study on the impact on the EU farm sector of how GM crops, that have been widely approved outside the EU, are then not approved here. The study suggests that as the EU's major suppliers of animal feed develop, approve, and plant new GM varieties, the EU will find it increasingly difficult to source GM free soyabean and other grains.
Mandelson said that world food demand will double by 2050, while agriculture will also have to simultaneously produce more energy crops and more raw material for industry if we want to tackle climate change.
To meet this demand in a sustainable way, agricultural productivity will have to increase. Water resources will be put under increasing strain. Inputs like nitrogen, and other fertilisers, will become more expesive and subject to stricter rules. "Agriculture will be expected to produce more, but use less," he said.
"We face a huge rise in demand for human food and animal feed in the developing world. GM crops can helpl developing countries produce crops designed to address their specific needs such as crops with increased yields, disease resistant crops and crops that can grow in arid conditions etc.
"It is simply not responsible or defensible to refuse to assess the role of GM food in meeting the needs of developing countries," he said.
"Our citizens need to be aware of the potential benefits of GM food and crucially have confidence in our testing and approval regime and be given appropriate information. Otherwise, too many Europeans will continue to see GMOs in black and white terms as wholly good or bad.
"We must not allow the positive argument for biotechnology to be lost because public authorities and governments are afraid to make the case to their citizens. This is not the leadership the public has the right to expect," Mandelson said.
Wall defends role in GMO's
Irish Farmers Journal, 23 June 2007. By Pat O'Keefe.
The Chairman of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has defended his organisation's role in asssessing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's).
Speaking at the Biotech Industry conference in Brussels, Dr. Patrick Wall defended the (EFSA) approach to the risk assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). He outline that EFSA operates to assess the safety and environmental impact of GMOs according to the requirements in EU legislation.
"EFSA has access to the best scientists in Europe and further afield. The Panel assessing GMOs is made up of 21 independent scientific experts and operates to the highest standards", he said.
He explained that each GMO is assessed on a case-by-case basis according to a strict protocol - irrespective of whether it has been approved in another jurisdiction outside the EU or a related product has already been approved in the EU.
He outlined that protection of the public's health is paramount in EFSA, which operates independently from the Commission and other Community Institutions. A favourable EFSA risk assessment is only the first step in the approvals process for new GMO's, he said.
It is the policy makers and reisk managers from the Commission and the Member States who grant the approvals. They consider other issues in addition to Science in reaching their conclusions.
"Querying the science when there are clearly other reasons behind a decision not to grant an approval undermines the assessment system and does not add value," he said.
Issues, other than health and safety, considered by policy makers, and others, when forming views on GMOs include:
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Political Sensitivities
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Consumer Concerns
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Moral and ethical issues
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Trade issues
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Economic implications
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Pro-organic
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Anti-intensive farming
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Anti US Multinationals
•
.
Anti-Corporatiosn owning the Food Chain
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Simply wishing to be a GM-free Member State
A member state may wish to be GM free because of concerns about biodiversity or considering such status will deliver benefits in terms of tourism or a point of differentiation for their food exports.
"Where there are scientific concerns EFSA can deal with them.
"However, the other issues need to be separated from the science and adjudicated elsewhere," he said.
Rules problematic for grain importers
On the difficulties grain importers face coping with the zero tolerance level for "non-EU approved GMO varieties", Dr. Wall said that the analytical chemists are now able to detect minute quantities of unintentional contaminants. "It is not possible to sterilise a ship, so this creates extreme difficulties for trade," he said.
"A tolerance level might be a solution but this is a decision for the regulators."
From a European farmer's perspective, poultry and beef produced by farmers feeding these grains in other jurisdictions is imp orted into the EU for consumption by EU consumers.
Ethanol crops "inneficient"
Dr. Wall expressed the view that the current ethnanol producing crops are inefficient and are consuming vast tracks [sic] of arable land.
"They are not commercially viable without tax concessions and subsidies," he said.
"However, genetically engineered varieties in the pipeline are 20 to 30 times more efficient at producing ethanol.
"It will remain to be seen, if when these crops are available, will GMO crops be viewed differently by environentallists and be seen to have a role in protecting the planet from global warming."
Biotech - good or bad?
"Is biotechnology good or bad?" is like asking "Is Science good or bad?" according to Dr. Wall.
"The benefits it delivers for society will very much depend on how it is used.
Consumers have no problem accepting biological washing powder, vitamins, medical treatments, biodegradable plastic.
"However, the benefits have to be visible for the consumers and the environment rather than for corporate giants."
The most recent Eurobarometer news survey on biotechnology showed that most Europeans are enthusiastic about new applications of biotechnology.
But there is one glaring exception: six in ten Europeans say they oppose genetically modified food but half of Europeans say they would be ready to buy GM food if it were healthier or more environmentally friendly.
This suggests that advocates of biotechnology need to do a lot more to explain what biotech is and what the real risks and benefits are.
22 June 2007
Europe: Emergency motion to protect the honeybee
Question Tabled to European Commission by Ms Hiltrud Breyer MEP of
Strasbourg
ISIS Press Release 22 June 2007
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/index.php
Honeybees have been disappearing worldwide [1]. Across the United States, beekeepers have been losing 30 to 90% or more of colonies in a "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) that's causing huge economic losses not only to beekeepers but also to fruit and vegetable growers. CCD has been reported from Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and the UK. Many believe that when the honeybee disappears, our species will soon follow.
The most important single factors identified by the Institute of Science in Society ( www.i-sis.org.uk ), in CCD were sub-lethal levels of insecticides [2], in particular, a class of new systemic neonicotinoid pesticides widely used to dress seeds and in sprays on crops [3], and microwave radiation from wireless telephone transmitters and base stations [4].
Sub-lethal levels of pesticides, including the Bt biopesticides produced in genetically modified (GM) crops covering some 30 percent of the global area [i.e. 30% of the 2.6% of the world's agricultural land currently planted with GMO crops], disorientate the bees, making them behave abnormally, and compromise their immunity to infections.
A report in the LA Times [5] suggested that a single cell parasitic fungus, Nosema ceranae , may be responsible for CCD, though the experts involved said the results are "highly preliminary".
A new review from ISIS [6] presented compelling evidence that sub-lethal levels of neonicotinoid pesticides, particularly imidacloprid, act synergistically with parasitic fungi such as Nosema in killing insects pests. Fungal spores, widely used as biocontrol agents are applied in sprays and baits, and when delivered in suspension with sub-lethal levels of pesticides are much more effective in killing insects.
Equally, Bt biopesticides enhance the killing power of parasitic fungi synergistically. Purified Bt Cry1Ab toxin killed Nosema infected borer larvae at one-third the dose required for killing the uninfected larvae. Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (the natural soil bacteria producing the Bt biopesticides) in commercial (Dipel) formulations killed Nosema pyrausta infected cornborer larvae at a dose 45 times lower than that killing the uninfected larvae.
Regulators have allowed the widespread deployment of systemic neonicotinoid pesticides neonicotinoids based on assessments of lethal dose in bees of the pesticides alone, ignoring clear evidence that sub-lethal pesticide levels act synergistically with fungal parasites in killing insects. The honeybees may well be succumbing to such synergistic effects. There is every reason to eliminate the use of all pesticides that act synergistically with parasitic fungi, and all Bt crops should be banned for the same reason.
Will the European Commission take the appropriate measures to halt the colony collapse of the honeybees?
This would include banning Bt crops and systemic neonicotinoid pesticides while their synergistic action in killing honeybees in
combination with parasitic fungi and other infections are thoroughly investigated.
References
1. Reported in Killing Bees series, Science in Society 34 , 2007; Institute of Science in Society ( www.i-sis.org.uk ); magazine pdf and fully referenced members' versions of articles enclosed
2. Ho MW and Cummins J. Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees , Science in Society 34 , 35-36, 2007.
3. Cummins J. Requiem for the Honeybee , Science in Society 34 , 37-38, 2007.
4. Ho MW. Mobile Phones and Vanishing Bees , Science in Society 34 , 34, 2007.
5. "Experts may have found what's bugging the bees", Jia-Rui Chong and Tomas H. Maugh II, LA Times, 26 April 2007,
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-sci-bees26apr26,0,7437491.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel
6. Cummins J. Parasitic Fungi and Pesticides Act Synergistically to Kill Honeybees? ISIS Report 7 June 2007,
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Parasiticfungi.php
EU: Position of EFSA on Antibiotic Resistance
GMO Compass, 22 June 2007.
In the EU, GM plants with certain antibiotic resistance markers have been given only limited authorisation for release into the environment.
On 2 April 2004, the GMO Panel, a committee of experts under the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), submitted a report on antibiotic resistance marker genes. According to the experts, a general ban on the use of antibiotic resistance marker genes is not justified. Nonetheless, EFSA suggests a careful approach to their use on an individual basis: some should be not be used at all, and others should be used on a limited basis. The nptII marker gene, which is used in most GM plants and imparts resistance to kanamycin, may continue being used without restriction.
Avoiding risk as a precaution
Although the chances of horizontal gene transfer from genetically modified plants to microorganisms are very small, EFSA's GMO Panel works upon the basis that it is possible when evaluating the safety of various antibiotic resistance genes (ABR genes). The experts on the GMO Panel haven taken the position that marker genes should do no damage to the environment or to human or animal health if horizontal gene transfer were to occur.
Several criteria are considered when evaluating antibiotic resistance genes:
•
The medical importance of the antibiotic concerned.
•
The distribution of microorganisms already possessing resistance genes in soil and water, as well as their presence in the digestive tracts of humans or other mammals.
Different markers, different approaches
EFSA's GMO panel classifies the ABR marker genes in three groups:
•
First group: Unlimited use.
According to EFSA, these marker genes can continue being used in GM plants. The antibiotic resistance genes in this group are widespread in nature and their corresponding antibiotics are seldom or never used in medicine. The nptII gene (kanamycin resistance) falls under this category.
•
Second group: Not to be used in commercial GM plants.
Plants possessing these genes may be planted in field trials, but they may not be used for agriculture. These genes confer resistance to antibiotics used in human and veterinary medicine to treat specific infections. These resistance genes are widespread in microorganisms. According to the committee, growing plants with genes from this group would not increase the distribution of resistance genes in nature. The ampicillin resistance gene fits into this category.
•
Third Group: Not allowed.
These marker genes are to no longer be used in GM plants. They confer resistance to antibiotics that are of high value, particularly in human medicine. The effectiveness of these antibiotics must not be compromised. One example of this type of gene is the nptIII gene (resistance to amikacin).
Use Restricted By Law: EFSA's report on antibiotic resistance markers was conducted in light of the EU directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (2001/18/EC) that came into effect in October 2002. The directive demands that antibiotic resistance marker genes be monitored and used with caution.
Article 4 of the directive states:
"Member States and the Commission shall ensure that GMOs which contain genes expressing resistance to antibiotics in use for medical or veterinary treatment are taken into particular consideration when carrying out an environmental risk assessment, with a view to identifying and phasing out antibiotic resistance markers in GMOs which may have adverse effects on human health and the environment. This phasing out shall take place by the 31 December 2004 in the case of GMOs placed on the market according to Part C and by 31 December 2008 in the case of GMOs authorised under Part B."
EU to Debate Authorisation of GMO Maize on Monday
Truth about Trade and Technology, 22 June 2007.
EU food safety experts will debate next week whether to allow imports of a genetically modified (GMO) maize, bringing forward a vote on the biotech product by two weeks, industry and EU sources said on Tuesday. The maize, known commercially as Herculex RW and also by the code number 59122, is jointly made by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont Co. and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds.
Herculex RW is designed to protect against larval stages of corn rootworm, which eats through plant roots and so reduces yield and nutrients. It also resists the active herbicide ingredient glusofinate ammonium.
If approved at Monday's meeting, the maize would be imported for use in food, animal feed and also in industrial processing.
Officials said they had expected the Herculex dossier to be voted on by national EU biotech experts at a meeting provisionally scheduled for July 6 or July 9.
For many years, EU countries have not been able to gain the majority needed to vote through a new GMO approval under the EU's weighted voting system. But that may be slowly changing.
Analysis of recent GMO voting patterns shows that the consistent blocking minority of EU governments may be eroding as some smaller countries are opting to abstain than reject an application outright -- so weakening the anti-GMO camp.
Some countries, like Britain, Finland and the Netherlands, almost always vote in favour of approving new GMOs. They are offset by a group of GMO-sceptic states like Austria, Greece and Luxembourg, which vote against and force a stalemate.
Even so, diplomats said the panel of EU national experts was still unlikely to reach the required consensus needed either to approve or reject the new GMOs.
If this happens at next week's meeting, the paperwork will be escalated to EU agriculture ministers for debate at a future meeting. Normally, this has to happen within three months.
Then, if the ministers cannot agree -- again a likely scenario -- the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, usually issues its own approval under a legal default process.
"Pioneer hopes that member states will recognise the safety of the product, the value of the independent scientific assessment ... which said it's as safe as conventional (maize)," said Mike Hall, Pioneer's communications manager for Europe.
"And for reasons to avoid trade disruption, we need to move forward and approve this product," he said.
European consumers are well known for their wariness towards biotech foods, many of which have not been approved for sale in the EU. In April, Dutch authorities detected corn gluten feed derived from Herculex RW that was delivered to several animal feed companies in the Netherlands, and partially consumed.
21 June 2007
Scientists and MEPs for a GM free Europe
Independent scientists, MEPs, farmers and citizens united at the European Parliament condemning GMOs;
the European Food Safety Authority to be sued
ISIS Press Release, 21 June 2007.
Sam Burcher and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Scientists from six countries joined forces with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to call for a Europe wide and worldwide ban on growing GM crops at a special briefing in the European Parliament in Brussels on 12 June 2007.
The briefing, organized by ISIS, Third World Network and Green Network, and hosted by Janusz Wojciechowski, MEP, the vice-Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the European Union, coincided with the publication of key scientific papers, GM Food Nightmare Unfolding in the Regulatory Sham (ISIS scientific publication) [1] and New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically Modified Maize Reveals Signs of Hepatorenal Toxicity (CRII-GEN) [2] on how national and international regulators have been ignoring damning evidence against the safety of GM food and feed while colluding with industry to manipulate scientific research to promote GM crops. The papers were presented at the briefing together with a comprehensive dossier containing more than 160 fully referenced articles from the Science in Society archives documenting the serious hazards ignored, the scientific fraud, the regulatory sham and violation of farmers' rights [3] ( GM Science: Hazards Ignored, Fraud, Regulatory Sham, and Violation of Farmers' Rights , ISIS CD Book, 2007).
All the MEPS who spoke on the panel thanked ISIS for bringing such crucial scientific input into the GM debate, a view overwhelmingly shared by other MEPs and members of the public who attended the briefing.
The paradox of the GM debate
Janusz Wojciechowski MEP, who chaired the briefing, referred to the paradox of rural development within the GM debate in the European Union (EU). Where conventional and organic crops are concerned, there are political moves to reduce the production of fruit and vegetables crops, but where GM crops are concerned there is pressure to increase production for consumers. He said, "For me, it is obvious that decisions on GMOs must be based on public opinion and I do my best, in that regard as one of the decision makers in the EU, to safeguard the health of citizens above all."
Jill Evans, a Plaid Cymru MEP, and member of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group, picked up on the undue influence of the pro-GM campaign in the EU: the anti-GM campaign had to work ten times harder to make their voices heard. She said, "As an MEP my job is to listen to what my constituents in Wales say and represent their views in the EU. And it is clear that there is overwhelming opposition to GMOs in Wales. Our farming industry, food safety and environment are under threat from GM crops, food and feed. We must keep Wales GM-Free and have a European ban on GM crops."
Opposition to GM crops started in Wales in the year 2000 when GM field trials in Pembrokeshire were abandoned due to pressure from 80 organic farmers, which attracted local press, and the interest of members of all political parties. The National Assembly in Wales had also voted against GM crops, but in 2001 the UK Government gave them the green light. It was then that the campaign group GM-Free Cymru was set up, and there have been no more plantings in Wales since.
Evans stressed that the National Assembly [of Wales] is proactive in the EU, and has joined GM free networks, but feel that the Welsh decision regarding GM crops, and liability arising from the contamination of native crops, should be taken in Wales by its own advisory committee, and not as is currently done, by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) in the UK. She said Wales is in favour of asserting its right to GM free zones in accordance with the wishes of the people of Wales, and supported by the scientific evidence presented at the briefing; and vowed to keep the GM-free agenda alive and well in Wales and in Europe.
Keep up the fight for a GM free Europe
Dr Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for South-East England, endorsed the firm stance of all the speakers on the panel, She said, "There is every reason why we need to keep up the fight to keep Europe GM-free, the tragedy is that it is such a relentless fight, despite not only the rapidly accumulating evidence in our favour and the enormous relevance of the precautionary principle, but also the overwhelming public opposition to GMOs." Public opinion polls consistently show that 70 percent or more of consumers in Europe do not want to eat GM food, and more than 170 regions and 4500 other zones belong to the GMO Free European Regions set up in Florence in 2005.
Despite the national bans on GM in 11 European countries, the largely unaccountable European Commission, which lifted the de facto moratorium in 2003, has authorised at least 18 GM varieties for cultivation in the EU, with 12 more pending approval. The good news is that many national governments are sceptical, for example Bulgaria has adopted the GMO Act that is firmly based on the precautionary principle and Hungary states that the production of GM crops is not in its economic, environmental, health or social interests. Lucas was critical of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), supposed to offer independent and scientific expert evidence on the safety risk of GM products, but has failed in its task ever since it was set up in 2002 .
Lucas also criticised EFSA for colluding with biotech companies in giving liberal 'positive opinions' to their applications for market release, and for its reluctance to commission or conduct independent studies, and acceptance of 'substantial equivalence' in safety assessments even in cases of hybrids created from two or three GM lines. Finally the 'commercially confidential' status of dossiers kept away from public scrutiny directly contravenes the provisions of the Aarhus Convention (a United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, or UNECE agreement linking the environment with human rights). She referred to the example of MON863 maize that was approved for food and feed solely on the data provided by Monsanto itself.
The aggressive campaign waged by the US, Canada and Argentina to force Europe to open its door to GM via the WTO ruling backfired when the WTO upheld Europe's right to protect itself from GMOs, Lucas reminded her audience, and reaffirmed the need for a clear system of liability when contamination occurs based firmly on the 'polluter pays' principle.
GMOs "a crime against humanity"
Dr Mae-Wan Ho, director of ISIS , painted the big picture on why the world needs to be GM-Free. Her main message was: "GMOs are not only hazardous for health and bad for the environment, they will severely damage our chances of surviving global warming. GM crops need more fossil fuel and water to grow, both of which are fast diminishing. Europe cannot afford to waste any more time and resources on GMOs, we must start investing in sustainable food and energy systems now."
After 30 years of GMOs, there has been no yield increase, no reduction in pesticide use, while the continuing forest depletion for GM crops now includes those for producing biofuels. Most of all, 100 000 farmers have killed themselves in India between 1993 and 2003, coinciding with the introduction of GM crops, and a further 16,000 have died every year since then. Members of the audience gasped with approval at her explicit indictment against genetic modification: "GMOs are a crime against humanity." Nevertheless, she was encouraged by the recent rulings against the legality of GM crops in the United States, and a string of bans imposed in many countries around the world over the past year [4] ( No to GMOs, No to GM Science, SiS 35).
GM soybean nightmare for rats
Dr. Irina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Sciences said she started her experiments some years ago, when she heard many positive reports about GM crops from around the world, but almost none on any negative effects. Not until she came across the Statement by World Scientists on ISIS website (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/list.php), which highlighted the dangers. She was shocked to find that GM crops were harmful to butterflies and other pollinating insects, so she decided to do some experiments on mammals to investigate the health effects of GM soybeans. The significant difference between her experiments and those of the biotechnology companies was that she used female rats before, during and after pregnancy over five generations.
Ermakova said, "So many things went wrong for rats fed genetically modified soybeans. They became more anxious and aggressive, there was a high mortality of rat pups born to the females in the first generation, disturbances of reproductive functions and pathological changes in the internal organs of males and females."
She showed her audience abundant unsettling photographic evidence of the malformed, stunted, diseased (including some with cancerous lesions) and dead pups, whose mothers had all been fed Monsanto's Roundup Ready soybeans. The stunned audience was in no doubt that something did go horribly wrong, and that an urgent ban on the sale of the GM soya should be imposed rather than the permissive, turning a blind-eye attitude taking by EFSA and other government regulators.
Company research results do not stand up to independent science scrutiny
Dr Christian Velot, Senior Lecturer in Molecular Genetics at the University of South Paris, France, said: "Practically all the studies finding 'no effect' of GM food and feed are done by companies seeking market approval or funded by them. This research simply does not stand up to independent scientific scrutiny, and regulators are putting people at serious health risks by accepting such research results." That was why he joined other French scientists to establish the Committee for Research and Independent Information on Genetic Engineering (CRII-GEN, France) since June 2005.
The CRII-GEN scientists have made it their business to scrutinise research done by companies to obtain market approval of GM food and feed. They found signs of liver and kidney toxicity in rats fed Monsanto's MON 863 GM maize that have been ignored by both the company and the EFSA [2, 5] ( GM Maize MON 863 Toxic , SiS 34). The CRII-GEN scientists have now analysed yet another feeding study involving Mons anto GM maize, NK603. The company's own results found 60 significant differences between the rats that were fed the GM maize and those fed non-GM maize, in their kidney, brain, heart and liver, as well as body weight [6]. But these differences were ignored and the maize given market approval in the EU in 2004. Velot reasserted the need for science in society to fight against industry that "treats the consumer as the lab rat and the planet as the lab bench."
Taking the EFSA to court over GMOs
Urs Hans, an organic farmer from Switzerland and an activist against GM had news for the EFSA. He represents an international coalition of NGOs, farmers associations, lawyers, legal and scientific academics, professors, scientists, journalists, film directors, church groups, etc. from Germany, Austria and Switzerland that intends to mount "comprehensive litigations" against the deployment of GMOs in Europe. Among its targets are the EFSA and other European regulatory bodies, on the grounds that their support of the pro-GM lobby is illegal and a breach of food security. The coalition includes Greenpeace Germany and leading representatives of Greenpeace Europe, senior politicians in Austria, and a high profile German Constitutional Law professor in Munich. The leading German legal think tank, the Tubingen Institute for Nature Protection and Nature Protection Law, has given the coalition an overview of possible legal strategies, and the lawsuits are represented by a leading German law firm in Hamburg specialising in genetic engineering law. So watch this space, and if you would like to get involved, log onto one or the other of Hans' websites: www.publiceyeonscience.ch and www.bauernverstand.ch.
Hans trained as an agriculturalist in Canada, and then managed his own farm. It was then that he noticed that the organophosphates recommended by the regional government for the treatment of parasites made his animals ill. During the BSE crises organophosphates were strictly imposed on farmers whether their cows were infected or not. Hans felt he was being forced to use chemical substances to support the economic interests of the regional government. He made a decision to stop using organophosphates and was prosecuted three times for his refusal, but he won every case.
Hans sees GM crops forced upon farmers and consumers along the same economic and technological imperative of the intensive chemical agriculture that forced him to use organophosphates. In the end, it's the farmer who pays for this imperative with his health, the health of his animals, spiralling debt for inputs that he cannot afford, and the loss of livelihood. He was inspired to leave his farm to come to the briefing in Brussels to hear sound scientific evidence to support the case against the EFSA, and he was very satisfied with what he has heard.
Honeybees harmed by biopesticides in Bt crops
Joe Cummins, Emeritus Professor in Genetics from University of Western Ontario, Canada, a veteran campaigner against corruption in science on behalf of society and the environment, has led the fight against GM science in ISIS ever since ISIS began in 1999.
The collapse of honeybee colonies worldwide are almost certainly a combination of different factors, the most important among them are sub-lethal levels of insecticides, in particular, a class of new systemic neonicotinoid pesticides widely used to dress seeds and in sprays on crops, and microwave radiation from wireless telephone transmitters and base stations. There has been a suggestion that single-celled fungi, such as Nosema, could be the main culprit [7] ( Parasitic Fungus and Honeybee Decline, SiS 35) .
However, Cummins presented a convincing hypothesis that sub-lethal levels of pesticides, including the Bt biopesticides produced in GM crops covering some 30 percent of the global area, could be acting synergistically with Nosema in murdering bees. Nosema and other parasitic fungi are also widely used as biological control agents against insect pests [8] ( Parasitic Fungi and Pesticides Act Synergistically to Kill Honeybees? SiS 35).
Cummins said, "The honeybee is a major pollinator of our food crops, and its demise is a dire warning that the extinction of the human species is not far behind." What can we do to save the honeybee? Joe concluded with three succinct points for the future survival of humanity: the first one is to eliminate systemic nicotinoid pesticides, the second is to eliminate Bt crops. He raised a hearty laugh with his third, and his favourite, suggestion: replacing all the bureaucrats that turn a blind eye to the plight of nature in favour of the biotech and the agrochemical industry.
