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30 June 2008

GM Foods: The U.S. fights mandatory labeling in an untested human experiment

The U.S. and several other nations recently attended a Codex meeting in Calgary, Canada to discuss food labeling.

Natural News Network, 30 June 2008.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission implements the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Program, the purpose of which is to protect the health of consumers and to ensure fair practices in the food trade. The Codex Alimentarius (Latin, meaning Food Law or Code) is a collection of internationally adopted food standards presented in a uniform manner. One of the principle reasons for this forum was to discuss the necessity, or lack of necessity as the U.S. sees it, to set up mandatory labeling of GM (genetically modified) and GE (genetically engineered) foods for consumers. South Africa (SA) and many African countries are strong dissenting voices of the U.S. policy that all GM/GE foods are considered equal to non-GM/GE foods and are in fact deemed safe under a 1992 George H. W. Bush Executive Order.

Under this official policy, all GM/GE foods are not required to undergo any kind of safety testing before entering the market. Below you will find the exact policy of the FDA concerning GM food:

"FDA relies primarily on two sections of the Act to ensure the safety of foods and food ingredients. Generally, whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and grains, are not subject to premarket approval. The primary legal tool that FDA has successfully used to ensure the safety of foods is the adulteration provisions of section 402(a)(1). The Act places a legal duty on developers to ensure that the foods they present to consumers are safe and comply with all legal requirements. FDA has authority to remove a food from the market if it poses a risk to public health. Foods derived from new plant varieties developed through genetic engineering will be regulated under this authority as well" [1].

Hence, nearly every modified food in the U.S. is completely untested for safety. This is very noteworthy for two reasons: (a) the U.S. leads the world in GM/GE foods (with up to 80% of its prepared and prepackaged foods being modified); and (b) every other nation besides the U.S. tests all GM/GE food before they are put into the food chain. Several African nations have dubbed GM/GE foods as "lethal" and believes the U.S. is fulfilling a population reduction strategy in Africa.

During the CODEX meeting, SA, who has been demanding that Codex provide them with distinct and mandatory GM/GE labels, presented a 10-page document expressing this view. In this document the following critical points were made:

1. Unmet Religious and Ethical Concerns of Christians and Jews

a. Corruption of Divine Protection

South Africa pointed out that in nearly every country there are various religious groups with differing beliefs when it comes to ingesting certain foods. South Africa stated that these "religious and ethical concerns must be noted and respected through global mandatory labeling of foods derived from genetic engineering and biotechnology must take into account ethical and religious concerns" [2] (CCFL, 2008, p. 1). For example, kosher Jews and Halal Muslims would wish to know whether the corn they were eating had been modified with a gene from pigs. Similarly, vegetarians would certainly wish to avoid vegetables which contained animal genes inserted into them and have an ethical right to know if this was the case.

B. Moral and Ethical Protection

SA contends that Codex and the WTO (World Trade Organization) assure protection of the moral, ethical and religious rights of Christian and Jewish believers. Therefore, mandatory labeling is essential to ensure these rights are preserved. If, for example, a Christian believed that God created the heaven and earth as well as all living creatures (including food), then a serious ethical concern would arise if he or she wanted to avoid such modified foods but had no realistic way to do so.

2. Unintended Consumer Health Effects

a. Psychological and Emotional Health

SA rightfully argued that the introduction of GM/GE foods violate the principles and mandates of Codex which are in place to protect the health of the consumer. In Norway, a report on GM/GE foods stated that, "some customers may experience strong ethical, religious, emotional or other objections for purchasing certain foods. These perceived risks may influence their health. These aspects of health should also be considered when the needs for new standards are discussed"[2]. Hence, the labeling of GM/GE foods should be mandatory under such an assumption.

B. Unknown Effects of Consumption of GM/GE Biotech Foods

Due to the lack of testing on GM/GE foods, safety is a significant concern for many individuals. These individuals may wish to avoid such food out of legitimate concern for their well-being. Antibiotic-resistant super diseases may be created if the antibiotic gene inserted into most GM foods would transfer into the consumer. Furthermore, some concerning results have been evinced from animals consuming GM/GE foods. GM DNA has been found in every organ (including fetuses) of animals eating these types of food.

C. Nutrient Non-Equivalence

SA contend that plants genetically modified may not be nutritionally equivalent, bio-available and can possibly possess toxic anti-nutrients [11]. There is no nutritional information for such foods, which raises the possibility that the modified nutrient could be toxic. Different and modified forms of nutrients may be present, which may make these foods unsafe. South Africa concluded that the risks from GM/GE food fall outside the realm of non-modified food and therefore, require strict labels.

D. Post Market Surveillance Impossible Without Labeling

Safety concerns are never over once food reaches consumers. For example, The National Institutes of Science in the U.S. reported in June of 2004 that workers processing GM celery contracted severe rashes, especially when exposed to direct sunlight. Labeling would allow handlers and consumers to become cognizant of potential risks involved with eating and processing such types of foods. Based on the principles of Codex, SA stated that it would be inconsistent and dangerous to adopt anything other than mandatory labeling of GM/GE foods. Furthermore, the absence of adequate labeling of GM/GE foods essentially equates to human experimentation without informed consent. According to Nuremberg Code,

"The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved... All inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person, which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment" [12]. According to SA, mandatory labeling will allow implied informed consent, which will allow consumers to opt in and out of the experiment if they choose to do so.

After SA had submitted their highly researched rationale behind the mandatory labeling of GM/GE foods, the U.S. and its allies (e.g., Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia) jumped all over them and stated that extensive research clearly supports that GM/GE foods are safe, therefore, no labeling is necessary. This is obviously not the case (as presented by SA) and delineates the inter-meshed interests and historical marriage between U.S. and large food corporations (i.e., Monsanto, who produces up to 90% of GM/GE seeds and foods). Following the overwhelming condemnation of SA's paper from the U.S. and the extra procedural requirements the U.S. pushed for because of these comments, the SA government had it subsequently withdrawn.

As a result of this development and the constant battles with the corporations of the U.S. and their biased agendas, SA called another meeting and declared they would circumvent Codex and create their own labeling system with or without their agreement. Countries like Swaziland, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt, Cameroon, Sudan, Nigeria, South Africa and several other African countries with Japan, EU, Switzerland, Norway and many other countries stated their commitments to the mandatory labeling.

The meeting concluded with an agreement to eliminate all previous labeling documents and keep the door open for the future possibility of international labeling of GM/GE foods at a later date, which was strongly opposed by the U.S.

References:

1. Nutrition, U. S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. FDA's Policy for Foods Developed by Biotechnology. 2008 [cited May 27, 2008];

2. CCFL 2008. Comments from South Africa Agenda Item 5. [cited May 27, 2008];

3. Ho, M.W., GM soya fed rats: stunted, dead or sterile. Science in Society, 33: (in press).

4. Ho, M.W., Mass deaths in sheep grazing on Bt cotton. Science in Society, 2006. 30: p. 12-13.

5. Ho, M.W., GM ban long overdue. Dozens ill & five deaths in the Philippines. Science in Society, 2006 29: p. 26-27.

6. Ho, M.W. and S. Burcher, Cows ate GM maize and died. Science in Society, 2004. 21: p. 4-6.

7. Ho, M.W., Transgenic peas that made mice ill. Science in Society, 2006. 29: p. 28-29.

8. Pusztai, A., S. Bardocz, and S.W.B. Ewen, Genetically modified foods: Potential human health effects, in Scottish Agricultural College, J.P.F. D'Mello, Editor. 2003, CAB International: Edinburgh.

9. Fares, N.H. and A.K. El-Sayed, Fine structural changes in the ileum of mice fed on dendotoxin-treated potatoes and transgenic potatoes. Natural Toxins, 1998. 6: p. 219-233.

10. Novotny, E., Avoid GM food, for good reasons. Science in Society, 2004. 21: p. 9-11.

11. Allinorm 08/31/34. Report of the Seventh Session of the Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Foods Derived from Biotechnology, Appendix III,. 24-28 September 2007: Chiba, Japan.

12. Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, in Vol. 2. 1949, U. S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. p. 181-182.

Here's transparency for you, The EU's invisible lobbyists

New Europe, 30 June 2008.

Well, skeptics who said the European Commission's voluntary registration for lobbyists who prowl the halls of Brussels looking to influence EU leaders and lawmakers with money and delusions of grandeur wouldn't work had to eat their words. The first day the spineless system was set up, the estimated 15,000 lobbyists who slink around the corridors of power were knocking each other down to sign up.

By day's end, 17 apparently sucker companies who are now the laughingstock of their peers were on the list, although it soon swelled to 42, proving that Siim "Pushover" Kallas, the European Commission vice-president in charge of the imaginary audit and anti-fraud unit, was right when he said the system was "an important moment of cultural change" and shouldn't be obligatory. "We think a voluntary system can be even more efficient than a mandatory system," Kallas said, but when asked how, his eyes rotated like a slot machine, Euro signs appeared and then he rolled over and fell asleep, just the way industry likes their Commissioners to do.

Kallas has been emasculated so many times by his peers that if it happens again the Commission can say they finally have another woman on board. The only people lamer than him are those at Telefonica, the Spanish telecom giant which was the first to sign up, revealing they spent 950,000 Euro in 2007 lobbying EU institutions. Now their rivals know what Telefonic's doing and don't have to report what they're doing because the voluntary system says companies and groups don't have to say exactly how much they spent or who got the money.

To pretend they're regulating the people who are the real leaders of the EU, the chemical and auto industries and business federations who have a lot to lose if laws are passed requiring them to have a conscience, the European Cockaigne set up the phony voluntary system. Coming next: voluntary registration for paedophiles, bank robbers, rapists and embezzlers, but they don't have to list their names, just an estimate of how many people they've robbed, raped, murdered or stolen from, and approximately how much. Many lobbyists, excepting those who work for most nongovernmental organisations and genuinely humane groups, are unscrupulous protozoa, and they love this voluntary system because it begs them to just estimate their wrong-doing as they co-opt EU officials.

What do you expect from a Commission which refuses to reveal who is getting their fat little contracts and hides the real reason they won't be tough on lobbyists: because one day they want to be rich lobbyists and avoid conflict of interest appearances before they do. How bad is it? Monica Frassoni, a Member of the European Parliament from Italy and the Greens Party, said they've counted at least 30 staff members at the European Commission getting paid by big companies to do their bidding and be their moles.

"They arrived as 'national experts,' but are paid by industry," she said. She said Kallas made an attempt to be tougher but was sat down in his chair by other Commissioners, especially President Jose Manuel Barroso and his righthand bag man Gunter "Nudo boy" Verheugen, who is so deep in the pockets of industry they may have to name a new sharkskin suit after him. He was the guy who gutted the REACH chemical law at the behest of industry, his many critics and opponents said.

The United States has a mandatory registration system for lobbyists because otherwise there'd be so much power-brokering and money influence over Congress that the culture of corruption would be almost as prevalent as it is in Europe. Money corrupts, but lots of money corrupts absolutely.

"We said this is one of the very few things in which we can imitate the Americans, but the Commission didn't want to do it," said Frassoni. "The Barroso Commission is permeable to lobbyists," she said. And in the tank. European politicians have deluded themselves into thinking they can take money from lobbyists without a quid pro quo. "There is a sincere impressions members and politicians can resist it," she said. "They think there is nothing wrong if a lobbyist asks them to do something and they don't want to do it." Until, of course, the lobbyists voluntarily stop putting their names where it counts - on the checks.

Comment by GM Watch:

In a UK context see also:

Exposed: the arms lobbyist in Parliament 'We'll ask the questions that you can't, without your fingerprints,' he tells clients
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exposed-the-arms-lobbyist-in-parliament-854313.html

Peer was paid to introduce lobbyist to minister
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/oct/26/lords.immigrationpolicy

And then we have the lobbyists intimately tied into the governing Labour Party, like Lexington Communications which represents the biotech industry:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=137

EU biofuels target 'probably a mistake,' France says

EU Observer, 30 June 2008. By Leigh Philips.

The noose is steadily tightening around the neck of EU biofuels targets, with France on Monday (30 June) saying that the EU's 10 percent biofuels target may have to be reconsidered, in the latest attack on the renewable energy drive.

"Probably we will be obliged to call into question or postpone the 10 percent objective," said French ecology minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet speaking to reporters in Paris, according to the Reuters news agency.

She added that developing a target for the controversial fuel source was "probably a mistake" and that the EU had proposed things the wrong way round: setting environmental and social criteria for the production of biofuels should have been developed first and then any target should have been drafted to match that.

The EU in 2007 agreed that 10 percent of all transport fuel should come form renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020 as part of a wider overhaul of its energy sector. "On biofuels, we do not rule out in the long-run reconsidering the target," Ms Kosciusko-Morizet said.

With France taking over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Tuesday (1 July), the statement carries added weight, and follows on from a call from Italy earlier in the month for the bloc to review the target.

"We took with too much haste the decision on an objective that is not reachable," said Italian economic development minister Claudio Scajola in early June.

The UK as well is expected to shortly adapt its position on biofuels with the expected release this week of the Gallagher Report, a review of Britain's biofuels policies.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the working group set up by the European Commission and EU member states to consider how to develop environmental and social criteria on biofuel production and imports is close to agreement on a set of standards.

Quoting the Slovenian diplomat appointed to chair the group's discussions, Miran Kresal, the news agency says the group is likely to include language preventing the use of biofuels grown in habitats of endangered species, or biodiverse savannahs and grasslands, as well as land whose use has resulted in significant net emissions of carbon dioxide.

Legally binding labour standards were ruled out by the group due to concerns that such a move would not pass muster with the World Trade Organisation. Instead, the group will be looking to task the European Commission with the job of strict monitoring of social standards.

The key concern of environmentalists - the amount of CO2 emitted - who in the last year have moved from being supporters of biofuels to campaigning against their use, remains a source of contention within the working group, however.

Biofuels and food prices

The group has not developed any criteria relating to the possible effect of biofuels on food prices. While the European Commission has repeatedly argued biofuels policies have had a negligible impact on food costs, the UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.

The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, a figure backed by the International Food Policy Research Institute. The World Bank, however, says that biofuels have contributed to 65 percent of the price rises.

Dragan Barbutovski, a spokesperson for the Slovenian presidency of the EU, told EUobserver "The working group was set up long before the food crisis was high on the EU's agenda."

"As such it only ever had a mandate to assess potential sustainability criteria for the fuel quality directive and the renewable energy directive," he added.

An Impossible Coexistence: Transgenic and Organic Agriculture
First field study [on coexistence] in Europe carried out by a researcher from the UAB Institute of Environmental Science and Technology

Innovations Report, 30 June 2008.

The cultivation of genetically modified maize has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivations of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible. This is the main conclusion reached in one of the first field studies in Europe carried out by a researcher of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who has analysed the situation in Catalonia and Aragon, Europe's main producers of transgenic foods.

The study was carried out by researcher Rosa Binimelis of the UAB Institute of Environmental Science and Technology. Binimelis is working on the European project ALARM (Assessing Large Scale Risks for Biodiversity with Tested Methods) and analyses the application of the concept of coexistence between Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and conventional organic agriculture in the European Union. The results of the research have been published in Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics.

Since GM cultivation was introduced in Spain in 1998 it has been surrounded by controversy, and in the past few years has evolved into a debate over the concept of coexistence between transgenic and conventional organic agriculture. This concept was introduced in 2002 by the European Commission with two objectives: to deal with the emerging concerns derived from the admixture of different cultivations, since organic farmers are committed to not using GMOs, and to make it easier to lift the existing "de facto" moratorium - which is not officially recognised - within Europe so as to introduce new transgenic cultivations. Thus the concept of coexistence, after applying technical measures, should make it possible to operate freely in the market while reducing the political conflicts linked to GMOs. The European Commission is planning this year to evaluate how the policy of coexistence has been implemented in the past ten years.

Before GMOs were introduced previous studies in this area were carried out using modelling or experimental cases, due to the lack of commercial fields in most European countries. Researcher Rosa Binimelis however analyses the situation in Catalonia and Aragon, where the commercial cultivation of transgenic crops began in 1998. This research is therefore unique and especially relevant to the European Commission's assessment scheduled for this year and involved qualitative techniques by means of 51 in-depth interviews and participant observation (twenty-two interviews with farmers while the remaining were held with key political figures, including government representatives, scientists, academics, as well as NGO members and other organisations and platforms).

The situation of both types of cultivations in 2007 was the following: the surface used to plant transgenic maize in Catalonia and Aragon was respectively 23,000 ha and 35,900 ha, which represent 55% and 42% of the total surface used to cultivate this crop. The variety of maize grown is the Bt corn, which is designed to ward off the European corn borer and is used mainly for feed production. The maize production process is integrated in cereal cooperatives, which cover the entire production chain from the sale of seeds and inputs to commercialisation, including technical advice. This system involves numerous infrastructures, which makes it difficult and expensive to segregate GM from organic and conventional production. There are no specific silos for organic maize while only a minority of cooperatives in the region restricts the use of GMOs. In parallel, organic agriculture is in expansion in Spain, increasing in the number of producers and hectares. However, this trend is reverted for the case of maize.

The author's analysis reveals a social confrontation between proponents and opponents of GM technology regarding the consequences it can have and the measures to be taken in regulating and taking responsibility for any cases of admixture. Confrontation also exists when trying to define technical measures that would guarantee this coexistence since there are many doubts about its objectives. Finally, the study analyses the difficulties organic farmers would face in order to claim compensations if admixture took place, due to technical uncertainties in measuring the level of "contamination" or its origin, but also because of possible social confrontations and doubts about how the GM technology was introduced. In addition, many farmers who could sue for damages prefer not to in order to avoid any local confrontations in small villages.

As a result, the area devoted to organic maize was reduced by 75% in Aragon from 2004 (year in which the first analyses were carried out) to 2007 and by 5% in Catalonia between 2002 and 2005. The percentage in Catalonia is lower because the only available data come from the first years of the analyses, when the cultivation of GM maize was not as widespread as it is today. The trend was confirmed by organic certification bodies for the following years. This will lead to even more difficulties in obtaining local organically grown maize.

Given this context, the research concludes that both the concept of coexistence and different implementation proposals have generated new problems instead of solving existing conflicts. By making farming models and the interpretation of their impacts an individual choice, the only issues taken into account in the system of compensation are individualised and economically valuable aspects. The results until now point to the promotion of genetically modified farming over any other alternative.

Octavi López Coronado

Source: alphagalileo

Further information: www.uab.es

The Food, Climate, and Energy Crisis: From Panic to Organic

JUST Newsletter, June 2008. By Ronnie Cummins, Common Dreams News Center.

Rising food prices and shortages have joined the energy and climate crisis, economic recession, and the war in Iraq, as headline news. While consumers struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table, Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland rake in billions from taxpayer-subsidized biofuels. Monopolizing markets, polluting the environment with genetically modified organisms, and hoarding future reserves of crop seeds, wheat, rice, soy, corn, and other grains, the food and gene giants profit from global crisis and misery. Adding fuel to the fire, Wall Street speculators have shifted their greed from sub-prime mortgages to food and non-renewable resources.

The public are becoming aware of the causes of the food crisis: millions of acres of corn and soybeans diverted into biofuels; corporate-driven free trade agreements that discourage nations from maintaining grain reserves and becoming self-sufficient in food production; massive subsidies for industrial agriculture and a misguided export model that have forced millions of family farmers off the land; sharply escalating oil prices, farm inputs, and transportation costs; commodity speculation; population growth; a growing demand for feed grains for meat consumption, and, most ominously, a destabilized climate spawning deadly droughts, pests, floods, and unpredictable weather.

Fortunately, there are hopeful signs that we can move beyond crisis to positive solutions. Connecting the dots in our food-climate-energy crisis, millions of green consumers are voting with their dollars for foods and products that are healthy, locally produced, energy efficient, and eco-friendly. A growing number of politicians, mainly at local and state levels, are also waking up.

Organic food and farmers markets are booming. Chemical-free lawns and gardens, green buildings, solar panels, wind generators, "buy local" networks, and bike paths are sprouting. A critical mass of organic-minded Americans are waking up to the fact that we must green the economy, drastically reduce petroleum use and greenhouse gas pollution, re-stabilize the climate, and heal ourselves, before it's too late.

For 10,000 years locally based family farmers and ranchers managed to grow and distribute healthy food, and ample feed and fiber, largely without the use of petroleum-based chemical fertilizers, toxic pesticides, animal drugs, or energy-intensive irrigation, processing, and long-distance transportation.

In 1945 most of the U.S.'s six million family farmers were still rotating their crops and cultivating a wide variety of fruits, grains, beans, and vegetables organically, fertilizing with natural compost, and generally practicing sustainable farming methods they had learned from their parents and grandparents.

By 1945, as part of the war effort, Americans were growing a full 42 percent of our vegetables and fruits in our backyards, schoolyards, and community Liberty Gardens.

The nutritious, primarily non-processed foods that people cooked for their family meals were purchased from locally owned grocers who stocked their shelves with a wide variety of items - typically grown or raised within a 100 mile radius of our communities.

In the 1950s the average American household spent 22 percent of our household income for fresh, locally produced food. Currently we are spending 13-15%, though low-income households are spending 30-35%.

By today's standards the post-war generation was relatively healthy in terms of low rates of diet-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, food allergies, birth defects, and learning disabilities.

Sixty years later we have a Fast Food Nation, living in denial (at least until recently), gorging ourselves on the industrialized world's cheapest and most contaminated fare, allowing out-of-control politicians, corporations and technocrats to waste our tax money on corporate welfare, destroy the environment, starve the poor, wage a multi-trillion dollar war for oil, and destabilize the climate.

The good news is that there is a solution at hand. Turning back to the time-tested practices of local, eco-friendly, organic food and farming will go a long way toward restoring our health and the health of the planet. Revitalizing democracy and bringing our politicians to heel will guarantee that these organic and green alternatives become the norm.

Organic and local farms dramatically reduce energy use in the agricultural sector by 30-50 percent while safely sequestering in the soil enormous amounts of greenhouse gases. Decades of research have shown that small farms produce far more food per acre than chemical farms, especially in the developing world, and that organic farms outperform chemical farms (by 40-70%) under the kind of adverse weather conditions that are quickly becoming the norm. Buying local and regionally grown organic products means food doesn't have to travel 1500-3500 miles before it reaches your kitchen.

Crisis demands change. We must continue to buy local and organic foods and green products. Patronize farmers markets. Start or expand your garden. Move your diet away from restaurant fare and over-consuming meat and animal products. Buy in bulk and cook your meals at home with healthy whole foods ingredients -vegetables, fruits, beans and grains. If you're going to eat meat or animal products, make sure they're both organic and grass-fed or free range. Most important of all, get political. Demand an end to the war. Demand healthy and sustainable food and farming, energy, and climate policies from your local, state, and federal elected public officials9or else vote them out of office. Don't panic - go organic. To press the politicians on these burning issues, go to http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org.

Ronnie Cummins is National Director of the Grassroots Netroots Alliance http://www.grassrootsnetroots.org/.

The Rise of Food Fascism: Coup in Bolivia

New American Media Rountable, 30 June 2008. By Roger Burbach.

[Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.]

Like many third world countries Bolivia is experiencing food shortages and rising food prices attributable to a global food marketing system driven by multinational agribusiness corporations. With sixty percent of the Bolivian population living in poverty and thirty-three percent in extreme poverty, the price of the basic food canastaóincluding wheat, rice, corn, soy oil and potatoes, as well as meatóhas risen twenty-five percent over the past year with prices gyrating wildly in the local markets.

As in most other countries affected by the food crisis, the overall rise in food prices is attributable to the workings of the free marketówhen the price of one or several commodities goes up, the consumers turn to other food stuffs, thereby driving up these prices as well. In an effort to halt the effects of this unregulated market, the government has enacted price controls and even prohibited the export of beef, most of which is produced on haciendas. But these measures have been largely ineffective: A black market flourishes as agrarian commercial interests openly flaunt the central government's price controls, even directly exporting commodities like beef and cooking oil at higher prices to the neighboring countries of Chile and Peru.

This is taking place as Bolivia's first Indian president, Evo Morales, is facing a sustained challenge by a right wing movement for autonomy that is integrally linked to the very agribusiness corporations that are profiting from the upsurge in food prices. Based in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, a powerful agrarian bourgeoisie is determined to upend the government's agrarian reform program and to halt Morales' efforts to more equitably distribute the wealth that flows from Bolivia's oil and gas fields. Its ultimate goal is to topple Morales and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) that backs him.

The corporate dominated agro-industrial complex in Santa Cruz is centered on the growing, processing and export of soy beans. Two of the world's largest agribusiness multinationals, ADM and Cargill, play a major role in the regional economy. They are primarily exporters of Bolivian soybeans and sunflower seeds while ADM co-owns with a Bolivian firm the largest vegetable oil processing plant, Sociedad Aceitera del Oriente. (1) Giant agribusiness corporations like John Deere have commercial outlets in Santa Cruz as Bolivia manufactures no heavy agricultural machinery. Multinational companies supply most of Bolivia's agrichemicals, while Monsanto and Calgene are promoting genetically modified seeds. Peruvian and Colombian agribusiness interests have also set up processing plants in Santa Cruz, including the Romero Company from Peru which has joint international operations with Cargill, while large soy growers from the neighboring Brazilian state of Mato Grosso have settled on Bolivian lands.

The agrarian bourgeoisie of Santa Cruz is orchestrating the movement for provincial autonomy in order to seize control of the region's extensive resources from the national government. The referendum on autonomy that was unconstitutionally voted on and approved in Santa Cruz on May 4, 2008 would allow the provincial administration to write its own contracts with multinationals and to exercise direct control over the police and law enforcement agencies. Autonomy would also enable the province to override national legislation promoted by Morales and MAS on agrarian reform and the control of public forests and subsoil rights, including natural gas and oil.

The economic policies favoring the rise and consolidation of the agrarian bourgeoisie allied to global agribusiness took shape in the mid-1980s when the International Monetary Fund stepped in with a structural adjustment program. Hyper-inflation had gripped the country from 1983-85 and in exchange for the refinancing of Bolivia's public and international debt the government agreed to a series of "market reforms," including the reduction of tariffs and the slashing of state subsidies and assistance for the growing of basic food commodities. (2)

These measures overturned the strong role the state had come to play in the economy with the Bolivian revolution of 1952. Along with the nationalization of the tin mines, the worker and peasant backed revolution led to an agrarian reform that broke up the hacienda system in the Andean highlands which had bound much of the Indian population to the land in virtual servitude. With the takeover of the large estates by peasants, rural unions and Indian communities, the production and marketing of basic food stuffs increased, particularly in the 1950s and early 60s. (3)

But another agrarian dynamic began to take shape in the eastern part of the country during these years. Bolivia has three main geographical zones; the Andean highlands or plateau in the west where the agrarian reform was concentrated; the valleys located more in the center and to the south; and the plains or low lands that extend into the more humid and tropical regions in the east.

In the 1960s and 70s, a new landed class emerged in the low lands centered in the province of Santa Cruz. Seizing control of large swaths of the plains and rain forests, often illegally or through government concessions acquired through bribes, the new landed barons raised sugar cane and cotton while plundering the rain forests for lumber. The reactionary character of this region was manifested early on when General Hugo Banzer from Santa Cruz overthrew a leftist general backed by a popular assembly in 1971, ruling the country with an iron hand for seven years, much like the military regimes in other countries in the Southern cone that took power in the 1970s. (4)

The IMF reforms of 1985 privileged the role of Santa Cruz vis-ý-vis other parts of the country. With the privatization and closure of many of the state tin mines in the Andean highlands, tens of thousands of miners were thrown out of work. Many migrated to the Chapare region in the south-central part of the country, becoming coca farmers, while others went to the east to squat on small patches of land and serve as an agrarian labor force for the large estates that were favored with credits and infrastructure loans backed by the World Bank. Then in the 1990s vast tracts of land were turned over to the cultivation of soybeans and by the turn of the century Bolivia's export revenue from soy production was second in importance only to that of the natural gas and oil fields.

The rise of this agribusiness complex has plundered the natural resources of eastern Bolivia. As the frontier for soybeans advances further into the rainforests, the older depleted lands are either abandoned or turned into extensive cattle grazing pastures. Given the highly mechanized nature of soy farming, there are few employment opportunities in the countryside for either the local indigenous population or for those who migrate from the Andes searching for work. As Miguel Urioste, the director of the Land Foundation in La Paz explains: "This mono export modelópromoted actively by the World Bank for 15 yearsóis a lamentable demonstration of how, those that decide public policiesÖin the third world, do not take into account the enormous environmental costs or the lamentable economic and political effects produced by this model. The monocultivation of soy has concentrated land in a few hands, it has transnationalized property rights, it has impeded new humanely planned settlements and concentrated thousands of poor peasants without lands to generate wealth, employment and well being." (5)

While Bolivia ranks among the world's ten top soy exporters, the production of domestic food stuffs by the peasantry has stagnated or declined and the urban population has come to rely more and more on imported grains. Today Bolivia imports sixty-nine percent of its wheat, forty-five percent of its rice, and forty-two percent of its corn. (6) In 2004, even the World Bank was compelled to admit: 'the rural economy is increasingly polarised between the small peasant sector producing foodstuffs, on the one hand, and the agro-enterprise sector producing cash crops for export, on the other'. (7)

The Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, a business organization lead by agribusiness interests, is at the center of the drive for provincial autonomy. According to Bret Gustafson, an analyst of the Santa Cruz elite and its political and cultural institutions: "The Civic Committee is an unelected entity dominated by business and agro-industrial elites who have a long history of resisting control of, and demanding subsidization by, the central government. Typical business members include the private chamber of commerce, the cattlemen, the agro-livestock chamber, the industrialists, the forestry chamber, the soy-producers chamber, and professional organizations (doctors, lawyers, architects). Other "civic" members include representatives of provincial civic committees, of carnival comparsas, and of social clubs or "fraternities." (8)

Branko Marinkovic, the powerful head of the Civic Committee whose parents migrated to Bolivia from Croatia in the 1950s, is the largest landowner in the country with 300,000 hectares, much of it obtained for pennies or fraudulent maneuvers under past dictatorial and oligarchic governments. (9) He also has considerable business investments, including IOL S.A., one of Bolivia's largest soy and sunflower processing plants. A political ideologue of the autonomy movement, Marinkovic funds and sits on the board of the think tank Fundacion Libertad y Democracia that has ties to the Heritage and Cato Foundations. (10)

The Cruceño Youth Union (UJC), a junior men's organization affiliated with the Civic Committee, is the strong arm of the Civic Committee, often acting as shock troops for the autonomy movement. During the plebiscite in May its members, mainly in their teens and early twenties, roamed the streets of the city of Santa Cruz and surrounding towns violently attacking and repressing any opposition to the referendum by local indigenous movements and MAS-allied forces. Not wanting to provoke a violent confrontation, Evo Morales did not deploy the army or use the local police, leaving the urban areas under the effective control of the UJC when the voting took place.

The other less densely inhabited provinces in the east that make up what is called the Media LunaóPando, Beni and Tarijaóhave held referendums calling for autonomy under similar conditions. On the national level, the major political party of the right, Podemos (We Can) tied up the efforts of a popularly elected Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution for over a year and it is now maneuvering with other political forces in La Paz to block a national referendum to enact the constitution.

Simultaneously, the right wing lead by the Civic Committee is sewing economic instability, seeking to destabilize the Morales government much like the CIA-backed opposition did in Chile against Salvador Allende in the early 1970s. As in Chile the business elites and allied truckers engage in "strikes," withholding or refusing to ship produce to the urban markets while selling commodities in the black market at high prices that cause alarm among the poor. The national Confederation of Private Businesses of Bolivia is calling for a national producers' shutdown if the government "does not change its economic policies." (11)

The social movements allied with the government are mobilizing against the right wing. In the Media Luna a union coalition of indigenous peoples and peasants has campaigned against voting in the autonomy referendums and taken on the bands of the UJC as they try to intimidate and terrorize people. In the Andean highlands, the social movements have descended on La Paz in demonstrations backing the government, including a large mobilization on June 10 that stormed the American embassy because of its support for the right wing, particularly over the US refusal to extradite a past president who ordered the shooting of demonstrators in the streets in 2003. Because of this growing unrest, the country is awash with rumors of a coup, and Morales went to a summit in Caracas in mid-June with Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Carlos Lage, vice president of Cuba, to discuss how to defend his government.

The ability of the agrarian interests of Bolivia to take the country to the brink of civil war is reflective of the powerful agrarian bourgeoisies that have arisen in many countries of the third world in tandem with global agribusiness. When national governments attempt to control the steep increase in food prices, or popular movements agitate for agrarian reform and food sovereignty, they encounter powerful internal agro-industrial interests, in effect a fifth column nurtured and developed by the multinational corporations in conjunction with the World Bank and the IMF.

This new configuration of power is particularly manifest in South America. In Argentina when President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner tried to levy an export tax on soybeans, the large growers orchestrated a rebellion that has tied up the country's exports and food marketing system for over three months. In neighboring Brazil, the agrarian bourgeoisie is perhaps the strongest and most entrenched in the Global South. Over the years it has fought a running war with the Landless Movement, violently repressing the efforts of the poor to peacefully occupy and till idle lands. In October last year at the genetically modified seed experimental station of Syngenta (the world's largest agrichemical corporation) five peaceful demonstrators were shot and one killed: The NT Security company that carried out the attack has close ties to the Rural Society, a right wing growers association known for repeated acts of violence against the Landless Movement. (12)

Some argue that that we are witnessing the rise of "petro-fascism" as multinational corporations and nation states struggle for control of the life-blood of the global economy. (13) Now with the efforts of the multinational agribusiness corporations and the agrarian bourgeoisies to control the very sustenance of human life we may be facing an even more violent period of repression, conflict and upheaval.

Roger Burbach is director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, CA. He has written extensively on Latin America and US foreign policy. His first book, co-authored with Patricia Flynn, was "Agribusiness in the Americas." See www.globalalternatives.org for CENSA activities and publications.

Special thanks to Isabella Kenfield for her editorial assistance.

End notes:

1. Ximena Soruco (Coordinador) Wilfredo Plata and Gustavo Medeiros, Los Barones del Oriente: El Poder en Santa Cruz Ayer y Hoy, Fundacion Tierra, Observatorio de la Revolución Agraria en Bolivia, La Paz, Bolivia, pp. 206-12. www.ftierra.org

2. For a description of how the IMF and the World Bank imposed these structural adjustment programs on other countries in the Global South, see Walden Bello, "Manufacturing a Food Crisis," The Nation, June 2, 2008.

3. Cristóbal Kay and Miguel Urioste, "Bolivia's Unfinished Agrarian Reform: Rural Poverty and Development Policies, ISS/UNDP Land, Poverty and Public Action, Policy Paper No. 3, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands and United Nations Development Program, New York, NY, October, 2005, p. 11-13.

4. Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons: Popular Struggle in Bolivia, Verso Press, London, 2007, pp. 85-6.

5. Miguel Urioste, "El Banco Mundial Promovio los Moncultivos en Bolivia Durante 15 Anos", Fundacion Tierra, May, 2008.

6. Marcos Nordren Ballivian, "El Precio de los Alimientos," Foros del Banco Tematico, June 11, 2008. Bancotematico.org

7. Kay and Urisote, p. 15.

8. Bret Gustafson, "Spectacles of Autonomy and Crisis: Or, What Bulls and Beauty Queens have to do with Regionalism in Eastern Bolivia," Journal of Latin American Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006, p. 363.

9. BolPress, "Movilización para Aplastar la Conspiración Oligárquico-Imperialista en Bolivia," Unidad de Promoción Indigena y Campesina, Boletin N. 45, 20 de Mayo, 2008, boldpress.com

10. Bret Gustafson, "By Means Legal and Otherwise: The Bolivian Right Regroups," NACLA Report on the Americas, January/February, 2008, p. 25. Article

11. La Prensa, "La CEPB Amenaza con Paro y el Gobierno Percibe Complot," La Paz, June 21, 2008.

12. Isabella Kenfeld and Roger Burbach, "Corporate Murder in Brazil: Landless Rural Worker Shot by Security Company Hired by Multinational Syngenta," Strategic Studies, Global Alternatives, October, 2007.Globalalternatives.org

13. See Michael T. Klare, "Behold the Rise of Energy-Based Fascism," Tomdispatch.com, January 20, 2007. Tomdspatch.com

MNCs vying to monopolise Pakistan's agriculture, food

Pak Tribune, June 30 2008.

KARACHI: Pakistan is set to ink an agreement with the US multinational company Monsanto before the advent of the next cotton season to introduce Bioinsecticide Cotton (Bt Cotton) in the country.

This move, critics fear, could ultimately pave the way for the monopolisation of the seed business in Pakistan. "For the time being, Pakistan has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Monsanto but we hope to sign an agreement with the company before the beginning of the next cotton season," Abdul Qadir Baloch, Federal Crop Commissioner, told media.

He rejected the notion that the agreement would lead to the monopolisation of the seed business, and ultimately, of food and agriculture in Pakistan. "Cotton leaf curl virus is a big problem for this country. Previously, it was called Multan curl virus, then it was termed Burewala curl virus. We have been trying to contain it since 2000. By the time we sign an agreement with Monsanto, our research will be completed and the company will insert its virus resistant gene into our varieties," he said.

Many independent scientists beg to differ with Baloch and fear repercussions of the highest order once Bt Cotton is introduced in Pakistan officially. 'Bt Cotton has been sown in India by a joint venture company comprising Monsanto and the results have been disastrous. Thousands of farmers had a very poor cotton crop and suffered losses,' said Dr Azra Talat Sayeed, a PhD in social pharmacy who works with Roots for Equity, a non-governmental organisation.

She argued that since Pakistan and India have similar climatic conditions, there was every chance that Pakistan would bear the same losses as India. She said Monsanto maintains that transgenic cotton or Bt Cotton does not require pesticide spraying on the crop but all evidence until now has shown that there was no reduction in pesticide spraying.

'This basically means that Monsanto will not only reap profits for its Bt Cotton but also on its pesticide which is the prescribed one for Bt Cotton, all at the cost of poor, small farmers of Pakistan,' she cautioned.

'The issue is not confined to Bt Cotton. It is of accepting transgenic seeds per se. Once we allow genetically modified seeds in the organism we are accepting Bt Rice and Bt Corn, all of which are potentially hazardous, genetically modified organisms. This will give agro-chemical crops total monopoly over our food and agriculture,' she said.

However, Monsanto Pakistan rejects these apprehensions. Amir M Mirza, spokesman for Monsanto Pakistan in a query from media, said: 'Introduction of Bt Cotton through legal means will provide the Pakistani farmers access to technology which has been successfully commercialised in other major cotton-producing countries, where millions of farmers are benefiting from it. Other public and private technology providers, both foreign and indigenous, are free to introduce their technologies - farmers will have the choice to decide on which technology they would like to use, their decision will of course be based on which technology gives them the maximum benefit.'

He also disputed that farmers have suffered after the introduction of Bt Cotton in India. 'There have been numerous socio-economic studies done by credible third party agencies highlighting the tremendous value Bt Cotton has created for Indian farmers and society at large.' Elaborating, he said: 'Five years from the introduction of Bt Cotton in India, the Bt cotton area has soared from slightly over hundred thousand acres to 15.3 million acres grown by approximately 4 million small and resource-poor farmers the yields have gone up by up to 50 per cent, insecticide sprays have reduced by half, and the farm income at the national level has increased up to $1.7 billion as compared to $840 million in 2006.'

Genetically-modified seeds have already been illegally sown in Hyderabad and Sanghar districts in Sindh and in different areas of Punjab through smuggled seeds from India but the outcome has not been encouraging.

Monsanto, having made inroads in India, one of the world's largest cotton producers, has been trying to break into the Pakistan market to sell GM cotton seeds since 2002 despite the reservations of scientists and lack of bio-safety laws. In a country short of water, Monsanto has been making much of the fact that Bt Cotton needs less water than the staple food crop of rice.

Cotton is vital for Pakistan's economy and poor farmers in the country live under an exploitative landholding system and more than 30 per cent of the population is condemned to live below the poverty line. Bad irrigation practices and droughts have made growing crops increasingly difficult and the country, which used to export grain, now has to import it.

Cotton harvesting is done between October and December. After this, ginning begins and the crop starts coming into the market by the middle of the year. Cotton accounts for 8.2 per cent of the value addition in agriculture and about two per cent of GDP. The Punjab grows more than 70 per cent of the crop alone.

Dr Abid Azhar, professor and co-director general, Dr AQ Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, University of Karachi, said: 'All multinational corporations have their commercial and economic interests and we have to strike a balance between their commercial interests and the interests of our economy and well-being of the community.'

Elaborating, he said: 'It may be true that genetically modified varieties could have a better yield but their affects on human health could not be ignored. On the one hand, the economic interests of the farmers have to be protected, on the other, the health of the community at large should be safeguarded.'

He went on to add: 'There have been several reports on the adverse effects of these varieties on human health in India and elsewhere,' he pointed out. But Aamir Mirza of Monsanto denied these conclusions and claimed that there were no adverse affects of GMOs on human health.

'Several scientific publications continue to document safety information about the genetically-enhanced crops,' he said. Whether Monsanto or the concerned academics and NGOs are right on this all-important question, the public will only know when it is too late. Our decision-makers have already decided to move ahead on this controversial plan.

GM meal may provide day's nutrition

PA News (Texas, USA), 30 June 2008.

Genetic engineering has been used to fortify a staple root crop grown in poorer parts of the world with enough vitamins, minerals and protein to provide a day's worth of nutrition in a single meal.

The genetically modified cassava can also resist infection by damaging plant viruses.

It is easier to prepare than normal cassava, which must be soaked and dried for days to remove cyanide-producing substances before being eaten.

Studies are also under way aimed at extending the plant's shelf life so it can be stored or shipped.

Researchers plan to field test the product in at least two African countries by 2010. It is hoped the GM cassava will help millions of people hit by soaring food prices around the world and suffering from malnutrition.

The BioCassava Plus project is funded with more than £6.1 million donated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charity set up by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his wife.

Professor Richard Sayre, from Ohio State University in Columbus, US, said: "This is the most ambitious plant genetic engineering project ever attempted.

"Some biofortification strategies have the objective of providing only a third of the daily adult nutrition requirements since consumers typically get the rest of their nutritional requirements from other foods in their diet.

"But global food prices have recently gone sky high, meaning that many of the poorest people are now eating just one meal a day, primarily their staple food.

"So what we're working on has become even more important in the last year than it was when we started, not just in regions where people are malnourished, but across developing countries where food has gotten so expensive that people can't afford the diverse diet that they're used to."

Comment by GM-free Ireland:

Note that the crop's performance has not been field-tested, and the the researchers only "hope" to do so in 2010!

29 June 2008

Home-grown veg ruined by toxic fertiliser
Gardeners across Britain are reaping a bitter harvest of rotten potatoes, withered salads and deformed tomatoes after an industrial herbicide tainted their soil. Caroline Davies reports on how the food chain became contaminated and talks to the angry allotment owners whose plots have been destroyed

The Observer (UK), 29 June 2008.