Hiltrud Breyer, MEP from Strasbourg intervened from the audience and wanted to know what could be done in Europe to save the bees. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho suggested that an emergency motion should be put forward to the European Commission along the lines laid out by Cummins.
Genetic engineering is a "global weapon of mass destruction"
Dr Zbigniew Halat, President of the Association for Protection of Consumer Health in Poland, a medical doctor, and an ex deputy Health Minister for Poland, said: "I believe that the problems caused by genetic engineering are global. It is the proliferation of a kind of biological weapon of mass destruction." Halat criticized the threshold for contamination of native crops by GM crops of 0.9 percent, or even 0.1 percent as nonsense. He cautioned that even a tiny molecule could cause an anaphylactic (toxic shock) reaction and could kill someone who is allergic.
He believes there is a causal link between GM contamination and the rising allergy rate that has doubled in 10 years. He argued that studies of local incidences of allergic reactions to GM maize crops in the Philippines by Professor Terje Traavik of Genk in University of Troms¯, Norway [9] ( GM Ban Long Overdue , SiS 29) have provided us with the empirical evidence against GM crops. Furthermore, as GM foods have not been medically proven as safe, it is important that we keep using opinion polls to assess public support for them and epidemiological studies to assess their safety.
He even suspects a relationship between GMOs and the rising cancer rates, antibiotic resistance, and the obesity epidemic. From a medical point of view, he said, we can't wait for outcomes of sickness and deaths from GMOs, we must have proof that GM food and feed is healthy and safe. Finally, we must be aware of the ethical issues around genetic engineering and that it is not job of producers, but of the public authorities to protect our health from diseases.
The world's genetic resources threatened by GM genebanks robbers
Dr Pietro Perrino from the Institute of Plant Genetics in Bari, Italy, tells a sorry tale of the destruction of seeds and germplasm held in genebanks throughout the world subsequent to the rise of genetic engineering. On the one hand, genetic engineers have ruthlessly plundered the seeds and germplasm held in the genebanks for genes, DNA sequences and varieties which they patent in acts of biopiracy. On the other hand, they are colluding in the destruction of the genebanks themselves [9, 10] ( SOS: Save Our Seeds , Italy's Genebank At Risk, SiS 27).
Perrino explained how genebanks came about through the need to collect, conserve and protect crop diversity because of the genetic erosion caused by industry-led agricultural revolutions that attempted to increase crop yields from monoculture crops of a few species. In the past forty years 1,400 genebanks have been created to compensate for the negative effects of the "Green Revolution." However, the second generation of the "Gene Revolution" where new varieties can be made by taking the genes from any organism: animal, fungus, plant, microbe or virus to create new plants, are a direct threat to the larger indigenous genetic bases.
Pietro said, "We urgently need to protect the genebanks as they may soon be the only source of uncontaminated seed stocks in the world. This may be why the biotech industry and their supporters are so keen to see them destroyed after they've sequenced the genomes and patented the genes." Furthermore he called upon the regulators of in-situ plant conservation, organic farmers, natural reserves, and nature conservation organisations to fight what he calls the "genebanks robbers", the genetic engineers who seek to replace genebanks with DNA biobanks filled with synthetic plant resources that are not only useless, but are also dangerous for biodiversity, and for the health of living organisms, including human beings.
USDA approves GM under pressure from Monsanto
Journalist and author Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, began his talk with, "I am from the US, so I want to apologise for GM at least." He then slammed the US Food and Drug Administration who say that no testing whatsoever is necessary on GM food. This, he claims, is a lie perpetrated by Monsanto, which has infiltrated the FDA. Who, he asks, has overruled the scientists worried about toxins? Evidence gathered from thirty scientists over three years from his latest book, GM Roulette [12] documents no less than sixty-five health risks associated with the process of genetic engineering. Jeffrey argues that the main possible cause of health problems is related to DNA mutations within synthetic genes that create changes within the genome. He also points out that industry's claims of safety of the Bt toxin used in GM corn and GM cotton crops are a fallacy and they that have caused thousands of allergic reactions around the world, as well as sterility and unexplained death in humans and livestock. The fundamental assumption made by industry that GM crops and pesticides are safe must be overturned.
GM production is a trap
Mr Wojciechowski closed the meeting with the warning that the expansion of GM production is a trap. And, as a European Parliamentarian, he thanked all the experts who spoke to the meeting for their knowledge. It is a challenge for European Parliamentarians to make their activity against GM more intensive. The first opportunity will be the question raised by MEPs on risk assessment of the EFSA, which will restart the debate over the dangers of GMOs, he said.
Enthusiastic discussions followed for nearly an hour after the official end of the conference, and carried on in the European Parliament cafeteria, where Mr. Wojciechowski kindly treated the speakers and friends of ISIS to lunch.
References
Ho MW, Cummins J and Saunders PT. GM food nightmare unfolding in the regulatory sham. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease 2007,published online 7 June 2007, DOI: 10.1080/08910600701 343781
Seralini G-E, Cellier D and de Vendomois JS. New Analysis of a Rat Feeding Study with a Genetically modified maize reveals signs of hepatorenal toxicity. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 2007, 52, 596-602.
GM Science Exposed: Hazards Ignored, Fraud, Regulatory Sham, and Violation of Farmers' Rights, Science in Society Spring 2003-Summer 2007, ISIS CD Book, 2007. (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/pdf/GMdossier.pdf)
Ho MW. No to GMOs, no to GM science. Science in Society 35 (in press).
Ho MW. GM maize MON 863 toxic. Science in Society 34 , 26-27, 2007.
"Monsanto maize approved for human consumption potentially toxic, warns new study. Greenpeace demands immediate withdrawal of suspect maize from the market, and review of regulatory system", Greenpeace press release 14 July 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/press-centre/press-releases2/seralini-NK603
Cummins J. Parasitic fungi and honeybee decline. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/PFHB.php ; also Science in Society 35 (to appear).
Cummins J. Parasitic fungi and pesticides act synergistically to kill honeybees? http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Parasiticfungi.php ; also Science in Society 35 (to appear).
Ho MW. GM ban long overdue: dozens ill and five deaths in the Philippines. Science in Society 29 , 26-27, 2006.
Ho MW. SOS: Save our seeds. Science in Society 27 , 45-47, 2005.
Perrino P. Italy's genebank at risk. Science in Society 27 , 48-49, 2005.
Smith J M. Genetic Roulette, The documented health risks of genetically engineered foods . Yes! Books, Fairfield, Iowa, 2007.
Europe: Pro-GMO commission undermines EU democracy
70% of EU citizens opposed to GM crops, MEP tells conference
Green Party press release, 13th Jun 2007
THE UNELECTED European Commission is undermining EU democracy by supporting GM crops and foodstuffs despite the opposition of over 70% of EU citizens and more than half of the EU's member countries, Green MEP Caroline Lucas told a Brussels conference.
More than 170 EU regions and 4,500 other zones have now declared themselves GMO-free but in the absence of qualified majority in the Environment Council the Commission continues to authorise new GM varieties, and force countries to allow their cultivation, she said.
"It is outrageous that in the face of this overwhelming opposition we still have to constantly marshal our efforts to try to stop the drip-drip-drip of vested corporate and misguided economic interests seeking to force GMOs upon us."
She made her comments at a conference organised by the Institute of Science in Society at the European Parliament.
Dr Lucas, a member of the European Parliament's influential Environment Committee, also criticised the "secretive and pro-GMO" European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for its support for the GMO industry.
She warned that the risk of contamination meant it may be impossible for conventional and organic agriculture to stay GMO-free, and said liability for financial losses sustained as a result of GMO contamination should fall on the polluter.
"We must review GMO legislation to ensure that all impurities in seeds are labelled as far as possible, and that foods such as milk, meat and eggs are also clearly labelled if they derive from GM ingredients or feeds," Dr Lucas added.
"Until these urgent measures have been agreed and come into effect we must have a moratorium on all further approvals.
"Currently, there are at least 18 varieties of GM crops which have been authorised for cultivation in the EU, despite evidence that GM varieties pose a real threat to the environment. This is at least 18 too many."
USA: The Way We Live Now
You Are What You Grow
The New York Times, April 22 2007. By Michael Pollan.
[Extracts only]
. . To speak of the farm bill's influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact - on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities - or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico's eaters as well as its farmers.) You can't fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.
And though we don't ordinarily think of the farm bill in these terms, few pieces of legislation have as profound an impact on the American landscape and environment. Americans may tell themselves they don't have a national land-use policy, that the market by and large decides what happens on private property in America, but that's not exactly true. The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America: whether it will be farmed or left wild, whether it will be managed to maximize productivity (and therefore doused with chemicals) or to promote environmental stewardship. The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill.
Read the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22wwlnlede.t.html
Ireland: GM-free cost up to € 40m
Irish Examiner, 21 June 2007. By Stephen Cadogan.
A complete ban on genetically modified (GM) crops and animal feedstuffs could cost Ireland up to € 40 million per year.
So there is a lot at stake as the new Government seeks to negotiate the establishment of an All-Ireland GM-free zone.
It's the only line that jumps out of the programme for Government agreed by the Green Party and Fianna Fáil in the Agriculture, Food and Forestry sectors.
It's one of the few areas in the programme where one of the most ambitious aims of the Green Party is entertained ó in this case, changing the diets of our 14,773,000 cattle, sheep and pigs.
If the Greens' fear of genetic modification were to lead to a total ban on the import and cultivation of GM crops, the net economic cost was recently estimated by Teagasc to be about € 7 million per annum, rising to nearly € 40m per annum when different scenarios were analysed.
Making Ireland an airtight island in a sea of genetic modification would require an army of inspectors poring over every grain of the cereals and cereal preparations we import annually ó more than one million tonnes. Maybe we would be required to ban the wearing of genetically modified cotton clothing?
Where would the non-GM grain for our livestock come from? Ireland might need to buy up the annual global production each year.
This would be financial suicide for our farming industry, dependent on its exports remaining competitive, and locked as it is into the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, which is based on "industrial" scale livestock rearing, and on importing about 50 million tonnes of feed each year.
Green Party negotiators must bear in mind that the new government they are part of does not make the big decisions for Irish farmers, who are instead at the mercy of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the EU, and big business.
Anything that runs counter to them ó such as an All-Ireland GM-free zone ó leaves farmers here exposed.
A case in point last week showed how the best efforts of Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan and the aspirations of the Green Party were dashed by the High Court and the EU, and ultimately by the WTO.
Former sugar beet growers lost out in the courts, due to a sugar industry restructuring aid decision which was overshadowed by the formation of our historic three party coalition government. The High Court case was adjourned to yesterday, but seems sure to result in farmers getting less than the € 47.1m restructuring aid allocated by Ms Coughlan ó maybe € 14m less.
As for the Green Party's election manifesto aim of reviewing use of the Carlow and Mallow sugar factories as bio-fuel plants, the court's decision will probably give Greencore a fairly free hand to maximise the return from its former sugar sites as it sees fit.
It was the World Trade Organisation, responding to complaints from Australia, Brazil and Thailand that doomed our tillage farmers' most profitable crop.
Luckily for farmers, other events in places faraway from Dáil Eireann are softening the blow.
Prices for the grain crops which replaced sugar beet have risen dramatically, as crop production potential in many regions of the world is revised downwards. British wheat for harvest delivery in Dublin is priced at more than € 180, and British barley is being quoted at more than € 174.
So it is for farmers and food processors; their future will be determined by the WTO, EU, and big business trends, more than by Dáil Eireann.
Vulnerable as they are, farmers looking at the formation of last week's Government welcomed the continuity in having Ms Mary Coughlan re-installed, ready to deal with, for example, whatever comes out of this week's meeting of world trade negotiators from the US, EU, Brazil and India.
Farmers have been happy with her stance on farm inspections and traceability.
However, it is her agriculture portfolio which may carry the Green tinge in this Government more than any other.
The programme for Government includes a target to convert at least 5% of acreage to organic farmland by 2012, review the forestry premium scheme, and ensure at least 30% of annual planting will be broadleaf by 2012.
Those are ambitious targets which will meet much opposition, but the Green inspired bid to negotiate the establishment of an All-Ireland GM-free zone is the most worrying.
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Comment by GM-free Ireland:
The above article is extremely misinformative. For the truth about GM animal feed, see comments from GM-free Ireland under the 16 June article "Greens fulfill pledge to have Ireland free of GM crops" below.
20 June 2007
Ireland: White vows to slay farming's 'bogey man'
The Nationalist, 20 June 2007. Bu Majella O'Sullivan.
GREEN Party deputy leader Mary White says she will prove to farmers that they have a great friend in the Green Party.
The newly elected deputy for Carlow-Kilkenny was responding to fears expressed by some farming organisations about the influence of a Green agenda on agricultural policy.
One of the country's largest farming organisations has warned that farmers won't stand by and be treated as adversaries by the Green Party in government.
ICMSA president Jackie Cahill said that while he respected the Green Party's mandate, respect was a two-way street and he hoped the Green Party's "woollier" misconceptions about the nature and viability of commercial farming would not weigh down on a sector that was already struggling under the burden of regulation.
"ICMSA will, of course, work and negotiate with any party that helps the position of ordinary farmers, but we won't sit by and say nothing if dogma replaces science in the Government's attitude to Irish farmers," Mr Cahill warned.
Deputy White was adamant on what her agenda was. "Over the next five years my ambition as spokesperson for agriculture and food and as a TD for Carlow-Kilkenny is to prove to the farmers that they will have a great friend in the Green Party," she said.
Deputy White said the Green Party had the dynamic policies to push forward sustainable agriculture over the coming years. She outlined that the Green Party was the only party with a policy on energy production from renewable energy sources and that already they had succeeded in securing an increase from 1% to 5% for land that is to be set by for organic food production by 2012.
"We've also revised forestry premia with an overall increase of 30% for broad leaf woods," she added.
The Green Party is also looking for "GM free status" a move that has been welcomed by ICSA president Malcolm Thompson.
"This is exactly in line with ICSA policy which we have promoted over the last four years... Ireland is uniquely positioned to adopt a non-GMO policy because of its water boundaries and we should capitalise to the full on the marketing advantages that will accrue to us as the Clean, Green, GMO free island," he said.
Deputy White added that she was determined "to slay the bogey man" as far as farmers' fears are concerned.
"I intend to be the reasonable, pragmatic voice as a spokesperson for the Green Party in this Government and I will deliver that by my words and my actions," she said.
At the time of going to press it was still not known if Deputy White's role in agriculture would translate into a junior ministry in the new Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
"I looked deep into the Taoiseach's eyes last Thursday when I met him but I could not see what he intended to do," she said.
If this has still not been revealed by today Carlow is likely to find out if it has a Minister of State on June 26 when the Dáil reconvenes.
USA: Groups say bill voids local bans on altered food
Mercury News, 20 June 2007. By Steve Johnson.
A coalition of 40 consumer, environmental and other groups Tuesday petitioned Congress to delete a provision in a proposed farm bill that they claim would nullify California and other state laws governing food safety and genetically engineered crops.
At issue is a section in the bill before the House Agriculture Committee that "prevents a state or locality from prohibiting an article the secretary of agriculture has inspected and passed."
The advocacy groups - including Consumers Union, Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety and Californians for GE-Free Agriculture - said the provision was quietly slipped into the bill a few weeks ago. The House Agriculture Committee is expected to consider the bill shortly after the July 4 holiday.
If the measure passes, the groups argued, it could render ineffective county laws dealing with biologically manipulated crops once the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reviewed and OK'd the crops.
The groups also claimed the measure could bar county health inspectors from condemning contaminated or otherwise substandard supermarket meat if the USDA had approved the product. But an aide to the House Agriculture Committee said that was not the provision's intent, adding that the bill probably would be amended to make it clear that local inspectors could reject bad food.
In California, four of the state's 58 counties - Santa Cruz, Marin, Mendocino and Trinity - have approved bans or other restrictions on genetically ngineered crops. At least 16 other counties have rejected such measures or passed resolutions supporting such crops.
Contact Steve Johnson at sjohnson@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5043.
South Africa: Monsanto checked over GM claim
The Citizen (South Africa), June 20 2007
CAPE TOWN - Biotech crops giant Monsanto has been ordered to withdraw an advertising claim that no negative reactions have ever been reported to genetically modified foods.
The Advertising Standards Authority made the ruling this week in response to a consumer complaint lodged against a Monsanto South Africa print ad referring to GM grain products.
The ASA added however that it would reconsider its ruling if Monsanto came up with substantiation of its claim.
The ad, which ran in the February edition of You magazine, carried the heading: "Is your food SAFE?" and contained an image of a woman with two children in a kitchen looking at a cake.
Below the sub-heading: "Biotechnology -- the true facts", it said: "This is one of the most extensively tested and controlled types of food, and no negative reactions have ever been reported."
The ASA said the complainant, a Mark Lewis, said the "no negative reactions" claim was false, and cited a scientific study on "the dangerous effects of these products".
Monsanto had said in response that all biotech crops approved for commercialisation world-wide had been thoroughly assessed for safety according to international guidelines.
They had been found to be as wholesome, nutritious and safe as conventional crops, Monsanto said.
The ASA said, however, that the onus was on Monsanto to provide independent verification of the "no negative reactions" claim.
Though Monsanto had provided numerous studies contradicting claims that GM foods were unsafe, they made no reference to the "no negative reactions" claim in the ad.
The claim was therefore "currently unsubstantiated" the ASA said, and had to be withdrawn immediately.
The claim could not be used again in its current format until substantiation had been submitted, evaluated, and a new ruling made.
Monsanto Announces Two Partnerships
Associated Press, 20 June 2007. By Christopher Leonard.
Monsanto Co. announced two partnerships Wednesday to develop and license new genetically engineered crops.
The world's biggest seed company said it formed a long-term licensing agreement with rival Bayer CropScience, a division of Germany-based Bayer AG.
The companies said they will share technology for pest-resistant and herbicide-resistant seeds.
Bayer CropScience said it will grant St. Louis-based Monsanto a royalty bearing, non-exclusive license for its LibertyLink herbicide-resistant corn and soybean seeds.
The companies also amended Monsanto's existing non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to use Bayer CropScience's Dual Bt technology, which makes plants resistant to pests.
The companies did not disclose details of the licensing agreements.
The deal could help Bayer CropScience broaden the use of its patented genetic traits by gaining access to Monsanto's broad line of engineered seeds, said Friedrich Berschauer, chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience.
"These agreements are an important step for Bayer CropScience as they could significantly broaden the availability of our LibertyLink technology outside our core cotton and canola seed business," Berschauer said.
News of the deal came one day after Monsanto announced the sale of two of its cotton seed divisions to Bayer CropScience for $310 million.
The sale was required by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of Monsanto's merger with cotton seed producer Delta and Pine Land (nyse: DLP - news - people ). The Department said Monsanto needed to divest its Stoneville and NexGen cotton seed divisions so the merger with Delta did not violate U.S. antitrust law.
Bayer's U.S. shares fell $1.09 to $75.29 Wednesday, while Monsanto shares fell $1.45 to $65.99.
Monsanto also announced a new partnership Wednesday with Athenix Corp., a biotechnology firm based in Research Park, N.C.
The companies entered a three-year research collaboration to develop new insect control technology for Monsanto's major crop lines, including corn, soybeans and cotton. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the partnership.
The companies plan to find new genes that could make plants resistant to such insects as the cotton pest Lygus and stinkbug, a soybean pest.
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Chinese investigate GMO import allegations
AP-FoodTechnology.com, 20 June 2007. By George Reynolds
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture is investigating allegations that products from two foreign companies contain unapproved genetically-modified (GM) ingredients.
The investigation highlights the potential problems manufacturers wanting to sell their products in China face if unlicensed ingredients are used. China recently announced that it was cracking down on food safety and targeting unlicensed ingredients is one method being deployed.
"We will find out whether the two firms have used GMO ingredients that are not approved by the ministry in their food products, and will deal with the issue based on the results," said Zou Ping, deputy director of the GMO security office with the MOA.
Greenpeace said last week that independent tests detected GMO ingredients in four snacks made by Ezaki Glico, a Japanese firm, and one by Germany's Metro Group, as part of a check on 21 samples of products sold in supermarkets in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
GMO agricultural products must be MOA licensed and have identification labels on packaging before it can be sold on the Chinese market, according to Zou.
However, the laws are not applicable in China to biscuits, cookies, which use agricultural products as ingredients.
Greenpeace accused both firms of "double standards" in supplying Chinese consumers with food containing GMO, while both have promised to stop using GM ingredients in the products sold in their own countries.
"Like Japanese and German consumers, Chinese consumers do not want genetically engineered food. Glico and Metro should stop having double standards and apply their non-GE policy to China as well," said Greenpeace campaigner Lorena Luo.
A Greenpeace survey published earlier this month found that most Chinese consumers in large cities were against GMO food, although it also found many were unfamiliar with it.
Consumers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were surveyed and overall 65 per cent said they would not choose GMO food and 77 per cent would not buy GMO rice.
Greenpeace is calling on the Chinese government to improve its labeling regulation to protect consumers' right to informed choice.
Europe: New GM rules 'could push up organic food prices'
Daily Mail, 20th June 2007
The price of organic food could increase because of new rules about GM content, campaigners warned today.
EU agriculture ministers last week agreed that food accidentally contaminated with up to 0.9% genetically modified content could be labelled "GM free".
But the Soil Association and Organic Farmers And Growers, which together certify more than 90% of the UK's organic food, today pledged to keep their own criteria at the current 0.1 per cent.
Maintaining this standard could incur extra costs to farmers and growers which in turn would push up prices, the Soil Association warned.
It wants GM firms to foot the bill for clearing up any future contamination of organic produce above the 0.1 per cent threshold.
Policy director Peter Melchett said organic producers and farmers were concerned.
"Either the cost to consumers will go up or they will lose the trust of consumers and their sales will go down," he said.
Delegates from the Soil Association and a group of organic businesses are meeting Environment Secretary David Miliband to discuss the issue today.
EU:
Brussels calls bluff on lobbyist register boycott
EU Observer.com, 20 June 2007. By Andrew Rettman
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Some of Brussels' most powerful lobbyists are threatening to boycott the European Commission's new register over financial disclosure rules. But EU officials have said they are happy to call the rebels' bluff.
The register - due to be published in Spring 2008 - will ask lobbyists to estimate their annual budgets or turnovers, with a percentage breakdown of which clients or donors pay what in a bid to prevent future scandals by boosting transparency.
The register is to cover the mixed bunch of 15,000 or so people in Brussels who work for trade associations, in-house corporate PR departments, law firms, public service NGOs and specialist PR firms such as APCO, Burson-Marsteller and Hill and Knowlton.
Firms that opt out of the voluntary scheme risk losing access to official EU consultation exercises and attracting stigma. If too many opt out, anti-fraud commissioner Siim Kallas has promised to set in motion a mandatory register in Spring 2009.
The commission says the vast bulk of the 15,000-strong community - such as automotive and chemical industry trade associations, in-house staff and NGOs - have been calling to sign up since the scheme was launched in March. But one rebel group is trying to change the rules.
EPACA and IPRA (which represent specialist PR firms and consultants) as well as SEAP (which represents over 200 individual lobbyists from various sectors) say the financial disclosure model is too complex to calculate, too vague, too burdensome and based on the "false" assumption that "money equals influence."
The hardliners - EPACA and IPRA - have indicated that their members will not join the register. "In the end, he [Mr Kallas] won't have a single consultant registering to his project," EPACA chief Jose Lalloum told EUobserver on Wednesday (20 June).
'Safer not to register'
A recent legal opinion taken by EPACA suggests it is "safer not to register than to register" in terms of implications for company audits and access to privileged information for competitors. An internal EPACA survey suggested few if any of its 38 member companies will sign up.
"It's heading for failure," IPRA president Alasdair Sutherland said, suggesting an alternative disclosure model that would mandate EU policy-makers to request financial information from lobbyists on a private "one-to-one" basis, instead of in a public-access list.
The more moderate SEAP says it will not advise its members to boycott, but is warning them of the dangers. SEAP president Lyn Trytsman-Gray explained that vague disclosure rules mean each lobbyist might count his budget differently, creating a register with "non-comparable" figures.
SEAP wants a model where the total turnover is not given, but only a percentage breakdown by client or donor. Ms Trytsman-Gray and IPRA's Mr Sutherland are also worried that NGOs will use the new register to paint a skewed picture of big business pulling the strings in the EU capital
"Contrary to reality, money cannot be equated with influence," a new SEAP position paper says, citing a British Hansard Society study in April, which found that 62 percent of UK parliamentarians questioned said charities are more persuasive than corporate pressure groups.
Money and influence
A senior EU official working on the register mocked the argument, however. "Of course there's no direct, proportional link. But if the lobbying professionals question that money brings influence, I wonder why they are in business at all. I wonder what they say to their clients when they bill them."