Gardeners have been warned not to eat home-grown vegetables contaminated by a powerful new herbicide that is destroying gardens and allotments across the UK.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has been inundated with calls from concerned gardeners who have seen potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables wither or become grossly deformed. The society admitted that it had no idea of the extent of the problem, but said it appeared 'significant'. The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid has been sprayed on fields.

Dow AgroSciences, which manufactures aminopyralid, has posted advice to allotment holders and gardeners on its website. Colin Bowers, Dow's UK grassland marketing manager, told The Observer that links to their products had been proved in some of the cases, but it was not clear whether aminopyralid was responsible for all of them and tests were continuing. 'It is undoubtedly a problem,' he said, 'and I have got full sympathy for everyone who is involved with this.'

He said the company was unable to advise gardeners that it was 'safe' to consume vegetables that had come into contact with the manure because of pesticide regulations. 'All we can say is that the trace levels of aminopyralid that are likely to be in these crops are of such low levels that they are unlikely to cause a problem to human health.'

The Dow website says: 'As a general rule, we suggest damaged produce (however this is caused) should not be consumed.' Those who have already used contaminated manure are advised not to replant on the affected soil for at least a year.

Aminopyralid, which is found in several Dow products, the most popular being Forefront, a herbicide, is not licensed to be used on food crops and carries a label warning farmers using it not to sell manure that might contain residue to gardeners. The Pesticides Safety Directorate, which has issued a regulatory update on the weedkiller, is taking samples from affected plants for testing.

Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops. In response, Dow launched a campaign within the agriculture industry to ensure that farmers were aware of how the products should be used. Nevertheless, the herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat.

It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.

Bryn Pugh, legal consultant at the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners, said he was preparing claims for some members to seek financial compensation from the manure suppliers. But it was extremely difficult to trace the exact origins of each contaminated batch. 'It seems to be everywhere. From what I know, it is endemic throughout England and Wales. We will be pressing the government to ban this product,' he said.

Aminopyralid is popular with farmers, who spray it on grassland because it controls weeds such as docks, thistles and nettles without affecting the grass around them. It binds itself to the woody tissue in the grass and only breaks down when exposed to bacteria in the soil.

Shirley Murray, 53, a retired management consultant with an allotment near Bushy Park in Hampton, south-west London, said several of her allotment neighbours had used the same manure bought from a stables and all were affected. 'I am absolutely incensed at what has happened and find it scandalous that a weedkiller sprayed more than one year ago, that has passed through an animal's gut, was kicked around on a stable floor, stored in a muck heap in a field, then on an allotment site and was finally dug into or mulched on to beds last winter is still killing "sensitive" crops and will continue to do so for the next year,' she said.

'It's very toxic, it shouldn't get into the food chain. You try to be as organic as you can and we have poisoned ourfood. I've been everywhere, emailed all the right people, but nobody will speak on the record to guarantee what is safe to eat. We all think it is a scandal. Not to mention what it has cost in time and money.'

Pesticide expert Professor Vyvyan Howard, a toxico-pathologist at Ulster University, said it was 'a very powerful herbicide' but in his opinion was 'unlikely to pose any human health risks'. However, advice about its use should be strengthened, he said. 'I think the thing that is going to drive this is the commercial damage that could be done to market gardeners,' he said.

Guy Barter, the RHS head of horticultural advisory services, said they were receiving more than 20 calls a week. 'Our advice is not to eat the vegetables because no one seems to have any idea whether it is safe to eat them and we can't give any assurances,' he said. 'It is happening all over the country. A lot of cases we are seeing is where people have got manure from stables and the stable have bought their hay from a merchant, and the merchant might have bought hay from many farmers, possibly from different parts of the country. So they have no idea where the hay came from. So finding someone to blame is quite difficult.' Weedkiller in the soil should dissipate by next year, but in stacks of contaminated manure it might take two or more years to decay, he added.

Dow is planning a major publicity campaign to reiterate warnings to farmers over usage, and to encourage allotment holders to check the provenance of manure that they put down in an effort to prevent the problem escalating. On compensation, it was less forthcoming. 'There is no easy answer to that,' said Bowers. 'The first port of call is always where the manure comes from. From that point on, I can't really comment.

'The chain is horrendously complicated. In the cases we have managed to trace back, we might find that the farmer who supplied the manure didn't spray anything himself, but he might have bought in a couple of bales of silage from one of his neighbours, and that farm might have sprayed.'

Robin and Christina Jones spread a large amount of manure over their flower garden and vegetable patch at their home in Banstead, Surrey. When the potatoes failed, Robin took a sample to the RHS, which identified aminopyralid. His neighbour, who bought from the same source, suffered the same problems. 'We have lost 80 per cent of our vegetable patch,' said Jones, 65, a retired sound engineer. Raspberries, French beans, onions, leeks, even a newly planted robina tree were all affected. 'We are distraught. But what worries me is that the courgettes look very healthy. Had we not had the problem with the potatoes, we might never have realised. Now we are advised not to eat them.

'This is a very serious issue, and people must be made aware of the advice not to eat vegetables grown in contaminated manure.'

Sue Ainsworth, 58, an education consultant, said around 20 allotments at her site in Hale, Cheshire, had been affected. 'We first noticed with the potatoes. As they came through, they were deformed, all curled over and rotten underneath. But the worry is that the courgettes also planted on the manure are fine - but are they safe to eat? This must have affected thousands of people. I am really worried about this product and really think it should be withdrawn.'

She said the farmer who supplied the manure said he had used nothing unusual. 'But he may have bought in the straw and genuinely knew nothing about the herbicide used.'

Susan Garrett, 57, an IT consultant, said 20 plots were affected at her allotment in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. 'And that is just the plants we can see are damaged. We are angry it has been allowed to happen - not with the chemical company, but because there doesn't seem to be any protection for us or anything to stop it happening again.'

What's the solution? Join the debate and find out more on our food blog: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/2008/06/mutant_vegetables_whos_to_blam.html

Farmers praise GM crops in EU study

The Independent (UK), 29 June 2008. By Vanessa Mock.

European farmers who grow genetically modified crops enjoy higher yields and revenues than conventional growers, according to a new study.

Scientists from the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission's scientific body, surveyed more than 400 Spanish farmers who grew Bt maize - the only GM crop allowed for cultivation in the EU. They found they produced higher yields and earned up to €122 more per hectare (£50 per acre) than conventional maize farmers.

It is the first time scientists have looked into the impact of GM in Europe, said Dr Emilio Rodriguez Cerezo, who led the research. "There are definite economic advantages for farmers for the reason that their crops are not destroyed by pests," he said.

The European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, wants to remove regulatory obstacles to the controversial technology, arguing that GM crops could counter soaring food prices. However, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who takes over the EU presidency tomorrow, will be calling for more controls on GM organisms. Environ-mental groups accuse the GM industry of exploiting the global food crisis to win approval for its products.

Comment by GM-free Ireland:

This research by the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) must be taken with a grain of salt.

Even if the study's claims that GM maize cultivation has produced higher yields in Spain is correct, the introduction of GM farming has caused massive economic losses to neighbouring conventional and organic farmers who have been contaminated against their wishes, depriving them of their human right to grow natural GM-free crops, forcing them to apply the GM label to their product, putting organic farmers out of business, and making it impossible for conventional and organic farmers to grow the GM-free produce which the majority of consumers demand.

For details, see the related article above under 30 June: "An Impossible Coexistence: Transgenic and Organic Agriculture - First field study [on coexistence] in Europe carried out by a researcher from the UAB Institute of Environmental Science and Technology"

Now for the salt. In 2000, the European Commission requested the JRC's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies to investigate the so-called "co-existence" of GM crop with conventional and organic farming. The resulting 133-page "Scenarios for Co-existence" report, completed in January 2002, concludes that GM crops inevitably contaminate conventional and organic crops and may cause 40% higher production costs for EU farmers. It states that all farmers would face high additional, in some cases unsustainable costs of production if GM crops were commercially grown in the EU on a significant scale. Download report: www.gmfreeireland.org/downloads/gmcrops_coexistence.pdf (1.3mb PDF file).

But the head of the JRC, Irishman "Dr." Barry McSweeney wrote to the EC recommending that the report should not be made public, stating "given the sensitivity of the issue, I would suggest that the report be kept for internal use within the Commission only."

The JRC suppressed the report until Greenpeace released the leaked document in May 2002.

The Irish Minister for Health, Mary Harney, subsequently appointed the disgraced McSweeney to the newly-created post of Chief Scientific Officer of Ireland. He was later forced to resign from this post when it was discovered that he bought his PdD from the so-called Pacific Western University, an online institution which US authorities describe as a "diploma mill". For details see www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI22.pdf

McSweeney was replaced as current Chief Scientific Officer of Ireland by Prof. Paddy Cunningham, who is a member of European Action on Global Life Sciences (EAGLES); this is a task force of the European Federation of Biotechnology - www.efbweb.org - whose members include Monsanto Europe, the Association of German Biotech Companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (USA), etc.

28 June 2008

Drought-resistant wheat beats Australian heat

New Scientist, 28 June 2008.

WILL Australia's farmers fall for the charms of drought-resistant wheat, even if it's genetically modified? Faced with climate change and a growing food crisis, enthusiasts certainly hope such traits will help overcome aversion to GM technology.

Of 24 strains of GM wheat tested in field trials, two lines exceeded the yield of the non-GM variety by 20 per cent under drought conditions, according to German Spangenberg of the Victoria Department of Primary Industries in Melbourne, Australia. The results were presented last week at the Bio2008 convention in San Diego, California.

Environmental groups remain unconvinced. "The main driver of genetic engineering is to make it possible to patent crop strains. That won't help farmers in developing countries who need to keep back seeds for their next year's crop," says Louise Sales of Greenpeace Australia in Sydney.

Australian farmers may yet be persuaded. The forecast for this year's wheat crop has just been trimmed by 9 per cent because of dry conditions, although it may still be up by 10 million tonnes compared to last year's drought-devastated crop.

GM Organisms - Is GM the future? Learn more in our continually updated special report: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/gm-food

27 June 2008

Agri-biotech industry hijacks Irish Government discussions on GMOs

Open letter to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Brendan Smith, TD
Dáil Eireann
Kildare Street
Dublin 2
Ireland

Friday 27 June 2008

Re. Hearing of evidence on GMOs by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

Dear Minister,

We are alarmed that the Joint Oireachtas [Parliament and Senate] Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is preventing a fair and balanced discussion on GM food and farming, at its next meeting on 2 July.

The Committee has invited 7 representatives from organisations which sell, use, or promote GM food and farming. These include Monsanto, Syngenta, Teagasc, the European Action on Global Life Sciences lobby group, and 2 pro-GM scientists from UCC [1]. Note that GM crops are grown on less than 2% of the world's farmland.

But the Committee has only invited 1 or 2 representatives from the GM-free Ireland Network, the umbrella group representing 130 diverse organisations which support the agreed Programme for Government to declare the Island of Ireland as a GMO-free crop zone and protect the reputation of Irish beef and dairy exports by encouraging the use of certified non-GMO animal feed. Note also that this group has the largest number and broadest diversity of stakeholders of any NGO in Ireland; its members (together with the populations of the 19 Local Authorities which have declared their areas to be GM-free zones) represent over 1 million citizens; and many of them depend on their ability to produce the safe GM-free conventional and organic food which the vast majority of EU retailers and consumers demand.

This democratic imbalance is a totally unacceptable abuse of Oireachtas procedure, and is also in breach of the Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision making, signed by Ireland and the EU.

The agri-biotech industry is trying to use the rising costs of animal feed and food in a cynical attempt to force the EU member states to approve more patented GM seeds and GM feed and food against the wishes of the vast majority of their farmers, retailers and consumers. The industry now wants the member states to accept three proposals. The first is for the EU to scrap the "zero tolerance" policy for unapproved GM ingredients, by allowing up to 5% of untested GM ingredients to enter our food chain. The second proposal is to approve the introduction of GM agrofuel crops which have substantially contributed to rising feed and food prices; and the third is to approve GM pharma crops that would contaminate our food chain in perpetuity with pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals.

18 different organisations in our Network contacted the Committee Chairman, Johnny Brady TD, requesting him to reschedule the discussion to a date in September so as to allow equal representation from both sides, including experts on the health, agronomic, biodiversity, environmental, economic, legal, and food security implications to be nominated by our constituents. We are dismayed by Mr. Brady's failure to reply, and by a phone call from the Committee Clerk who said the Committee has ignored our requests.

We therefore urge you ó in your Ministerial capacity as an ex officio member of the Select Committee in accordance with Standing Order 92(1) ó to invite the Joint Committee to take the following actions:

•

Please re-schedule the discussion on GM food and farming to September, so as to give adequate time for an equal number of stakeholder representatives from both sides to clear their schedules;

•

Kindly invite 7 expert speakers to be nominated by the GM free Ireland Network;

•

To avoid the typical misrepresentations and misunderstandings that characterise the polarized and technical nature of any discussion on GM issues, enable the Committee to clarify, discuss and question opposing and contradictory statements in the presence of those who make them, by considering the views of all the invited stakeholders in a single sitting (instead of in two or three separate or back-to-back meetings).

We know your remit does not empower you to instruct the Committee, but hope you will communicate our request to its members, bearing in mind the recent U.N. International Assessment of Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report which found that GM crops are not the solution to world hunger, the food security imperative to reduce our dependency on fossil fuel and chemical inputs, and the growing market trend for safe environmentally sustainable agriculture worthy of our reputation as Ireland ó the food island.

We hope you will give this request your immediate attention, and respond to us as soon as you can.

Yours sincerely

Michael O'Callaghan
Co-ordinator, GM-free Ireland Network

with and on behalf of:

Vincent Cleary, Managing Director, Glenisk Organic Dairy
Josef Finke, Director, Ballybrado Ltd and Good Herdsmen Ltd
Charles Stanley-Smith, Chairman, An Taisce ó The National Trust for Ireland
Bruce Darrell, Executive Committee, FEASTA ó the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability
Michael Ewing, Senior Researcher and Aarhus Convention expert, Sligo Institute of Technology
Dr. Elisabeth Cullen, Secretary, Irish Doctors Environmental Association
Lorcan Cribbin, Commissioner-General, Euro-Toques Ireland ó The European Community of Cooks
John McKenna, Publisher, The Bridgestone Guides
Paolo Tullio, Food critic, Host, The Restaurant, RTE
Giana Ferguson, Convener, Slow Food Ireland
Darina Allen, Director, Ballymaloe Cookery School
Jill Bell, President, Irish Association of Health Stores
Se·n McArdle, Director, Irish Farmers Markets Ltd
Kate Carmody, Chairperson, Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association
Michael Miklis, Biodynamic Agricultural Association of Ireland
Anita Hayes, Founder, Irish Seedsavers Association
John Brennan, Chairman, Western Organic Network
Cornelius Traas, Chairman Irish Apple Growers Association
Anthony Ardee, Killruddery Farm
Tony Lowes, Director, Friends of the Irish Environment
Anja Murray, Natural Environment Officer, An Taisce ó the National Trust for Ireland
Davie Phillip, Education Manager, Cultivate
Dr. Ruth McGrath, Chairperson, VOICE of Irish Concern for the Environment
Karin Dubsky, National Coordinator, Coastwatch Ireland
Sr. Marian O'Sullivan, Director, Dominican Ecology Centre, Wicklow
Julie Newman, Director, Dominican Organic Farm, Wicklow
Ian Wright, Project Coordinator, Irish Natural Forestry Foundation
John Haughton, Director, Forest Friends Ireland ó Cairde na Coille
Andy Wilson, Director, Sustainability Institute
Aodhagan Downey, Chair, Sonairte ó The National Ecology Centre
Bob Wilson, Director, CELT Centre for Environmental Living and Training
Brendan Price, Director, Irish Seal Sanctuary
Kerry O'Neill, Director, Glendalough Fayre
Fr. Se·n McDonagh, Columban Missionaries
Caroline Robinson, Secretary, Cork Free Choice Consumer Group
Ross Lewis, Owner/Chef, Chapter One Restaurant, Dublin

cc. An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen

Endnotes

1. The Commitee invited the following 7 representatives from the pro-GMO side:

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Dr. Patrick O'Reilly, Manager, Monsanto Ireland;

•

Syngenta: TBA.

•

Irish Grain & Feed Association: TBA.

•

Prof Jimmy Burke from Teagasc, which will host an international conference promoting GM seeds and crops from 24 - 27 August at UCC, on behalf of a Canadian biotech industry front group called the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC) Foundation, managed by Ag-West Bio Inc. and funded by Monsanto. ABIC's Board of Directors includes Jimmy Burke (the former head of Teagasc Crops Research), the conference chair Ashley O'Sullivan (a former Monsanto employee), Roger Kemble (President of Syngenta Biotechnology Inc), and Malcolm Devine (former employee of Aventis CropScience and Bayer CropScience)!;

•

Prof David McConnell from EAGLES (a task force of the European Federation of Biotechnology - www.efbweb.org - whose members include Monsanto Europe, the Association of German Biotech Companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (USA), etc.

•

Dr. Charles Spillane from UCC Dept of Biochemistry (who has the Canadian government agent Shane Morris in his lab): www.ucc.ie/spillane/pages/members.html

•

Prof. Fergal O'Gara from BIOMERIT Research Centre, UCC Dept of Microbiology (which is developing GM soil bacteria): www.ucc.ie/biomerit

Growing debate on GM

Europe is the battleground for GM companies that are promoting their seeds as a solution to the global food crisis.Europe Correspondent Ann Cahill attended international confererence it Italy that looked at the issue

The Irish Examiner, 27 June 2008.

Just when you thought the great GM debate had gone away, it is back with a bang. The soaring price of food and fuel has put it back on the agenda as multinational GM companies insist the answer to the problems are to be found in their products.,

Critics hit back saying that despite years of research, there are no GM products tha can withstand drought or excessive heat. Instead, evidence from India shows the varieties available are not suitable for many areas and they frequently need too much fertiliser, water, weed and pest killers.

Europe is the principle [sic] battleground for GM companies because if they can reduce the EU's resistance to the genetically engineered crops, they create a massive new market for themselves, and will be closer to ridding resistance in the rest of the world.

As one of the world's main importers of food, and Africa's biggest customer, the EU's refusal to take GM means these exporting countries won't plant them.

Not only has the EU approved a very small number of GM products as being safe for consumers, but also it has set a tolerance threshold of 0.9% for GM material in food and feed, otherwise it must be labelled clearly as GM.

This low level means that a consignment of non-GM can be easily contaminated and several incidents have been discovered over the past few years. One of the more recent involved experimental, and so untested rice mixed in with ordinary rice in the US last year. It cost the industry an estimated $1.2 billion (€761.5m) in lost produce and good will.

Countries do not wish to fall foul of this kind of catastrophe. But the EU's health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou is preparing a proposal to allow a quantity of unauthorised GM in a non-GM consignment, probably less than 1%.

Following the demands of consumers, the EU and its member states have insisted that GM must be shown not to harm human health or the environment before it can be allowed to be grown here.

Critics argue that permitting a quantity of unauthorised GM, however small, in a product is unacceptable and will open the door to less stringent controls.

So far the only GM crop available for cultivation in the EU is Bt maize. It is being grown in just seven countries, the largest crop being in Spain, where 20% of maize is now genetically modified.

GM feed for animals is imported into most EU countries, including Ireland, where most of imported animal feed is genetically engineered. There have been no long-term studies on whether GM feed affects the food chain and despite fears that eating GM food increases allergies in humans, the effect of drinking milk and eating meat from GM fed animals has not been tested.

Arguments in favour tend to emphasise problems such as food supply and rising prices and suggest GM is a solution. For instance, retiered Oxford Professor Chris Leaver contends that GM is safer than salmonella or other toxins in food and suggest the GM actually prevents these.

The US is the home of GM, with dozens of varieties - mainly maize, soya, cotton and rapeseed and they now make up the majority of many of those crops grown. But last year alone, thre were 900 field trials of new varieties in North America.

These field trials are seen by anti-GM campaigners, and by many scientists, as a softening-up exercise by the big GM seed companies.

Ireland has had six GM trials in the past few years mainly on herbicice tolerance and fungus resistance in sugar beet and potatoes.

Similar trials have been conducted around the world but experts like Austria's Environmental Agency expert Dr Andreas Herssenberger says they can be risky, as it is difficult to ensure these untested varieties of GM product do not escape and contaminate the environment around.

Greenpeace discovered recently that a field trial of a virus-resistant GM papaya organised by Cornell University in the US and the Thai government had contaminated the natural papaya trees.

Dr Janet Cotter, senior scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories in the University of Exeter, said: "Everyone grown a papaya in their back garden. The government took drastic steps to eliminate the contamination. This was an exercise that backfired badly instead of paving the way for more GM."

The EU's insistence on testing has spawned a whole industry, centered on the European Commission's Joint Research Centre that works with more thatn 140 national and other laboratories worldwide. They have developed much of the testing mechanisms being used by other countries including China, India and Brazil.

They gathered together more than 600 scientists and others involved in the business on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy this week to discuss how to harmonise testing for GMs to ensure every country can meet the same standards.

But even risk assessment is a controversial issue, with the big GM producers saying it adds considerably to their costs. And the three-day conference was criticised by some as having too many speakers who were too biased in favour of the industry.

Perhaps this was because the organising committee was top heavy with US interests. Even though most of them appeared to be European, Brussels-based bodies like Europabio are dominated by their US members such as Monsanto.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), established just five years ago to be the EU's independent agency, has a question mark over its independence. It cleared the GM Amflora potato produced by the German company BASF as safe, but the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Insitut Pasteur and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said they are concerned that the antibiotics used in it would make people resistant to the drugs.

The EFSA also cleared two GM maize varieties produced by Syngenta and Pioneer/Dow, that produce their own pesticide. However, in light of widespread controversy about their safety, it said they were unable to carry out legally-required assessment of environmental impacts.

The fact that some of their senior staff left and joined major GM companies has not improved confidence in EFSA either.

European Commission President José Manel Barroso has joined the fray in suggesting GM could be the answer to lowering food prices in Europe, and has commissioned a study on whether large-scale expansion of GM would curb food prices.

The French, who take over the EU's presidency next week, have said they want to focus on GM and insist they are not in favour. This should creat a significant debate on GM in the EU over the coming months.

What is GM?

A specific gene is taken from another plant or animal and inserted into a seed. Those available make the product, such as maize, produce its own pesticide or make it resist attack from specific herbicides.

The seeds are patented and more expensive than non-GM. Some are infertile and so cannot be saved for use the following year, while others that can have reduced resistance to pests or herbicides.

Normally, the herbicide-resistant strains can be sprayed only with a weed killer produced by the seed manufacturer, which will kill the weeds but not the plant.

Alternatives

Farmers Massimo Guera has 250 cows and sells his milk and honey from his farm in the fertile Lombardy region of northern Italy.

Despite heavy selling by GM companies and the fact that many of his neighbours have moved to GM maize, he decided not to grow GM maize and to feed his cattle non-GM feed.

"We are not sure yet about GM. It has not been declared to be 100% safe so I feel its [sic] better to keep off it," he said.

He does not believe the advertising which claims GM will give him higher yields and says it simply means he has to use more fertiliser and deplete the goodness of his soil faster.

Dr Janet Cotter, a Greenpeace scientist, agrees and says there are other ways of solving problems with pests and other methods scientists should be working on to resolve food shortages and the problems from climate change.

Modern science can be applied very safely to the old-fashioned methods of cross-breeding plants for instance, in a science called marker-assisted breeding.

This allows the plant to regulate itself. GM leads to unexpected and unpredictable effects, she said. Money should be spent on checking plant seeds to discover which have the abilities to resist heat, or drought or to produce more. These can be used to produce varieties in line with what nature does, she said.

The yields

Not all growers of genetically engineered Bt maize had higher yields or made more money as a result, the first large-scale st udy of the economics of growing a GM crop in Europe revealed.

Only one GM crops has been authorised for commercial cultivation in the EU, Bt maize - a GM maize, resistant to maize borer attacks.

About 20% of Spain's maize is now made up of this variety and is grown in three main areas of the country. The study carried out by the EU's research centre in Zaragoza, got more corn and made more money from growing the GM variety than non-GM. Bt maize has been developed to be resistant to the pest maize borer that tends to attack crops in Zaragoza more than other regions.

As a result, yields increased 11.8% and farmers made an average of €122 per hectare per year.

Farmers still sprayed the GM and non-GM crops with insecticide, though those with the Bt maize sprayed abouta third less.

Despite claims made for GM crops, there have been few studies of their economic performance, taking into account the higher cost of seed and whether they yield is higher and the amount of insecticide and pesticide is reduced.

[Photo caption: Field trials: Seen by anti-GM campaigners, and by many scientists, as a softening-up exercise by the big GM companies.]

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Comment by GM-free Ireland:

The above article is a welcome signal in Ireland's eerie media silence on GM issues. But it contains some factual errors, omissions and misleading statements that deserve to be corrected:

•

The agri-biotech companies' generic claim that GM crops have higher yields is pure propaganda (see last bullet point below for details). The oft-repeated myth that GM crops have drought- or salt- tolerance is wishful thinking. As the Director of the US Union of Concerned Scientists said last week, "The biotech industry's claims about genetically altered crops are perennially overstated. In truth, agricultural biotechnology has almost nothing to offer to the world food crisis in the short term... Let's be clear: There are no crops on the market today genetically engineered to directly maximize yields. There are no crops on the market engineered to resist drought. And there are no crops on the market engineered to reduce fertilizer use. Not one."

•

The article confuses GM labelling and tolerance thresholds:

The EU has a 0.9% labelling threshold above which any animal feed or food containing or derived from GM ingredients must carry the GM label. But a giant loophole in EU law allows meat, poultry and dairy produce from livestock fed on GM ingredients to be sold without a GM label, despite a petition signed by 1 million citizens of EU member states demanding mandatory labelling for such produce, based on the consumer's right to know and freedom of choice.

The EU "zero tolerance" threshold refers to the total prohibition of any animal feed or food that is not approved in the EU, even though it may have been approved in the USA or other counries which fail to implement the Precautionary Principle through proper risk assessments.

The EU is currently considering proposals by the US Government, agri-biotech and large food corporations to scrap its "zero tolerance" policy by allowing up to 5% of both GM and non-GM animal feed to become routinely contaminated by unapproved GM ingredients.

In a statement last week, a spokesperson for EU Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said "We are looking at a technical solution that would not require changing the law". The food industry is pushing for 0.9 per cent contamination by unapproved GM ingredients, in line with the labelling theshold for approved GM ingredients. The US is demanding 5 per cent contamination by unapproved GM ingredients.

Contamination of GM, conventional and organic feed and food by illegal GM ingredients is not caused by EU tolerance thresholds, as the wording of the article implies. It is caused by the agri-biotech corporations and those who use their products through cross-contamination of crops, seeds, and animal feed and food ingredients during cultivation, processing, transport, storage, and distribution. Despite this, advocates of GM food and farming apparently continue believe the myth that GM crops can "co-exist" with conventional varieties, and that GM ingredients can easily be segregated throughout the animal and human food chain.

•

Contamination

The article refers to "several contamination incidents in the past few years", suggesting they are few and far between. The reality is different. The GM Contamination Register (an official Biosafety Information Resource established by the Biosafety Protocol as part of the clearing-house mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity) lists 216 reported contamination events in 57 countries (see www.gmcontaminationregister.org). These include two separate varieties of illegal GM rice from the USA and China sold in Irish supermarkets, and the Herculex GM maize scandal in 2007, in which 5,131 tonnes of supposedly GM-free animal feed contaminated by illegal and toxic varieties of GM maize from the USA entered the EU food chain through Ireland, causing potential liver and kidney damage to livestock and consumers. For details see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/pakrac/.

Most contamination events remain unreported because no-one is checking, and/or because the agri-biotech companies refuse to provide the relevant regulatory bodies with the necessary technical DNA profiles required for them to know what to look for.

Ireland is the EU's largest importer of GM animal feed, including soy meal, maize gluten and distiller's grains, 95% of which is GM. In December 2006, Ireland's then Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan told the Dáil (Parliament) 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." But Liam Hyde of the Department's Animal Feedingstuffs Section confirmed that imported animal feed is only tested for GM content on a random basis, adding that he was "unaware" of the French scientific study which found that MON863 is toxic to animals. He also said that the Irish government records of GM animal feed imports for 2006 were irretrievably lost due to the "computer database failure", making traceability and liability impossible in the event of related animal or human health problems.

•

Giving science a bad name

Oxford Professor Chris Leaver's belief that GM food prevents salmonella or other toxins is scientific nonsense. He is a Trustee of the madcap lobby group Sense About Science and is significantly funded by the agri-biotech industry. As well as promoting GM crops, Leaver told New Scientist magazine that "organic farms can never expand significantly, as they benefit from the pesticides sprayed onto neighbouring fields"! For details see http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=75&page=L

•

GM agrofuel crops

The article signally fails to mention GM agrofuel crops (previously known as biofuel crops), which provide the most likely pathway for GM contamination in Ireland, via importation of live GM seeds such as oilseed rape. The diversion of food crops for the production of agrofuels is one of the principal causes of the current scarcity and resulting price rise animal feed and food.

•

GM pharma crops

The article also fails to mention GM pharma crops which produce industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs including blood thinners, blood clotters, anti-diarrhea and anti-HIV compounds, and animal vaccines. The US Department of Agriculture has no record of hundreds of sites where pharma crops are being cultivated, so one must assume that the US food chain - including corn flakes - is widely contaminated with these potentially lethal products. For details see http://www.pharmcrops.com, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/18/gm.contamination and http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/protect-our-food.html

Irish advocates of GM pharma crops include the Irish Farmers Association, Teagasc, Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Michael Creed, Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness, and former IFA Deputy President Ruaidhri Deasy.

•

GM field trials

GM field trials are not only a softening-up exercise; the GM companies need to conduct these contaminating experiments to figure out if their latest GM seeds actually perform as expected in field conditions, and to reproduce those that work for subsequent sale to farmers, who are then legally prevented - under the WTO's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement - from saving and planting the seeds from the resulting harvests.

According to the Irish Government Department of Agriculture, only one (not six) open-air GM field trial has ever taken place in Ireland. This involved Monsanto's patented GM sugar beet, but the crop was destroyed by campaigners in 1998. BASF abandoned its attempt to carry out its proposed field trial with 450,000 GMO potatoes in Co. Meath in 2006 following the EPA's requirement that the company pay for an environmental risk assessment, massive public opposition, and a GM-free zone declaration by Meath County Council (see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/potato). The official line is that all other GM crops experiments are - and continue to be - conducted in greenhouses by Teagasc (Ireland's taxpayer-funded Agriculture and Food Authority) and in university laboratories.

•

EU Joint Research Centre

In 2000, the European Commission requested the EU Joint Research Centre's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies to investigate the so-called "co-existence" of GM crop with conventional and organic farming. The resulting 133-page "Scenarios for Co-existence" report, completed in January 2002, concludes that GM crops inevitably contaminate conventional and organic crops and may cause 40% higher production costs for EU farmers. It states that all farmers would face high additional, in some cases unsustainable costs of production if GM crops were commercially grown in the EU on a significant scale. Download report: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/downloads/gmcrops_coexistence.pdf (1.3mb PDF file).

But the head of the JRC, Irishman "Dr." Barry McSweeney wrote to the EC recommending that the report should not be made public, stating "given the sensitivity of the issue, I would suggest that the report be kept for internal use within the Commission only."

The JRC suppressed the report until Greenpeace released the leaked document in May 2002.

The Irish Minister for Health, Mary Harney, subsequently appointed the disgraced McSweeney to the newly-created post of Chief Scientific Officer of Ireland. He was later forced to resign from this post when it was discovered that he bought his PdD from the so-called Pacific Western University, an online institution which US authorities describe as a "diploma mill". For details see http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI22.pdf

McSweeney was replace as current Chief Scientific Officer of Ireland by Prof. Paddy Cunningham, who is a member of European Action on Global Life Sciences (EAGLES); this is a task force of the European Federation of Biotechnology - www.efbweb.org - whose members include Monsanto Europe, the Association of German Biotech Companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (USA), etc.

•

European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)

EFSA has more than a question mark over its independence.

According to EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, "EFSA cannot deliver a sound scientific opinion on GMOs; they only examine short term effects and they do not take into account the opinions of member states; there is [also] the question of whether scientific opinions relied solely on information supplied by companies which produce GMOs."

EFSA's GMO Panel has been accused of disgregarding:

* other scientists' concerns about the health risks of GM foods;

* EC legislation dealing with such divergent scientific opinions;

* statistically significant differences between GM foods and their non-GM counterparts, and its practice of agreeing with the industry that the results of such tests are not biologically relevant or treatment related;

* EU requirements to identify the level of uncertainty in its assumptions, and its own failure to implement EC legal requirements to evaluate and consider the long-term effects of eating or growing GM foods;

For details see "The EFSA stakeholders challenge - working with civil society" Published by Friends of the Earth Europe, EPHA, Euro Coop, EEB and Greenpeace http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2005/EFSA_stakeholders_challenge.pdf

See also "Throwing Caution to the Wind: A review of the European Food Safety Authority and its work on genetically modified foods and crops" Published by Friends of the Earth Europe, November 2004. http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/publications/EFSAreport.pdf

But EFSA continues to issue GM food safety claims based on secret information which is kept out of the public domain (and thus independent scientific scrutiny) because the data is classified as Confidential Business Information.

And the the European Commission continues to use questionable EFSA opinions to push through new GM products when member states disagree over their safety.

Outside of EFSA, efforts by independent scientists to conduct proper GM risk assessments are similarly blocked by the GM companies' refusal to disclose scientific data from their own risk assessments, and to provide the certified samples needed for credible indepependent health studies. As a result, no long-term health studies of GM animal feed and food have ever been published.

•

BASF's Amflora GM potatoes

BASF's Amflora GM potato does not "use" (or contain) antibiotics as, stated in the article. It contains an anti-biotic resistance gene, which - if absorbed and activated in human gut bacteria - would exacerbate the medical crisis of anti-biotic resistance in humans.

•

Transgenic DNA

The section "What is GM" should have stated that most genetically modified organisms contain DNA from a virus and a bacteria as well as from a plant and/or an animal, e.g. potatoes with spider genes, tomatoes with fish genes, and pigs with human genes. Such "transgenic" admixture of DNA from normally separate biological kingdoms and species results in novel enzymes and other proteins which have never existed before on this planet, and whose impacts on the modified organisms, livestock, humans, wildlife and the surrounding ecosystem are scientificallly impossible to predict.

•

Modification method

The transgenic DNA in crops is not inserted into their seed but into a tissue culture of cells, from which the subsequent plants are produced by cloning.

•

Patenting of life

The article barely mentions the patenting of conventional and GM crops, and that farmers contaminated by GMOs no longer own their seeds and crops and are subject to patent infringement lawsuits. See for example our 2004 interview with Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser during the Slow Food Terra Madre conference at http://www.gmfreeireland.org/interviews/interviews/schmeiser.php and his speech at the Green Ireland conference http://www.gmfreeireland.org/conference/trans/pschmeiser.php

•

Terminator seeds

Infertile GM crops are made so by the use of the so-called "transcontainer" technology including the notorious "Terminator" gene. These seeds are banned world-wide under the Caratagena Protocol on Biosafety because their contamination of food crops could lead to catastrophic famine. For details see "V-GURTs (Terminator Technology): Design, Reality and Inherent Risks", Submission to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Working Group on Article 8(j) by EcoNexus and the Federation of German Scientists, January 2006; lead author: Ricarda A. Steinbrecher, PhD.: Summary http://www.econexus.info/pdf/V-GURTs_overview.html, full report http://www.econexus.info/pdf/ENx-CBD-GURTs-2006.pdf

•

Yields:

Most GM crops cultivated around the world are grown in intensive monocultures, causing a massive increase in pesticide use, and are used as animal feed in richer nations, not for food in poorer countries.

The real facts show that genetic modification not only fails to boost productivity, but often slashes it.

Dr Charles Benbrook, an agricultural scientist, reported 'voluminous and clear evidence' that modified soya crops 'produce five to ten fewer bushels per acre in contrast to otherwise identical varieties grown under comparable field conditions'.

In 1998, a study based on 8,200 trials of GM soya varieties in U.S. universities found they produced 6.7 per cent less than their nearest non-GM relatives. They yielded 10 per cent less than the best conventional soya available at the time.

Two years later, a study at the University of Nebraska came up with strikingly similar results, finding that five different Monsanto GM soyas - though more expensive - produced 6 per cent less food than their closest cousins, and 11 per cent less than the highest-yielding traditional varieties.

Other studies have shown that the productivity of soya doubled in the 70 years before the introduction of modified varieties in the mid-Nineties.

At least half of this was down to the traditional way of improving crops by interbreeding them; the rest came from improved farming practices. But once GM soya became widespread, this growth abruptly stopped: yields have remained much the same since.

Cotton yields, which had multiplied five-fold since 1930, also stagnated in the U.S. as GM varieties took over 80 per cent of the crop in the late Nineties.

Modified corn did better: yields continued growing at the same rate while it was introduced, but still did not accelerate as proponents would have us believe. And studies have shown that some GM varieties suffer drops of up to 12 per cent.

_______________________

Soaring prices put Frankenstein foods back on the menu

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 27 June 2008. By Vanessa Mock in Cernobbio.

Listen to Vanessa Mock's report (mp3): http://download.omroep.nl/rnw/smac/cms/080627_gmo_20080627_44_1kHz.mp3

Rising food prices and climate change have re-ignited the debate over the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in Europe, with the European Commission on a collision course with EU countries over their use.

The Commission President, JosÈ Manuel Barosso, says GM crops could "play an important role in mitigating the effects of the food crisis", He is calling for a review of the EU's stringent approval rules on GMO's.

His comments will put him on a war-path with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will be pushing in the opposite direction during his presidency of the EU when he will call for controls on GMOs.

France is among a group of nations, such as Austria, that want more tests carried out on the health and environmental impact of GMOs.

Better safe than sorry

Andreas Heissenberger from the Austrian environmental ministry says:

"We think there's not enough information at the moment to prove that GMOs are safe," we want to take a more precautionary approach until we have enough data to prove that they are safe."

However, several Commissioners in Brussels want to lift the current EU restrictions on the cultivation of GM crops, arguing that European farmers are too dependent on imports at a time of spiralling prices.

They also want to streamline the complex and lengthy system of approval for GM products. Farmers currently import much of their animal meal - based on GM soya and maize - from the US, Canada and Latin America.

"There is no good reason not to use GM," said Professor Chris Leaver of Oxford University, speaking at the first global congress on GMO analysis held in Cernobbio, northern Italy, this week, he continued:

"We cannot feed the world on organic agriculture. If we can improve the yield on the same area of land, that leaves more land for biodiversity. I would rather use genes that provide drought and insect resistance than use chemicals."

More gain, less pain?

Professor Leaver was one of many leading scientists at the conference who argued that GM technology can bring benefits for farmers in Europe and the developing world:

"One billion people need feeding and GM can be one of the ways to help them grow more food."

His arguments were bolstered this week by the first large-scale research in the EU into the economic benefits of GM. Scientists found that Spanish farmers who grew Bt maize - a GM variety - had higher crop yields because their crops were more resistant to pests and they spent less on pesticides.

But environmental groups point to a body of evidence suggesting that crop yields do not necessarily improve and that the damage reeked on the environment far outweighs the benefits of the technology.

In Spain, for instance, the Monarch butterfly has all but disappeared as a result of GM fields; Janet Cotter, a Greenpeace scientist from Exeter University points out:

"It's far too simple to say that GM crops will bring down rising food prices, which are caused by many complex factors, The basic worry is that GM plants are "unable to control" the foreign gene that is inserted into their genome, leading to "all kinds of unpredictable effects".

Fierce battle

This is a view shared by many EU governments. Public opinion, is also largely opposed - in the Netherlands, for instance, no farmers cultivate Bt maize even though they are allowed to do so. Greenpeace's Janet Cotter adds:

"It's really industry that is trying to hook on to rising food prices to promote GM crops. But the truth is that we now have a lot of technology other than GM that can produce new crop varieties that can be more resilient to climate change."

However, the battle over GMOs is likely to become fiercer as GM multinationals continue to lobby the EU to ease regulatory restrictions on their products. GM is a tempting proposition for politicians looking for ways to bring down food prices though they will struggle to convince their voters to embrace the technology.

What are GMOs?

A genetically modified organism is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques, using DNA technology. DNA molecules from different sources are combined into one molecule to create a new gene. This DNA is then transferred into the organism.

The arguments for:

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GM crops can be tolerant to insect pests and to powerful weed-killers.

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GM reduces the need for pesticides and herbicides, making cultivation cheaper and reducing the negative impact of those products

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Potentially, they could be bred to become more resistant to droughts and produce far higher yields

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They do not yet produce higher yields

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GM seeds are more expensive, making it a non-option for poor farmers

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They pose high risks for the environment and their impact on human health is not yet clear

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We will continue to purchase conventionally derived ingredients or to use alternative ingredients where conventional crop sourcing cannot be guaranteed.

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EU law requires labelling of ingredients and additives made from a GMO. In the UK and Ireland, Nestlé does not use anything requiring labeling as we source ingredients only from conventional crops.

•

Nestlé UK and Nestlé Ireland work closely with suppliers, co-manufactures and licensees to ensure that ingredients are sourced only from conventional crops.

As always, the Nestlé aim is to produce quality products that our consumers have come to expect.

Animal Cloning and Implications for the Food Chain

ThePigSite.com (UK), 26 June 2008.

[Extract only]

This report examines the potential issues involved with cloning animals for commercial industry, prepared for COI, on behalf of their client, The Food Standards Agency.

Executive Summary

Background

Animal cloning is an emerging technology in the EU (although already more established in the US), and there is potential that, if its use becomes economically viable, food derived from cloned animals will enter the food chain across the world.

It is thought that this topic is likely to encounter a significant amount of consumer interest as the technology develops. For this reason, the Food Standards Agency commissioned research to explore initial public perceptions of animal cloning and to identify what the key issues and areas of concern/uncertainty are, particularly in relation to food.

Full article and link to report

Many skeletons tumble out of GEAC's cupboard
Depending on data provided by companies seeking permission for field trials is not wise

The Hindu (India), 26 June 2008. By R. Prasad.

[image caption: Reliability question: Over the last six years that Bt cotton has been around, no independent verification system has been set up.]

The open field trials for various genetically modified crops are being conducted without first undertaking all the tests during the confined field trials. This has been the observation of Dr. P.M. Bhargava who was appointed as a special invitee to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) in February this year at the instance of the Supreme Court to bring about more transparency in the way the GEAC conducts its business.

The minutes of the meeting held in April clearly state that "Ö the studies enumerated by Dr. Bhargava are being carried out [now]."