On the complaint that lobbying turnover is too complex to calculate, especially for companies with in-house staff who only spend part of their time trying to shape EU decisions, he pointed out that most of the EU-active companies have already complied with more strict US legislation in the field.
"I could sit down with any company and in two hours write down how to calculate it, but I am not their accountant. They know when they are lobbying. If their CEO comes up from Paris to Brussels on a day trip, they know what he is here for," the contact explained.
Pro-transparency NGOs such as Corporate Observatory Europe and Greenpeace have also criticised the lobby groups' "unconvincing attempts to preserve the status quo."
'Denying the obvious'
"I find it incredible how the commercial lobbyists try to deny the obvious: money buys you lobbyists and events and communications and think-tanks - and that's what gets you influence in Brussels," Greenpeace Europe director, Jorgo Riss, said.
As for the commission, Mr Kallas' team has made clear it does not plan to budge. "There's no point in lobbying against the provisions of the commission's decision. The ideas set out in this paper [the EU's March communication on the register] are not for discussion," the EU official said.
"We'll see what happens when the register comes out," he added. "In the end EPACA will be more or less forced into the voluntary system."
Russia:
Duma Drafts Tough GM Food Bill
Kommersant (Russia's Daily Online), June 20 2007
The Russian Duma's Security Committee has drafted a bill banning production and sale of genetically modified food. Moscow authorities threw their support behind the legislation. Moscow Duma deputies were among the drafters while Mayor Yuri Luzhkov called on President Vladimir Putin to address the GM food issue head-on.
Kommersant has got hold of a draft federal law on biological safety and circulation of genetically modified food.
The Russian Academy of Science currently permits the use of 13 sorts of genetically modified sources ‚ three sorts of soy, five sorts of corn, two sorts of sugar-beet, two sorts of potato and one of rice. A possible harmful influence of transgenic products has not been scientifically proved as yet.
The draft bill bans the production of GM plants used for food, sale of GM food to children under 16 and at hospitals. The army and navy are also banned from purchasing GM food. The legislation binds producers to indicate the amount of genetically modified components on the packaging irrespective of the GM share in the product while currently products with the GM share less than 0.9 percent are not to be labeled as "GM".
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, an ardent supporter of the move, has sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting setting up a governmental commission to research the GM issue.
"We will do all it takes to ban the uncontrolled circulation of GM food in the country and transgenic imports to Russia," says Lyudmila Stebenkova, head of the Moscow Duma's health care committee and drafter of the federal bill.
19 June 2007
Brazil Judge Bans Bayer CropScience's Transgenic Corn
Dow Jones Newswires, 19 June 2007. By Kenneth Rapoza.
SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)--A federal judge banned the use of Bayer CropScience Ltd.'s (506285.BY) transgenic corn just a month after federal biosafety agents approved the product for retail sale, business daily Valor Economico reported Tuesday.
Federal judge Pepita Durski Mazini of the environmental law department in the court's Parana capital city office in Curitiba also blocked the official biosafety agency, CTNBio, from approving transgenic corn in its meeting scheduled for this week. Monsanto Co. (MON) and Syngenta AG (SYT) transgenic corn was up for review for possible commercial approval this week.
Mazini was unavailable for comment.
Parana's governor, Roberto Requiao, who opposes transgenic crops, was also unreachable by phone early Tuesday.
Requiao governs Brazil's No. 1 corn producing state. Corn is Brazil's No. 2 crop behind soybeans, and its popularity with farmers has grown, with corn prices and corn exports on the upswing.
Bayer's LibertyLink corn was approved by CTNBio on May 16, but small-producer lobbies have convinced federal courts that the transgenic corn would be hazardous to native Parana corn.
USA: Mothers rally against "GM" milk
North Queensland Register, 19 June 2007
Mothers and children will rally outstide the United Dairyfarmers of Victora (UDV) conference in Melbourne on Tuesday to voice their opposition to milk produced from cows fed genetically modified (GM) grain.
Mothers Against GE (MAdGE) spokeswoman, Glenda Lindsay, said the group ‚ a newly formed coalition of anti-GM mothers, grandmothers and children ‚wanted to show farmers, Victorian consumers didn't want genetically engineered (GE) or GM milk.
"We want to feed our families food guaranteed to be safe, local and GM free," Ms Lindsay said.
"There are no peer reviewed studies that prove it is safe to drink milk from cows fed GM products."
Ms Lindsay said the group wanted the ban on GM canola in Victoria to be extended permanently.
"It makes no sense to grow GM crops when most polls show shoppers don't want GM foods," she said.
UDV members will today vote on a resolution for the UDV to reverse its anti-GM position and support choice of GM technology in the dairy industry,"
(SOURCE: Extract from full story in Stock & Land, Vic, June 21: http://nqr.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=43211
June 2007
Brazil's Landless Break Up with Lula and Call Him Tragedy for Country
Brazil.com, 18 June 2007. By Isabella Kenfield.
Curitiba -- Last week the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) held its fifth National Congress in BrasÌlia, the country's capital. The power the MST has garnered throughout its 23 years was palpable, as more than 17,500 delegates from 24 states and almost 200 international guests marched to the Square of the Three Powers, situated between the buildings of the Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches of government. Marchers hung a huge banner in the square that read, "We accuse the three powers of impeding agrarian reform."
In the minds of most MST members, President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva and the Workers' Party (PT) have failed to implement the radical economic and social reforms that were promised, especially agrarian reform. According to JosÈ Maria Tardin, who was elected the first mayor of the PT in the state of Paran· in 1989, and now works in the MST, "For the left, Lula is the biggest political tragedy in the history of Brazil."
In a discussion with reporters, founder and national organizer of the MST Joao Pedro Stedile recalled that when Lula was elected in 2002 the MST hoped that Brazil would overturn many of the neoliberal policies imposed on the country by Washington and institutions like the International Monetary Fund. However, "nobody can say that Lula is implementing an alternative project. We cannot be so simplistic as to say that everything is Lula's fault, but the Lula Government does not represent the working class, and is not on the left," said Stedile. He pointed out that during Lula's first four year mandate, the financial sector accumulated more capital that it did during the previous eight years under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
This public acknowledgement of the fracture in the MST's historic alliance with Lula and the PT represents a major shift toward a more confrontational stance. One MST member reported that Lula requested to speak at the Congress, but was refused. Lula had previously turned down requests to meet with the MST since he was elected for a second term last October. Thursday's march was important for the MST's relationship with the rest of Brazilian society, as many urban Brazilians, also disillusioned, still believe the MST supports Lula.
The MST's grievance with Lula is reflective of his failure to move to the left politically, unlike other leaders in Latin America, such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Not only has Lula not slowed the advance of foreign capital in Brazil, in many ways he is speeding it up, as for example, his recent promotion of Brazil's ethanol production for export to the United States. In terms of geographic size, population and economic power, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America. As long as Brazil does not take on Washington's neo-liberal policies, the region's ability to consolidate its leftward shift will be impeded.
Increasing anger and hostility directed at the United States was also a major subject during the Congress. On route to Three Powers' Square, the marchers passed the US embassy, where they deposited coffins with the names of countries including Iraq, Palestine, Haiti, and Afghanistan, and threw garbage onto the lawn of the embassy. FranÁois Houtart, Director of the TriContinental Center in Belgium declared, "Neoliberalism is in crisis, and the imperialism of the United States is in decline. Imperialism is losing, but it is still strong." Houtart said that global capital is searching for "new frontiers of domination," citing agricultural biotechnology, agribusiness and the privatization of public resources.
Juan Reardon, National Coordinator for the Friends of the MST, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., agreed with Houtart's assessment. "Iraq is showing that the US military isn't invincible," he said. "The war in Iraq is calling into question the entire US military power structure."
The Congress closed with a videotape message from Subcomandante Marcos of the Mexican Zapatista movement. He said the MST has "our affection and our respect, and also has our admirationWe feel fraternity for all of the organizations and people that struggle for land, because not one nation can be truly called sovereign if the land is not in the hands of those who work it. There can be no social justice as long as production is for the foreign thieves and not the workers."
Marcos' message highlighted the importance the MST has assumed in the growing global struggle against neoliberalism, especially in Latin America. Since its founding in 1984 it started organizing landless, poor rural families to non-violently occupy the unproductive lands of large landowners. The MST has also played a significant role in the organization of the international Via Campesina, a social movement active on four continents with over 150 organizations.
Indeed, despite the various challenges the MST faces in building an alternative project in Brazil, there were also many reasons for the Congress delegates to celebrate. The MST has pressured the government to settle over 370,000 families on land, and has also advanced significantly in the area of education, especially literacy for adults. With the slogan "Each and every Landless studying," the MST has formed relationships with federal and state universities, and foreign governments such as Venezuela and Cuba, to increase popular education in literacy and medicine.
The MST is also in the vanguard in the adoption of agroecology and food sovereignty policies, both of which have been gaining increasing popularity in more progressive development circles since the early 2000s. As the movement has evolved, it has become increasingly aware of the need to reject industrialized agriculture, especially monoculture with the use of agrotoxins, and production of commodity crops for export. Agroecology is viewed as a way for people, especially the rural poor, to secure independence from multinational agribusiness corporations.
The Congress was also used as a forum for the MST to raise support for the Via Campesina's occupation of the Syngenta corporation's experimental site in the state of Parana, which was taken over by the movement on March 14th, 2006 after the Brazilian government confirmed that Syngenta had illegally planted transgenic soy. The site is located within the protective boundaries of the Iguacu National Park which was declared the Patrimony of Humanity by the United Nations in 1986. The social movements have joined forces with Governor Roberto Requiao to expropriate these holdings of the agribusiness multinational.
In its final letter to Brazilian society, the MST declared that it will continue to "struggle so that all of the large landholdings are expropriated, with the properties of foreign capital and the banks being prioritized." It will "combat multinational corporations, like Monsanto, Syngenta, Cargill, Bunge, ADM, NestlÈ, Basf, Bayer, Aracruz and Stora Enso, that seek to control seeds and Brazilian agricultural production and commerce."
Isabella Kenfield is a CENSA Associate and journalist based in Curitiba, Brazil, writing about the social movements, agribusiness, agrarian conflicts and rural development.
17 June 2007
UK: 'Zombie crops' funded by British taxpayers to 'get round' GM ban
The Independent on Sunday, 17 June 2007. By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor.
"Zombie" GM crops - so called because farmers will have to pay biotech
companies to bring seeds back from the dead - are being developed with British
taxpayers' money.
The highly controversial development - part of a GBP3.4m EU research project
- is bound to increase concerns about the modified crops and the devastating
effect they could have on Third World farmers.
Environmentalists charge that it appears to be an attempt to get round a
worldwide ban on a GM technology so abhorred that even Monsanto has said it will
not use it.
The ban is on the so-called "terminator technology", which was designed to
modify crops so that they produce only sterile seeds. This would force the 1.4
billion poor farmers who traditionally save seeds from one year's harvest to
sow for the following one instead to buy new ones from biotech firms,
swelling their profits but increasing poverty and hunger.
Since the ban was agreed under a UN treaty seven years ago, companies and
pro-GM countries - including the United States and Britain - have pressed to
have it overturned, so far without success. But the new technology promises to
offer companies an even more profitable way of achieving dominance.
Zombie crops would also be engineered to produce sterile seed that could be
brought back to life with the right treatment - almost certainly with a
chemical sold by the company that markets the seed. Farmers would therefore have
to pay out, not for new seeds, but to make the ones they saved viable.
A report published last week by ETC - the Canada-based Action Group on
Erosion Technology and Concentration that led the campaign against terminator
technology - calls this "a dream scenario for the Gene Giants".
It says it will be cheaper for them to sell farmers the chemicals to revive
saved seeds than to pay the costs of storing and distributing new ones. It
adds: "They will initially keep prices low. But once farmers are on the
platform, and the competition has been destroyed, the companies can start pricing
the chemical that restores seed viability as high as they like. The key point
is that the viability of the crop would be controlled by the corporation that
sells the seed."
The three-year EU research programme, called Transcontainer, which involves
13 universities and research institutes and is partially funded by taxpayers
in Britain and other EU countries, says that it is developing the technology
to try to "reduce significantly" the spread of GM genes to conventional and
organic crops.
Such contamination - long denied and downplayed by the industry and its
supporters - is now accepted to be one of the main obstacles to the advance of
modified crops.
ETC's report also says that if the new technology is developed, governments
and regulators will insist that all GM crops will have to be engineered to be
"zombies" to try to prevent contamination and in the process deliver farmers
into complete dependence on the biotech companies.
It adds, however, that no containment strategy is foolproof and that the
genes will inevitably spread anyway through pollen.
The Transcontainer project insists that it is "specifically targeted at
European agriculture and European crops". But it admits that such technologies
"may become a problem for farmers in developing countries."
ETC warns that if the technology is commercialised it will "ultimately be
adopted indiscriminately" everywhere. It concludes: "A scenario in which
farmers have to pay for a chemical to restore seed viability creates a new
perpetual monopoly for the seed industry."
UK:
The Organic Prince Charles
Organic-market.info, 17 June 2007.
Outside the Highgrove house of Prince Charles, 160 km west of London a sign bearing the words "Warning! You are now entering a GMO free zone" stands to deliver its message to those visiting the estate. Prince Charles is regarded by some as the champion of Britain's organic farming movement.
Among the technologies applied to the organic grounds are pig specimens known to protect the diversity of genes, natural predators to ward of the excess numbers of slugs instead of pellets, and even the implementation of Banana trees, in preparation for global warming by head gardener David Howard.
It was 20 years ago when Charles first turned his Duchy Home into an organic stronghold. Aside from his passion for organics and being an outspoken opponent of GMO, Charles practices the traditional English hobby of hedge-laying.
Organic food sales in England seem to be at an all time high, while food retailers are more proud than ever to announce their organic status. This was not always the case, organic produce was dismissed as a whole lot of trouble for nothing.
Charles' home is used as a marketing tool by Britain's Soil Association. Visits to the estate show organic consumers how the group operates, providing them with further information on both the company and organics in general.
16 June 2007
Ireland: Sargent says GMO-free pledge is a 'huge step'
The Irish Times, 16 June 2007. By Ronan McGreevy.
A commitment to make Ireland a genetically modified organism (GMO)-free zone represents "a huge step forward which gives us a clear policy objective", Green Pary acting leader Trevor Sargent said yesterday.
Mr Sargent said Ireland's status in terms of GMOs had been a "key issue" in the negotiations between his party and Fianna Fáil on the programme for government and was evidence of his party's influence on it.
The programme states that the Government will "seek to negotiate the establishment of an all-Ireland GMO-free zone."
Mr Sargent told a conference on food safety, hosted by the European Parliament Independence/Democracy Group and the GM-free Ireland Network, that the aspiration for a GM-free Ireland opens up a "whole new policy for government" and represents clarity in relation to the issue.
"As spokesman on Agriculture in the Dáil before this one, there was a belief that co-existence [conventional crops growing beside GM crops] would keep everybody happy. I for one do not believe that co-existence will deliver GM-free status to parts of Ireland where GM crops are not growing," he said.
Mr. Sargent said the use of GM animal feed in Ireland was damaging the country's reputation as a food island, especially given the number of major retailers across Europe, including Tesco, Carrefour and Monoprix, which have banned such foods.
Mr. Sargent was challenged by Prof David McConnell, Professor of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin, who denied any allegation of bias in favour of GMOs and accused Mr Sargent of "a total misunderstanding of the scientific community."
Prof McConnell, who is chairman of the Irish Times Trust, suggested that the Green Party should look at all the scientific advice relating to GM foods before making judgement.
"I'm really asking ultimately that the Green Party should not pin its colours to one view or one expectation of scientific evidence. Science proceeds by an entirely different method and that has proven itself to be extraordinarily successful.
"I'm speaking as a scientist. I find it rally unfortunate that the people who are claiming to be interested in science simply don't understand it. That is really quite serious."
Comment from GM-free Ireland:
The above article is typical of the Irish Times's biased coverage on the GM foods controversy.
Its report on Friday's briefing on Food Safety and GMOs at the European Parliament Office in Dublin failed to mention that the short address by the acting leader of the Green Party, Trevor Sargent, was followed by two expert presentations on the scientific evidence of deaths and disease linked to GM food in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population.
While quoting extensively from statements made from the floor by Prof David McConnell, who is Chairman of the Irish Times Trust which owns the newspaper, the article also signally failed to mention the latter's financial ties to the agri-biotech industry (which GM-free Ireland made public at the briefing), and avoided any comment on his oft-repeated attempts to portray those who disagree with his views on GMOs as scientifically illiterate.
The fact that both presentations ‚ not attended by the Irish Times ‚ were scientifically compelling underlines the deplorable lack of journalistic balance in this article.
The briefing was co-hosted by Kathy Sinnott MEP, and Michael O'Callaghan of the GM-free Ireland who said "this Professor reminds one of the Pope who accused Galileo of heresy for discovering that the Earth is not the centre of the Universe, whilst refusing to look through Galileo's telescope."
According to New Scientist magazine:
"Low-tech 'sustainable agriculture,' shunning chemicals in favour of natural pest control and fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on poor farms across the world, often by 70 per cent or more... The findings will make sobering reading for people convinced that only genetically modified crops can feed the planet's hungry in the 21st century... A new science-based revolution is gaining strength built on real research into what works best on the small farms where a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work... It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution." [1]
The two scientific presentations of the health dangers of GM foods clearly challenged the pro-GM assumptions espoused by Prof McConnell, the European Food Safety Authority and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland:
•
The first presentation, by bestselling author Jeffrey M. Smith, Director of the US Institute for Responsible Technology [2], summarised the findings of his new book "Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM foods" [3], which was hailed by former UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher MP as "the authentic book on genetic modification that the world has been waiting for: the case presented is absolutely a smoking shotgun that should stop in its tracks any dabbling with GM foods, whether by individual families, food companies, or indeed nations".
•
The second presentation was given by the developmental biologist and molecular geneticist Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, PhD. She is Co-Director of the public interest research organisation and science watchdog, EcoNexus [4]. She is closely involved in the international negotiations and implementation of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, the global treaty which regulates international trade in living GM organisms [5], and is part of the ETC Group legal and scientific team which recently got the European Patent Office to revoke Monsanto's species-wide patent on genetically modified soya beans [6]. Dr. Steinbrecher reviewed her landmark paper on the unintended genetic mutations (genome scrambling) found in GM crops as a result of their having been modified) which suggests that all GM foods are inherently unsafe and likely to have both short and long term health impacts that are scientifically impossible to predict [7].
Dr. Steinbrecher also outlined the recent peer-reviewed paper co-authored by Prof. Gilles-Eric Séralini [8] of the Committee for Independent Research on Genetic Engineering and the University of Caen, France, which found that Monsanto's patented GM maize variety MON963, which continues to be sold to Irish farmers following its approval by the European Food Safety Authority, causes hepatorenal toxicity (kidney and liver damage) and other health problems in mammals.
Speaking at a press conference in Paris on 13 March, Professor Séralini
said: "These revelations are profoundly disturbing from a health point of view. They are certainly
sufficient to require new and more carefully conducted feeding studies and an immediate ban from
human or animal consumption of GM maize MON 863 and all its hybrids. This maize cannot now be
considered safe to eat. We are now calling urgently for a moratorium on other approved GMOs while the
efficacy of current health testing methods is reassessed." [9]
In the interest of transparency, the Irish Times article should also have mentioned the fact that the Irish Times Trust chairman, Prof McConnell, (whose Department of Genetics at TCD is part-funded by the agribiotech industry), is also the co-chair (along with a former Vice President of the World Bank) of the biotech industry lobby group EAGLES (European Action on Global Life Sciences) which promotes GM food and crops in the developing countries.
This biased coverage has been going on for a number of years.
In Debating GM: An analysis of GM coverage in the Irish Times and the Irish Farmers Journal from March 2004 to February 2006, a Dublin Institute of Technology thesis by journalism student Emma Somers made a quantitative analysis of the sources, and a qualitative analysis of GM coverage in these two papers. The study revealed significant bias towards the biotech industry.
Of the 48 articles published in the Irish Times, 84% quoted official sources (including the EC, Irish politicians, the Dept. of Agriculture, the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, biotech corporations and biotech industry lobby groups); 21% quoted Non Governmental Organisations; only 10% quoted farmers. Most articles framed the issue as scientists versus Luddites.
The Irish Times' reliance on pro-GMO sources and biased framing of the GMO controversy reflects the paper's special relationship with the biotech industry via the Chairman of the Irish Times Trust, who promotes the commercial interests of the agribusiness biotech corporations which fund his Department of Genetics at TCD and his EAGLES biotech industry lobby group.
This conflict of interest and biased coverage provides a legal basis for the Revenue commission to revoke the Irish Times Trust's status as a registered charity, because the paper clearly violates the core object of the Trust's Memoranda and Articles of Association, "to publish an independent newspaper primarily concerned with serious issues for the benefit of the community throughout the whole of Ireland, free from any form of personal or of party political, commercial, religious or other sectional control."
_______________________
Ireland: Greens fulfill pledge to have Ireland free of GM crops
Irish Independent, 16 June 2007. By Fionnan Sheahan and Senan Molony.
THE Green Party has got a commitment in the new programme for government to try and keep Ireland totally free of genetically modified (GM) crops.
Making Ireland Europe's first GMO-free zone was one of the party's primary goals as "nature does not respect boundaries" in allowing GM and non-GM crops co-exist, acting leader Trevor Sargent said yesterday.
But he added there was a risk GM food could enter "by the back door" because of the amount of GM feed being fed to Irish animals which was jeopardising valuable Irish food exports, he said.
As well as untested health risks there were economic reasons to protect Irish food exports by maintaining Ireland's reputation as a clean green island, he told a seminar on GM food.
"By default one might say we claim to be GM-free but it's a status which is under huge threat.
"Many farmers are concerned about the loss of GM-free status in this country given we depend so heavily on export markets, and so many of those export markets have declared themselves to only want GM-free produce, and that is what Ireland needs to deliver.
"There is the threat by the backdoor of feed being used which is not categorically GM-free and jeopardises what we take for granted which is a clean green image and a country that is able to sell throughout the world food of the highest standard."
Difficult
Agriculture Department figures show Ireland imports some 464,000 tonnes of GM maize and 204,000 tonnes of GM soya a year for feeding livestock, and sourcing GM-free feed has become difficult and expensive for farmers - although Mr Sargent said the slight extra cost could be offset by price premia paid by retailers.
Some of the main European retail giants including Tesco, Carrefour, Sainsbury's and Coop Italia have extended existing bans on GM foods to include meat and milk from animals fed on GM ingredients, claimed Michael O'Callaghan of the GM-Free Ireland network who organised yesterday's seminar.
However, Bord Bía [the Irish Government's Food Board] said that Coop Italia was the only European retailer requiring beef to be from animals fed on a certified GM-free diet, and that was only for a section of their market.
Comment from GM-free Ireland:
Bord Bía's statement in the above article is profoundly misleading. As the Irish government agency responsible for the international trade and market development of Irish food, Bord Bía should be called to account for alleging that "Coop Italia is the only European retailer requiring beef to be from animals fed on a certified GM-free diet" [1].
Ireland exports 90% of the food produced here, mostly to European countries where a near-total market refusal of GM food is rapidly spreading to exclude meat and produce from livestock fed on GM ingredients.
Under the previous government in June 2006, Bord Bía caved in to biotech industry pressure to withdraw sponsorship [2] for the Green Ireland conference which flagged GM food contamination as as a threat to Irish food, farming and ecotourism [3]. In May 2007, Euro-Toques Ireland (representing this country's 200 leading chefs) withdrew from Bord Bíia's Féile Bía scheme, in part because of its failure to address GM contamination of the food chain and its practice of awarding its Quality Assurance and Traceability labels to Irish food containing or derived from GM ingredients.
In January 2005, Greenpeace published the landmark No market for GM labelled food in Europe report detailing a virtual shut-down of the EU market for GM labelled food [4].
That report showed that Europe's top 30 retailers and top 30 food & drink producers had by then already declared policies and non-GM commitments which revealed a massive international food and beverage industry rejection of GM produce. This cuts across the industry from food and drink manufacturers to retailers, and includes everything from snacks and ready meals to pet food and beer.
The combined total food and drink sales of the 49 companies with a stated non-GM policy in their main market or throughout the EU (27 retailers and 22 food and drink producers) amounted to € 646 billion, more than 60% of the total € 1,069 billion European food and drink sales in 2005.
Since then, an EuroBarometer survey found that "Overall Europeans think that GM food should not be encouraged; GM food is widely seen as not being useful, as morally unacceptable and as a risk for society", and Consumers International has called for a ban on all GM foods [5].
As a result, leading EU retailers have now extended their previous bans on GM food to exclude or restrict meat, poultry and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM ingredients, even though a giant loophole in EU law still allows such produce to be sold without a GM label. In February 2007, a petition signed signed by 1 million EU citizens called on the European Commission to require mandatory labeling for such produce because of citizens' right to information, a fundamental right in the European Union [6]. According to a number of surveys, most consumers do not want to eat GM-fed animal products. The petition was delivered to the EC Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, who said it shows strong interest in the issue on the part of EU citizens, who are increasingly concerned about food safety, the quality of food and the use of GMOs in the food chain.