Unethical practice

Responding to the minutes, Dr. Bhargava had stated in a communication to the committee that "if the results of these studies are still not available, for example for okra, how could [open] field trials be permitted?

"ÖWhere the studies have not yet been completed, all clearances for open release of the GMOs [genetically modified organisms] concerned should be kept in abeyance till the data and results of the studies being conducted become available and are scrutinized and approved."

He cites another instance where 12 important tests were recommended by the Pental Committee report for Bt brinjal. "In view of this, it is not understandable as to how the Committee also concurrently recommended large-scale trials," he had pointed out in his personal communication to the GEAC.

Lack of biosafety data

Dr. Bhargava has been highly critical of the paucity of biosafety data apart from the way the tests are being conducted by institutes that are not fully equipped to conduct such tests.

The minutes of the meeting held in April this year clearly takes note of his reservations. It states: "Dr. Bhargava, reiterating his earlier concerns, informed that he would not be able to support the release of additional Bt cotton hybrids for commercialisation without examining the biosafety data and other available alternatives."

And during the May meeting of the GEAC, he had called for a three- to four-year total moratorium on GM crops and their products.

Despite all his opposition, the GEAC has in a mischievous and misleading manner noted in the minutes of the April meeting that "recognizing that Bt crops expressing Cry 1Ac toxin are already under commercial cultivation, he extended his full support to the proposal [large-scale trials of Bt cotton in the northern zone] subject to the condition that additional data if required would be generated by the applicant. Further in the national interest, he suggested that as an exceptional and unique situation, the GEAC may consider commercial release at this stage."

"No, that is not what I had said. What I had said was that unless all the data are available, we must keep everything on hold," he clarified. The very fact that the minutes of the April meeting has been inconsistent while taking note of his views provides enough proof of the committee's intentions.

Contesting the many points put out in the minutes of the meetings, he said: "none of these points was mentioned in the meeting. These were their afterthoughts."

He is also highly critical of the committee coming to depend on data provided by companies requesting permission for field trials and commercialisation. "There is little meaning unless there is an independent system of checking the data given by the applicant," noted Dr. Bhargava.

"It is amazing that over the last six years that Bt cotton has been around, no such independent and reliable verification system has been set up by the Government."

How equipped

Coming down heavily on the GEAC, Dr. Bhargava, in his communication to the committee, which was made available to this Correspondent, has noted that the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, which has carried out certain tests does not have the capability to check if the samples provided by the applicant are GM brinjal or non-GM brinjal.

"IICT has many capabilities but not this one," he had stated. "There is no evidence that this is IICT's data."

Coming to the issue of monitoring confined field trials by an independent and reliable body, he had unequivocally stated that such a monitoring does not exist. "For example, the field trial under the auspices of RCGM for Bt cotton was never monitored," he had noted.

Comment from GM Watch:

This article makes clear that the GEAC minutes have effectively been falsified.

Govt Prioritises Biosafety In Genetically-Modified Farm Produce

Bua News / All Africa Global Media, 26 June 2008. By Shaun Benton.

Cape Town, South Africa -- Government is making biosafety a priority not only in terms of genetically-modified organisms in food but also in terms of food products entering the country's borders.

Chantal Arendse of the Biosafety Directorate in the Department of Agriculture said on Wednesday that while government was treading a fine line between those in favour and those opposed genetically modified organisms (GM organisms), strides were being made in biosafety. Ms Arendse was speaking at a seminar organised by the Public Understanding of Biotechnology (PUB) programme, which is a project of the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA).

SAASTA itself is a business unit of the Department of Science and Technology's National Research Foundation, which is implementing the PUB programme across all sectors of society. One of the key missions of the PUB programme is to promote a clear, balanced understanding of the potential of biotechnology and to ensure broad public awareness, dialogue and debate about biotechnology. Ms Arendse said that there has been a 12 percent increase in planting of GM crops worldwide from 2006 to 2007, and that the department was beginning to prioritise this area of research, with substantial parts of South Africa's large maize production already transgenic or effected by GM technology. Local soya and cotton crops also have a GM component, Ms Arendse told the seminar, as government is mandated to ensure that all activities relating to the organisms are carried out responsibly.

She added that there is as yet no segregation between genetically-modified and non-genetically modified foods in South Africa, but systems were being developed. The responsibility for enforcing the labelling of such products lies with the Department of Health. At the event, Professor Melane Vivier of the Institute of Wine Biotechnology at the University of Stellenbosch presented an argument for allowing field trials of transgenic grapevines in South Africa. The application by the institute for such an experimental trial involving transgenic grapevines had been made but not yet approved, the professor said. Mr Vivier said that while the public notification by the institute had drawn widespread controversy among the public and in the media, the use of such technology in South Africa's wine industry could hold potential benefits for the consumer.

The use if such agrobiotechnology could lead to "genetically improved" grapevines that could be resistant to detrimental fungae, or grapevines that would be more environmentally friendly in that they could be engineered to not require harmful pesticides. The grapevine, vitis vinifera, is one of the most important fruit crop of the world and requires large amounts of spraying with chemicals such as pesticides.

A genetically-engineered vine could be resistant to the damage caused by insects and other elements, while also being engineered to endure "stress tolerance" from less water, in a world where weather patterns are changing as a result of climate change and where water may become scarcer than it already is. Winemakers in the United States and Canada are already using this technology, while research is being conducted in Argentina, Chile and South Africa, media representatives heard.

At the moment, the Institute of Wine Biotechnology currently has a field of genetically unaltered vines planted in a field at its experimental farm, Welgevallen, in Stellenbosch as it awaits permission to go ahead with genetic experimentation, Professor Vivier said.

She said the institute wanted to evaluate inherent risks that might be linked to biosafety from using GM vines. Meanwhile, responding to a question around the hesitation of key markets for South African wines, such as the United Kingdom Dr Viresh Ramburan, from the Institute of Wine Biotechnology, said markets were different. South African winemakers using GM products have to look at markets that do accept the technology. He added that it was unlikely that the South African wine industry would support GM wines unless this became widely internationally accepted.

The UK is resistant to GM produce, but consumes as much as 28 percent of South African wines, and as such is a major consumer of South African wines and a key market.

Are greens simply apeing religious fundamentalists?
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
The green movement is like a religion that ignores the results of fact-based science, writes Dr William Reville.

The Irish Times, 26 June 2008.

I recently heard Minister for the Environment John Gormley advocating the green way to brush your teeth - turn off the tap while you brush to conserve water. There is a green way to do almost everything - eating, travelling, shopping, etc - and you could spend your whole time pondering green choices about the minutiae of your life. The green philosophy is, at core, a secular religion.

First, the green movement believes in God, or more precisely in a Goddess called Gaia. Gaia is the name given by scientist James Lovelock to the Earth and its coating of living organisms. According to Lovelock, Gaia regulates herself through complex mechanisms to maintain conditions comfortable for life. Humans influence the environment out of all proportion to their numbers in the biological community. Gaia theory proposes that some effects of human activities, eg global warming, could provoke Gaia into switching global conditions to settings that would be inimical to human life on earth. In other words, the Green God can and will punish us for doing wrong, and if we persist in doing wrong, apocalypse beckons. If we are good, Gaia offers us survival.

Then there is the green concept of the Garden of Eden from which mankind has fallen. This is the perceived state of perfect harmony in which early humans lived in the environment. Humanity fell from this idyllic state when they tasted the fruit of the tree of scientific knowledge, which led to industrial and agricultural development and consequent pollution of the earth.

And just as religious people have rules and practices for good living, so do the greens. The golden rule is to live "sustainably", that is in a manner that doesn't interfere with the perceived mechanisms through which Gaia maintains herself. This can determine how we behave in almost every aspect of our lives. Thus, we should eat organic food, avoid genetically modified food, use public transport, ride bicycles, drive the smallest cars, severely ration air-travel, insulate our houses, instal solar panels, compost, recycle, conserve water, etc, etc. The minutiae of proper green behaviour closely resembles the Christian notion of offering up all your daily actions to God.

Many green practices are sensible and commonplace - recycling, insulation, various forms of conservation, and so on. Others are either not sensible or cannot be adopted for mass usage. Organic food could never supply more than an expensive niche market. World population numbers are so large they would be impossible to feed except through modern agriculture. Also, the claimed nutritional superiority of organically produced food has no scientific basis.

The green secular religion bears a close structural resemblance to Christianity. As readers know, I think that reasonable religion is a good thing. The problem with the green religion is that it is fundamentalist. Fundamentalist religions believe literally in holy writ and will not modify their beliefs when science indicates otherwise.

The green movement draws attention to important issues that everyone must take seriously and it has played an important role in galvanising action from mainstream politics. But many green interpretations and solutions are largely intuitive and some have little scientific justification. Take the notion of the idyllic state in which simple pre-modern societies lived/live in nature. This is simply a myth, as anthropology confirms. Inter-tribal warfare, intra-tribal murder and violence were and are commonplace. Also, what is idyllic about an 80 per cent infant mortality rate and complete vulnerability to disease?

Green analysis often gets things wrong but mistakes are never admitted. For example, green analysis grossly exaggerated the acid rain "problem". It opposes the low-level use of DDT in tropical countries to combat malaria despite the fact that such use poses no health hazards and could prevent up to a million deaths from malaria annually. We rarely hear anymore of the dangers of ballooning world population now that birth rates are plummeting - instead we are smoothly invited to worry about the ill-effects associated with an ageing global population. Also, politically and economically, many leading greens seem to be Marxists, a philosophy that comprehensively failed in practice.

Your average green supporter is not consciously motivated by this deep-green philosophy and simply wants to do the decent thing to protect the environment. But the big green issues are chosen by leaders who follow a fundamentalist philosophy with a strong apocalyptic strain and who are quite at risk of leading their followers down blind alleys. The green religion basically views technological and industrial development as a burden on Gaia and may never be fully satisfied with less than a return to a simple life where most physical contacts and travel are local.

Now I must rush - the tap is dripping - Oh my Gaia!

William Reville is associate professor of biochemistry and public awareness of science officer at UCC
http:// understandingscience.ucc.ie

GM canola: a headache for grain harvesters and beekeepers

Media release from Australian beekeepers and grain harvesters (identified below), 26 June 2008.

Contract harvesters and apiarists are among the many rural businesses affected by Monsanto's commercial Genetically Manipulated (GM) canola grown at secret sites in NSW [New South Wales] and Victoria this winter.

"Beekeepers, grain harvesters and many other rural industries are kept in the dark about GM canola sites but GM contamination would wreck our businesses," says beekeeper Graham Connell of Macedon, Victoria.

"The Victorian and NSW governments that permit GM canola to be grown must set up a public register of all GM sites so we can do our best to avoid GM contamination."

"At the Victorian Apiarists meeting on Friday, I will call for strong laws to protect the beekeeping industry like motions recently passed by NSW Apiarists."

The NSW Apiarists Conference called for GM crop sites to be published and for government to be put on notice that beekeepers will seek compensation if honey sales, markets and product confidence suffer from GM canola.

"Grain harvesters also want GM canola registered as a 'notifiable crop' so that we are officially told where all GM canola is grown," says Rod Gribble of the Australian Grain Harvesters Association NSW.

"AGHA members are advised to gain declarations as to the status of all canola crops & to also gain liability exemption from any action that may result in the spread of GM crop material into any other supply chain or property, before they start harvesting."

"Contract harvesters will not accept any liability or responsibility for any spread or cross contamination of GM crop material that may result in the event of harvesting any crops."

"The NSW and Victorian state governments lifted their GM canola moratoria with no understanding as to the consequences of the inevitable spread of GM crop material & absolutely no interest in understanding this fact so we want the moratorium extended, at least until all the uncertainties are fixed."

"We need to be clear about who will pay if people suffer financial loss from these GM crops," says Graham Mulholland of AGHA Vic.

"Header contractors must be allowed to do our job without fear of being sued."

"Contract harvesters will not absorb the costs of a five hour clean-down at $400/hour on big harvesters, just to move between canola paddocks."

"GM crops are a disaster waiting to happen to many rural industries, so governments must again ban GM canola until this mess is sorted out," Mr Mulholland concludes.

Comment:

Graham Connell - Apiarist, member Victorian Apiarists Ass, 0409 419 340
Rod Gribble - Australian Grain Harvesters Association, NSW 0427 614 549
Graham Mulholland Australian Grain Harvesters Association, Vic 0408 579 832

25 June 2008

Genetic panel to decide on Doritos corn chips today

Business Standard (India), 25 June 2008.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) of the environment ministry is likely to consider tomorrow whether Doritos corn chips of PepsiCo USA should be allowed to be sold in the Indian market.

The hearing comes in the wake of a complaint by Greenpeace India that the tests on the chips have confirmed the presence of GM Mon 863 and NK 603, both of which are Monsanto's genetically-modified (GM) corn varieties.

The other three products randomly picked up by Greenpeace from a Delhi supermarket for testing ó American Garden popcorn, Gerber baby food and Green Giant sweet corn ó were free of any GM product, said Rajesh Krishnan (sustainable agriculture wing), Greenpeace.

The committee, which has been in existence since 1989, has never rejected a food product with GM content except when it banned food from CARE that was meant for the Integrated Child Development Services of the Women and Child Development Department.

This was after it was pointed out that it contained Starling corn, a GM corn known to have caused allergies in the US.

Says Vasantha Muthuswamy, deputy director general, Indian Council for Medical Research, and a member of the GEAC: "Our markets must be full of GM food as we don't have a mechanism for testing imported food for GM content. In the US, GM and non-GM food are mixed."

Dorito chips are being imported directly by PepsiCo USA through dealers and the Indian arm has nothing to do with it, says Greenpeace.

Meanwhile, PepsiCo India, in a statement, said: "While Doritos is a PepsiCo brand, the product in question is not manufactured in India, and we neither import it nor authorise others to do so."

"Though India has a law prohibiting sale of any genetically modified food products without the permission of GEAC, their presence in the supermarket proves that the regulatory system is in a shambles," said Krishnan.

GM crops 'aren't a solution to rising worldwide food prices'

The Journal (UK), 25 June 2008. By Sam Wood.

PRIME MINISTER Gordon Brown has been warned against embracing genetically modified crops as the solution to the global food crisis by the head of the Government's countryside and wildlife agency.

Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England, said there was little evidence that the current generation of biotechnology crops will help to reconcile global food shortages with conservation needs.

He said GM crops could be harmful to wildlife and should not be seen as "a quick fix" to a "huge challenge".

His remarks come after ministers suggested last week it was time for Britain and Europe to consider loosening GM restrictions to help address the spiralling cost of food.

But Sir Martin cautioned against "rushing headlong to embrace GM crops as the solution to rising food prices".

He said: "The evidence of field-based trials on GM crops previously proposed for commercial release in England demonstrates that they can have a detrimental indirect impact on farmland biodiversity."

Natural England's predecessor, English Nature - which Sir Martin also chaired - first raised concerns about the effects of currently available GM crops, many of which had been engineered to be resistant to powerful weedkillers, on wildlife on British farmland.

It led to official evaluations of GM beet, oilseed rape and maize which found in 2003 that the weedkillers used with GM beet and oilseed rape were far more damaging to wildlife than conventional herbicides.

Natural England is due to put a policy document, Biotechnology in the Natural Environment, before its board for approval on Wednesday.

It says: "Because GM can be used to develop organisms with radically different properties, we are particularly concerned about potential impacts on biodiversity that could be caused by changes in crop, tree, or animal husbandry."

The issue of GM crops has come to the fore in recent weeks due to increasing food prices across the world.

Last week Environment Minister Phil Woolas said he wants a debate on the benefits of GM crops in offering greater yields, particularly in the developing world.

He said: "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis.

"It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way.

"Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."

The National Farmers Union said it wanted to see an open debate on the issue of GM crops, and that it thought the crops could offer increased yields and also benefit the environment.

Keep Poland free of GMOs!

Poskieradio, 25 June 2008. The 'Poland Free of GMOs' coalition is protesting against the project of amendments to the bill which bans the use of genetically modified organisms in cattle fodder.

The planned changes would delay the onset of the ban by four years. Scientists, farmers, healthy food producers and non-governmental organizations, which form the 'Poland Free of GMO' coalition are against the delay of the ban. They need it to keep the market, as more and more European countries ban GMOs.

The European Commission has said that if Poland bans fodder with GMOs, it will be sued at the European Court of Justice. At the same time Austria, Italy, Greece, France and Hungary have introduced the ban and do not face charges from the European Commission for doing so.

Soaring food costs sow doubts over Europe's GM policy

Globe and Mail (USA), 25 June 2008. By Eric Reguly.

ROME -- Europe is on the verge of a fresh battle over genetically modified food as soaring prices put pressure on governments to drop their resistance to "Frankenfoods" and some scientists and environmental groups warn about the potential dangers of letting the GM genie out of the bottle.

Several government ministers and executives have called on the European Union to drop the GM seeds blockade as agribusiness companies, including Monsanto Co. of St. Louis, Mo., and Switzerland's Syngenta AG, tout the productivity-enhancing potential of the new generation of designer crops.

The EU has not approved a GM seed since 1998. GM crops are rare - some are grown in Spain, few elsewhere - though imports of GM feed for farm animals have been allowed.

The United States, Canada and much of South America have approved several varieties of GM seeds for human and animal consumption; most of the American corn crop comes from such seeds.

The latest plea came earlier this week from Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé SA, the world's biggest packaged foods company, with a market value of $180-billion.

"You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms," he told the Financial Times of London. "We have the means to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don't see for the time being is the political will."

But political resistance seems to be melting away as food becomes unaffordable in the poorest countries and more expensive in Europe.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week endorsed the launch of a new EU study into whether commercial GM crop production could help bring down food prices.

His support came after the European Commission said GM crops could "play an important role in mitigating the effects of the food crisis."

At a press conference in Brussels, Mr. Brown said, "In the end, the attitude to GM crops and GM food taken by consumers in our country and in any country is going to depend on the scientific and medical advice. That is what we are looking for from the work of this review group."

Mr. Brown's endorsement of the study came shortly after the British press revealed that Phil Woolas, Britain's environment minister, held private talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an industrial lobby group formed in 2000 to promote the use of GM products in farming. "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis," Mr. Woolas told a reporter.

The British government is not united on changing GM food policy.

Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England, the government's countryside and wildlife agency, said the Prime Minister should not consider GM foods a "quick fix" for food prices and warned that GM crops could be harmful to wildlife.

Elsewhere in the EU, the GM debate is far from decided. Polls show that Europeans are generally wary of GM foods and France recently banned the planting of GM corn. Germany, meanwhile, has enacted a law allowing foods to be labelled "GM Free," a move that has been fought by the biotech food companies. Switzerland, which is not an EU member, has banned the cultivation of GM plants at least through 2010.

In an interview, Bill Freese, a science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety in Washington, said it's far too early to declare GM food safe for human and animal consumption and the environment.

"GM technology is only 10 to 20 years old and doesn't have a long enough history of studies," he said. "You're taking genes and introducing them across species barriers. Some may be dangerous."

The centre also disputes the GM food industry's claim that new genes can raise crop productivity substantially. It notes that most of the GM products on the market are designed to be immune from weed killers, such as Monsanto's Roundup, not boost yields.

Farmers can spray Roundup at any time during the crop cycle; the result, Mr. Freese said, is a huge increase in the use of weed-killing sprays.

GM crops' biosafety testing procedure questioned

The Hindu (India's largest selling daily paper), June 25 2008. By R. Prasad.

Chennai: The way in which the Genetic Engineering and Approval Committee (GEAC) has gone about approving field trials of genetically modified crops, as also the final approval for commercial cultivation, has been questioned by P.M. Bhargava, the former Director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Dr. Bhargava who was appointed a special invitee to the GEAC in February this year at the instance of the Supreme Court to bring about more transparency has been very critical of the regulatory body's rationale for accepting the results of biosafety studies generated by the applicants.

The minutes of the GEAC meeting held on May 28 has taken note of his disapproval of the way the committee has been relying on the data generated by the applicant and hence its usefulness. However, it has defended itself by noting that accepting the data provided by applicants, as in the case of pharmaceutical companies, is a common practice.

The minutes note that "Ö it will be unfair to mistrust the samples and data generated by the applicant, without any basis."

"The clinical trial data [for a drug] is not generated by one lab. And the trials are almost always multicentric [conducted in many locations]. All the procedures of the trials are so well documented and the preclinical trials [toxicity testing done on animals prior to starting the trials in humans] can be replicated by anyone," stressed Dr. Bhargava. "All these don't happen in the case of GM safety testing."

But the biggest difference is that most of the human clinical trials for testing drugs are double blinded. This makes sure that neither the person conducting the trial nor the volunteers will know if he has been given a drug or a placebo. And the volunteer recruitment is done by the centres conducting the trials.

This does not happen in the case of GM testing. None of the tests done were double blinded. The samples were provided by the companies. "Do the institutes conducting the tests have the facility to check if samples provided by the companies are indeed genetically modified samples and not non-GM ones," he asked.

Despite the numerous checks and balances to ensure human clinical trials are conducted and reported correctly, the number of instances where the pharmaceutical companies engage in misconduct are aplenty.

Many measures have been taken to make the conduct of clinical trials more transparent, thus giving less scope for any malpractice. The pharmaceutical companies based in the U.S. are now required to make clinical trial results available in the government database. "So what happens when no such monitoring mechanisms exists for testing GM crops," he asked.

"There is a great need for a central dedicated institute for collecting and conducting all GM related safety tests," he said. "The institutions where the tests were done have not been set up for looking at the safety of GM crops." There is a pressing need for such an institute as there are more GM food crops lined up for testing.