Food producers, retailers, restaurateurs and consumers are increasingly alarmed by the growing volumes of illegal and/or toxic GM ingredients which have entered the Irish food chain three or four times in the past few years, including illegal and unlabelled GM rice sold in supermarkets and served in restaurants, and illegal and/or toxic GM animal feed, of which 12,000 tonnes entered the EU market through Dublin port in a single shipment in April 2007 [7], including 5,313 tonnes which appears to have been sold to farmers even though it was known to cause liver and kidney damage in mammals [8]. This alarm is exacerbated by open-air field trials of GM pharma crops which produce industrial chemicals, biofuels and drugs such as blood thinners, blood clotters and contraceptives, whose contamination of the food chain would pose a clear and immediate health hazard.
In view of these concerns, the European Network of GMO-free Regions [9], which currently includes 39 EU Regional Governments in 6 member states, will host a conference on GM-free animal feed at the European Parliament in December of this year. Over ten regions in Austria, France, Italy, and Spain - working on behalf of the Network's Group 5 "International Agreements" programme - have committed themselves to this approach. Preliminary meetings have already been held with the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, AER, CRPM, AREPO, COPA-COGECA and with Brazilian players of the entire sector, and the project is going full steam ahead. The European Commission's Directorates-General for Agriculture, Health and Consumer Protection, Development and Trade have agreed to participate.
The EU Network of GM-free Regions believes that phasing out GM animal feed will boost the sustainability of rural communities and provide value-added production to preserve competitive and high-quality agriculture in the context of the globalisation of food markets. The Network wants quality agriculture to obtain a special status which recognises its role in space management, environmental protection, and the strenghthening of local communities, and wants the European Regions to become actively engaged in the mid-term review of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2008 and its revision in 2013.
Meanwhile, the list of European retailers who already exclude or restrict meat, poultry and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM ingredients includes:
•
IRELAND: All of Marks & Spencer's fresh meat and poultry, salmon, shell eggs and fresh milk comes from animals fed on non-GM diet.
The Kepac Group, which controls 60% of Irish beef exports, requires farmers who produce meat for its flagship K Club brand to exclude the use of GM animal feed. All Kepac's chicken meat comes from birds reared on a vegetarian non-GMO diet.
The Silver Pail Dairy in Co. Cork signed a multi-million euro foreign direct investment deal with the world's largest ice-cream retailer, Baskin Robbins, to produce GM-free ice cream made from milk from cows fed a certified non-GMO diet in March 2006.
TLT International in Mullingar exports some 1,200 to 1,500 non GMO-fed live store cattle per month, mostly to Northern Italy. And of course all Irish organic meat and dairy produce also avoids use of GM animal feed, including Glenisk which recently secured €5m foreign direct investment to expand its share of the EU market.
The Irish Farmers Association, Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association and the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association recently met with Brazil's largest exporter of certified non-GMO soya for preliminary discussions to explore building the Irish market for certified non-GMO soya feed, and derived meat and dairy produce.
9 counties and 9 town councils prohibit the release of GMO crops in their areas.
•
UK: Tesco, Sainsburys, M&S and Budgen Stores all have quality labels for meat and dairy produce from livestock fed on certified GM-free animal feed. All of Marks & Spencer's fresh meat and poultry, salmon, shell eggs and fresh milk comes from animals fed on non-GM diet. Moreover, standard poultry sold in most UK supermarkets now carries a label certifiying GM-free feed. 40+ GM O-free zones include Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, and Cornwall.
•
FRANCE: Carrefour, Cora, Auchan and Monoprix all have quality labels for meat and dairy produce from livestock fed on certified GM-free animal feed. GM crops are banned by many regions and local authorities.
•
ITALY: the largest retailer, Coop Italia, has a quality label for meat and dairy produce from livestock fed on certified GM-free animal feed. GM crops are banned in most Italian Regions, including Tuscany where anyone found growing GM crops faces two years in prison or a € 50,000 fine.
•
SWITZERLAND: the two largest retailers Migros and Coop systematically ban all use of GM animal feed in their supermarket brands. Following a national referendum, the government has implemented a total moratorium on GM crops and livestock.
•
POLAND: Europe's largest agricultural producer plans to prohibit GM feed by 2008 unless it is proven to be safe, and has imposed a total ban on GM crops. Farmers have imported certified non-GMO soya since 2006 for their pork meat bound for the German market.
The Independent article implied that our new government's policy would make Ireland the first GMO-free zone in Europe. In reality, there are thousands of GMO-free zones in Europe, inclulding eight or nine entire countries which impose total or near-total bans on GM crops. These include the whole of Poland (the EU's largest agricultural producer), all of Switzerland, Austria, and Greece, most of Italy and France, large parts of the UK (including Wales, the Highlands of Scotland and Cornwall), along with 236 regional governments across 22 EU member states and 4,000 smaller areas including nine counties and 9 towns in Ireland [10].
The article also stated that sourcing GM-free (animal) feed has become difficult and expensive for farmers. In reality, Brazil alone has the capacity to produce enough certified non-GMO soya to satisfy the total EU demand for this product, and most maize grown in Europe remains GM-free.
At a recent meeting organised by the GM-free Ireland Network [11], official delegates of the Irish Farmers Association, the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association, the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, and the National Beef Association (NI) met with the European director of Brazil's largest exporter of certified non-GMO soya who said the premium for this product, delivered to any port in Ireland, is around US $15 per metric tonne.
Irish producers and exporters of live cattle, beef and dairy produce who have already made the conversion back from GM animal feed to certified non-GMO soya and non-GMO maize can recoup this marginal input cost by securing extra premia in the export markets. The notion that GM free feed is prohibitively expensive and in short supply is simply biotech industry propaganda.
But with the massive diversion of US maize crop into biofuel now underway, and peak oil expected to drive the costs of chemical farm inputs and transportation rapidly upwards, the new government needs to develop long-range planning for Ireland to produce its own animal feed to guarantee our food security, food sovereignty and farming future. The resulting diversification of farming activities with more tillage and local food production will boost local economies and keep food prices affordable. In addition, the implementation of Ireland's new policy to negotiate GM-free zone status for the whole island is likely to attact foreign direct investment from international agricultural seed developers looking for a safe haven for the production of certified non-GMO cereals and other seeds [12].
Declaring the island of Ireland as a GMO-free zone should provide the farm, food and tourism sectors on both sides of the border with a competitive economic advantage for decades to come, and position Irish farm produce with the most credible safe GM-free food brand in Europe.
With the Green Party's John Gormley as the new Minister for the Environment and Local Government, and acting party leader Trevor Sargent occupying the new position of Junior Minister for Food, let us hope that Bord Bía and its parent, the Department of Agriculture and Food, will catch up with reality.
Brazil: Imcopa to supply non-GM soy lecithin direct to Europe
FoodNavigator.com, 16 June 2007. By Jess Halliday
Brazilian soy crusher Imcopa has set up operations in The
Netherlands with the aim of supplying the European market with non-GM soy
lecithin directly and building awareness of its own brand amongst food
manufacturers.
The family-owned company was founded in 1969, but until now has supplied the
European market through its large customers, including major suppliers in
the market.
It has been a non-GM soy lecithin supplier since the 1990s, and now claims a
38 per cent share in the European non-GM soy lecithin market, with
production of around 20,000 metric tonnes in 2006.
The decision to supply the European market directly was taken as a result of
increasing contact between South American suppliers and European buyers and
on-going resistance to GMOs in Europe. Moreover, the company says that
there is more interest from food companies in vegetable proteins including
soy as a result of animal food scares.
Marco Oomen, sales manager lecithin, told Food Navigator.com that the
company continues to work with its customers, but wishes to increase its
direct sales over the next couple of years.
The benefits of direct supply include a significant reduction in lead times.
While at container ship takes around four weeks to reach Europe from Brazil,
when supplying direct from its dedicated non-GM storage facility in
Rotterdam, however, an order can be fulfilled in as little as three days.
Bringing in soy products in bulk from Brazil results in more cost
efficiencies, and the company can share savings with its clients, said
Imcopa.
The company is also setting out to build awareness of its brand directly,
but Oomen stressed that that this is directed solely at food manufacturers.
"We are fully dedicated to food ingredients," he said. "We do not want the
brand on finished products."
The company expects the majority of its direct deliveries to European
customers to commence from the second half of this year. Before they can
start, customers tend to conduct audits of suppliers' facilities and grant
approval based on each customer's specifications.
The Brazilian non-GM soy market is subject to supply fluctuations - which
also has an impact on price. One of the main causes of fluctuations is
contamination with GMOs.
Imcopa follows the market pricing, but Marco said that contamination is less
of a problem for the company than it is for some of its competitors since it
pays a premium to farmers so that non-GM crops are kept far removed from GM.
For more information Marco Oomen can be reached at marco.oomen@imcopa.com.
Supply comes from seven large cooperatives, involving 35,000 farmers in
total. Most are based in Parana, Brazil's second largest state.
Imcopa also conducts a test for GM contamination at the gate when each
truckload arrives at the gates of the crushing facility.
The company has full non-GM certification, and says it was the first
Brazilian soy supplier to gain ProTerra certification for sustainable
practices.
"It is important that we perform in a sustainable way," said Oomen. "We do
not use child-labour, we do not cause de-forestation, we use renewable
energy sources."
The third-party ProTerra certification mark was introduced last year and is
designed to help suppliers assure their buyers, and ultimately consumers,
that their products have been produced sustainably.
According to the Brazilian Agriculture Department, soy consumption is set to
increase by 26.8 per cent before 2015 on 2005 levels.
Global demand for non-GMO lecithin is currently estimated at between 45,000
and 65,000 metric tonnes a year, according to figures supplied by Imcopa,
against total demand for all lecithins (GM and non-GM) of 180,000 to
220,000.
For more information on Imcopa, contact marco.oomen@imcopa.com
15 June 2007
Ireland:
Doctors obliged to oppose genetically modified foods
Doctors obliged to oppose genetically modified foods
15 June 2007
By Greg Baxter
Doctors have an ethical and moral duty to oppose genetically modified
(GM) foods in the interest of the health of future and present
generations, the Secretary of the Irish Doctors Environmental
Association (IDEA) has stated.
Dr Elizabeth Cullen, a public health doctor in Kildare, has said in a
paper set to be published in the Irish Medical Journal: "if planting of
genetically engineered crops is allowed in Ireland, we will leave an
irreversible legacy to future generations... permission to grow or
consume genetically engineered foods in Ireland should be denied."
IDEA is partially sponsoring a major conference on GM foods in Dublin on
15 June, entitled: 'Is the European Food Safety Authority downplaying
the health risks of genetically modified food?'
The conference, which has been organised by GM-Free Ireland, will hear
international speakers discuss the health risks of GM foods, as well as
the process of genome scrambling, GM maize, and the European Food Safety
Authority.
Interview with Jeffrey M. Smith
QT show, Dublin's Q102 radio channel, 15 June 2007.
[Jeffrey M. Smith is the author of Genetic Roulette: the Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.
Yes! Books; hardcover; 336 pages; € 23.
The book is on sale at the Cultivate Centre, 15-19 Essex St. West, Temple Bar, Dublin 8, Ireland - tel (01) 674 6415
or by mailorder from www.GeneticRoulette.com]
Host Scott Williams: In his first environmental statement as member of the new government, acting leader of the Green Party Trevor Sargent announced that one of the Green Party's primary goals is to ensure that Ireland becomes Europe's first 100% GMO-free zone.
The statement was made at a briefing on food safety and GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) at the European Parliament Office in Dublin today.
Now we are delighted to have Jeffrey M. Smith, who is the author of "Genetic Roulette". And Jeffrey is going to fill us in on what exactly GMO foods are, and what they can do to us.
Good evening Jeffrey, and thank you for taking our call.
Jeffrey Smith:
Thank you!
Williams:
You're very welcome to the show. GMOs: what do they do? Where do we find them? And what sort of damage can they do to our health?
Smith:
Well it's a completely new technology where they take genes from one species and force it in to the DNA of other species. And we now know that documents made public from a lawsuit show that when these were first introduced into the United States, the scientists at the Food and Drug Administration who were responsible for protecting the health of citizens were appalled. They had actually asked for long-term safety studies and said these foods could create allergies, toxins and new diseases.
But the person in charge of policy ‚ a political appointee who was Monsanto's former attorney ‚ said "I'm sorry. No testing necessary"!
So they were rushed onto the market, and added around the world. And now, after 10 years of being introduced, we have stories of thousands of sick, sterile and dead animals and thousands of people complaining of toxic and allergic reactions to these crops.
Williams: Which is quite scary. And also our children are quite at risk as well.
Smith: The children are most at risk to the potential dangers of genetically engineered foods - which means that they are more potentially allergenic and that their toxic and nutritional problems could cause problems in their young, fast-growing bodies.
Williams: How do consumers know if the food has been genetically modified? I mean, it's not going to say it on the label, is it?
Smith: It is, in fact, in the EU.
Williams: In the US, I'm sorry.
Smith: In the US of course it's not, because we have a very pro-GM government. In the United States we have to either buy organic products, or products that voluntarily say "non-GM", or avoid the seven genetically engineered food crops which are primarily soy, corn, cotton and canola [oilseed rape], and then three other minor crops.
Williams: Yeah. And why does the EU Commission then go along with the idea that these foods are safe?
Smith: Well there's a mythology, and lots of money. I'm talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent to create a mythology that the foods have been tested properly, that they are completely safe, and that they are necessary to feed the world.
I have just spent two years gathering information from more than thirty scientists around the world on all the known health risks. And it turns out that it's a primitive technology based on obsolete science, with massive things that can go wrong and do go wrong. I mean we're talking about high levels of infant mortality among animals fed GM soy that's fed to humans every day. We're talking about allergic-type reactions from people harvesting GM crops, from people breathing in the pollen, from animals that end up eating the crops after harvest. And so these things have been finally pulled together into one volume, "Genetic Roulette:, and it shows that really these foods are gambling with the health and the environment.
Williams: This is on the back of "Seeds of Deception" [Jeffrey M. Smith's previous book "Seeds of Deception: exposing government and corporate lies about GM foods] which a lot of people read. It was a huge seller, obviously, and was quite an expose on genetically engineered foods. This time out you've got an awful lot of international scientists collaborating on what you are writing.
Smith: Absolutely. Everything that went into the book was reviewed by at least three scientists. And what it does is show 65 health risks, and completely re-frames the debate. So we put back to the biotech companies and to the regulators on their side and say "look, if these 65 risks are not true, come back to us with detailed scientific evidence". Otherwise, there's no justification for feeding these crops.
So I applaud what's happening in Ireland about negotiating for a GM-free zone, but I would like to raise the bar. I would like this GM free zone to be not only no planting of GM, but also not allowing it to be in the food supply, to protect the citizens and especially the children.
Williams: Are we heading for a huge scandal down the line? Because there is a huge trust, particularly in this country, with consumers and the supermarkets where they buy their foods, their meats, their calcium products, their dairy products. There's a huge trust there you place in the store delivering you quality food, wholesome food. And yet half of us haven't a clue what's going into it.
Smith: Right, in fact specifically with meat and dairy in Europe, a lot of those products come from animals that have been fed GM feed. More and more of the retailers are committing [to avoid GM ingredients]. But this is something that shoppers need to tell their retailers, that they don't want any milk or meat from animals that have been fed GM. We know that there can be changes in virtually every system studied: lesions, potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, all these things that can occur in animals that are fed GM. We don't want to support that for the sake of the animal, and we have no idea what the impact can be on our health. Certainly, a scandal is in the works.
Williams: On the subject of soy allergies which may be sky-rocketing in the United Kingdom which is our next-door neighbour here, what sort of figures do you have, what sort of numbers?
Smith: Well, soon after GM soy was introduced into the UK, soy allergies sky-rocketed by fifty per cent. Now, we know that GM soy has as much as seven times higher amount of a known allergen; it has a new protein which was created which is potentially allergenic; it has more doses of a toxic herbicide which can create a kind of food sensitivity; and it has a number of other things, other changes which were un-predicted in the soy, which might be causing this problem. And we also know that when the GM soy was fed to mice, they developed changes in their young sperm cells. And then their embryos - the offspring of the parents that were fed GM soy (among the mice) - had changed DNA! Not only that, but when rats were fed GM soy, they [the offspring] died at over fifty per cent in the first three weeks, compared to only ten per cent in those whose mothers were fed non-GM soy.
Williams: Well time has run out. We have to leave it there. This is fascinating stuff, Jeffrey. Thank you very much for coming on this evening. "Seeds of Deception" ‚ grab a copy of that, and the new book "Genetic Roulette", well worth a look. And Jeffrey, you are head of, what's the company again?
Smith: The Institute for Responsible Technology, in the United States.
Williams: What's your web site there?
Smith: GeneticRoulette.com or ResponsibleTechnology.org
Williams: All right. Thank you very much, because I think a lot of people will be very interested in having a further look at what's on that web site and grabbing a hold of the books. Thank you for joining us this evening and good evening to you!
Smith: Thank you.
Cyprus to Shelve GM Food Separately
The Associated Press, June 15 2007
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Cyprus' parliament has passed legislation requiring
supermarkets to put genetically modified products on separate shelves from
other food.
The Green Party, which tabled the bill, said Friday that the legislation will
make it easier for the public to "distinguish these products" and help them
make more informed purchases.
Parliament unanimously approved the bill Thursday.
The Green party described the bill as a "historic victory" that would lead
the biotech food industry to abandon the Cypriot market.
Party spokeswoman Ioanna Panayiotou said surveys have shown wide public
support for the initiative - which she said was the first of its kind in the
European Union.
"It is a pioneering moment ... and we are optimistic more countries will
follow," she told state radio.
Terminator gene: judgment day
Imprint (University of Waterloo), Volume 30, Issue 4, June 15 2007. By Michael L. Davenport, Staff Reporter.
These days, nobody is surprised when political contention arises over
biotechnology. Though stem cell research and human cloning get a lot of the
attention, they are far from the only issues.
For instance, there's an area of research devoted to preventing plants from
reproducing.
As with drugs and the pharmaceutical industry, genetically modified plants
represent an investment on the part of the company that created them, and such
companies want to enact technical and legal measures to ensure they recoup
their research costs.
Such technologies are referred to as Genetic Use Restriction Technologies
(GURT). One developed implementation of this technology is a special gene
called the "terminator gene." When farmers buy seeds that contain the terminator
gene, the plant will grow as usual and the farmer will be able to harvest the
crop. However, the next generation of seeds - the ones generated by the crop
- will be infertile. If the farmer tries to save those seeds and replant
them in order to get the benefit of the bioengineered crop, the seeds just won'
t germinate. In order to continue growing the crop the farmer has to purchase
new seeds year after year. Think of it as copy protection for biology.
While this technology has been developed and tested, it is not available for
commercial sale. The Canadian patent for the technology was held by Delta &
Pine Land. However, on June 1 the United States Justice Department gave the
green light for biotech giant Monsanto to purchase the company; as such, it
will inherit the patent. Monsanto has repeatedly stated they do not intend to
commercialize the technology.
In a move that would pre-empt the technology from ever being commercialized,
Canadian MP and agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko introduced a bill on May
31 that would ban the deployment of terminator technology in Canada.
Atamanenko did not have the time to interview with Imprint before press
time, but he supplied a copy of the proposed law. Interestingly enough, not only
would this bill ban import or sale of seeds with the terminator gene in
Canada, but would also prohibit companies from obtaining patents on the technology
in Canada. This caveat would be put on the same footing as the clause that
prohibits patents for "any mere scientific principle or abstract theorem."
In a written statement Atamanenko said, "This bill would protect the right
of farmers to save seeds. The right of farmers to save seed should not be
threatened by this technology that offers no benefits to farmers. The right to
save seeds must be protected, even for those farmers in Canada who do not
currently practice seed saving."
It's not widely expected this bill will pass, given that Minister of
Agriculture Chuck Strahl is against it. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)
has also taken an adverse stance. On the group's website, they state, "The
unfortunately named 'terminator gene' has received much negative press because
it has been portrayed as a vehicle for large multi-national seed companies to
suppress the freedom of farmers. However, the terminator approach provides an
excellent method to protect against transference of novel traits to other
crops and plant species."
What CFIA means is the terminator gene could prevent modified genes from
becoming expressed in natural plants which could happen through
cross-pollination. It would also prevent such modified crops from spreading on their own,
which would prevent legal cases such as Monsanto vs. Schmeiser. (The famous
lawsuit where chemical giant Monsanto sued farmer Percy Schmeiser for growing
Monsanto's patented canola variety on his land - despite the fact that the seeds
blew over from a neighbouring farm and the crop was growing without his
knowledge.)
The flip side of the coin is that the terminator gene itself could be spread
to naturally occurring plants through cross pollination - potentially
resulting in loss of yield for farmers who are opting not to grow patented plants.
Two other national governments - those of India and Brazil - have already
banned this technology.
14 June 2007
Ireland aims to become a GMO-free zone
New coalition government adopts all-island GM-free policy
Farming groups agree to explore phasing out GM animal feed
GM-free Ireland Network press release, 14 June 2007.
DUBLIN, 14 June 2007 ‚ Following last night's Green Party historic agreement to form a coalition government with Fianna F·il, the two parties revealed their agreed policy "to negotiate for the whole island of Ireland to become a GMO-free zone."
The announcement was received with jubilation by farmers and food producers on both sides of the border who have spent the last nine years campaigning to achieve this goal.
Following the announcement last night, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent, TD, confirmed his pre-election pledge to resign his leadership position if his party entered into government with Fianna F·il, adding that he would now work very hard within the new Government "to get Green Party policies implemented whatever way I can".
"The establishment of Ireland as a GMO-free zone is a project that I will throw myself into in a very enthusiastic fashion, because we don't have much time to rescue that status for this country, and it's one that is so vital to us as a food-producing island which is operating in markets that are overwhelmingly looking for GM-free food, and if we lose that status, that's it, we cannot go back."
The Green Party is an all-island party, working on both sides of the border. The Green Party will get two Cabinet Minister positions in the new Government.
In a related move last weekend, the GM-free Ireland Network brought the main farmers organisations on both sides of the border together with Brazil's largest exporter of certified non-GMO soy meal, for exploratory discussions to phase out the use of GM animal feed in Irish farming. Participants included high level representatives of the Irish Farmers Association, the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers Association, the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association, and the Northern Ireland branch of the UK National Beef Association.
GM-free Ireland Network spokesperson Michael O'Callaghan congratulated the new government for adopting the GM-free island policy, and invited Trevor Sargent to address a briefing on Food Safety and GMOs which GM-free Ireland will co-host with Kathy Sinnott MEP and the EU Parliament Independence/Democracy Group at the European Parliament Office in Dublin at noon on Friday [1].
Notes for editors:
1. Speakers at the briefing include Kathy Sinnott MEP, Jeffrey Smith (who will launch his new book Genetic Roulette: the documented health risks of GM foods), and 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 genetically modified soybeans. For details on the briefing, see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/EUP.php To register please call (0404) 43 885.
Contact:
Michael O'Callaghan
GM-free Ireland Network
Tel + 353 (0)404 43885
mobile: + 353 (0)87 799 4761
email: mail@gmfreeireland.org
web: http://www.gmfreeireland.org
Trevor Sargent, TD
Green Party
tel + 353 (0)1 890 0630
mobile: +353 (0)87 254 7836
email: trevor.sargent@oireachtas.ie
web:
http://www.greenparty.ie
Organic food helps revive fortunes of Europe's farmers
The Independent, 14 June 2007. By Adam Mitchell in Brussels and Rachel Shields.
The organic revolution is sweeping across Europe, with the area of land dedicated to environmentally-friendly, pesticide-free food production more than doubling in the last decade.
Organic farming now accounts for more than 4 per cent of agricultural land in the EU, more than double its 1998 share, according to a new report from its official statistics agency, Eurostat.
And organic land is likely to make greater inroads, as the consumer appetite shows no sign of slowing.
"Organic almost certainly will continue to grow and we think it's a good thing," Michael Mann, an EU agriculture spokesman said.
The growth is partly being driven by Europe's farmers, who are being undercut by produce imported from countries such as Brazil. For many farmers, organic foods are becoming a key way to reinvent their failing farms.
"Farmers are coming under growing pressure from low-cost producers abroad," Mr Mann said. "They have to be smart and think of increasing profit margins and organic is one way of doing that."
Conscious of this ballooning market, agriculture ministers from the 27 member states agreed this week on a compulsory logo, to be introduced from 2009, designed to reassure consumers that they are getting the genuine article.
The logo guarantees that at least 95 per cent of ingredients are completely free of chemicals - and imports will be subject to the same rule. But it also permits up to 0.9 per cent from genetically-modified organisms, a level that has angered green campaigners.