If the procedure for approving drugs is strict, the basis for approving GM crops should be stringent as food is consumed by animals and a large number of people when compared with drugs. And unlike drugs, GM crops cannot be recalled from the market once they are produced.

"See what happened with hyacinth plants and parthenium weeds," he said. "There is a world of difference between drugs and GM crops."

Nestle's mixed messages

Globe and Mail, 25 June 2008. By Eric Reguly.

The bosses of Nestle, the world's biggest packaged foods company (Gerber, Perrier, Stouffer's, Nescafe, LeanCuisine, Butterfinger), have always been masters, in their typically reserved Swiss-German manner, of saying little. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has been the exception. He had strong opinions about food and the environment before he stepped down as CEO in April. Since then, as chairman, he has become even more vocal.

He's a complicated man, though, possibly reflecting the food giant's varied interests. Earlier this week, he urged the European Union to drop its opposition to genetically modified crops - the EU has not approved a GM seed in a decade.

But Mr. Brabeck doesn't like all GM products. Most of the corn grown in the United States is GM, and fully one-third of that crop is devoted to biofuel production. In a comment piece carried earlier this month in the Wall Street Journal and other papers around the world, he said: "Biofuels are economic nonsense, ecologically useless and ethically indefensible."

Strong language indeed. He doesn't buy the U.S. line, oft promoted by agriculture secretary Edward Schafer, that biofuel production has raised prices by only about 3 per cent (other estimates put the figure at 30 per cent or more). He doesn't buy the line that biofuel production is environmentally benign. He notes that the U.S. Department of Energy calculates that 10,000 litres of water are required to produce 5 litres of ethanol or 1 to 2 litres of biodiesel. "The biofuel madness is contributing to water shortages that are already endemic," he wrote. "Great aquifers, whether in the Sahara or in the southwestern U.S., are being depleted rapidly. This is water that dates from thousands of years ago. Like oil, once gone, it is lost forever."

Mr. Brabeck's love-GM-food but hate-GM-corn message is not hard to figure out. The big food companies would love to see more GM food crops. If GM crops become ubiquitous and are deemed ethically correct because they potentially raise yields in a suddenly food-short world, the organic food companies that have eaten into their market might politely wither and die. At the same time, the end of GM crops used to make biofuels would free up millions of acres of land for food production. Prices would fall. Lower input costs would translate into higher profit margins for Nestle and its rivals.

Whatever you think about Mr. Brabeck's GM food stance, there is no doubt he's on point when he says the prolific use of water is a global catastrophe in the making.

A few years ago, he said the idea of water as a basic human right was "extreme" - it should have a market value like any food product. He has since modified his view somewhat. In a recent interview with the Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, he agreed that water was human right, but only to sustain life and for hygiene. "But water is not a human right if I use it to fill the swimming pool," he said. Or, he might add, make ethanol to fill your SUV tank.

24 June 2008

Fresh fight looms over Europe GM crops

Financial Times, 24 June 2008. By Andrew Bounds in Brussels.

Europe is poised for a fresh battle over genetically modified crops as its top regulator moves to relax a zero-tolerance policy on unauthorised GM imports.

Androulla Vassiliou, European Union health commissioner, is set to recommend lifting the threshold for GM "contamination" in response to pressure from farmers and the food industry, which claim they are spending millions of pounds finding alternatives.

Environmental campaigners, however, say warnings that the EU could be unable to find supplies are scaremongering. Diplomatic sources in Brazil and Argentina, which supply almost all the EU's animal feed supplies and soya for processed food, also question the apocalyptic scenario.

"We produce to satisfy our clients. We are not going to produce something they are not going to buy," said a Brazilian source.

Ms Vassiliou is likely to propose lifting the threshold from zero to 0.1 per cent. That would cover most of the recent contamination cases, such as the LL601 incident in 2006 when genetically modified rice came into the EU from the US and had to be withdrawn from the market, costing companies involved millions of euros.

The change would not require new legislation and the subsequent support of a qualified majority of EU ministers and the European parliament. Ms Vassilliou's spokeswoman said that experts from member states, however, would have to agree the policy change.

"We are looking at a technical solution that would not require changing the law," said Ms Vassiliou's spokeswoman. It is the least radical option called for. The food industry had pushed for 0.9 per cent, in line with the amount of GM allowed in foodstuffs without having to be labelled. The US wants 5 per cent.

EU citizens and their governments are broadly hostile to GM. It can take up to four years to approve a new product even for animal feed imports, the most uncontroversial area. In the US, by contrast, the process takes a few months so there are many more approved crops.

With the EU dependent on imports for 77 per cent of its animal feed, farmers are left paying about 10 per cent more for supplies than rivals, and trade is occasionally disrupted when an unauthorised genetically modified organism is found.

Friends of the Earth has condemned the commissioner's plan.

"If the EU was serious about listening to its citizens, it would not be quietly weakening GMO laws behind closed doors," said Helen Holder, European GM campaigner at the group.

"The EU is falling for the biotech industry's pro-GM hype. European livestock farmers need real solutions not measures that will simply increase the industry's control and profits."

The EU has approved about 20 GM substances for imports. Brazilian and Argentine sources say the change would be more aimed at cutting costs than ensuring supply.

"There is no crop grown in Brazil that is not allowed in the EU," said one. "We only grow traditional maize. They do not like being reliant on one source. Brazil uses its vast landmass to grow separate GM and non-GM crops. There are separate roads, ports and ships used to avoid contamination."

Argentina grows almost entirely GM soya. Yet the prevalent Round Up Ready variety by the US's Monsanto, is approved in the EU. Brussels is expected to approve Round Up Ready 2, the successor, before Argentina does.

US consumers face advent of cloned food

Financial Times, June 24 2008. By Sheila McNulty in College Station.

Duane Kraemer approaches with pride the Angus bull eating hay behind a fence at Texas A&M University. As the veterinary surgeon draws near, the bull snorts and paws the ground.

Healthy as he looks, many Americans would not want to see this bull become steak on their plate. His name, "86 squared", hints at his origins as the clone of a bull called 86.

The US Food and Drug Administration set off a debate across the food industry when it ruled in January that clones of cattle, pigs and goats were safe to eat. Since then the US Department of Agriculture has asked producers to refrain from introducing milk and meat from clones into the food supply "to ensure a smooth and seamless transition into the marketplace".

Consumer groups, however, believe that may already be happening as the market outpaces regulation. The offspring of cloned animals are not included in the moratorium, they point out, and producers are already selling semen from cloned animals.

US regulators cannot be certain whether any cloned animals have entered the food supply - for the very reason that they are said to be safe to eat. "There is no way to tell them apart," says Larisa Rudenko, senior adviser at the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. "There are no science-based tests to determine whether an animal is a clone."

With FDA approval, US cloning companies expect interest in their products to grow. Mark Walton, president of ViaGen, the country's top cloning company, says: "Now that we've cleared our biggest hurdle - the FDA's confirmation that livestock cloning does not affect food safety - our path to profitability is clear."

The day beef suppliers look to clone cattle that have yielded great steaks may not be far off. "One out of every four steaks doesn't eat right," Mr Walton says. "There might be an opportunity in the future to fix that."

Clones, which are created when a nucleus from the cloned animal is placed in a donor egg from which the nucleus has been removed, are not exact replicas. Most mitochondria, "energy factories" with DNA in them, come from the donor egg. While not predominant in the cells produced, they are present. Environment, nutrition and chance then affect how genes are used.

Dr Kraemer, whose lab has cloned more species than any in the world, says these variables mean a cloned animal is more like a sibling than a facsimile. When his lab cloned the first cat, which was born with different colouring from the animal its cells originated from, people understood "they weren't getting their animal back".

More worrying for some who fear they may be eating meat or drinking milk from a cloned animal or its offspring is the higher abnormality rate among clones. A 2002 study found that, of 335 cattle clones, 259 were healthy, meaning 23 per cent were not - three times the percentage among natural-born offspring.

The industry is working on an ear-tag tracking system but it is not mandatory, so the onus is on US companies that want to avoid clones to scrutinise suppliers, particularly when exporting to countries restricting clones in food. The tags would also not be used for the offspring of clones, so tracking would not be all-encompassing.

"The FDA approval has created an uneven playing field for companies exporting," says Rob Michalak, spokesman for Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, which has long based its brand on the use of natural ingredients. "The approval of cloned animals for meat and dairy happened too expediently. We hope there is further review on a national level."

The US hopes the rest of the world will agree with its findings. Bruce Knight, a USDA official, says the voluntary moratorium on clones in the food supply gives US trading partners a chance to make their own "scientific decisions".

Ms Rudenko notes New Zealand and a preliminary finding by Europe's food safety watchdog agreed with the FDA that cloned animals posed no safety risk to consumers.

But 77 per cent of US consumers are "not comfortable" eating products from cloned animals and 81 per cent believe cloned foods should be labelled, according to the Food Marketing Institute.

The FDA says consumers who want to avoid clones can buy organic food. But Carol Lewis, a mother of four who notes the way growth hormones were for years hidden in milk and meat, says she should not have to pay higher prices to avoid clones.

"Nobody trusts the regulatory bodies to look out for consumers any more," she says.

Big six pleased the GM genuie has escaped the bottle

Western Mail (Wales), 24 June 2008. By Steve Dube.

THEY'VE done it again, those selfless do-gooders that are the six biggest agricultural chemicals and seeds companies. Some ne'er-do-well Luddites are trying to stop them solving food shortages, but it won't work, thanks to people such as Phil Woolas.

"Who he?" I hear myself asking. A quick check reveals he is a UK Environment Minister and he's just had a private preliminary meeting with the half-a-dozen philanthropists, and left it as the latest government advocate of genetically modified food. He now joins the ranks of politicians and civil servants convinced the GM genie, conjured up by the Big Six, will feed the world.

Amazingly there are some who compare this message to the nuclear industry's promise of free electricity and an end to war that failed to mention Chernobyl or the legacy of deadly waste to future generations. They think the Big Six may have an agenda that wants to corner the seed market for the six big staple crops and make stacks of cash without fretting about possible side-effects.

And it's not just a case of dumbos in dungarees trashing GM field trials or the media scaring people with talk of Frankenstein food. There are independent scientists such as Giles-Eric Seralini, Caen University's Professor of Biotechnology, who you'd think would know better. He used to like the idea of GM food because he could see the possibilities of drought-resistant crops, bigger harvests and reducing reliance on agro-chemicals.

But people such as Professor Seralini are not content to take advantage of such riches. He spends his time studying things such as glyphosate, better known as Round-Up, the world's top-selling herbicide, which, as the brand name suggests, aims to wipe out all the rotten weeds that clutter a decent crop.

He's got this crazy idea the widespread use of agro-chemicals in food production could play some sort of role in cancer. So he was miffed to discover the Big Six focus almost exclusively on developing crops that resist their own sprays and make it possible to use more of them.

Don't ask me why, but Professor Seralini seems incapable of seeing the benefits of enabling farmers to spray poisonous chemicals more fiercely on what we eat.

People like him forced the Big Six to cast competitiveness aside and dip into their profits to set up the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which is dedicated to leaving no influential politician, civil servant or media outlet ignorant of the untold benefits of GM food. Phil Woolas is their latest convert.

And the bottom line of their message is a clincher: there's so much GM in animal feed and processed food that there's no point in being a Luddite.

The genie is out of the bottle anyway. Just treat him nice, and he'll shower us with riches and save the world.

Feeding the world: GM is not the answer

Online Opinion, 24 June 2008. By Bob Phelps.

Starvation, malnutrition and poverty continually stalk vulnerable members of the human family. Yet on World Food Day 2007, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, confirmed that, "Our planet produces enough food to feed its entire population". More food production is not the only answer to world hunger.

Propaganda claims Genetically Manipulated (GM) crops, plants and animals will produce more food to "feed the world". False GM promises take scarce resources away from solving the real systemic problems created by intensive GM, oil-dependent farming, including ecological disruption and hunger.

Multinational GM and agrochemical companies constantly exploit disasters and political upheavals - drought, famine, food prices and disease - to maximise their profits and to justify their private interests in the public's eyes. Without these false promises to allay our fears, GM products have little to offer and cannot be justified.

Corporate disinformation trumpets the 114 million hectares of GM crops grown last year. But that's just 1.3 per cent of the world's productive land area. And GM crops are not the global bonanza for farming that the GM industry claims. Nearly 95 per cent of all GM crops - soy, corn, canola and cotton - are grown in North and South America. The USA grows more than 50 per cent of all GM crops, and Argentina, Brazil, Canada and Paraguay grow most of the rest - mainly for animal feed.

Monsanto, the world's biggest commercial seed company, owns more than 90 per cent of all GM crops, a recipe for monopoly control and profits!

GM soy, corn, cotton and canola were launched in the USA in 1996 - with two traits - Roundup herbicide tolerance and insect killing toxins. In 2008, the same four GM crops and two traits are commercially available. GM crops have stalled as they are not a mature technology with potential to develop. If Windows 95 were still our operating system we'd be wondering too!

False promises about the future of GM in agriculture abound. After more than 20 years of effort, there is little in the GM development pipeline that can be commercialised in the next 10 to 20 years, if ever. Most promises - like the CSIRO's non-browning fruits and vegetables, weevil resistant field peas and invasive viruses to sterilise feral animals - were bright ideas that failed on practical, health and environmental grounds. They cost a lot of money that should have been invested in saving our soils and drought-proofing our farms.

Gene manipulation techniques are crude, unreliable and unstable. Though GM can be used to splice single gene traits such as herbicide tolerance between unrelated organisms, most traits are controlled by the interaction of multiple genes that cannot be cut and pasted. These include the oft-promised crops with salt tolerance, nitrogen fixation and nutritional value. GM is slower, more expensive and less successful than traditional breeding in most plants and animals.

The final report of the United Nations' International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) was launched in Johannesburg in April. More than 400 scientists worked for three years to take stock of the current state of farming globally and chart the path for a sustainable future.

The report calls for fundamental changes in agriculture to better address soaring food prices, hunger, social inequities and environmental catastrophe. Shifting from industrial agribusiness to sustainable farming is essential and means investing in research and development to help farmers optimise their use of land and water resources. Modern farming systems would enhance local traditional knowledge.

The report concluded that: "systems are needed that enhance sustainability while maintaining productivity in ways that protect the natural resource base and ecological provisioning of agricultural systems."

The 2,500 page report found no conclusive evidence that GM crops can increase productivity. Instead, several studies had reportedly found GM soybeans and corn suffer 5-10 per cent reductions in yield. GM crops could not play a substantial role in solving key problems of climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger or poverty. There were no other GM crops close to commercial use that might increase yields or resist droughts. GM companies were full participants in setting up the study but when GM crops were criticised they stormed out.

More than 60 countries endorsed the final report but three of those present refused - Australia, the USA and Canada. Again, Australia sided with our North American GM competitors against our GM-free customers in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

These countries have repudiated GM crops, at least until the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol is fully implemented. It requires the Precautionary Principle to be applied to the international transfer, handling and use of living modified (GM) organisms and the latest negotiations in Bonn will introduce liability for damage. Among the few countries that have not signed the Biosafety Protocol are Australia, the USA and Canada, though it has the backing of more than 140 nations.

But aligning ourselves uncritically with US policy on GM is not in Australia's interests.

The USA has not even taken the first step to protecting the global biodiversity on which human communities depend, by joining the Convention on Biological Diversity. Interviewed before the APEC summit meeting in Sydney last year, one of three items on George W. Bush's agenda was promoting the property rights of US companies.

As the former Chair of CSIRO Professor Adrienne Clarke of Melbourne University lamented, foreign seed, chemical and food processing giants already own patents on most of the genes typically used in GM crops. These are the companies that have pushed farm mechanisation, synthetic chemicals and crop monocultures for the past 50 years, making farms dependent on increasingly scarce and expensive oil.

Using the patent and Plant Breeders Rights systems, their aim is monopoly control of the food and fibre-producing organisms that comprise the global food supply, creating a flow of royalties and profits for themselves.

By adding one gene to crops and animals, developed in the public domain over the past five millennia using traditional breeding, they claim patents for their "inventions" and privatise the global biological commons. In contrast, the GM giants resist all but minimal regulation by claiming their GM products just extend traditional breeding practices and are not radically new. They should not be allowed to have it both ways.

Australian governments have been hyper-optimistic about GM for a long time. In more than 20 years they have pumped billions of dollars of scarce public research and development resources into GM, with few discernible public benefits. It is time for a serious reality check on the costs, benefits and prospects for GM organisms.

The processes of setting research and development priorities must also be democratised so that public interest priorities are adopted. New technologies typically create as many new environmental, health and social problems as they solve and GM techniques are no exception. But the lure of patentable products drives the GM juggernaut onward.

Some Australian governments and research agencies are also the committed partners of transnational GM companies. For instance, the Office of the Premier of Victoria and the Victorian and Queensland Governments are members of the Washington DC-based Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) that promotes GM techniques and GM products world-wide on behalf of the industry.

This week Victorian Premier Brumby will, for the fourth year straight, join 20,000 other delegates at the BIO Conference in the USA, despite ALP faction wars destabilising his leadership, according to journalist Peter Austin (The Age, June 13, 2008). Former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is on an annual retainer of $250,000 as the Queensland Government's trade ambassador in the USA, particularly to promote GM.

The Howard government told previous Food Summits in Rome (1996 and 2001) that no country should seek to be self-sufficient in food as global free trade in food would resolve shortages. In particular, the Australians sought to pressure the Japanese on domestic rice production, which their government protects. It was claimed that we could supply any rice shortfall. But Australian production is now at such low levels through drought and the cost of water that we import Asian rice - an increasingly scarce and expensive food needed for local consumption. This lack of foresight should be a warning to the Rudd Government that food policy needs urgent review.

The epidemic of obesity and resource wastage in profligate communities is just so obscene that hungry people refuse to be silenced any longer. At long last, we hope that governments are belatedly forced to listen, but how will they act? Typically, they are still backing quick technical bandaid solutions for every problem. This props up the status quo to maintain their privilege and power, and the profits of corporations.

The world's human carrying capacity is fast surpassing the limits of world resources and ecological systems have been reached in all departments - resource depletion and degradation, pollution burden and social decay. Societies that depend on constant growth are all under ecological and economic stress. Human civilisations must now focus on sustainably repairing the dysfunctions in global life support systems and establishing sustainable systems to feed, house and clothe everyone, in perpetuity. We owe it to future generations.

Except as a useful laboratory technique, Genetic Manipulation cannot positively contribute to the process of creating a sustainable society. Our governments must stop right now, wasting scarce research money on GM crops and foods that objective analysis will show are not required and are almost certain to fail.

EU says Austria has lifted a ban on importing, processing genetically modified corn

Associated Press, 24 June 2008.

Geneva -- Austria has lifted a ban on genetically modified corn as part of the European Union's efforts to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling on biotech foods, the EU said Tuesday. At a regular meeting of the organization, the 27-nation EU informed trading partners that it was cooperating in good faith with Argentina, Canada and the United States, which have successfully pressed their case at the WTO.

The EU said it was taking steps to comply with a 2006 ruling that European countries illegally hindered the sale of genetically modified foods and cited the decision of the Austrian government, long one of Europe's most resistant, to allow genetically modified maize to be imported and processed. The bloc said the ban was lifted on May 27.

Genetically modified foods are highly sensitive on both sides of the Atlantic. European governments such as Germany and France, as well as a number of environmental groups, contend that many such crops are potentially unsafe for humans and the environment.

But the WTO in November 2006 concluded that the European Union had breached commitments from 1998-2004 with respect to 21 products, including types of oilseed rape, maize and cotton. It added that individual bans in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg were illegal, while sidestepping examinations of current EU legislation and whether biotech foods are actually safe.

The European Union had claimed the 2006 ruling was only theoretical since it officially ended its six-year moratorium on the products in 2004 by allowing onto the market a modified strain of sweet corn, grown mainly in the United States.

The U.S. said Tuesday that biotechnology could help offset some of the problems incurred by higher prices for food staples. "The recent rise in world food prices reinforces the importance of the EC implementing its WTO commitments to adopt timely, science-based decisions on agricultural products developed using modern biotechnology," the U.S. said in a statement.

Argentina and Canada said they were extending until August 12 a deadline for EU compliance with the WTO ruling.

Comment by GM-free Ireland:

See article "Still no GM cultivation in Austria" under 17 June below.

Nestlé CEO asks Europe not to oppose use of GM crops

Food Business Review, 24 June 2008

CEO of Nestlé, Peter Brabeck, has asked policymakers in Europe to re-evaluate their opposition to genetically modified crops, revealed the Financial Times.

Rising commodity costs are denying the poor access to basic food items. One way to counter this situation is to accept genetically modified (GM) crops, opined Mr Brabeck. These crops are understood to have higher yields.

Mr Brabeck said: "We have the means to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don't see for the time being is the political will.

"The European Union used political pressure in Africa to prevent some of those countries using GM organisms. I don't think that was necessarily helpful for the agriculture of those countries nor for their supplies."

With fear of rejection from Europe, not just Africa but certain Asian nations are also refraining from planting GM crops. However, the problem does not actually lie with the respective governments alone. According to a survey by the European Commission, only 21% of Europeans will eat genetically engineered food.

Maintaining that European fears pertaining to GM crops were unfounded, Mr Brabeck said: "It is one of the safest technologies that we have ever seen - much safer than bio or organic or whatever else is fashionable in Europe."

Comment from GM Watch:

This is entirely predictable from Nestle. Nestle CEOs have been making similar calls for years and so could be absolutely guaranteed to jump onto the current "exploit the food crisis" bandwagon.

That this particular global food giant keeps championing GM as a saviour of the poor and hungry in the developing world is particularly rich given its appalling record of complete disregard for the health of infants in the developing world via irresponsible marketing of breast milk substitutes - see http://www.babymilkaction.org/

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

Let's boycott Nestlé chocolate and other products from now on!

Wildlife and livelihoods at risk in Kenyan wetlands biofuel project
Plan approved in area prone to food shortages
Farmers and fishermen say protests ignored

The Guardian, June 24 2008. By Xan Rice in Nairobi.

Kenya has approved a controversial biofuel project that environmentalists say could destroy some of the country's most pristine wetlands. More than 80 sq miles of the Tana river delta is scheduled to become a sugar cane plantation, with much of the crop turned into ethanol in a purpose-built factory. The area is home to lions, hippos, reptiles, primates, rare sharks and 345 bird species, and sustains thousands of farmers and fishermen whose protests have been largely ignored, according to campaigners.

Paul Matiku, executive director of Nature Kenya, a Nairobi-based conservation group, described the proposed development by Mumias Sugar, a locally listed firm, as "an ecological and social disaster" that would cause heavy drainage of the delta.

"It will seriously damage our priceless national assets and will put the livelihoods of the people living in the delta in jeopardy," he said.

The merits of growing biofuels are the source of increasingly acrimonious debate in east Africa, where vast tracts of open land in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania are attracting the attention of local and international agriculture firms hoping to cash in on the demand from the US and the European Union for clean energy sources such as ethanol....

23 June 2008

'The World According to Monsanto'

The Real News Network, 23 June 2008.

Monsanto is a world leader in industrial agriculture, providing the seeds for 90 percent of the world's genetically modified crops. In an interview with The Real News Network, filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin discussed her recent film 'The World According to Monsanto' in which she exposes many of Monsanto's controversial practices, from concealing knowledge of toxicity of PCBs to producing genetically modified seeds and related herbicides.

Monsanto has long history of manufacturing dangerous products. In 1949, an explosion in Nitro, a Monsanto factory in the US, caused 228 workers to develop an extremely disfiguring illness caused by dioxin, a highly toxic by-product of 2,4,5-T, a powerful herbicide manufactured in the factory.

Monsanto product Roundup, an herbicide which Monsanto advertised as biodegradable, is still sprayed on crops by unprotected farmers in Paraguay even though Monsanto has already been convicted twice of false advertising for the product.

Robin also denounces Monsanto for not only denying that it ever heard of Agent Orange, a herbicide sprayed by the US Army on crops during the Vietnam war and which Monsanto had in fact manufactured, but also for manipulating scientific studies to hide links between Agent Orange and cancer.

According to Robin, Monsanto has bought fifty seed companies in the last year ten years. In a clip from Robin's film, physicist and ecologist Dr. Vandana warns: "Once [Monsanto has] established the norm that seed can be owned as their property (...) we will depend on them. If they control seed they control food (...). It's more powerful than bombs. This is the best way to control the populations of the world."

In a Monsanto declassified file "we can't afford to lose one dollar" even as toxicity of PCBs was discussed. This, Robin says, sums Monsanto's philosophy rather well.

Watch the full interview here: "The World According to Monsanto":

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=
1582&updaterx=2008-06-22+09%3A47%3A01

Contact:

The Real News Network
Alain Latour
tel + 1 416 916 5202

Campaigners blast EU lobby register plans

The Parliament, 23 June 2008. By Brian Johnson.

Transparency campaigners have slammed as "fundamentally flawed" Brussels' plans to introduce a voluntary register for EU lobbyists.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday ahead of the launch of the register by EU administrative affairs commissioner Siim Kallas, Jorgo Riis, member of the alliance for lobbying transparency, Alter EU, questioned whether the new lobby register had "any value at all".

Riis, also Greenpeace European director, said, "The end product is proof that commercial lobbyists have effective influence in Brussels. Why has the Barroso commission not pushed further on transparency?"

Riis and others in the campaign group argue that the new voluntary register will fail across a number of key transparency benchmarks.

According to Alter EU, individual lobbyists will not be named, meaning there will be no exposure of scandals, no trace of revolving doors (where former EU staff land lucrative jobs with lobbyists), no information on possible conflicts of interest and continued confusion over the number of lobbyists active in Brussels.

The group also believes that new rules for financial disclosure are fundamentally weak and skewed in favour of industry lobbyists, that financial reporting will not be comparable, and that lack of common data on disclosure rules means that the information published cannot be compared or aggregated.

"The information [to be provided] is ambiguous," said Erik Wesselius of Corporate Europe Observatory, adding that there is a "big problem" concerning "the lack of information on individual lobbyists and their clients".

"The voluntary lobby register is more of a token gesture for transparency than an actual step forward," he said.

"The commission is obviously more worried about protecting the identity of lobbyists than it is in increasing transparency and restoring citizens' trust in the EU at a time when such trust is needed most."

Riis said that the blame for the weak proposals should be laid squarely at the feet of commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, telling the assembled journalists that the office of commission secretary general Catherine Day had effectively wrested control of the plans from Kallas and "softened the proposals into a state where [lobbyists] will probably sign up".

"This commission has disappointed us. The fight for transparency is an uphill struggle. Kallas has found that out for himself," Riis said.

"You have to ask whether [the lobby register] has any value at all."

Craig Holman, from US transparency group Public Citizen, added, "When you compare [the new register] to other tested systems, such as in the US, its voluntary nature and distortion in fact make it look like one of the world's weakest registers."

"Today's announcement from the commission is not transparency. Those [companies] that don't want to tell you what they are doing, won't."

GM: Breaking the stalemate

FoodNavigator.com Europe, 23 June 2008.

Food industry voices are joining those of politicians in the GM debate, hailing the controversial technology as the answer to the food supply crisis. But the hearts and minds of consumers must still be won.

Peter Brabeck, chairman for Nestle, has called loudly for Europe to reassess its GM policy to help combat the dwindling food supplies and soaring commodity prices.

And he is not the only food industry big-wig to take this stance. Ian Ferguson, chairman for Tate & Lyle and president of the UK's Food and Drink Federation has long been a GM advocate, hoping to foster fair debate on the rapidly progressing technology.

Last week it was the turn of the politicians. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain should step up its GM acceptance, encouraging the end to the zero tolerance on feed shipments, which currently sees entire batches containing traces of GM material sent back.

On a European level, opinion is divided among member states, leading to inconsistencies and slow approval processes. While some hail GM as the answer, current decisions on certain GM materials are not upheld by some countries.

Since the first approval of GM maize 10 years ago, there are still countries refusing to grow it, and it remains the only crop cultivated in Europe.

Europe was accused of breaking international trade rules as a result, following a case brought by leading GMO producers Argentina, Canada and the US to the World Trade Organisation under claims their farmers were losing millions because of the EU.

Europe was given a deadline to comply with its trade obligations. This deadline has still not been met.

Furthermore, while research is leading to a second generation of GM crops with improved functionality, first generation GM products are still meeting barriers.

There is currently a backlog of 30 or 40 products waiting for approval in Europe.

As big businesses have been renowned for holding sway with politicians in the past, it remains to be seen whether growing industry support could effect decisions in the GM arena - stepping up approval processing and bringing countries in line.

However, at the same time, consumers hold sway with food companies. And at the moment, consumers are erring on the side of caution.

Studies have found genetic modification leads to higher yields, which in turn could feed the world and bring down food prices, GM supporters say.

It's a valid and convincing argument.

Yet the counter argument seems just as strong.

Green campaigners cite equally compelling studies that show GM does not lead to higher yields at all. In fact, some studies show they do quite the opposite.

Additionally, while areas such the US and Asia Pacific have more fully embraced the use GM without suffering any health or environmental problems so far, there are fears the long term effects will not be seen for decades.

No wonder consumers remain confused and cautious.

Some GM detractors say it is not even a question of there not being enough food being produced to feed the world. What needs to change is the nature of the food economy.

Yet, like it or loathe it, GM is now a part of the highly complex food economy.

While the debate seems to have reached a stalemate, with both sides arguing their corner convincingly, it seems clear it is not an issue that will go away and we need to move on.

What is needed is a compromise - an acceptance that GM could hold some answers, but it is not the only solution to the global food crisis, and it must progress with caution and under constant monitoring.

A total mental block on any possible benefits to be derived from GM is not helpful, and could result in the baby being thrown out of the bathwater.

Meanwhile, businesses must be careful not to present GM as a panacea.

To do so would detract from other issues affecting supply that need to be addressed urgently, like fixing trade inequalities for example, and could open them up to allegations of placing cheap and abundant raw materials before consumer interests.

Laura Crowley is a reporter specialising in the food industry, with a Masters degree in journalism. If you would like to comment on this article, please email laura.crowley'at'decisionnews.com.

Biotech's Assault on Mexico
Killing Farmers with Killer Seed

CounterPunch, June 23 2008. By John Ross.

As the global food crisis escalates, Big Biotech (Monsanto, Novartis, Syngenta, Dupont-Pioneer, Dow et al) are capitalizing on the desperation of the hungry at runaway prices and rapidly diminishing reserves as a wedge to foist genetically modified (GMO) seeds on a reluctant Third World.

Latin America is a prime marketing target for Big Biotech's little darlings, often tagged "semillas asasinas" or "killer seeds" for their devastating impacts on local food stocks. Now the killer GMOs are suspected of literally provoking murder most foul.

Last October, Armando Villareal, a farm leader in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua, was gunned down after a farmers' meeting in Nuevo Casas Grandes. Villareal had been denouncing the illegal planting of GMO corn in the Mennonite-dominated municipalities of Cuauhtemoc and Naniquipa.

Chihuahua Mennonite communities originally migrated from Canada after a dispute with the Canadian government over education in the 1920s and were granted land by post-revolutionary president Alvaro Obregon. Over the decades, the Mennonites have successfully cultivated up to 60,000 hectares in the northeast of the state. Acutely insular with their signature dress (denim overalls for the men, prairie dresses and calico bonnets for the women) and speaking low-German as befits their European roots, the Mennonites have never integrated into the Mexican mainstream and their success as farmers - they have benefited from Mexican government irrigation projects - has created tensions in a region where aridity limits agricultural production for most farmers.

Hundreds of tractors lined up in a cortege at Villareal's October 15th funeral during which he was compared to another Chihuahua hero, Francisco Villa. Ironically, the slain farmers' leader who claimed to have evidence that the Mennonites' killer seeds had been smuggled in from Kansas, was not opposed to planting GMO corn which his "Aerodynamica" group hoped would save strapped farmers money on pesticides and power costs. His followers had even burnt tractors to demand that the Mexican government grant them permits to plant the transgenic corn.

Eight months later, Armando Villareal's murder remains unresolved.

The Chihuahua farm leader's assassination is not the only death of a militant Latin American campesino being linked to Big Biotech's encroachments. In Parana Brazil about the same time Villareal was gunned down in Chihuahua, Keno Mota, an activist of the Movement of Landless Farmers ("Movimento de Sem Terras" or MST), affiliated with the international poor farmers coalition Via Campesina, was drilled by security guards during an action on an illegal experimental station under cultivation by the Biotech giant Syngenta - the Syngenta plot, adjacent to Iguazu National Park, a protected nature reserve, violated Brazilian strictures as to where such "semillas asasinas" can be planted.

Unlike Mexico, Brazil has few restrictions on GMO crops and indeed under social democrat president Lula da Silva, has become the second-largest GMO soybean producer on the continent. Neighboring Argentina is Numero Uno. Big Argentinean growers, who have been blocking that southern cone nation's highways in a dispute over tariffs on soy exports for weeks, have announced intentions to surpass the United States as the largest grower of genetically modified maize in coming years. Argentinean corn is grown exclusively as feed for the gaucho nation's cattle industry, a cornerstone of its agrarian economy.

Mexico, where maiz was first domesticated 8000 years ago and where corn is at the core of culture as well as nutrition, has been more circumspect in embracing GMO seed. Under the banner of the "No Hay Pais Sin Maiz" ("we have no country without corn") campaign, farmers and environmentalists have joined hands to prevent GMO contamination of native species and the nation's Bio-Security Commission, initialed CYBOGEN, an inter-secretarial government body, declared a moratorium on the cultivation of genetically modified corn in the late 1990s.

Nonetheless, millions of tons of GMO maize pour into Mexican tariff-free each year from the U.S. under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.)

Now, in the wake of the much-hyped global food crisis, Big Biotech is pressuring the Mexican government to permit experimental plantations of the semillas asasinas as the only solution to predicted shortages, a ploy that Monsanto and its ilk have successfully sprung on the European Union.

Although GMO corn remains officially proscribed in Europe, seven EU members will grow the modified maize this year. Agribiz combines like the British National Beef Association, insist that "all resistance to GMO crops must be abandoned" in light of the growing international food psychosis.

One motive for the industry's big push, according to Sylvia Ribero who keeps tabs on Big Biotech for the left daily La Jornada: patents for some of the major GMO seed brands like Monsanto's BT corn are set to expire in the next five years.

Buckling under the Biotech barrage, Mexico's CYBOGEN posted regulations this March for applicants who contemplate cultivation of "experimental" GMO corn. Now, with a 60-day countdown ticking, Mexican farmers could be legally planting genetically modified maiz by July.

Under ground rules issued by both the Agriculture and Environmental secretariats (SAGARPA and SAMARNAT), experimental patches of GMO corn must be limited to regions where native corn stocks will not be contaminated by windblown pollens from such fields.

But the Mennonite farmers who occupy huge tracts in Chihuahua apparently jumped the gun. Under the tutelage of Monsanto and Syngenta-Golden Harvest with the SAGARPA and the SAMARNAT turning a blind eye, the Mennonites have sewn GMO corn in at least two of their "camps" or agricultural stations (#102 and #305) in the municipality of Naniquipa where Villareal spotted the illegal patches last year. Decrying insufficient safeguards against windblown pollens, Chihuahua campesinos led by Victor Quintana of the "No Hay Pais" campaign, also affiliated with Via Campesina, and a deputy in the Mexican congress for the left-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), have threatened to tear out the Mennonite fields before they flower in mid-summer.

Quintana's group worries that the Mennonite "experiment" will germinate five to 25 million "granos" or kernels, each of which is a potential threat to native corn.

SAGARPA regards the Mennonite "experiment" as a field test to see just how far the pollens can be spread by winds and other weather conditions.

Windblown GMO pollens are held responsible for the contamination of maiz in neighboring Sinaloa state where Greenpeace activists found traces of genetically modified corn in 96% of samples taken in nine municipalities in 2007 - Sinaloa is Mexico's top corn producing state. Aleira Lara, Greenpeace anti-GMO campaign coordinator, considers that trying to confine experimental plots to one geographical region is merely cosmetic. Last year, the Greenpeacers listed 39 instances of windblown GMO contamination in 23 countries.

Native Mexican corn was first found to have been infected by NAFTA GMO imports in 2001 when Indian campesinos in Oaxaca's Sierra of Juarez discovered that maiz from a lot introduced from Michigan and sold by a local government DICONSA grain distribution center had been inadvertently planted in the Zapotec-Chinanteco village of Calpulapan. Subsequent investigation by the National Ecology Institute, documented in a report suppressed by the Secretary of Agriculture, turned up traces of GMO contamination (some as high as 60%) in 11 out of 22 corn-growing regions in Oaxaca and Puebla. Maiz was first domesticated in the Puebla-Oaxaca altiplano eight millenniums ago.

Although the CYBOGEN has never until now licensed the production of genetically modified corn in Mexico, the semillas asasinas have almost certainly been cultivated here since the late 1990s. The International Commission for the Betterment of Corn and Wheat (CIMMYT), financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, with experimental fields in Texcoco just outside Mexico City is thought to be one source of windblown contamination. Roberto Gonzalez Barrera, the King of the Tortilla, the owner of MASECA, the world's biggest corn flour miller now a third owned by Archer Daniels Midlands, once boasted that he had thousands of hectares under GMO corn. NAFTA imports fall off DICONSA trucks on rural highways and the pollens are blown into roadside "milpas" (cornfields.)

Now GMO infestation is about to get much more acute. In a move to offset soaring prices and shrinking reserves that invariably generate social discontent, Mexican president Felipe Calderon has announced the tariff-free importation of millions of tons of basic grains (corn, wheat, soy, sorghum.) Because the Cargill Corporation, which has dominated grain distribution in Mexico ever since the government's CONASUPO system was privatized in 1999, claims it cannot separate out GMO from uncontaminated imports, the impacts on native corn and other grains will be greatly magnified - Greenpeace estimates that 60 to 70% of all corn imports are contaminated by genetically modified organisms.

John Ross is in Mexico City pounding away on "El Monstruo - Tales of Dread & Redemption In the World's Most Terrifying Urban Monster" (working title) to be published in 2009 by Nation Books.

Ross himself is available at johnross@igc.org.

Reject money for engineered crops

Chicago Daily Herald, 23 June 2008

Congress should reject the $150 million earmarked for the genetically engineered crops, nestled like a snake in the Bush Administration's $770 million aid package aimed at easing the global food crisis.

Again, taking care of his contributors, the $150 million would be diverted to the Agency for International Development specifically to promote genetically engineered crops in famine stricken countries. The same GE crops that have not been demonstrated to significantly increase yields, force farmers into expensive agrichemical treatment cycles, and which have been banned in dozens of countries around the world because they are not proven to be safe for the environment or for human consumption.

Proponents of the GE production methods will argue that the soil issues of many developing countries would benefit from the agrichemical processes. To this we must ask why our own American soil has shown such deterioration since World War II when the agribusinesses began their assault on our American farmlands. Agrichemical farming has resulted in Americans being the most chemically toxic, overfed and undernourished people in the world. We are repulsed to see people in developing counties drinking contaminated river water. Yet, we drink clear water, pumped into our homes from sophisticated filtration systems which cannot remove all the agrichemicals which are proven contaminants. The people of developing countries have their own set of problems, we need not complicate them by adding on ours.

Congress should make sure that the $150 million is redirected as grants for countries to buy regionally and nationally produced food. Global security is dependent upon long-term sustainability, not short term corporate subsidies.

Gail Talbot
Huntley

EU Agriculture Council: Don't fall for GMO hype

Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, CPE - European Farmers Coordination press release, 23 June 2008.

Brussels -- As European farm ministers meet today, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace and the European Farmers Coordination are stepping up calls for governments not to fall for biotech industry propaganda that genetically modified (GM) crops are a solution to the food and feed price crisis.

Today's European Agriculture Council comes at a time when political attention has focused on GMOs as a potential solution, including the UK Prime Minister reportedly calling for the EU to relax rules on importing GM animal feed [1]. This is likely to involve dropping the EU's 'zero tolerance' policy to allow contamination with GMOs not approved in the EU. The European Commission is expected to put forward a proposal on this issue in the coming weeks.

However, there is no evidence that GM crops will help tackle the food and feed price rise crisis:

•

There are many complex factors behind the rise in food prices including the deregulation of agricultural trade, commodity speculation, rise in oil prices, climate change, the global rush for biofuels and the underlying unfair trade system [2];

•

GM crops have failed to tackle hunger and poverty around the world [3];

•

Around 60 governments have endorsed the conclusions of the 2008 UN and World Bank 'International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development' (IAASTD) which found no role for genetically modified crops in tackling future food needs [4]. The GMO industry pulled out of this process last year and the US has refused to sign the final report because it is not supportive of GMOs;

•

Most GM crops cultivated around the world are grown in intensive monocultures, have resulted in a massive increase in pesticide use [5], and are used as animal feed in richer nations, not for food in poorer countries;

•

GM crops do not increase yields and attempts to develop drought or salt tolerant GM crops have failed - no such crops are on the market despite years of research;

•

Patents and ownership underpinning GMOs mean that GM crops are inherently unsuitable for small scale and resource-poor farmers;

•

Evidence clearly shows that weakening the EU's GMO laws to drop the 'zero tolerance' principle will not solve the high prices faced by the European livestock and food industry.[6]

Helen Holder, GMO coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe said: "Governments are seriously misled if they think that GM crops are going to help tackle the food crisis - GM crops do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty. Instead of helping the GM industry to cash-in on the food crisis, Europe should be encouraging a radical shift towards sustainable farming systems and abandoning its biofuels target which is fuelling high food and feed prices."

Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU GMO campaign director said: "There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the current food price increase. Any claim that a single technology such as genetic engineering is a silver bullet for our future food supply is plainly false and distracts attention from the real solutions. Farming methods that ensure higher yields, that are more climate resilient, which do not destroy natural resources and can provide better livelihoods for farmers around the world are the only way forward."

Gerard Choplin, coordinator of European Farmers Coordination from CPE said: "European farmers can produce the animal feed needed. The European Union must, through its current and future reforms of the Common Agriculture Policy, shift away from dependence on imported animal feed by adopting policies to encourage farmers to cultivate protein crops and develop grasslands."