"It is a total cop-out by the European Union - setting a level of 0.9 per cent could result in the creeping GM contamination of organic food," said Ben Ayliffe, of Greenpeace. "It should be 0.1 per cent."
"Go into any supermarket and they are bursting with organic food, while GM foods are conspicuous by their absence. That's because consumers don't want them!" he added.
In recent years, European consumers have shown themselves willing to pay more for organic produce, reflecting an aversion to chemicals and a growing preference for natural farming techniques over the high-intensity production that has been blamed for crises such as BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.
Recognising this fact, Brussels will now provide higher levels of subsidy for organic farming, than that given to non organic fruit and vegetables.
The UK has been a leader in organic farming. In 2005, more than 600,000 hectares of the country's farmland were cultivated organically, putting it ahead of France, a country more than twice its size. Yet only 3.8 per cent of UK farmland was devoted to organic production, compared with 11 per cent in Austria. The Alpine nation has a reputation as a strong opponent of intensive and biotech farming, recently refusing to follow an EU ruling allowing a type of genetically-modified maize made by Monsanto.
While the Eurostat report primarily compared the 15 nations that joined the EU before 2004, it also pointed out that some of the biggest organic farms now are to be found in newcomers Slovakia and Czech Republic.
UK: Study shines new light on genome
Most intensive study ever of our genetic code
So-called junk DNA found to play highly active role
The Guardian, June 14 2007. Ian Sample, science correspondent.
Scientists have been forced to rethink how the human genome turns a single cell into a complex living being following the most intensive study of our genetic code ever undertaken.
The research reveals that genes make up only a tiny fraction of the role played by the 3bn letters that constitute the entirety of the human genome.
Large swaths of the genome, previously dismissed as "junk DNA" because it was thought to serve no practical purpose, have been found to be highly active inside the cells in our bodies. Other sequences of genetic code are thought to be "on standby", awaiting a time further down the evolutionary path when they will be beneficial to human beings.
The scientists claim the findings will have a dramatic impact on their ability to pinpoint how genetic defects trigger diseases. Instead of simply looking for mutations in individual genes, it is certain that defects in other parts of the genome will contribute to complex conditions, among them diabetes and coronary heart disease.
The results, published in Nature today, are the culmination of a $42m, five-year project called ENCODE (ENCyclopaedia Of DNA Elements) involving 80 different scientific teams in 11 countries.
The project set out to examine the human genome in unprecedented detail, to work out every different way in which the genetic building blocks, represented by the letters G, T, A and C, work within the body.
The scientists found that beyond genes lay a multitude of other jobs being done by sequences of DNA. Much of the genetic material is transcribed into molecules that relay information from the genome to the biological machinery of our cells.
"If you think of the letters that make up the human genome as the alphabet, then you can think of genes as the verbs. With this project we're identifying all of the other grammatical elements and the syntax of the language we need to read the genetic code completely," said Manolis Dermitzakis, a scientist on the ENCODE project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge.
The findings highlighted how scientists had become so blinded by the importance of genes that the role of other parts of the genome had largely gone unappreciated, he said.
In the pilot study, the researchers focused on 1% of the human genome, or 3bn letters, which were chosen to represent the entire human genetic code. They aim to examine the rest of the genome over the next four years, streamlining the process to complete it for less than $100m.
By understanding how every letter of the human genome functions in the body, scientists believe they will be able to learn how complex diseases are caused by genetic glitches that build up throughout the genome.
EU Risks WTO Cases Over Biotech Food, Mandelson Says
Bloomberg, June 14 2007. By Jonathan Stearns.
The European Union must accept more genetically modified foods to avoid renewed complaints about market barriers at the World Trade Organization, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said.
Any EU delay over the approval of gene-modified crops made by companies such as Monsanto Co. and declared safe by scientists risks prompting legal challenges from farm exporters such as the U.S., Canada and Argentina, Mandelson said. In a case brought by these three countries, the WTO ruled last year that a 1998-2004 EU ban on new gene-altered foods was illegal.
The bloc ended the six-year moratorium after tightening labeling rules and creating a food agency to screen biotech applications. Since then, the EU has approved the import of some gene-modified products for food and feed use via a slow-track procedure and has yet to endorse any requests for cultivation.
"If we fail to implement our own rules, or implement them inconsistently, we can -- and probably will -- be challenged," Mandelson said in a speech today in Brussels. He also said the EU may undermine European industries such as livestock by falling behind in endorsing products in the $6 billion global biotech crop market.
The European Commission, the 27-nation EU's regulatory arm, faces resistance to gene-modified foods from member states including Austria and Greece. Surveys show opposition to such foods by more than half of European consumers, who worry about risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of "superweeds" impervious to herbicides.
Stalemate
Biotech foods range from corn to oilseeds whose genetic material has been altered to add beneficial traits such as resistance to weed-killing chemicals. The EU biotech-food approvals since 2004 resulted from the commission acting on its own after member states failed to muster a sufficient majority for or against, a stalemate that drags decisions out for months and puts the commission in the political crossfire.
The delays followed EU scientific opinions that the products are safe, prompting Mandelson to warn about political interference in the process.
"If politicians and risk managers undermine their own system," he said, "we devalue objective science as our most important benchmark -- and that is a dangerous step to take."
Biotech Spud
The commission aims for the EU to approve a request to plant a gene-modified potato developed by BASF AG in the coming months, Barbara Helfferich, a commission environment spokeswoman, said today by telephone. The approval would be the first EU authorization of a biotech product for cultivation in about eight years.
The Amflora potato, altered to increase its starch content, failed to win enough backing from member-state regulators in December, is going to EU ministers for a verdict and would go back to the commission for a decision should the ministers be split.
Environmental groups including Greenpeace say EU evaluators of biotech foods need to be more stringent and independent.
"Europe's risk-assessment procedure is overlooking the threats and not assessing risks at all, just rubberstamping company dossiers," Greenpeace, which opposes gene-modified products, said in a statement today in Brussels.
Such concerns helped prompt the commission last year to demand that biotech food makers provide more safety information and the EU's food agency work more closely with national scientific bodies. Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou and Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas pushed through the initiative, saying it would help win broader support in the EU for gene-modified food approvals.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net
Europe:
Stand by science on GMO foods, EU trade chief says
Reuters, 14 June 2007.
BRUSSELS, June 14 (Reuters) - It's time for Europe to reassess its scepticism towards genetically modified (GMO) foods and trust scientists who have deemed them safe -- or risk more international lawsuits, the EU trade chief said on Thursday.
"Like any new science, biotechnology carries risks and those risks must be properly assessed and managed," European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in prepared remarks.
"This process takes time, and those whose job it is to manage risk are right to be thorough."
"But it is also reasonable to insist that when the process has run its course, and the scientific issues have been thrashed out, we stand by the science. And that applies to both the technical experts and to the politicians they report to."
European Union governments have repeatedly clashed over authorising new GMO products and have not done so since 1998.
However, since 2004, there has been a trickle of new approvals under a legal default process -- rubberstamps by the European Commission, the EU executive -- that kicks in when the bloc's member states fail to agree after a certain time.
That situation has angered major GMO food exporters such as the United States, which together with Argentina and Canada, challenged EU biotech policy at the World Trade Organisation.
The WTO found that the EU's effective moratorium on new GMO imports constituted "undue delay" and violated trade rules.
In remarks to representatives of the European biotech industry, Mandelson said EU policies would be watched closely by its trading partners, which were moving ahead with their own GMO policies -- and leaving Europe trailing behind.
"We will inevitably be scrutinised closely. If we fail to implement our own rules, or implement them inconsistently, we can, and probably will, be challenged," he said.
"We must be under no illusion that Europe's interests are served by being outside a global market that is steadily working its way through the issues raised by GM food. They are not."
In EU law, there is little that the Commission can do to persuade the EU's more GMO-wary national governments to change their position on biotech foods.
However, analysis of recent voting patterns indicates that the consistent "blocking minority" of EU governments may be eroding as several smaller countries opt to abstain rather than reject an application outright -- weakening the "anti-GMO" camp.
Some countries, like Britain, Finland and the Netherlands, almost always vote in favour of approving new GMOs. They are offset by a group of GMO-sceptic states such as Austria, Greece and Luxembourg, that vote against and force a voting stalemate.
Not approving GMO products seen as safe by scientists could also harm Europe's livestock industry, which depends heavily on imported animal feed -- and much of that was biotech grain-based material from the United States, he said.
"Unless we can close the gap between GMO approvals in the EU and in feed-exporting countries such as the United States, Argentina and Brazil we may have hungry cows and struggling farmers," Mandelson said.
"Isolation from international trade in agricultural biotech products that have passed credible safety standards simply may not be a viable option for the EU," he said. "And we have to understand this reality."
Europe: Accidental GMO content permitted in organic food
EurActiv.com, 14 June 2007
The EU-27's agriculture ministers have agreed to new organic food production and labelling standards from 2009, but green groups say that the rules are lax and will allow widespread contamination of organic products by genetically modified organisms.
Despite the opposition of Belgium, Greece, Italy and Hungary, the Council adopted, on 12 June 2007, a controversial regulation on organic production and labelling, which the Commission says will make life easier for both farmers and consumers by creating an EU organic logo for all products containing at least 95% organic ingredients.
However, there are concerns that the new standards have been set too low because, although the text bans the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in organic food, it allows for products containing up to 0.9% of "adventitious or technically unavoidable" GMO content to be labelled and sold as organic.
The European Parliament and environmental groups had called for this accidental contamination threshold to be set at 0.1% - the lowest level at which genetically modified organisms can be technically detected ‚ saying that any threshold higher than this would make it too difficult for organic farmers to keep their crops free from "genetic pollution".
"The lax attitude towards contamination taken by the European Commission and some member states disregards the preferences of European consumers and may put the whole organic sector at risk. In practice, low levels of genetically modified material could start slipping into all organic food," said Marco Contiero, policy officer at Greenpeace's EU Unit.
However, Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said that the new regulation would "help consumers to recognise organic products throughout the EU more easily and give them assurances of precisely what they are buying".
The use of the new EU logo will be compulsory as of 1 January 2009, but national or private logos, often reflecting more stringent standards desired by some member states, will also be authorised.
Green NGOs stress that the new standards do not lessen the necessity for stringent anti-contamination measures. Mauro Albrizio from the European Environmental Bureau said: "If the EU is committed to preserving and supporting the organic farming sector, then strict co-existence measures are a necessity, protecting conventional and organic farming from genetic contamination, with stiff penalties for GMO farmers and biotech companies if contamination does occur."
In 2008, the Commission will review national 'co-existence' rules aimed at containing commercially-grown GM crops, and further assess the need for an EU-wide law.
13 June 2007
Canada: Suicide-Seed Sequel: EU's "Transcontain er" Turns Terminator into Zombie
ETC Group, News Release, 13 June 2007
ETC Group today releases "Terminator: The Sequel," a Communiqué reporting on new research related to "suicide seeds" and other genetically modified (GM) seed technolo gies that pose unacceptable threats to farmers, biodiversity and food sovereignty.
Today ETC Group reports on a new crop of genetic engineering technologies that are being promoted as a biosafety solution to the unwanted spread of transgenes from GM crop s, trees and pharmaceutical-producing plants. In practice, these technologies, if commercialized, will allow the multinational seed industry to tighten its grasp on proprietary seeds and to restrict the rights of farmers.
The 28-page Communique begins wi th an examination of the European Union's 'Transcontainer' project, which is developing GM crops and trees for Europe that could be "biologically contained" through "reversible transgenic sterility." The three-year project, which is part of the EU's Sixth Framework Programme, supports the goal of "co-existence" - the controversial idea that GM crops and non-GM crops can peacefully co-exist - and it aims to promote public acceptance of GM crops.
"We've always known that Terminator technology is simply to o lucrative for the seed industry to abandon," says ETC Group's Hope Shand, "but it's outrageous that the European Union is using public funds to develop genetic seed sterilization." Shand adds, "The EU-funded Transcontainer project is especially disturbing in light of the European Parliament's strong anti-Terminator stance only last year." The European Parliament passed a resolution in March 2006 urging European delegates meeting at the CBD (United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity) in Curitiba, Brazil to uphold the de facto moratorium on Terminator. At the meeting governments unanimously re-affirmed and strengthened the moratorium, which recommends against the field-testing or commercialization of seeds that have been genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds at harvest. The United Nations uses the term GURTs (genetic use restriction technology) to refer to Terminator.
Apologists for the Transcontainer project argue that its aim is not to restrict seed use but to contain transgenes, and that the technology under development differs from Terminator because the seeds' sterility will be "reversible," so that seed fertility can be recovered - most likely through the application of a chemical. Hope Shand counters, "A scenario in which farmers would have to pay for a chemical to restore seed viability creates a new perpetual monopoly for the seed industry. Even if these 'Zombie seeds\ are not being designed with the intent to restrict seed use, the reality is that farmers will end up having to pay for the privilege of restoring seed fertility every year. Zombie seeds are no more acceptable than suicide seeds - there is simply no such thing as a safe and acceptable form of Terminator," adds Shand.
ETC's report also examines new research on ge ne excision technologies (i.e., molecular methods to snip out transgenes at some point in a plant's life). Dubbed Exorcist by ETC Group, the technology is a strategy for both biocontainment and for restricting access to proprietary germplasm. In theory, D NA-excision could be designed to occur at any stage during the plant's development - before the GM plant flowers and produces pollen, for example, or before it becomes food. The excision process can be triggered by an external environmental or chemical st imulus, or excision can be designed to occur automatically at a particular stage in the plant's life. ETC's explains, "In its current state, Exorcist is far from a failsafe biocontainment strategy - it won't work 100% of the time - but even if Exorcist ca n't fully contain transgenes, it could still function as a biological method to enforce patents by restricting access to proprietary traits."
Finally, ETC Group's Communiqué examines "extreme" biocontainment methods - molecular methods involving "conditi onally lethal genes" capable of terminating plants and their transgenic DNA in the event that other containment strategies fail. The idea is that a "Pull-the-Plug" plant could be killed by triggering the lethal gene - by the application of an external che mical, for example - taking the GM trait down with it. If the lethal gene is not triggered, the plant lives and can pass on its foreign genes to the next generation. Ostensibly, these pull-the-plug plants are being developed as a back-up strategy for last-resort biological containment.
"There's also a more sinister possibility," suggests ETC's Silvia Ribeiro, "that companies could pull the plug on plants they believe are being grown without the proper licensing agreements. We’€ ôve already seen biotech com panies resort to nasty tactics to ferret out farmers suspected of possible patent infringement. Now companies could threaten to trigger the lethal gene or they could simply apply the chemical trigger to get positive or negative confirmation when they susp ect the farmer of patent infringement."
Ribeiro concludes, "Zombie seeds, Exorcist seeds and Pull-the-Plug plants: these are all defective technologies that won’€ ôt prevent the unwanted spread of transgenes from GM crops. But if governments can be convince d that biological containment of GMOs is possible using one of these new techniques - or a combination of them - it will open the floodgates to new markets for biotech plants, particularly GM crops and trees grown for biofuels. The result will be more hea vily subsidized multinational companies and drastically increased risk of transgenic contamination."
Governments meeting in Rome at the FAO's Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture are today considering a "code of conduct" on biotechnology. "If anyone needs more evidence of the urgent need for a biotech code of conduct, Zombie seeds and suicide seeds are it," says Pat Mooney of ETC Group.
Civil society organizations convening in Berlin next week (June 18-21) at the Second European Foru m on Sustainable Rural Development should consider requesting that the European Commission cease funding for Zombie seed research, particularly because of its dangerous implications for 1.4 billion people who depend on farm-saved seeds.
ETC Group's report concludes with recommendations related to these "dual use" GURTs - new genetic modification techniques designed to contain transgenes and restrict access to proprietary germplasm. The CBD's scientific advisory body (SBSTTA) meeting in Paris, France, 2 - 6 July 2007 should recommend that governments meeting at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the CBD (Bonn, Germany, 19-30 May 2008) strengthen the United Nations moratorium on Terminator by recommending a ban on the technology.
For further inform ation:
ETC Group (Carrboro, NC, USA)
Hope Shand
Kathy Jo Wetter
hope@etcgroup.org
kjo@etcgroup.org
Tel: +1 919 960-5223
ETC Group (Mexico City)
Silvia Ribeiro
silvia@etcgroup.org
Tel: +52 5555 6326 64
ETC Group (Ottawa, Canada)
Pat Mooney
etc@etcgroup.org
Mobile: +1 613 2610688
ETC Group (Montreal, Canada)
Jim Thomas
jim@etcgroup.org
Tel: +1 514 516-5759
Canada: Biotech's 'Terminator' sows seeds of discord
Built-in sterility to stop contamination raises alarms
Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service, June 13, 2007. By Kelly Patterson.
OTTAWA - Environmentalists are raising the alarm about the latest
development in genetically modified foods -- so-called "zombie seeds" that are
programmed to be sterile until treated with a special chemical.
These and other "sexually dysfunctional" seeds are being developed by the
biotech industry as a solution to the ongoing problem of genetically modified
plants contaminating conventional crops. News of the effort emerges at the
same time as the House of Commons is debating a bill to ban the zombie seeds'
predecessor -- so-called Terminator seeds, which are programmed to be sterile
to prevent contamination.
The question of how to contain genetically modified crops has become urgent
as scientists forge ahead with plans to design plants that produce such drugs
as antibiotics and industrial chemicals -- plants that all sides agree must
not wind up in the food chain.
Wilfred Keller of the federal National Research Council says that, for
certain applications, Terminator and its successors "should be welcomed.
"A plant is a tremendous chemical factory that can produce products we all
need and want," says Keller, who has worked on Terminator-style seeds in
recent years.
Canola, for example, could become a major source of biofuel in coming years;
one Calgary-based company is already producing insulin from safflowers,
Keller adds from his Saskatoon office.
But Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, an Ottawa-based biotech watchdog group,
says the industry is pushing for a "technical fix for a problem its own
technology created in the first place," arguing that firms just want to ensure
continued control of the seed supply.
Developed in the 1990s, Terminator seeds sparked fears that farmers in poor
countries would be forced to buy their seed from industrial producers every
year. Critics also worried the seeds would decimate the food supply if the
sterility trait were to spread through genetic mutation or cross-pollination to
conventional crops.
Brazil and India banned Terminator seeds, and last year the UN Convention on
Biological Diversity reaffirmed a 2000 moratorium on the technology.
Now "gene giants" such as Dow are trying to do an end run around the
moratorium, says Thomas.
Keeping an eye on transgenic crops
Rocky Mountain Outlook, June 13 2007. By David Suzuki.
Did you know that genetically modified, or "transgenic" crops are now commonplace on North American farms? According to a recent survey in the United States, the majority of Americans have no idea just how pervasive this technology has become. In fact, North Americans have been eating transgenic foods and using products made from their crops for over a decade. So, what kind of effect, for better or for worse, are these crops having on the environment?
One of the major concerns many ecologists had a decade ago was that transgenic organisms could inadvertently disrupt ecosystems by harming other organisms. Some transgenic crops, for example, have been engineered to resist certain types of herbicide. This allows farmers to liberally spray their fields with the herbicide, knowing it won't harm their target crop.
These concerns were apparently warranted, as farm-scale evaluations two years ago in the UK of some transgenic crops found that vigorous application of herbicides was also damaging to the diversity of other life forms around farms. That's because many of the weeds killed by the herbicides were important for butterflies and bees. Populations of these beneficial pollinators on the test farms fell, possibly having other, more wide-ranging implications up the food chain for birds and mammals.
Another common type of transgenic crop has an insecticide "built-in." These crops have been genetically engineered to produce an insecticidal toxin that wards off pests. One of the most well-known has been engineered using a certain kind of bacterium called Bt. The advantage, in theory, is that Bt crops do not need to be sprayed with an insecticide to kill pests, and thus could be potentially cheaper and more environmentally friendly than their contemporary non-transgenic counterparts.
Concerns were raised, however, when lab tests showed that pollen from Bt crops could be potentially harmful to non-target insects, making them grow more slowly or reproduce less often. However a new meta-analysis of the effects of Bt cotton and Bt maize on non-target insects in the field has found that these types of crops appear, at least on the surface, to be less harmful to insects than farming methods that use insecticides.
This report, recently published in the journal Science, looked at 42 field experiments and found that fields of Bt cotton and maize contained more non-pest insects than did those that used insecticides to control pests. Of course, insecticide-free control fields still had the greatest number of insects overall. The authors point out that further studies to examine the impact on specific species of insects, rather than just all invertebrates, are essential to better understand the environmental impact of these crops.
Disturbingly, the researchers had to resort to obtaining much of their information on Bt crops through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, because the companies that produced them did not publicly disclose it. The researchers also note that the debate around transgenic crops has been a heated and emotional one, "However, in the case of GM crops, scientific analyses have also been deficient. In particular, many experiments used to test the environmental safety of GM crops were poorly replicated, were of short duration, and/or assessed only a few of the possible response variables. Much could be learned and perhaps some debates settled if there were credible quantitative analyses of the numerous experiments that have contrasted the ecological impact if GM crops with those of control treatments involving non-GM varieties."
Transgenic crops are not simple products like widgets, ipods or even automobiles. They are living organisms that can interact with other creatures in the environment in myriad ways. Nature is complicated. When you modify an organism at a genetic level, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the results are also complicated, and often unexpected. Transgenic crops are, in many ways, radically new and should be subject to the greatest of scientific scrutiny, not suppressed by proprietary concerns.
Europe: Ministers vote favourably on new EU organic regulation
FoodNavigator.com (USA), 13 June 2007.
European agriculture ministers yesterday reached agreement over new organic regulation and labelling that will simplify the sector for farmers and consumers and is expected to help drive further development.
Figures released yesterday by Eurostat demonstrate growth in the organic sector over the last decade. In 2005 the agricultural area devoted to organics was 3.9 per cent of the total for the EU25 - 6.1 m hectares in total. In 1998 1.8 per cent of agricultural land in the EU15 was organic; the comparable figure for those same countries in 2005 was 4.1 per cent.
However some factors have caused some confusion in member states. For instance, under the old regulation, dating from 1991, a loophole existed that meant the unintended presence of genetically modified organisms above the 0.9 per cent did not preclude products being sold as organic.
Now, however, following a favourable vote by agriculture ministers at their meeting in Luxembourg, the GMO rules are clarified: GMO products are still strictly banned for use in organic production, and the 0.9 per cent accidental approved GMO threshold applies also to organic food.
The new rules also provide a complete set of objectives, principles and basic rules for organic production, and also include a permanent import regime and more consistent control regime.
In fact, the changes have been in the pipeline since the Commission proposal at the end of 1995. The favourable outcome of the vote represents a political agreement, but the text must now be translated prior to adoption.
A spokesperson for the European Commission told FoodNavigator.com that adoption is a formality, and there will be no further changes to content. The regulation will enter into force in January 2009, giving member states time to adapt their own legislation accordingly.
Other key aspects include mandatory use of the EU organic logo - but national or private logos can also be used alongside this. The logo may only be used if 95 per cent of the ingredients are organic, and the place where the products were farmed must also be indicated.
The new regulation relates to organic livestock, acquaculture, plant and feed production and the production of organic foods, but they also form a basis for add-on rules relating to organic wine, seaweed and yeasts.
Mariann Fischer Boel, commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said: "This is an excellent agreement which will help consumers to recognize organic products throughout the EU more easily and give them assurances of precisely what they are buying."
Fischer Boel also expressed a will that the new rules provide a framework for continuing growth, both through market demand and entrepreneurship of European
Europe: Worrying step backwards by Council of Ministers on GMOs in organics
Slow Food: 'This is not the way to build Europe'
Slow Food International press release, 13 June 2007.
The European Union Council of Agriculture ministers voted for a 0.9% GMO
tolerance threshold in Community organic agriculture regulations today.
According to Slow Food, this is an extremely serious matter.
'This decision appears unjustifiable and unacceptable,' argues Carlo
Petrini, president of Slow Food, 'insofar as it highlights how European
political leaders fail to listen to the voice of civil society. We are
bewildered and angry to learn that the cases of consumers, quality
producers and all those working for a new sustainable model for the food
systemóespecially in the agricultural sectoróhave been trampled upon for
the umpteenth time. This is all the more serious in view of the fact
that, on March 29, the European Parliament passed a directive setting
the threshold at 0.1%óvirtually zeroóby a broad majority.'
Not only has the Council of Ministers failed to listen to the wishes of
European citizens who want to be certain that, when they buy organic,
they do not buy GMOs as well, but it has also played deaf to the
indications of these citizens' representatives in Parliament.
'Now that the need to think about the future of our planet in a
different way is evident, it's up to Europe to play a leading role in a
purposeful, creative way. We have the human capital to achieve this
wonderful revolutionóthis is the ideal to which European citizens
aspire. Choices like the European Council's today go in exactly the
opposite direction.'
Slow Food Press Office
Via della Mendicitý Istruita, 14
12042 Bra (Cn) - Italy
+ 39 0172 419615/ 45/ 53 /66
press@slowfood.it
www.slowfood.it
12 June 2007
Italy: EU's organic labeling vote upsets Italy
ROME, June 12 (UPI) -- Several Italian constituencies expressed ire at an EU vote allowing producers to label "organic" genetically modified organism-contaminated foods.
The EU Council of Agriculture Ministers voted to set an accidental-contamination threshold of 0.9 percent for organic produce, meaning produce can be labeled and sold as organic as long as its GMO content is below 0.9 percent, the Italian news agency ANSA said. Representatives of Italy, Belgium, Hungary and Greece were against extending this limit to organic food.
"The Council of Agriculture Ministers' decision is wrong and damages both organic producers and the rights of consumers," Italian Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio said. "We must see at once what countermeasures the Italian government and parliament can take to protect producers and consumers who want to be sure they are buying GMO-free products."
Sergio Marini, head of Italy's main farmers' association, said the EU decision would damage the public's faith in organic produce.
Italy is home to Europe's largest organic food market and its producer associations have been among the most active in lobbying against the move, ANSA said.
EU labels will tell it like it is if it's organic
By Jeremy Smith
LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - EU ministers ended 18 months of squabbling on Tuesday over new rules for organic farming and came up with a labelling system that will tell consumers exactly what they are buying on the supermarket shelves.
Advert for The Scotsman Digital Archive
Farmers who sell produce containing at least 95 percent organic ingredients will use a special EU logo, along with a label to indicate the product's origin. Below that, there will be labelling of the organic ingredients present.
"This is an excellent agreement which will help consumers to recognise organic products throughout the EU more easily and give them assurances of precisely what they are buying," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said.
The labels can be accompanied by national and private logos, at the discretion of individual EU countries. Mass catering operations are excluded from the new rules although countries can choose to apply national rules if they wish.
Now, EU organic farmers have difficulty selling organic food in different EU countries as there is a patchwork of national and private logos that can be costly and complicated to obtain.
At present, the EU has two labelling categories: a "gold standard" where organic ingredients comprise at least 95 percent of the final product, and "emphasised labelling" where there is at least 70 percent organic material.
Although Europe saw its organic farming area jump nearly 70 percent in the late 1990s, growth has now slowed in several countries where it has reached a plateau.
In the 25 EU states, before the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, the amount of organic farmland stood at around 6.1 million hectares, or some 3.9 percent of total farm land.
But the average market share for organic products in the EU remains small at around two percent, with some exceptions such as vegetables at between five and 10 percent.
Biotech in organic food?
The main problem for many EU governments, and Europe's organic movement, was the issue of genetically modified (GMO) food -- specifically, the issue of setting an acceptable degree for the unavoidable presence of GMO material in organic farming.
The new law says products containing approved GMO material may not be labelled as organic, except those with up to 0.9 percent content of GMOs that are already authorised in the EU, via accidental or unavoidable contamination.
This is in line with current EU rules on biotech food and feed thresholds. It remains illegal to use GMOs in organic farming knowingly.
Fischer Boel has often said it would be too costly for farmers to achieve higher purity in their organic produce.
"We needed to clarify the rules on GMOs, to say they are not allowed in organic production. Before the agreement today, there were no limits. Everyone should know that we have tightened the rules," she told a news conference.
"It can be very tempting to say 'zero tolerance' but that wouldn't work in real life. To avoid accidental contamination it would be so expensive to produce organic products that it would damage the market completely. It would simply kill the sector."
Not all countries were impressed with the GMO provision.
"It is clear that this (GMO threshold) is not a licence to contaminate. Any contamination would have to be involuntary and unavoidable," Austrian Agriculture Minister Josef Proell said.
"We cannot simply go on raising the threshold and pretend we are still on a path to organic farming," he told Reuters.
Environmental groups have been outraged by the idea, with one attacking it as the "thin end of a wedge which will allow the creeping contamination of organic food across Europe" and calling for cross-border EU laws to protect organic farmers.
"Now the EU has declared traces of genetic contamination in organic crops acceptable, organic farmers will find it increasingly difficult to keep their crops GM-free," said Helen Holder, GMO campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.
China blocks food for biofuel
FoodNavigator.com, 12 June 2007. By George Reynolds.
Chinese biofuel producers should only use non-food crops, the
government said yesterday, following fears of shortages and further price
rises that could occur as demand for greener energy increases.
Biofuels are seen as a potential alternative to fossil fuels, because they
can be manufactured from sustainable crops including corn, wheat, sugar,
cassava, sweet sorghum, and oilseeds.
The moratorium will ease manufacturing concerns about competing for
ingredients being used to make ethanol and biodiesel. Corn is currently
accounts for 90 per cent of the inputs in Chinese ethanol manufacture, and
has sharply risen in price over the past few years due to subsidies and high
crude oil prices.
Moreover, last year's 43 per cent rise in the price of pork, China's
principal meat, due to increasing feed costs, has pushed officials to act.
"Food-based ethanol fuel will not be the direction for China," said Xu
Dingming, an official of the National Energy Leading Group, at a energy
seminar held this week, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Biofuel manufacturers will now need to source non-food crops, such as
cassava and sweet sorghum used to make liquor, leaving the remainder for
consumption and processing.
Last year, responding to a rise in prices due to supply shortages, China,
the world's second largest producer after the US, banned corn exports for a
month.
Four sites across China produce about one million tonnes of ethanol annually
from three million tonnes of corn, with another three under construction,
according to a 2006 US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural
Service report. Two major biodiesel plants in operation produce about 50,000
tonnes in total each year.
While biofuel production is barely noticeable compared to the 323 million
tonnes of crude oil China used in 2005, government targets plan to expand
ethanol production to four million tonnes by 2010, while increasing
biodiesel to two million tonnes.
The anticipated rapid growth in biodiesel is attributed to China demand for
diesel doubling that for gasoline due to its use in agriculture and haulage.
By 2020, China expects 15 per cent of its transport energy needs will be met
using biofuels.
China's current cassava production is estimated at 7.5 million tonnes per
year. Increased planting of cassava and technological advances could
eventually add 21 million tonnes to cassava production. Until supply can
match demand, cavassa imports from Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia will
continue to grow, up from 257,000 tonnes in 2000 to about 3.3 million tonnes
in 2005.
Sweet sorghum, which is drought-tolerant, could become an increasingly
important input for ethanol production, though more development is needed to
obtain the required efficiencies.
To counter the demand for food-crops, the first cellulosic ethanol plant in
China was announced recently. Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from almost
any organic matter, including agricultural waste, grasses, sewage, sludge,
switchgrass, plant stalks, and trees. This first cellulosic plant should in
operation by 2008, producing lignocellulose ethanol.
Chinese farmers are expected to plant 27.35 million hectares of corn this
year, slightly higher than the 27.05 million hectares in 2006, according to
the China National Grain and Oils Information Center.
The center estimates that annual Chinese corn consumption for 2006 to 2007
will reach 144.5 million tonnes, with output at 144 million tonnes.
Australia: Dependent on Monsanto for our food?
On Line Opinion, 12 June 2007. By Susan Hawthorne.
The dairy industry is Australia's most lucrative agricultural export sector. The industry has a value of $3.3 billion of which $2.7 billion is achieved from export. This is all GM-free produce and Australia's reputation as a GM-free country has contributed to the value of these exports. Japan is one of Australia's important export markets and 60 per cent of Japanese consumers do not want to buy GM foods. Ending the moratorium on GM crops could have a catastrophic effect on primary producers' exports to Japan.
The United Dairy Farmers of Victoria (UDV) have previously supported Victoria's GM-free status, but with the moratorium on GM crops set to run out on February 29, 2008, the pressure is on for organisations to capitulate to corporate pressure.
Dairy farmers are affected by the potential introduction of GM crops into Victoria because there is no method of containing the spread of GM crops and therefore contaminating previously GM-free areas. Further, imported stockfeed which contains GM corn, soy or canola meal will mean that all milk produced by these dairy cows will be GM contaminated. Which mothers and fathers want their children drinking GM contaminated milk?
The big push for GM crops in Australia comes from companies such as Monsanto and Bayer. Monsanto is known for prosecuting Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser whose farm was contaminated by Monsanto seed, and Monsanto then turned around and prosecuted Schmeiser for illegally growing patented plants. This case is an indicator of the kind of tactics that are used by unscrupulous agribusiness seed companies.
Australia has always prided itself on being one of the few self-sufficient food producers in the world. With the door potentially being opened to large agribusiness companies such as Monsanto, Australia will become dependent on these companies. How is that? When patented crops are grown, then distribution is also channelled to these and associated companies.
Patents are a means of privatising what has previously been public resources. Australia's food security is under threat from ending the moratorium on GM crops. In the long term it will make Australia food-dependent on American companies such as Monsanto.
The crucial issue is that once the ban is lifted, there is no going back. When GM crops are allowed, they are here forever. It is irreversible. And yet, Victorian Treasurer, John Brumby is proposing to grow GM crops on his own farm. Admirable that he can't be accused of being a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard), but very short sighted, economically speaking. Victoria clean green? For how much longer?
Will those consumers who don't want to drink GM contaminated milk, have to either give up milk? Or perhaps Australia could import milk from New Zealand, thereby expanding their economy.
Although the promoters of GM foods say that it is all about choice, what they are really doing is promoting the idea of compulsory consumption of GM foods, since its impact on the environment is in only one direction. And not only crops and farmers are affected, but gardeners too.
The spread of GM weeds is a problem not likely to be addressed by the 'Expert Panel' with its very narrow scope of looking only at marketing and trade issues. Weeds, however, do have an economic cost. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that weed resistance associated with GM crops means that weed control is more difficult and more toxic herbicides are required to keep those same weeds under control, therefore increasing the costs and the health impacts on the community.
The introduction of GM crops will have very significant economic impacts. There will be no organic farming. At a time when this is a growing industry, it is economic madness to shut it off forever.
The companies pushing this are themselves not ready, since there are no mechanisms in place for keeping GM canola separate from GM-free canola. GM canola will enter Australia's food supply, both as a contaminant in the dairy industry and through the production of cooking oils and oils used in processed foods. There is no adequate labelling, so consumers do not have the much-flaunted choice that politicians and promoters of GM are so keen to highlight.
In the middle of a drought, the promoters of GM crops will pump up the idea that there will be marvellous drought-resistant crops. But this is overstated. Drought resistant varieties of most regular crops already exist without needing to be GM affected, or subject to patents, or requiring payment of use fees to companies like Monsanto. It's the economics of GM crops that really does not work;
•
increased costs for farmers for fees to multinational companies, and increased input costs, and uncertain insurance claims;
•
potential irrevocable loss of GM-free status and therefore of international markets such as Japan;
•
loss of independence of national food security with increasing acreages being licenced to, owned and farmed on behalf of large foreign-owned agribusiness companies;
•
significant losses in the dairy export industry, and the potential for other countries such as New Zealand to benefit from Australia's capitulation to GM sponsor companies;
•
potential harm to the environment from GM crops and unknown consequences on human and animal health;
•
Monsanto and other companies will promise research offices and investment, but who will benefit from this? All the intellectual property will leave Australia; and
•
losses in the lucrative dairy export industry with customer bases that are increasingly anti-GM foods.
There is no consumer resistance to keeping Australia GM free. Why endanger our environment, our economy, our trade record and our health with this unknown risk that is irreversible? Victoria, clean green? We have until February 29, 2008 to keep this tag.
_______________________Europe: Ministers open door for GMOs in organic food
GM contamination in imports affects EU organic standard
European Environmental Bureau /
Friends of the Earth Europe /
Greenpeace press release, 12 June 2007
Brussels, June 12th 2007 ‚ At the Agriculture Council today EU Ministers decided to allow
contamination of organic food with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Ministers adopted
a new law which allows organic food containing up to 0.9 percent "adventitious or technically
unavoidable" GMO content to be classed and labelled as organic [1].
Environmental groups criticised the decision as it goes against the principle of consumer
choice. Organic farming is the most competitive and environmentally friendly agricultural
sector. In Europe it is creating new jobs and has wide public support.
Helen Holder, GMO Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said:
"Now that the EU has declared traces of genetic contamination in organic crops acceptable,
organic farmers will find it increasingly difficult to keep their crops GM-free. The EU must
urgently introduce cross-border legislation to protect organic and conventional farmers from
genetic pollution."
The European Parliament and environmental groups had called for the threshold of contamination
of organic food to be 0.1 percent, which is the lowest level at which genetically modified
organisms can be technically detected.
"Contamination in some countries outside of Europe, where GMOs are grown without any controls,
is now affecting the choice of European consumers. As the success of organic farming shows,
people are ready to pay for higher quality food free of GMOs. The lax attitude towards
contamination taken by the European Commission and some member states disregards the
preferences of European consumers and may put the whole organic sector at risk. In practice,
low levels of genetically modified material could start slipping into all organic food," Marco
Contiero, Policy Officer at Greenpeace EU Unit, explained.
The European Commission is now preparing to review measures for the containment of commercially
grown GM crops - called "coexistence". A report on how countries are implementing the European
Commission's guidelines on growing GM crops will be published in 2008, when the need for an
EU-wide law will be assessed. Currently, there is only a variety of national measures across
the EU.
Mauro Albrizio from EEB said:
"Organic agriculture is a vibrant sector, creating jobs and protecting the environment. The 0.9
percent threshold should not relax the necessity for stringent anti-contamination measures. If
the EU is committed to preserving and supporting the organic farming sector, then strict
co-existence measures are a necessity, protecting conventional and organic farming from genetic
contamination, with stiff penalties for GMO farmers and biotech companies if contamination does
occur."
For more information, please contact:
Helen Holder, coordinator of the Friends of the Earth Europe GMOs campaign:
Mobile +32 474 857638, helen.holder@foeeurope.org
Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU Unit Senior Policy Adviser, Genetic Engineering.
Mobile +32 477
777034 marco.contiero@diala.greenpeace.org
Mauro Albrizio, EEB Vice-president: Mobile +32 479 940251 legambiente@skynet.be
Rosemary Hall, Communications Officer at Friends of the Earth Europe:
Mobile +32 485 930515, rosemary.hall@foeeurope.org
NOTES:
[1] The new law allows 0.9 percent GMO contamination in organic foods as long as it is
"adventitious" and "technically unavoidable". However there is evidence that the European
Commission and other risk managers - under pressure to adopt a lax attitude to contamination -
are in fact interpreting the 0.9 percent threshold to mean "acceptable" contamination. The
organic sector currently works to a lower threshold and EU laws should support and enable
organic farmers and retailers to maintain existing standards
Rosemary Hall
Communications Officer
Friends of the Earth Europe
Rue Blanche 15
B-1050 Bruxelles
Belgium
Tel.: +32 2 542 6105
Mobile: +32 485 930515
Fax: +32 2 537 5596
rosemary.hall@foeeurope.org
http://www.foeeurope.org
Australia: The high cost of opening the door to GM crops
The Age (Australia), June 12, 2007. Bob Phelps.
AN INTERNATIONAL coalition of independent scientists is gathered today in Brussels to present evidence for a worldwide ban on genetically manipulated crops. They will present "damning evidence piling up against the safety of GM food and animal feed" to the European Parliament.
While Europe considers new gene technologies that offer advanced alternatives to GM, Victoria is looking backwards. Government and industry powerbrokers want to lift the bans on commercial GM canola. If they allow GM food crops into Victoria, our clean, green, GM-free food bowl will end. All Australian canola-growing states banned GM crops in 2003. Victoria may be the first domino to fall if the Bracks Government decides to lift the ban next February.
Victorian shoppers and businesses can speak up for GM-free. Australian chefs, scientists, farmers and concerned citizens are already coming out in force, including chefs Margaret Fulton, Charmaine Solomon, Maggie Beer and Stefano Di Pieri; nutritionist and biochemist Dr Rosemary Stanton, epidemiologist Dr Judy Carman, medical scientist Professor Stephen Leeder, and soil scientist Dr Maarten Stapper.
Farmers are also resisting, as gene contamination would inevitably cross state borders.
Big agribusiness has thrown its money and political muscle behind a campaign to overturn the bans. The first debate will be at a United Dairy Farmers of Victoria meeting next week. They will review their five-year support for the ban. More than 70 per cent of farmers consistently tell pollsters they don't want GM. But UDV leaders are eager to allow animal GM feed into our dairy supply. They say it's about farmers' choice, but US and Canadian experience shows that GM crops end choice for farmers and shoppers. Gene contamination proved inevitable and attempts at segregation were costly and failed.
There is no effective labelling of GM products in Australia, so a choice of GM-free in the supermarket isn't always easy.
Repeated polls show the vast majority of shoppers don't want foods made using GM, and don't want dairy cows eating GM feed either. Most dairy companies already have non-GM policies as they know it would be harder to sell their products made using GM, both in Australia and around the world. If the state ban ends, their policies will be more expensive and difficult to implement. New Zealand and Europe ó far bigger players than us in global dairy markets ó are both non-GM and waiting to pounce on our market share.
US agronomist Dr Charles Benbrook warned last year: "Australia should avoid the problems and market losses that the US experienced with GM."
In the United States, Starbucks and Walmart both recently refused to sell milk products from cows treated with GM growth hormone. Canada lost its EU canola market to Australia in 1999 ó a market we still supply, at premium prices. Australia is set for a record crop of GM-free canola this season, so risking our competitive advantage makes no sense at all.
The GM companies and their lobbyists are fighting people power with empty promises. There is no market demand for GM foods anywhere in the world so they claim that GM crops will solve problems of drought, famine, malnutrition, synthetic chemical use, and soil salinity. How many drought-tolerant GM crops have been commercialised or trialled in Australia? None.
Australia's state bans on GM food crops were introduced for marketing reasons. The Australian Wheat Board, the Australian Barley Board and dairy companies clearly saw that sales of clean, green Australian food would be jeopardised, in Australia and abroad, and backed the bans.
Leeds University geneticist Professor Richard Lacey sums it up: "The number of scientists who are not convinced about the safety of genetically engineered foods is substantial enough to prevent the existence of a general recognition of safety. I am not aware of any study in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that establishes the safety of even one specific genetically engineered food."
Among the few GM foods that have been adequately tested, some are clearly unsafe. CSIRO's GM field peas caused serious adverse effects in mice. UK toxicologist Dr Arpad Pusztai found the immune systems of rats fed GM potatoes were damaged and their organs were more vulnerable to disease than control animals.
But many GM foods have been declared safe and are approved by Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
By extending the bans for another five years, we can keep our options open, and still continue to reap the rewards of being GM-free.
Bob Phelps is executive director of Gene Ethics.
Brazil: Where's the science? Assess Bt maize before approval
SciDev.net, 12 June 2007,
Letter to the Editor from Nagib Nassar,
University of Brasilia, Brazil
Eliana Fontes, in her policy brief [for SciDev.net] 'A healthy mix: strategies for GM and non-GM crop coexistence', raises an important question about the sustainability of genetically modified (GM) crop farming.
[http://www.scidev.net/Dossiers/index.cfm?fuseaction=policybrief&policy=137&dossier=6&language=1]
The question is particularly relevant to Brazil, where a national committee on biosafety is meeting this week (11 June) to decide on the commercial release of transgenic, insect-resistant Bt maize.
The Brazilian constitution makes clear the need to evaluate the biosafety of proposed GM organisms under national conditions before they are commercialised. But, as yet, there has been no scientific assessment of Bt maize under Brazilian conditions, and this should be made a priority before the committee makes its decision.
Unfortunately, parts of the Brazilian media - for example the Journal Folha de Sao Paulo - are using Fontes' policy brief to promote the benefits of coexistence without giving equal weight to the very real risks of growing GM crops.
Such risks include drift damage, loss of biodiversity, decrease in soil fertility and contamination of wild relatives and pollinators.
The effect of imposing a GM monoculture model on local and indigenous cultivars would be particularly devastating in Brazil, where varieties have long contributed to agriculture and provide an irreplaceable pool of genes for conventional plant breeding.
Substituting their genetic variability with single GM varieties will increase susceptibility to pests and diseases and could result in the loss of many as yet undiscovered useful genes. The rust resistance and dwarf genes in wheat that led to the green revolution were both found in old landraces.
In particular, the use of Bt crops, such as the maize variety under discussion, can lead to the secretion of toxins that destroy nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Moreover, Bt genes could contaminate local crop relatives, reduce the number of natural pollinators and predators, or accidentally enter the food chain and cause allergic - possibly even fatal - reactions in people.
The national committee must ensure a balanced evaluation of the benefits and risks that Bt maize poses for Brazil, based on scientific fact rather than media supposition.
11 June 2007
Europe: EU Split Over Approvals Of Two GMO Maize Types
Reuters, 11 June 2007.
Brussels - EU biotech experts failed on Friday to agree on approving two genetically modified (GMO) maize varieties, sending the applications to national ministers for further consideration, the European Commission said. The applications, both of which are for modified maize hybrids, do not relate to cultivation. The two maize types are designed to resist certain field pests -- such as the European corn borer and corn rootworm -- and also certain herbicides.
The first maize hybrid, submitted for EU approval by U.S. biotech company Monsanto, is known as MON810/NK603.
The second GMO maize, a hybrid known as 1507/NK603, is made jointly by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont Co., and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds.
Pioneer and Mycogen also submitted an application for a third GMO, a maize known commercially as Herculex RW and also by the code number 59122. There was no vote on Herculex RW.
If EU ministers cannot agree, the European Commission -- the EU's executive arm -- usually issues its own approval, valid for 10 years, under a legal default process.
For many years, EU countries have been unable to secure the majority needed to vote through a new GMO approval. They last agreed to authorise a new GMO product in 1998.
A Disaster in Search of Success: Bt Cotton in Global South
Film review for GM Watch, 11 June 2007.
Reviewer: Claire Robinson
The biotech industry has hyped its GM Bt cotton as a saviour of the developing world. But the experiences of farmers who have grown the crop suggest otherwise. A group of women farmer-filmmakers from the DDS Community Media Trust traveled to Mali, South Africa and Indonesia to document farmers' experiences of Bt cotton.
In Makhatini, South Africa, often cited as the showcase Bt cotton project for small farmers, 100,000 hectares were planted with Bt cotton at the start of the project in 1998. By 2002, that had crashed to 22,500 hectares, an 80% reduction in 4 years. By 2004, 85% of farmers who used to grow Bt cotton had given up. The farmers found pest problems and no increase in yield. Those farmers who still grow the crop do so at a loss, continuing only because the South African government subsidizes the project and there's a guaranteed market for the cotton. The only farmer who defends Bt cotton in the film is T J Buthelezi, who has long touted GM crops around the globe courtesy of Monsanto. Apparently, though, Monsanto forgot to include Mrs Buthelezi on its hospitality programme. She states on camera that her family makes no profit from the crop. Even Mr. Buthelezi seems low-key, saying that Bt cotton is only suitable for large holdings and that farmers need other options.
In Mali, USAID is pushing for the introduction of Bt cotton. But Malian cotton farmers have produced huge increases in yield without using GM crops. And at the conclusion of a citizens' jury in which Malian farmers heard evidence from pro- and anti-GM sources, the farmers unanimously sent their government the stern message that they do not want GMOs.
Bt cotton seeds were introduced into Indonesia with the army riding shotgun and Monsanto giving massive bribes to officials to bypass environmental restrictions. But no amount of heavy-handed force will make a dud crop flourish, and problems with pests, poor yields, and high seed costs so angered farmers that they burned the Bt cotton fields. Monsanto fled.
In the light of such repeated failure in the developing world, it's obvious why the biotech industry is now focusing on India. Unbelievably, the Indian government has continued to welcome Bt cotton despite the thousands of farmers who have committed suicide after their Bt cotton crops have failed. This situation is exacerbated not just by corrupt politicians and a coterie of industry-friendly regulators but by a largely uncritical media happy to soak up industry spin. This award-winning film provides a welcome antidote to the hype of corporations and the willful blindness of governments and the media.
Specifics
A film by Community Media Trust, Pastapur, and Deccan Development Society, Hyderabad, India
Published February 2007
Price: GBP10.00 UK / $18.00 US
To request a copy, please email sustag@iied.org
More information:
http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?n=1&l=6&k=cotton
Europe: GMO potato takes shape in EU
Reuters, Monday, June 11, 2007
BRUSSELS, JUN 10: European regulators are pushing ahead with plans to allow farmers to grow a genetically modified (GMO) potato but focusing first on its use in feed and non-food industries due to opposition from several GMO-wary countries.
Last December, EU biotech experts failed to reach the required consensus to approve the application for cultivation approval, filed by German chemicals group BASF.
Normally, the application should have been escalated to EU environment ministers for debate within three months. If this had happened, and the ministers agreed, it would have been the first EU approval of a GMO crop for growing since 1998. Shortly after that date, the bloc started its de facto moratorium on new biotech authorizations that ended in 2004.
But that process has been stalled, partly due to requests made to BASF for more data on its product -- and partly, officials say, due to reluctance inside the European Commission's environment department to push the dossier forward.
Now, the Commission's food safety department will ask a different experts' committee to approve the potato, engineered to yield high amounts of starch, but for different uses -- not cultivation. This separate approval is also needed under EU law. "A draft decision should be submitted to the regulatory committee in the coming months," one Commission official said. The second EU approval relates to the potato's use in animal feed and other non-food products such as paper. By-products of the starch extraction process, like pulp, are used in animal feed and the potato juice can also be used as a soil fertilizer.
"The authorization (under the EU's GMO food and feed regulation) is complementary to the one for cultivation since BASF only intends to cultivate it in the EU," the official said.
The European Union has long been split on GMO policy and its 27 member states consistently clash over whether to approve new varieties for import -- but without ever reaching a conclusion.
9 June 2007
Ireland: A criticism of the World Bank document on Biotechnology and Biodiversity
Seán McDonagh, SSC, MA, Ph.D
In section 5.4.8 to 5.4.8.7 of the document on biotechnology, the World Bank does what it is best at, namely, promoting the interests of rich countries and their trans-national corporations while claiming to help the poor. The document itself contains all the propaganda that has been circulated by public relations companies employed by the corporations. To coat thousands of gold bullets with genetic material and use a gene gun to shoot these into the cell of the target organism can hardly be called a precise technology. It can often take between 5,000 and 10,000 experimental gene insertions to achieve the desired result. Nevertheless you make this claim in the second paragraph that this is a precise technology.
The renowned English zoologist, Colin Tudge presents a very different picture. He writes, "genetic engineering, even at its simplest, implies the ad hoc introduction of exotic genes into the genome of established organisms; and this, in principle immediately suggests a hierarchy of possible problems. Most obviously, the newly introduced gene could disrupt the host genome in undesirable and quite unpredictable ways. The theoretical problem can readily be seen through an analogy. It's often said that the genetic code is 'digital', so in a general way it is. Each gene and so, by implication, each functioning length of DNA corresponds to some specific 'bit' of information. We get closer to reality, though if we compare genes to language as in the title of Steve Jones's 1993 book The Language of Genes. Individual genes are then compared to words. But the meaning of individual words is not to be captured in a stripped-down dictionary definition. Anyone who tries to speak a foreign language out of a dictionary knows how droll the natives find such efforts. The meaning of words depends very much on their context ‚ what words are they surrounded by. Behind the dictionary definition of individual words lies the syntax of the language, and the actual use of it; the colloquialism, the cross-references, the historical allusions, the puns. Genes work in this way too because genomes evolve, trailing their history behind them. They are not simply 'digital', but work to rules that are in part logical and in part a matter of historical accident. If genes are compared to words, then the genome of any particular creature as a whole should be compared to literature. Genetic engineering is not really engineering. It is more like gardening, in you plant and then stand back, and watch; or, to pursue the present metaphor, it is more like editing. Every writer knows that the injudicious alteration of a single word can change the import of a text absolutely and prays for a gentle and competent editor.
At present, after 100 years of formal Mendelian genetics and a few decades of genomics, we have some small insight into the functioning of a few genes in a few genomes (including for human genes). For some organism, in short we have the beginnings of a dictionary. But the genome of an organism ‚ any organism ‚ might be compared in literary terms, to some sacred poetic text written in a language of which we have virtually no inkling; medieval Tibetan, or Linear B. Would you, or anyone who was halfway sane, undertake to edit such a text if all they had to guide them was a bad dictionary?
You continue that paragraph with another half-truth that it is an extension of traditional breeding practices. It is nothing of the sort; recombinant DNA technology is new and radically different technique that has no semblance to any previous breeding methods used by humankind. It circumvents the barriers that exist between completely different species and does this with the aid of bacteria and viruses. 5.4.8.1
In March 2007 it was revealed at a Paris news conference that Monsanto maize (MON863) caused serious damage to the liver and kidney of rats which consumed it during feeding trials. The rats showed signs of heptorenal toxicity, symptoms of poisoning and liver and kidney damage. According to Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini who conducted the study at the University of Caen in France, these revelations are profoundly disturbing from a health perspective. They are sufficient to require new and more carefully conducted feeding studies and an immediate ban from human and animal consumption of GM maize MON836 and all its hybrids. In spite of this study which was published in the Archives on Environmental Contamination and Toxicology in March 2007, MON 863 which was formally approved by the EU in August 2005 was not withdrawn from circulation.
In his book, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Jeffry M. Smith presents 65 health risks of eating genetically engineered food. The author argues that infants and children are most at risk from potential allergens, toxins and other nutritional products associated with GM foods. Despite studies like these the World Bank does its special pleading on behalf of its corporate friends in the last 3 paragraphs of 5.4.8.2. The truth is that the regulatory framework is much too lenient, mainly because of the enormous political power yielded by large corporations. In 1997 two reporters from The Guardian in Britain were very critical of the regulatory agencies on a number of fronts. They found a revolving door between the US government and the biotech industry. They also found that the biotech industry has succeeding in rewriting the world food safety standards to suit their own financial gain. They referred to new laws protecting the US food industry from criticism and the fact that GMO food is not labelled in the US. They claimed that the agribusiness corporations were using leading PR companies to massage the debate in favour of countries adopting genetic engineering. Furthermore, that they were attempting to use international organisations like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to brow beat governments who were opposed to GMOS. And here now we have the World Bank doing its part to push GMOs.
You give no data on the negative impact of GMOs on biodiversity. A study carried out for the United Kingdom Department of Agriculture in March 25, 2005. This was the largest study ever conducted on genetically-modified crops and it concluded that they can harm wildlife. In the GMO fields there were fewer seeds, bees and butterflies. In the GMO crop's fields there were also fewer broad-leaved weeds - considered important because they feed insects - even though there were some grass weeds and soil insects remaining. Why was that study not listed to counter the Qaim and Traxler study?
The claim that GMOs and conventional crops can co-exist is open to serious question, particularly for plants like canola or rape seed oil that are wind pollinated. The pollen can affect plants 25 miles away from the GMOs crop. The reality is that all canola in Canada has now been contaminated. There many commentators who believe that this was government policy to allow the contamination to happen and say we now have fait accompli so let's get on with it. This is exactly what the biotech companies want when they talk about choice. But they will accept no liability for contaminating conventional or organic crops.
In my experience in the Philippines the claim in 5.4.8.5 that GMOs will benefit small farmers is ludicrous. Let's be quite clear, it was not in response to the cries of the poor and the hungry that biotech corporations began to experiment with plant and animal recombinant DNA technology. Rather it was to make even greater profits than they were already making. Corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta are implementing a strategy of attempting to control the seeds of the staple crops of the world. They are making sure that the genetic changes are linked to other products which they also market, thus creating various GMOs which are resistant to the weed killer Round-up, a product on which the patent was about to lapse. Forcing poor farmers to buy a seed and the herbicide package will not feed the poor. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. The document does not mention the fact that distribution is a more important and crucial element in solving world hunger than greater production of food crops. This means that social, political and economic policies are both the cause of hunger, and also potentially the solution to hunger. This will take creative economic policies that will promote research into organic agriculture, accessible credit schemes, fair markets and extensive land reform. Remember a huge amount of food is produced in Brazil, it is now the 4th largest exporter of food in the world, and yet, 35 million people go to bed hungry every night. The recipe of the World Bank and your sister agency the IMF of promoting a neo-liberal, economic agenda has had disastrous effects on the poor of the world and on the environment. This paper is totally rooted in those failed economic policies.
Your comments on the terminator gene, or in your sanitized language "genetic use restriction technology", once again show your bias of championing the cause of your corporate friends, against the needs of the poor. The Rev. Dr Samul Kobia who is the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches which has a membership of over 340 churches representing 560 million people, has a very different view which I share. He wrote that "applying technology to design sterile seeds turns life, which is a gift of God into a commodity. Preventing farmers from re-planting saved seeds will increase economic injustice all over the world and add to the burdens of those already living in hardship". This is why the terminator gene was developed to stop farmers replanting. Because of adverse publicity surrounding this morally reprehensible technology, the corporations back-off using the technology. Now they want to justify its use by claiming it will prevent genetic pollution. Once again you opt for their side of the argument, even though it has no basis whatever.
The claim that GMOs reduce pesticide use is also open to question. Charles Benbrook, formerly head of Northwest Science and Environment Policy Center at Sandpoint in Idaho carried out a comprehensive study using US government data on the use of chemicals on GMOs. He found that when GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s they needed 25% less chemical for the first three years. By 2001, however, GMOs received between 5% and 25% more spraying compared with conventional crops. Dr. Benbrook stated that: "the proponents of biotechnology claim that GMO varieties substantially reduced pesticide use. While this was true in the first few years of widespread planting Ö it is not the case now. There's now clear evidence that the average pound of herbicide applied per acre planted to herbicide tolerant varieties has increased compared to the first few years".
Finally, you buy the myth that GMOs give greater yield than seeds which are bred in a conventional way. Early in 2003 Aaron deGrassi, a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University in Britain published an analysis of GMO crops which biotech companies were developing for Africa. These included cotton, maize and sweet potatoes. He discovered that conventional breeding procedures and good ecological management produced far higher yield at a fraction of the cost of genetic engineering. The GM research on sweet potato was approaching its 12th year and had involved the work of 19 scientists at the cost of $6 million. The results indicate that the yield had increased by 18%. On the other hand, conventional sweet potato breeding, working with a much smaller budget, had produced a virus-resistant variety with a 100% yield increase. And perhaps, most important of all for small farmers, the non-transgenic sweet potato had no patent. Corporations want patents and use every mechanism from courts to international agencies like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to impose their corporate agenda on the poor of the world. Patenting give them the power to control the seeds of the staple crops of the world. The profits from such control would be enormous and guaranteed into the future.
One final comment. The Green Revolution, which you laud and the new biotech technology, is only viable in a world where petrochemicals are cheap and readily available. We know that oil is a finite resource and that it is becoming more scarce. Many geologists, who have worked for the oil companies, like Dr. Colin Campbell, believe that "peak oil" will happen within the next few years. Where will poor farmers get the petrochemical involved in biotech farming? If the World Bank were really interested in the welfare of the poor they would use their money to promote research into organic agriculture which is not dependent on fossil fuel. Remember agriculture, and not transport will be the first casualty of peak oil.
8 June 2007
India: Child labour still a problem in cottonseed industry
8 June 2007 | Source: just-style.com
Multinational corporations still have much work to do to eliminate child labour from their cotton supply chains according to a new report released today.
The report, titled 'Seeds of Change,' singles out Bayer and Monsanto - the world's largest producers of cotton seeds - for failing to make sufficient interventions to eliminate child labour from farms producing cotton seeds in India.
Produced by The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) along with international partners including OECD Watch, India Committee of the Netherlands, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and Eine Welt Netz NRW, the report concedes, however, that the number of children working in this sector has declined since the two companies launched an action plan to tackle the problem.
But it says their investments in education are failing to reach children who formerly worked on cotton farms, and that Monsanto and Bayer have also failed to address the issue of a fair procurement price for farmers, which is a major factor in the continuation of cheap child labour.
Food and Feed Imports at Risk from GM Contamination
GM Pharma Crops Add to Threat
GM Freeze press release, 8 May 2007
Today, GM Freeze published an assessment [1] of which food and feed imports into the UK are at greatest risk of GM contamination. Their report concluded that maize from the USA and South Africa and rice from the USA, and the Far East are highest risk at present but warn that even limited GM testing sites can contaminate whole supply chains for some crops.
There is a growing risk of contamination of food and feed with GM pharmaceutical genes which are being engineered into food crops such as maize.
The GM Freeze report sets out a number of recommendations tougher EC regulations to reduce the risk of contaminated food entering the EU in the first place including:
•
establishment of a single competent authority in each member state for GM monitoring incoming food, feed and biofuel cargoes and enforcement of GMO traceability and labelling.
•
a legal obligation on biotech companies to provide analytical methods and reference materials for all the GM traits they have released anywhere commercially or experimentally as a pre-condition for receiving marketing or experimental consent for a GMO in the EU.
•
establishment of an EU unit to monitor development in new GM traits and new GM crops around the world to ensure the up-to-date "at risk" list of imports plus their reference materials are available to all competent authorities and EU approved laboratories at all times.
•
production of a publicly accessible and searchable website to allow food and feed companies access to this information.
•
holding cargoes comprising of crops which have been genetically modified in the country of origin at the port of entry until proven to be an approved GMO or non-GM in content.
•
the development of legally binding sampling protocols to ensure that of GM contents in cargoes can be assessed with the highest possible certainty.
•
a return to sender approach to cargoes containing unauthorised GM traits.
•
strict liability on biotechnology companies whose GM traits cause contamination for harm to health and the environment or cause economic damage.
Next year the Conference of Parties of the Biosafety Protocol meets in Bonn and GM Freeze want the EC to make sure the GM contamination issue is dealt with at this meeting by negotiating for
•
an international register of GM trait for all crops which are being field tested or commercially grown anywhere on the planet.
•
a ban on the genetic modification for pharmaceutical production in food crops.
•
a legally binding international regime that ensures strict liability for damage caused by GMOs.
The Freeze also wants the EU to provide financial and technical support to enable poorer countries to monitor their imports for GM contamination and support them to enforce border controls.
At home the report calls upon the Food Standards Agency to follow a similar programme and take GM contamination as a serious issue.
The Freeze's analysis [2] is based on over 170 plant species which have so far been genetically modified somewhere on the Earth, the extent to which they are grown commercially or on test sites and the volumes of imports into the UK for each crop. In the last three years, Europe has experienced a number of costly and illegal GM contamination incidents including:
•
GM papaya from Hawaii 2005
•
Bt10 maize from the USA (Syngenta) 2005
•
LL6021 rice from the USA (Bayer) 2006
•
Bt Rice from China (illegal commercial cultivation thought to be responsible) 2006
Most recently Mon 863 Maize (Monsanto) and Heculex maize (Pioneer Hybrid/Dow) were found to be contaminating cargo in Ireland [3] and the UK found illegal Bt63 rice in animal feed [4].
Commenting Pete Riley campaign Director of GM Freeze said,
"The analysis we have carried out should really have been done by the EU or the EU member states if they had their act together. Our proposals would greatly reduce the chances of illegal GM imports entering the food chain and make sure approved GM cargoes are correctly labelled. The politicians and regulators of the EU need to make sure they are not being made to look stupid by a biotech industry which does not appear to care a fig about consumer choice or preventing contamination.
"In the UK, politicians need to make sure that the FSA is taking GM contamination seriously. There is no sign that they are at present. There is a real risk that the next GM contamination incident could involve GM pharmaceuticals and present a real public health crisis. They have been warned!"
ENDs
Contact:
Pete Riley + 44 7903 341065 • Eve Mitchell + 44 0207 837 0642
Notes:
1. GM Freeze's Report GM Contamination imports of food and feed at risk. Measures needed to reduce the threat is available from www.gmfreeze.org/publications/contaminationanalysis/pdf
2. Details of GM Freeze's analysis can be review at www.gmfreeze.org/publications/contaminationanalysis/pdf
3. See http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI35.pdf
4. See
http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2007/apr/gmamfeed
7 June 2007
Australia: [GM] Content a threat to market: farmer
The Standard, June 7 2007. By Alex Johnson.
A CONCERNED farmer said the future of Australia's dairy industry depended on whether farmers rejected genetically modified cattle feed.
The Network of Concerned Farmers spokesman Geoffrey Carracher, who runs an irrigation property near Minimay growing white clover seed, called on dairy farmers not to use GM cotton to feed their cattle.
The network is funded by a number of farmers and local councils, including West Wimmera Shire.
"The world is our market for Australia at the moment," Mr Carracher said.
"With the introduction of GMs into Australia, our opportunities throughout the world will be reduced.
"New Zealand will pick up our milk market if we do it."
"There has been no testing of GM crops against non-GM crops so we don't know what their comparisons are, their yields (or) their agronomy."
He said the crops, modified to be resistant to pests and diseases, might not bring the benefits some farmers expect.
"They're set up for corporate profits, not farmers' profits."
Australia: GM milk anger
The Standard, June 7 2007. By Terry Sim.
[image caption: The beauty of canola fields in bloom do little to mask fears over genetically modified plants being fed to dairy cows.]
MILK is being produced on south-west Victorian dairy farms using genetically modified feeds without the public's knowledge. Now consumers are demanding to know more.
The Standard can reveal that a range of feeds with a GM content have been used on the region's farms.
Feeds with GM content include cottonseed meal, soybean and canola meal. Consumers are concerned about the impact on milk and a lack of clear labelling. Studies found no impact on foods generated from GM-fed livestock or GM crops.
Member for Western Province John Vogels said dairy factories should admit "the GM genie is long gone".
Mr Vogels said it was time to scrap Victoria's moratorium on GM crops and ensure proper risk assessments were in place.
He said south-west dairy farmers were using GM cottonseed to produce milk and other farmers were using GM canola and soymeal in cattle rations.
"If 90 per cent of cotton grown is GM and I've seen farmers feeding cottonseed to their dairy cows, then the (GM) genie is long out of the bottle," Mr Vogels said.
Mr Vogels' comments come as the Network of Concerned Farmers starts a media campaign against feeding genetically modified crops in animals' feed.
Anti-GM campaigner and director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research Dr Judy Carman said it was a `"big leap in logic to open up the doors" because farmers were already feeding GM feed to their cattle.
"If it was widely known that there was a milk company in Australia that was getting milk from cows being fed GM feeds I think you would find consumers would switch brands.
"There would be some concern - it is just that they (consumers) don't know."
Dr Carman said there had been no long-term testing on livestock fed GM feeds, consumers eating GM foods or meat grown with GM feeds. There was inadequate crop segregation, product labelling and knowledge of contamination levels to protect consumers'
interests and cottonseed oil did not have to be labelled as a GM product in Australia, she said.
Anti-GM dairy farmer in Dixie, Andrea Balcombe, has decided not to give potentially GM feeds to her cows. She said labelling laws meant consumers were not able to choose non-GM over GM products.
Mr Vogels said despite the "scare campaign" of the organics industry and anti-GM protesters, he did not believe consumers should be concerned about feeding GM feed to livestock. Research had shown there were no ill effects from people consuming GM foods, he said.
The "hypocrisy" of the State Government's moratorium on commercial GM crops was exposed by the use of cottonseed oil in vegetable oil formulations for cooking, Mr Vogels said. About a third of vegetable oil is made from cottonseed, he said.
A spokesperson for Victorian Agriculture Minister Joe Helper said industry sectors could take their own steps to prevent farmers using GM feedstocks.
"That a small amount of GM feedstocks are used for stock has relatively little bearing on the forthcoming review of the moratorium on GM canola," the minister's spokesperson said.
Canada: Protecting farms from GMOs
The Leader-Post, June 7 2007. By Arnold Taylor.
Despite the denial of class-action certification by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ("Organic farmers may appeal ruling", Leader-Post, May 4), Saskatchewan organic farmers maintain there remains a compelling legal and moral claim for damages resulting from contamination of food, field and crops, by genetically engineered canola.
After the ruling, Monsanto's Trish Jordan was quoted as saying all types of farming can coexist "with reasonable tolerances and thresholds for adventitious presence ...", and that Saskatchewan organic farmers should "focus on something positive for your industry instead of trying to criticize what other farmers want to do".
This condescending and insulting advice ignores the fact organic farmers' livelihoods depend on protecting the integrity of the food they produce in a way that meets the demand of their customers, many of whom believe contamination by transgenic material is potentially harmful.
Despite Jordan's assertions that "food and feed products containing ingredients derived from plant biotechnology crops have a solid 10-year history of safe use", consumers have reason to question the safety assessment given GMO (genetically modified organism) crops by government regulators.
A study released at a Paris press conference on March 13 2007 (in the peer-reviewed American journal Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology), revealed the Monsanto maize MON863 caused serious damage to the livers and kidneys of rats in feeding trials. Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini, who conducted the study on data initially suppressed by Monsanto, said "this maize cannot now be considered safe to eat. We are now calling urgently for a moratorium on other approved GMs while the efficacy of current health-testing methods is reassessed".
The maize was approved by the European Community on Aug. 9, 2005, and while this study deals with maize, not canola, it exposes shortcomings in the approval process for GMO products.
Saskatchewan organic farmers embrace the precautionary principle and will continue our struggle to protect organic farming and organic food from GMO contamination.
Taylor is chairman of the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate, Organic Agriculture Protection Fund Committee.
Chinese consumers wary of GMO food: Greenpeace
Reuters News Service, June 7 2007,
BEIJING (Reuters) - Consumers in China's big cities do not welcome genetically modified (GMO) food on their table, according to a Greenpeace survey, although it also showed not many were familiar with such food.
Greenpeace International has released the survey to coincide with the end of the bi-annual meeting of China's biosafety committee, which examines the safety of genetically modified crops for large-scale production.
Among consumers surveyed in the three big cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, 65 percent would not choose GMO food and 77 percent would not buy GMO rice.
But only 11 percent of respondents had "more than rudimentary" knowledge of GMO food while 59 percent had only "heard of it," the survey showed.
"Consumers' choice is likely to determine the fate of GMO rice in the country," said Ma Tianjie of Greenpeace China.
Beijing was unlikely to approve large-scale production of GMO rice, Greenpeace officials said, particularly after the European Union raised concerns over Chinese exports of GMO-contaminated rice products.
Members of the committee reached by Reuters declined to comment on any discussions at the meeting.
A series of unauthorized exports of genetically modified rice protein for use in animal feed, as well as GMO rice in noodles and powder sent to Europe and Japan had been found through tests, causing losses for Chinese exporters, said Ma.
Six out of 458 samples of rice powder exports to Japan since September had tested positive for unauthorized GMO rice, he said.
"This a warning for decision makers not to allow large scale planting of GMO rice," Ma told a group of reporters.
Greenpeace two years ago said it had identified GMO rice being sold in markets in Wuhan, Hubei province. The plant was being test-grown at a university in Wuhan.
China does not allow imported GMO soybeans to be used in foods like tofu, but it does allow them to be crushed into cooking oil used by most Chinese.
South Africa: Monsanto Warns It May Withdraw From Wheat-Seed Market
Business Day (Johannesburg), 7 June 2007. By Neels Blom.
WHEN the world's largest seed company and leading producer of genetically engineered seed asks everyone involved in the wheat value chain to help pay for its plant breeding programme in SA, one has to ask why. Is the business not profitable without an industry subsidy? If that is the case, why should it be the concern of farmers, millers and distributors?
At a presentation to the media last week, Monsanto's product manager for wheat and oil seed, Patrick Graham, said the company was sounding a warning to the wheat industry that it could not be expected to continue paying the research and development costs involved in producing new and improved cultivars.
The warning comes at the start of the winter wheat planting season and follows a market survey of farmers by Monsanto. The survey sample was taken from farmers mostly in the north of the country, with the majority from the Free State. To them, maize and wheat rank as equally important crops.
"This is not a red light but it is not a green light either," says Graham.
However, Monsanto is clear that if conditions do not change it might have to withdraw from the wheat-seed market. The company has already decided to discontinue producing soya seed in SA because the relatively small domestic market affects profitability. If farmers want the benefit of continuously improved varieties, they will have to import it at a premium.
Wheat farmers already contribute a statutory fee of R9 a ton to the Winter Cereals Trust, which finances research into the development of cultivars. At last year's production of 2,7-million tons of wheat, plus levies on imports, this amounted to about R24m.
Graham dismisses the trust's contribution as inadequate, saying Monsanto does the bulk of the development. Monsanto, among other seed companies, is a beneficiary of the trust.
When asked whether continued research into cultivar development was necessary, 99% of the farmers surveyed said yes. When they were asked who should pay for this, 54% of the farmers said the government should pay, 23% said seed companies should pay and 16% said farmers should pay. "This is pure hypocrisy," says Graham.
On the face of it, the decision of whether to stay or go should be Monsanto's alone, but the matter is not simple. As Monsanto's survey shows, the same farmers who plant winter wheat also plant maize seed in summer, for which Monsanto is the main supplier via its brands Sensako and Carnia, and agencies Pannar and Afgri, among others.
With maize being the most important crop in SA, Monsanto can ill-afford to alienate these farmers. This means it is possible to argue that the costs of one product could be offset against the profits from another. But for Monsanto there is a fundamental difference in the handling of these two products.
Maize seed, genetically modified or otherwise, sold to SA farmers consists of hybrid seeds, which means the high yields bred into them are delivered at a single planting only. This means that farm-saved seed -- the seed held back from a harvest and stored on farms for later planting -- does not produce the same yield as the first generation, ensuring a repeat market for Monsanto's product. It also results in a built-in protection for Monsanto's intellectual property rights to the seed it has developed.
Wheat seeds sold to SA farmers are not hybrids and they are not genetically modified, which means that, because of the nature of open pollination, seed saved from one year's crop and sowed again will deliver the same benefits.
Monsanto says this practice, which enjoys statutory protection in SA, erodes its revenue.
To recover these sales losses, the company wants two things: farmers and others in the value chain to pay it for the benefit of improved cultivars; and farmers who sow farm-saved seeds to be subjected to the same seed certification process imposed on commercial seed companies, even if the seed is for use by individual farmers only.
Even if its own research shows farmers reject these options, this is the message Monsanto wants the agricultural media to communicate to the industry, Graham says.
The company has other options, though, including joining the majority of the wheat industry in lobbying the government to pay for research and development. This would be based on the argument that improved cultivars are in the interests of everyone, including consumers. Monsanto will have nothing to do with this option, however, because the resultant intellectual property rights will become common property, or at least be shared with other researchers.
Another option put to Graham was to include the costs of developing cultivars in the price of seed, but this was rejected too, because it would price Monsanto out of the wheat-seed market.
Such is the nature of competition, even if your competitor is your own customer.
Similar story from 1997:
Monsanto and Novartis Blackmail Ireland
CorporateEurope.org, 1997
On May 1st, 1997 the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted Monsanto the first license in Ireland for a deliberate release of genetically modified organisms -- Roundup Ready sugar beet (a joint venture between Monsanto and Novartis). Clare Watson, founding member of Genetic Concern! sought a High Court Judicial Review of the EPA's decision to grant the license. An interim injunction prevented Monsanto from planting the genetically modified sugar beets in the Carlow test site (a government research center), and a Judicial Review was granted.
The injunction was later overturned, and Monsanto planted the genetically modified sugar beets on the same day. Not long after, members of the Gaelic Earth Liberation Front (GELF) destroyed the crop. The Judicial Review will begin on May 19th. If the Court finds that the license was improperly granted, then Monsanto will be forced to abandon its plans to field test the genetically modified sugar beets.
In the affidavit by Monsanto and Novartis, Novartis threatens that if Ireland does not permit the deliberate release of genetically modified products, then "it may well become uneconomic for Novartis to continue to supply traditional seed to the Irish market. Given the importance of Novartis on the Irish market, this would have serious implications for the Irish sugar beet industry."
Monsanto and Novartis both claim that any delays in the testing of their product will cause them to lose "millions of pounds" of potential profits. The companies are rushing to field test the sugar beets and get them on the market before the patent runs out in 2011. Monsanto has applied for licenses for five other field sites in areas all over the country.
The Roundup Ready sugar beets are designed to tolerate Monsanto's Roundup herbicide a product that currently accounts for 90% of Monsanto sales in Ireland. The sugar beets would be the first deliberate release of genetically modified organisms in the country.
"We could be coming back to a situation like the Middle Ages where producers have to depend on a single, powerful company for their livelihood." - Quebec Agriculture Minister, Remy Trudel
http://ngin.tripod.com/farming.htm
Europe:
MEPs threaten to reject minimalist EU treaty
[Comment from GM-free Ireland: note the MEP's rejection of the proposed extension of the "Qualified Majority Voting" system in the last paragraph: this currently empowers the EC - via the controversial "comitology procedure" - to automatically approve GM food and crops against the wishes of the majority of member states.]
EU Observer, 7 June 2007. By Honor Mahony.
Members of the European Parliament on Wednesday (6 June) raised the spectre of rejecting any new EU treaty negotiated by member states they consider not ambitious enough.
"You've got to listen to everyone and not just those who want less Europe," said Spanish conservative MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo, reported AFP.
"Our hands won't be trembling if we have to reject the treaty which comes out of the intergovernmental conference if we think it doesn't match our expectations," he went on to warn.
Jo Leinen, German socialist MEP and head of the constitutional affairs committee, said the parliament is against the idea of a mini-treaty and against a treaty with "all sorts of limbs cut off."
But both he and UK liberal Andrew Duff indicated the EU assembly would accept a "repackaging" of the essential parts of the constitutional treaty - rejected in referendums by France and the Netherlands in 2005.
The European Parliament's opinion on the finished text - they will only have their say on the new look treaty once member states have finished working on it - is not legally binding, meaning that technically national governments could forge ahead with it anyway.
However, a thumbs-down from MEPs, the only major EU institution with directly elected representatives, would be a major political upset and would be damaging to ignore.
According to Austrian green MEP, the parliament has so far "not been prepared to go to the wire" but it must now "stand up for what it believes."
The debate comes just two weeks before EU leaders gather for a crucial meeting on the rejected EU constitution. The German EU presidency is hoping the 21-22 June summit will secure a precise outline on what can stay in the new look treaty from the original constitution.
At the moment there are about 10 open issues. Berlin wants to secure agreement on as many of these as possible, leaving a handful to be taken over for on-going negotiations at member state level - known as an intergovernmental conference.
Among the most controversial questions are the proposed voting system and whether it should be changed (as Poland is pushing for) and whether the extension of qualified majority voting (less veto rights for member states) should be curbed.
6 June 2007
USA: GM/GMO/Biotech crop containment strategy
Rutgers Sate (University of New Jersey) press release, 6 June 2007.
New Brunswick, N.J. ‚ Plant geneticists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, may have solved one of the fundamental problems in genetically engineered or modified (GM or GMO) crop agriculture: genes leaking into the environment.
In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Rutgers Professor Pal Maliga and research associate Zora Svab advocate an alternative and more secure means of introducing genetic material into a plant. In GM crops today, novel genes are inserted into a cell nucleus but can eventually wind up in pollen grains or seeds that make their way out into the environment.
The two researchers at Rutgers' Waksman Institute of Microbiology argue for implanting the genes into another component of the cell ‚ the plastid ‚ where the risk of escape is minimized. Plastids, rarely found in pollen, are small bodies inside the cell that facilitate photosynthesis, the basic life process in plants.
"Our work with a tobacco plant model is breathing new life into an approach that had been dismissed out-of-hand for all the wrong reasons," said Maliga. "Introducing new agriculturally useful genes through the plastid may prove the most effective means for engineering the next generation of GM crops."
Skeptics had claimed that the approach was ineffective, based on 20-year-old genetic data showing that 2 percent of the pollen carried plastids. In the new study, Svab and Maliga found plastids in pollen 100- to 1000-times less frequently. This is well below the threshold generally accepted for additional containment measures.
The agricultural community worldwide seems to be embracing GM crops because the technology has the potential to deliver more healthful and nutritious crops, and increase crop yields with less use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
A "News Focus" story in the May 25 issue of the journal Science reported that genetically modified crops are flourishing worldwide, including in six European Union countries. "Last year (2006), 10 million farmers in 22 countries planted more than 100 million hectares with GM crops," it said.
There has been serious opposition to genetically modified agriculture both in the United States and abroad, coming from concerns about "foreign genes" escaping from GM crops, crossing with and contaminating other crops and wild species, and disrupting the ecosystem.
Pursuing the approach elucidated and advocated by the Rutgers researchers' findings may allay some of these fears and deflate the more vociferous arguments.
Svab and Maliga acknowledge that different strains of tobacco may produce plastid-carrying pollen at different frequencies, possibly accounting for some of the discrepancy between the old genetic data and the new. They emphasize that it will be important that any new crops that are developed be selected for low plastid pollen.
"We expect that there are nuclear genes which control the probability of plastids finding their way into pollen, but we have the tools that can be used to identify those genetic lines in every crop that will transmit plastids only at a low frequency," Maliga said.
Don't mention the G word
The Guardian (Eco soundings), June 6 2007. By John Vidal and David Adam.
Europe is edging slowly towards GMO acceptance. Who says? None other than Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, who said last week that his company was "laying the groundwork should a policy change come to pass". Does this in any way tie in with papers that Friends of the Earth Europe got out of the European Commission by using freedom of information legislation last week? Email correspondence and minutes of a meeting between the EC and the US earlier this year showed US frustrations at the EU's failure to "normalise trade" of biotech products, and at the "lack of political will to operate EU approval systems of GMOs". The US has always been a bio-bully, but Eco Soundings did like the bit in the email where the unnamed US diplomat leans on the EU to steer clear of using the term "GMOs" in order to minimise public opposition to its policies.
Cyprus wants to be declared GMO free
Reuters, June 6 2007
NICOSIA - Reuters - Cyprus wants to declare the island a GMO-free zone because it is not big enough to ensure conventional crops will remain unaffected by biotech ones, its agriculture minister said on Monday. Photis Photiou said the Mediterranean island, which joined the European Union in 2004, would also support controversial legislation now being drafted by parliament placing genetically modified food on separate supermarket shelves. Attempts by the Cypriot parliament to put foodstuffs with more than 0.9 percent authorised GMO content on separate displays had angered the United States during a previous debate on the issue in 2005.
A separation between organic, conventional and GMO crops was not possible on islands the size of Cyprus, Photiou said. "Establishing things like security zones is just an exercise on paper," Photiou told an environmental conference in Nicosia, called to launch a roadmap of government policies towards genetically modified products. "We must elucidate these arguments to back our position in detail that there cannot be any coexistence," he said.
Cyprus's farming sector is relatively small, contributing about 4.0 percent to gross domestic product. European public opinion is generally suspicious of genetically modified products, fearing health and environmental impacts. Advocates of biotechnology insist it is safe and will help eradicate world hunger by improving food supply.
A plan pursued by Cypriot legislators in 2005 to separate GMO food in shops angered the United States, which had at the time warned the move could harm bilateral ties. George Perdikis, a member of the Green's Party which tabled the proposal in parliament, said there was now broad agreement among MPs that the plan should be adopted. "We hope that it will be passed by parliament in the next month," he told Reuters. The U.S. had sent a letter to the Cypriot parliament in 2005 warning the move risked stigmatising biotech foods and could contravene Cyprus's obligations as a World Trade Organisation member.
5 June 2007
Europe: More EU states wary on GMO maize
Reuters News Service, June 5 2007. By Jeremy Smith.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Several influential EU states have dug in their heels on whether their farmers may grow one of Europe's oldest genetically modified (GMO) crops, raising the stakes in the EU's long-running stalemate over biotech policy.
The crop is a modified maize variety known as MON 810, marketed by leading U.S. biotech seeds company Monsanto.
Also known by its commercial name YieldGard, the maize type is designed to resist the European corn borer, a pest that attacks maize stalks and thrives in warmer climates in southern EU countries such as Italy and Spain.
While Monsanto says the protein contained in its maize has selective toxicity but is harmless to humans, fish and wildlife, an increasing number of the EU's 27 countries are unconvinced.
National GMO bans are the only part of Europe's biotech debate where EU countries can agree, since they see attempts by Brussels to order a government to lift its ban as an attack on national sovereignty. So, unusually, they tend to band together.
The European Commission has tried this on three occasions in the past two years and got a stinging rebuff on each occasion.
In the past few weeks, two EU agricultural powerhouse countries -- France and Germany -- entered the fray. Not only do they wield huge clout under the bloc's weighted voting system for decision-making, they also grow vast amounts of cereals.
First, Germany's government said maize produced from MON 810 seeds could only be sold if there was an accompanying monitoring plan to research its effects on the environment: a restriction that farmers say is tantamount to a growing ban.
The proposed restriction, to apply from 2008, has already been notified to Commission authorities in Brussels.
Soon afterwards, French government number two Alain Juppe, in charge of his country's environment, transport and energy policy, said in a newspaper interview that he would not exclude being "inspired" by Germany's proposed GMO ban.
Diplomats said it was too early to know if the French and German stances would affect voting for new GMO approvals -- EU countries have clashed over this for years -- but warned that it might alter the balance between 'pro' and 'anti' GMO countries.
"Even a national ban would get them into hot water with the Commission, but if it's a blanket change in position (on biotech policy) then it raises the stakes," one said.
National bans
Austria banned MON 810 maize in June 1999, around 14 months after the EU issued its original authorization. That national ban was cited, along with several others, by Argentina, Canada and the United States in an international challenge against the European Union at the World Trade Organization a few years ago.
Hungary, one of the EU-27's biggest grain producers, became the first eastern European country to ban GMO crops or foods when it outlawed the planting of MON 810 seeds in January 2005.
The same year, Greece and Poland used a provision in EU law that allows countries to decide whether to allow GMO seeds on national territory -- although a ban must be approved by EU member states to be legal. Both countries have restrictions in place against MON 810 maize.
Bulgaria's parliament has also indicated support for national restrictions for growing MON 810 maize.
EU environment ministers have slapped down several draft orders authored by the European Commission for countries to rescind their national GMO bans. This happened last February in the case of Hungary and also in December 2006, for Austria.
"We have had two councils (EU ministerial meetings) that have rejected Commission proposals (to lift GMO bans) with a large majority, and now there is this additional case in Germany," a Commission official told Reuters. "We have to look at the whole (GMO) authorization policy at some point."
Turkey: the Government is Poisoning The People
No to GMO Platform press release, 8 May 2007.
On the 16th of March the state organisation TMO (Soil Products Office) has announced on its web site that TMO will import 235.000 tons of corn for feed, from Argentina, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary and the EU.
110.000 tons of this corn was announced to be imported from Argentina.
The civil society organisations have warned the government and declared to the public that the corn, which will be imported from Argentina, might contain GMOs and must not enter the country.
But in mid april, 40.000 tons of corn has reached to Bandirma port and has been unloaded withouth any official control nor analysis.
The civil organisations have taken samples from the corn and sent them to an unofficial laboratory to be checked. Since the results show that the samples contain GM genes, they will be sent to an accredited laboratory abroad for further analysis.
On Wednesday (2nd May) two local newspapers of Bandirma have quoted Mr.Kemaloglu, general manager of TMO, stating that the corns coming from Argentina are containing GMOs but there is no regulation in Turkey prohibiting the enterance of GMO crops.
However, being a party and signatory of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (http://www.biodiv.org/biosafety/default.aspx), in compliance with the Protocol, Turkey must put into place due procedures for the import and export of GMOs under its Biosafety Law. (Turkey still does not have a Biosafety Law to control and regulate GMO issues). Therefore, the Turkish Government is acting illegally under international law. Moreover, the government does not show any respect to the demands of consumers and farmers, who do not want GM products in their country. We, the civil initiative, are blaming the governing party for poisining the people, by importing GM products to our lands and our tables.
The countries who have signed the Cartagena Protocol are committed not to ship GMOs to Turkey without an "advance informed agreement" and without due notification procedures either, so we are also warning the governments of the countries who produce and export GM crops that the Turkish people do not want your GMOs or any GM products in our country!
The principle of cautiousness requires not to import or grow GM crops in the country unless their safety is confirmed. Thus, the government that permits imports of GM crops and the officials, who do not prohibit the entry of these products with the pretext that there is no regulation about it, are guilty. The Turkish National Biosafety Law has not yet been put into force to regulate and control the GMOs; nonetheless we do not believe that any system of labeling will decrease the potential risks from and the inherently dangerous nature
of GMOs. Therefore the only precaution against genetic pollution is prevention ‚ NO GMOs.
Turkey has a rich biodiversity on genetic sources and a country that can afford food sovereignty. But our country is being colonisied by agribiotechnology companies and the biopirates with the help of their local stakeholders. Our genetic sources, land, food and life are in danger. The government that is in deadly silence, and the officials that do not care about this colonisation, must pay for their crime.
We demand from the government to stop importing GMO crops, to draw back the GM corn that has been distributed as food and feed. And we remind that this is a crime and criminals must pay for their guilt in tribunals, or get on the ships that brought the GM corns and leave.
South America: Monsanto moves to tighten its control over Latin America
GRAIN.org, June 2007.
For the past two months, the Latin American press has been inundated with news of a fresh offensive by Monsanto in several Latin American countries. The US transnational corporation appears determined to complete the invasion of GM (genetically modified) crops throughout the continent and to crush the resistance that has arisen in response to the company's attempt to control and dominate Latin American agriculture.
This time, the course along which Monsanto is rapidly and skilfully proceeding is to devise agreements with governments and some farmers' organisations. Many are cooperating with Monsanto and following in the footsteps of the largest manufacturer of GM crops in the world.
Global opinion is increasingly hostile toward GM crops. Small-farmers' organisations are denouncing the grave harm that ten years of GM crops have wrought in rural areas and on native seeds; informed consumers too are refusing, in growing numbers, to buy GM food. If Monsanto is to continue this GM invasion as in the past decade, it must promote the use of its seeds in more countries. If successful, the result will be the GM contamination of new land, the modification of laws to favour Monsanto, and increased pressure on farmers to pay royalties to Monsanto; all facilitated by willing participants in various governments and agricultural organisations. The inevitable outcome will be the imposition of these GM crops in Latin America.
In the past few weeks, we have seen a wide range of different initiatives taken at the local level which clearly illustrate Monsanto's intentions.
Read more in the "Against the grain" article here:
http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=26
USA: USDA Must Reject Permit for Engineered Eucalyptus Trees
STOP GE Trees Campaign press release, 5 June, 2007.
The STOP GE Trees Campaign is demanding the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reject a request by ArborGen to allow a field trial of genetically engineered eucalyptus to flower and produce seeds. The Campaign wants to ensure APHIS destroys the Baldwin County, Alabama field trial before it produces seeds to prevent escape of the GE eucalyptus.
"This would be a precedent-setting decision. It is the next step toward permitting full-scale plantations of non-native genetically engineered eucalyptus plantations," stated Eva Hernandez of the Dogwood Alliance. "Eucalyptus plantations would devastate our southern forests. They deplete ground water and exacerbate drought conditions. They are extremely flammable and could cause massive wildfires-even worse than the recent wildfires in Georgia and Florida. None of these concerns was even mentioned in APHIS's evaluation of ArborGen's eucalyptus field trial-it was completely inadequate. We demand that APHIS prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement to address these serious concerns," she continued.
"It is extremely important that these trees not be permitted to flower and produce seeds," stated Dr. Neil Carman of the Sierra Club. "ArborGen has taken eucalyptus, a species already widely known for its invasiveness and fast growth, and extended its range by making it cold tolerant. This means the seeds from these trees could invade areas all around the South-especially because the field trial is in an area that is historically heavily impacted by strong storms that could spread the seeds widely. GE eucalyptus could become the new kudzu," he continued.
Dr. Rachel Smolker, a research biologist, working with Global Justice Ecology Project identified a potential health threat from eucalyptus. "Eucalyptus have been found to host a pathogenic fungus that causes a fatal fungal meningitis in people exposed to it," she cautioned. "The spores of this fungus can remain dormant for long periods and have been found around the world where eucalyptus have been introduced. The establishment of plantations of GE eucalyptus in the Southeast US could become a major health threat," she added.
"APHIS is under pressure from ArborGen to approve this field trial quickly because, according to public records, the GE eucalyptus trees will begin flowering in early summer," stated Orin Langelle, Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. "APHIS received over 400 comments and documents in response to this field trial, but we are extremely concerned that they are going to rubber stamp ArborGen's request because the trees are ready to flower. These trees pose a very real threat to the South, and it is critical that concerns be addressed," he argued.
The Union of Concerned Scientists requested an extension to the deadline for comments on the GE eucalyptus, which ended on May 21, citing concerns that there was insufficient time to properly evaluate the Environmental Assessment, especially since ArborGen had refused to reveal the details of the engineered traits. APHIS rejected the UCS request.
ArborGen petitioned APHIS in 2006 for permission to extend their GE Eucalyptus field trials to allow flowering and seed production in 355 GE Eucalyptus hybrid trees grown on 1.1 acres in Baldwin County, Alabama close to the Gulf of Mexico. APHIS recently accepted public comments on the Environmental Assessment in which they recommend approval for the field trials.
Contact:
Alyx Perry, WildLaw, Southern Forests Network, tel + 1 828 277 9008
Neil Carman, Sierra Club tel + 1 512 472 1767
Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project, + 1 802 482 2689
The STOP GE Trees Campaign is a program of Global Justice Ecology Project and includes thirteen member groups such as Sierra Club, Dogwood Alliance, Southern Forests Network, WildLaw, Rainforest Action Network and the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.
4 June 2007
New Zealand: Actor speaks out over GM crop trial
The Dominion Post, 4 June 2007. By Paul Easton.
After battling resurrected dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park, Kiwi actor Sam Neill should know a thing or two about the dangers of tinkering with nature.
The Hollywood star has come out swinging over a decision to allow field trials of genetically-modfied crops near Christchurch.
A 10-year trial growing pest-resistant GM foods was recently approved by the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma).
Erma general manager, new organisms, Libby Harrison, said the field test will be subject to strict controls to ensure the crops stayed within the test site and did not enter the food chain.
But from his Queenstown home, Neill said the decision was "potentially disastrous for New Zealand farmers, primary producers, exporters and indeed the country".
Neill, who runs the environmentally friendly Two Paddocks wine label in Central Otago, said New Zealand's clean, green image was at risk with the move.
"At a time when New Zealand produce is unfairly being characterised as a criminal source of carbon, it must be self-evident that the perception of New Zealand as sustainable, GM free, clean and greener than ever must be nurtured at any cost."
Crop and Food research leader Dr Mary Christey, who will run the trial, said the goal of her research was to find ways to keep crops free from caterpillar damage without using synthetic pesticides. General manager, research, Prue Williams, said New Zealand scientists must continue to explore the benefits of GM technology.
But Neill called for the trial to be abandoned. He has a keen environmental focus, and is patron of the Mid Dome Wilding Trees Charitable Trust. He has also joined efforts to rein in subdivision around Queenstown.
Text of Sam Neill's letter:
ERMA's (Environmental Risk Management Authority) decision to allow a few scientists to grow GM vegetables at Lincoln beggars belief. Interesting science for a few men in white coats, but potentially disasterous for NZ farmers, primary producers, exporters and indeed the country.
At a time when NZ produce is (unfairly) being characterised as a criminal source of carbon [because of concerns over the food miles involved in exports], it must be self-evident that the perception of NZ as sustainable, GM-free, clean and greener than ever must be nurtured at any cost. Our survival depends on it.
ERMA should know better, the government should know better. The price of a butterfly-proof cauliflower [GM cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and forage kale modified with various, modified Bt toxins] is too high. The Government needs to intervene before the brains at Lincoln are let out of the lab.
3 June 2007
World: Anti-G8 protest: Resistance is Fruitful!
BayIndymedia,June 3, 2007, Rostock, Germany.
[shortened]
Under sunny skies the 2nd day of mobilizations in Rostock, Germany took place under the theme of "Resistance is Fruitful".
A colorful march peppered with strange genetically modified beasts and plants in puppet form, yellow anti-GMO balloons, rocked to a live stage towed by an immense tractor, as well as a delicious samba drum corps, conducted a tour of exploitative agribusiness and genetic businesses in Rostock.
The international participation in the anti-G8 demonstrations is undeniable. The second day of actions against the G8-summit, taking place under the banner "Resistance is Fruitful", denounced its agricultural policies. Farmers, peasants, small producers, landless people and agricultural workers from countries around the world, including Canada, Nicaragua, Brazil and Nepal, participated strongly represented by, among other groups, Via Campesina.
Read the article: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/06/03/18424171.php
USA: Group condemns Dept. of Justice approval of Monsanto - Delta Pine Land merger
Merger Will Harm Farmers Through Increased Seed Prices, Reduced Choices
Monsanto's Monopoly Causing Serious Harm to U.S. Agriculture
Center for Food Safety press release, 3 June 2007.
Washington, DC - The Center for Food Safety today blasted the Dept. of Justice's (DoJ) approval of Monsanto's $1.5 billion buyout of cotton seed giant Delta and Pine Land (DPL). Monsanto holds a virtual monopoly in biotech traits deployed in genetically engineered cotton and soybeans, and is also the world's largest seed firm. Delta and Pine Land sells over half of U.S. cotton seed, and in 2004 was the world's eleventh largest seed firm. The National Black Farmers Association and the Center for Food Safety had urged DoJ to block the merger. The American Antitrust Institute and leading agricultural experts had warned DoJ the merger could seriously inhibit competition, limit choices and raise prices.
'Monsanto technology is already in 95% of biotech cotton. This merger will strengthen Monsanto's monopoly, meaning increased seed prices and reduced seed choices for American farmers,' said Bill Freese, science policy analyst at Center for Food Safety (CFS). Freese authored a report on the merger based on exhaustive analysis of USDA data that was submitted to DoJ in February of this year.
'The Department of Justice's failure to block this clearly anticompetitive merger is inexcusable,' said Joseph Mendelson, CFS Legal Director, noting that DoJ officials approved the merger despite sharp criticism from Senators on the Judiciary Committee, and that DoJ has not gone to trial to block a proposed merger since 2004.
'We often get calls from farmers being sued by Monsanto for allegedly saving the company's patented seeds. These farmers tell us that Monsanto's steep biotech fees, together with rising fuel and chemical costs, are driving them to and over the edge of bankruptcy,' added Mendelson.
CFS's report shows that cotton seed prices have risen 240% since 1995, due primarily to rising biotech fees Monsanto adds to the price of genetically engineered seeds containing it