For more information please contact:

Helen Holder, Friends of the Earth Europe GMO coordinator,
tel. +32 (0)2 542 0182, +32 (0)474 857638 (mob.), helen.holder@foeeurope.org

Francesca Gater, Friends of the Earth Europe Communications Officer,
tel. +32 2542 6105, (mob.) +32 485 930 515, francesca.gater@foeeurope.org

Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU GMO policy director,
tel. +32 (0)2 274 19 06, +32 (0)477 77 70 34 (mob.) marco.contiero@greenpeace.org

Gérard Choplin, Coordinator, European Farmers' Coordination (CPE), tel. +32(0) 2 217 3112, +32 (0)473257378 (mob.) cpe@cpefarmers.org

Notes

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brown-pushes-eu-to-allow-more -modified-animal-feeds-851020.html

[2] See Friends of the Earth's media briefing on the food crisis:
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/food_crisis.pdf

[3] Questions and Answers: Who benefits from GM crops?
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/who_benefits_questions.pdf

[4] IAASTD global press release:
http://www.agassessment.org/docs/Global_Press_Release_final.doc
http://www.agassessment.org/docs/SR_Exec_Sum_210408_Final.pdf

[5] http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/FULL_REPORT_FINAL_FEB08.pdf

[6] http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/animal%20feed/Briefing_animal_feed_GMOs_May_20 08.pdf

Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) campaigns for sustainable and just societies and for the protection of the environment. It unites more than 30 national organisations around Europe with thousands of local groups. FoEE is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International which has members in 70 countries worldwide with over 2 million members.

Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation with offices in 42 countries worldwide. Greenpeace European Unit is based in Brussels where it monitors and analyses the work of the institutions of the EU, exposes deficient EU policies and laws, and challenges decision-makers to implement progressive solutions.

Coordination Paysanne Europeenne(CPE)/European Farmers Coordination is a coordinated group of 25 farmers' organisations from 15 countries in Europe. For 20 years we have produced analysis and proposals regarding reforms to the CAP. It is active in 15 countries and at EU level to defend the interests of small farms. With others, in 1993, CPE founded the international farmers and agricultural workers movement known as 'La Via Campesina'. CPE has been campaigning against GMOs for 15 years and also for greater autonomy within the EU concerning animal feed.

Natural England warns Brown of dangers in promoting GM crops

The Independent (UK), 23 June 2008. By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor.

[picture caption: Weedkillers used with genetically modified oilseed rape wiped out much wildlife]

Gordon Brown and the Government are today given a blunt warming about their new enthusiasm for genetically-modified crops and food by the head of the Government's own countryside and wildlife agency.

In a letter to The Independent, Sir Martin Doughty, the chairman of Natural England, cautions against "rushing headlong to embrace GM crops as the solution to rising food prices". He says they can cause harm to wildlife, and there is little evidence that the present generation of biotechnology crops will help in reconciling surging global food demand with protecting the environment.

His letter is a direct shot across the Government's bows, and a response to its reopening of the GM debate last week, with ministers from Mr Brown down indicating that the time has come for Britain and Europe to relax GM restrictions in the face of the new concern about world food supplies and prices.

Natural England's predecessor body, English Nature - of which Sir Martin was also chair - which first raised the alarm about the damage the available suite of GM crops, mainly engineered to be tolerant of powerful weedkillers, could do to wildlife on British farmland. That concern led to the official farm-scale evaluations of GM beet, oilseed rape and maize, which reported in 2003 that the weedkillers used with the first two were far more damaging to wildlife than conventional herbicides.

The GM maize regime was found to be less damaging, although the conventional weedkiller it was compared to, atrazine, was itself so harmful it was later banned in the EU.

English Nature's stubbornness in insisting on the trials did not please the Government, not least because Tony Blair was a committed advocate of GM technology. Mr Brown will find the intervention of Sir Martin, a Labour politician from Derbyshire, just as unwelcome.

"We need to be mindful of the lessons of the past before rushing headlong to embrace GM crops as the solution to rising food prices," Sir Martin writes. "The evidence of field-based trials on GM crops previously proposed for commercial release in England demonstrates that they can have a detrimental indirect impact on farmland biodiversity."

Natural England's own policy document, Biotechnology in the Natural Environment, will be put before its board for approval on Wednesday. It says: "Because GM can be used to develop organisms with radically different properties, we are particularly concerned about potential impacts on biodiversity that could be caused by changes in crop, tree or animal husbandry."

A massive reduction in farmland wildlife has accompanied the intensification of agriculture in the past 30 years.

Letter from the Chair of Natural England

The Independent (UK), 23 June 2008. Letters to the editor.

Sir: We need to be mindful of the lessons of the past before rushing headlong to embrace genetically modified crops as the solution to rising food prices.

The evidence of field-based trials on GM crops previously proposed for commercial release in England demonstrates that they can have a detrimental indirect impact on farmland biodiversity. We clearly face a huge challenge in reconciling the surging global demand for food with the need to conserve and enhance our natural environment.

However, there is little evidence to date that the current generation of biotechnology products will help. The precautionary principle compels us to understand the full impact of each GM crop on a case-by-case basis before commercial release. GM crops can in no way be seen as a quick fix.

Sir Martin Doughty
Chair, Natural England
Sheffield

22 June 2008

Controversy as Minister met lobbyists hours before 'shift in policy' over GM foods

Daily Mail (UK), 22 June 2008. by Jonathan Petre.

[Photo caption: Talks: Environment Minister Phil Woolas met with the powerful Agriculture Biotechnology Council to discuss relaxing the rules on GM crop trials]

Labour is embroiled in controversy after a Minister appeared to shift Government policy on genetically modified (GM) foods following talks with industry lobbyists.

A leaked document reveals that Environment Minister Phil Woolas met the powerful Agriculture Biotechnology Council (ABC) last week to discuss the relaxation of rules on GM crop trials.

Just hours afterwards, he signalled a possible change in Government policy by telling a newspaper: 'There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis.

'It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves.'

Previously, Labour had shelved debate on the issue following widespread public concern over so-called 'Frankenstein Foods'.

The document obtained by the BBC revealed that the ABC, whose members include executives from GM firms Monsanto and Bayer, had asked Mr Woolas to relax regulations that they claim prevent the industry from carrying out vital research into ways of wiping out famine.

The ABC argued that the Government should drop requirements to make the location of GM crop trials public, which they say allows vandals to destroy crops.

An entire crop of GM potatoes in Yorkshire was destroyed by eco-warriors earlier this month.

Though Mr Woolas has insisted that 'robust' procedures are needed to ensure the safety of GM experiments, anti-GM campaigners are deeply alarmed that the Government has reopened the controversial issue.

They said that the rules protected the environment and public health, and accused the Government of exploiting the world food crisis to relaunch its campaign for GM food.

Former Environment Minister Michael Meacher said that although lobbying was going on all the time, Ministers and officials were 'too cosy' with pro-GM advocates.

He said it was a 'reasonable assumption' that Mr Woolas's meeting with the Council had influenced his subsequent comments, though he had no evidence.

Mr Meacher said companies hoped to cash in on the 'potential commercial bonanza' if GM crops were grown across Europe and the developing world, but added that this route was 'dangerous'.

Mr Woolas was abroad and unable to comment last night.

But a spokesman for the Department of the Environment said: 'It has always been the Government's position that GM crops could offer a range of benefits over the longer term, including resisting droughts and pests, and that has not changed.

'As Phil Woolas has reiterated, safety is our top priority.'

21 June 2008

Small farms best for environment: organic group

Reuters, 21 June 2008.

MODENA, Italy (Reuters) - Small-scale, not industrial farming, is the answer to food shortages and climate change, organic farmers argued this week.

Meeting at the Organic World Congress this week, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements IFOAM -- www.ifoam.org -- criticized a recent U.N. food summit for touting chemical fertilizers and genetically modified (GM) crops rather than organic solutions to tackle world hunger.

The World Bank says an extra 100 million people worldwide could go hungry as a result of the sharp rise in the price of food staples in the last year.

At the U.N. food summit in Rome this month, the World Bank pledged $1.2 billion in grants to help with the food crisis.

"The $1.2 billion the World Bank says will solve the food crisis in Africa is a $1.2 billion subsidy to the chemical industry," said Vandana Shiva, an Indian physics professor and environmental activist speaking at the forum in Modena.

"Countries are made dependent on chemical fertilizers when their prices have tripled in the last year due to rising oil prices," she said. "I say to governments: spend a quarter of that on organic farming and you've solved your problems."

She said industrial farming was based on planting a single crop on vast surfaces and heavy use of chemical fertilizers, a process that used 10 times more energy than it produced.

"The rest turns into waste as greenhouse gases, chemical runoffs and pesticide residues in our food," she said.

In contrast, organic farms could increase output by 10 times by growing many different species of plants at the same time, which helped retain soil and water, she said. "In a one-acre farm in India they can grow 250 species of plants," she said.

FEEDING 9 BILLION PEOPLE

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said last December there was no reason to believe that organic agriculture can substitute conventional farming systems in ensuring the world's food security.

"You cannot feed six billion people today and nine billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers."

Shiva has began a civil disobedience campaign in India against the patenting of natural seeds, particularly of crops that resist flooding and drought and can better withstand climate change.

"We need this worldwide. Seeds are for everyone," she said.

According to IFOAM, a quarter of greenhouse gases are emitted by industrially farmed crops and livestock. The proportion rises to 40 percent when including the emissions caused by transporting commodities around the world.

IFOAM members also criticized the production of fuel from grains, citing a U.S. university study that it took 1.3 gallons of fossil fuel to make 1 gallon of ethanol from corn.

The United States and Brazil defended their use of corn and sugar cane to make ethanol to fuel cars at the UN food summit saying it was a minor factor in food price inflation.

Europe warms to GM crops as possible solution to food crisis

The Independent (UK), 21 June 2008. By By Andrew Grice and Vanessa Mock in Brussels.

The European Union has launched a study into whether a large-scale expansion of genetically modified crops would curb soaring global food prices.

Gordon Brown backed the move after the European Commission said GM crops could "play an important role in mitigating the effects of the food crisis". Jose Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, warned that the EU's current obstacles to GM products could result in higher food prices in Europe than the rest of the world. EU leaders endorsed the plans to review the complex system of approving GM licences, which is split between the EU and national governments. It could be streamlined to make the approval process easier.

Mr Brown told a press conference in Brussels that decisions on the issue should be driven by science. He said: "In the end, the attitude to GM crops and GM food taken by consumers in our country and in any country is going to depend on the scientific and medical advice. That is what we are looking for from the work of this review group. Scientific advice is going to be the key to the future. It is very important that we see the results of that review before we come to firm conclusions."

The push for an expansion of GM crops comes as British ministers consider plans to relax the Government's controls over their cultivation, as The Independent revealed on Thursday.

In a report to EU leaders, Mr Barroso said the food price rises had added "a new dimension" to the public debate on GM crops. He admitted people were worried about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food and farming, but he said the EU was probably one of the largest importers of GMOs as its livestock industry was highly dependent on imported plant proteins.

He added: "The recent surge in agricultural commodity prices could be exacerbated by trade obstacles related to GMOs, thus resulting in an increase of [animal] feed and food prices in the EU higher than in other parts of the world."

Plans by the Commission to give "pre-marketing authorisation" to 16 GMOs have been blocked by the Council of Ministers, which is the EU's main decision-making body. The Commission has urged member states with national bans on GM crops to lift them, saying that they are not "scientifically justified".

20 June 2008

EU announces emergency measures to tackle food and fuel crises

EU Observer, 20 June 2008. By Leigh Phillips.

BRUSSELS - EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Friday (20 June) for a European summit discussed a raft of emergency measures to deal with the fall-out from the ongoing global twin crises of soaring oil and food prices.

Most immediately, Europe's food aid scheme that hands out emergency food aid to the poorest EU citizens is to be boosted from €300 million to €500 million.

Other measures will include aid to fishermen, the creation of a new fund to support agriculture in developing countries and moves to boost transparency in European oil and gas markets.

"Our most important concern is for our citizens," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who presented the package of measures to the assembled European heads of state and government.

"There are people who are really suffering and having trouble paying their fuel bills and buying food," he continued, telling reporters that the union of 27 member states was witnessing for the first time "a new kind of poverty in Europe".

European leaders discussed and endorsed Mr Barroso's proposals, although the details will be fleshed out in the coming days and weeks. Mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of the measures will be announced as the proposals are fully unveiled.

A range of energy taxation proposals will also be unveiled in the Autumn, Mr Barroso said, including mechanisms to encourage the use of energy efficient products.

In recent months, Europe, like much of the rest of the world, has been rocked by militant protests by farmers, lorry drivers, and others who are most acutely affected by rising oil prices, with European capitals, ports and refineries the focus of a rolling series of blockades, strikes and occupations.

Simultaneously, consumers on the continent have experienced shocking price rises on key food items while in the developing world, the same price increases produced a wave of riots earlier in the year.

Aid for fishermen comes with strings

Fishermen, a number of whom who a fortnight ago shook the European quarter in Brussels with violent protests, will receive an increase in the amount of direct aid from the EU - some €30,000 per vessel and €100,000 per company.

The specific demand of protesting fishermen - government help to cut the price of diesel down to 40 cents a litre from its current 80 cents - was not met.

Further, the aid package - to be presented to the council of fisheries ministers meeting in Luxembourg on 24 June - will be offered on condition that there be a reduction in the fishing fleet to deal with the severe problem of overfishing in European waters.

"Without fish, there cannot be fisheries," warned Mr Barroso.

President Barroso also passed onto the council a suggestion made earlier in the year by agriculture commissioner Marian Fischer Boel that some monies from the common agricultural policy budget be diverted to create a new fund to aid the agricultural sector in developing countries.

Some of the new member states however say that if there is to be a diversion of CAP funds, it should go to increased payments to their farmers first, arguing that they receive less per hectare than older member states.

Nonetheless, the commission's agriculture spokesperson said that there was no overall resistance to the commission proposal, but that changes in aid to their farmers is not on the cards, as these figures are locked into these countries' accession treaties.

Biofuels, which have been forcefully criticised by several international organisations, including the UN, for the role they are playing in pushing up food prices, remain part of the energy equation, the EU leaders insisted.

However, the leaders made a point of emphasising the importance of second generation biofuels, which are not made from edible products and so do not compete with food, and agreed that those that are produced must be environmentally sustainable and not reduce the amount of farm land used to grow food.

Agreement was also reached on the need for research into how commodity trading and speculation is affecting food prices.

The EU is also to call on developing countries not to impose limits or bans on food exports. The commission has repeatedly blamed such restrictions for exacerbating the food crisis as it limits the supply available on the global market, pushing up prices.

No VAT reduction on fuel

As for responses to the crises on the part of national governments, the council agreed that EU countries are free to slap taxes on oil companies' windfall profits in the wake of the rise in oil prices.

Mr Barroso also said that member states are free to reduce excise duties on fuel.

European leaders however, for the most part reacted coolly to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal that value-added taxes on petrol be reduced. His foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, wants a VAT cap on fuel to be put in place should a barrel of oil reach $200 a barrel.

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that VAT reductions could have the reverse effect and increase prices still further.

"We believe that we need to look into the root issues and tackle them ... and they do not have a lot to do with VAT," Merkel said.

"My position on that issue will not change," she added.

As a compromise, the European Council asked France, due to take over the six-month rotating EU presidency in July, to conduct a study together with the European Commission on all proposed fiscal measures to deal with the crisis.

President Sarkozy said that the report will be tabled before October.

Sovereign wealth funds

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he is hoping to convince oil producing nations to "recycle" their enormous profits - gathered in so-called soverign wealth funds - and invest them in alternative energy development in Europe.

"Currently some estimate sovereign wealth funds to be worth as much as $3 trillion, and within the next few years this will climb to between $12 and 13 trillion," he told reporters.

European nations are also pinning their hopes on an "international energy dialogue", wherein oil consuming nations attempt to convince producing nations to boost production.

Mr Brown is to attend emergency oil talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, accompanied by energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

The meeting is to discuss what can be done internationally to lower oil prices, but analysts do not expect OPEC nations to significantly boost production - a key hope of western governments.

It won't feed the starving and it creates more poverty.
So why are we told GM food is the answer?
Ministers and industry accused of exploiting world food crisis to relaunch campaign for GM food

Daily Mail (UK), 20 June 2008. By Geoffrey Lean.

The saying goes, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good - and the increasing hunger spreading around the globe as the world food crisis takes hold is sending the genetically modified food lobby smiling all the way to the seed bank.

Food prices may be at a record high, food reserves at an unprecedented low, and millions of the world's poorest may be struggling to scrape together a single meal a day - but the much-battered biotech industry is enjoying its biggest ever public relations bonanza.

Yesterday, Environment Minister Phil Woolas said Britain needs to look at whether GM technology could help tackle the current crisis, signalling an end to more than a decade of government scepticism over GM plants.

Suddenly, after years of being shunned by the British public, the industry and its cheerleaders are scrambling for the unfamiliar territory of the moral high ground.

Only GM can reduce world hunger, they say. Anyone churlish enough to mention the indisputable damage it does to the environment - or the worrying, if inconclusive, evidence it may endanger health - is guilty of betraying the most wretched people on earth.

It's been hard, over recent weeks, to switch on the TV or radio without hearing some variation of this theme. And it is passing from punditry into policy.

The World Bank is calling for an agricultural revolution based on biotechnology, while Neil Parish, chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, avers that rising food prices will make consumers 'more realistic' about GM.

George W. Bush - declaring that modified crops ' hold the promise of producing more food for more people' - has made promoting them part of a proposed £335 million aid package to ease the food crisis.

Dissent is denounced as heresy. Britain's National Beef Association is calling for 'all resistance to GM crops to be abandoned immediately'.

And when the world's biggest ever agricultural study - the work of 400 scientists and 60 governments - concluded GM was 'not the simple answer to hunger and poverty', it was denounced by one newspaper columnist as 'a truly shocking betrayal of the world's least well fed'.

Ministers and members of the biotech industry are jumping on the band wagon of the world food crisis and using it to support the argument for GM crops

But it's all hype. The truth is GM crops do nothing to ease world hunger. Quite the reverse. They actually threaten to make it worse.

Let's start with the fallacy that GM crops are more productive. Intuitively it seems to make sense and you hear it everywhere: BBC newsreaders refer unquestioningly to 'high yielding GM crops'. George Bush's food aid expert, Dan Price, says: 'It is established fact that a number of bioengineered crops have shown themselves to increase yield.'

Not so. The real facts show that genetic modification not only fails to boost productivity, but often slashes it.

Dr Charles Benbrook, an agricultural scientist, reported 'voluminous and clear evidence' that modified soya crops 'produce five to ten fewer bushels per acre in contrast to otherwise identical varieties grown under comparable field conditions'.

In 1998, a study based on 8,200 trials of GM soya varieties in U.S. universities found they produced 6.7 per cent less than their nearest non-GM relatives. They yielded 10 per cent less than the best conventional soya available at the time.

Two years later, a study at the University of Nebraska came up with strikingly similar results, finding that five different Monsanto GM soyas - though more expensive - produced 6 per cent less food than their closest cousins, and 11 per cent less than the highest-yielding traditional varieties.

Other studies have shown that the productivity of soya doubled in the 70 years before the introduction of modified varieties in the mid-Nineties.

At least half of this was down to the traditional way of improving crops by interbreeding them; the rest came from improved farming practices. But once GM soya became widespread, this growth abruptly stopped: yields have remained much the same since.

Cotton yields, which had multiplied five-fold since 1930, also stagnated in the U.S. as GM varieties took over 80 per cent of the crop in the late Nineties.

Modified corn did better: yields continued growing at the same rate while it was introduced, but still did not accelerate as proponents would have us believe. And studies have shown that some GM varieties suffer drops of up to 12 per cent.

Confronted by this evidence, the industry beats a hasty retreat. The question of yields is a 'sideshow', you are told, modified crops were never intended to increase them. True enough, if a long way from the hype about GM feeding the world.

All varieties now being grown were developed for two purposes, tolerating weedkillers so they can be sprayed more abundantly, and resisting pests.

Yet drenching the crops with chemicals has caused the development of resistant superweeds which have been found in more than 3,250 places in the U.S. alone.

Similarly, GM cotton developed to resist bollworm has been attacked by other pests, causing an increase of spraying with insecticide.

All that is in the past, retorts the industry. What we do in the future will tackle world hunger. Earlier this month, Hugh Grant, Monsanto's chief executive, announced a 'commitment' to double yields of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030 and, at the same time, to develop crops that will need 30 per cent less water, land and energy to grow.

Experts doubt any of this will happen, saying it is a much more difficult undertaking than developing the present modified varieties. Lester Brown, president of Washington's Earth Policy Institute, says the physiology of plants is approaching its practical limit.

For comparison, he points out how runners have only slightly improved on Roger Bannister's first four-minute mile of more than 50 years ago. As for drought-resistant crops, they have been researched for at least ten years without success.

Experts say that, at best, they are decades away from being grown. And even then the developing world would have to wait: Monsanto has previously made it clear that the miracle varieties would be used in the U.S. 'well before they become available in other countries'.

Indeed, the biotech companies are already hard at work to ensure they, not the hungry, would benefit. An investigation has found they have filed for no fewer than 532 patents around the world on genes that might confer drought resistance.

If successful, these will enable them to monopolise the seeds needed to grow crops in a warmer, drier world, charge what they like and, by ensuring the seeds are 'infertile', make farmers buy new ones every year by stopping their age-old practice of saving seeds from one harvest to sow for the next one.

These so-called 'terminator' crops would mean the poorest farmers would be driven to the wall, increasing destitution.

Studies of modified soya in Latin America and cotton in India show poor farmers and labourers are already suffering, as bigger ones take over the land and reduce their workforces.

Professor Ossama El-Tayeb, of Cairo University, condemns 'big business' for claiming that 'GM crops will alleviate poverty soon, while currently available ones mostly contribute negatively to poverty alleviation and food security, and positively to the stock market'.

This is all the more scandalous because the small farmers of the Third World really are the key to reducing hunger. They produce up to 20 times more food per acre than the biggest ones, partly because they work the land more intensively.

Big, technologically advanced farms produce more per person employed, but that is not what is needed where land is scarce and labour is plentiful. Indeed, in developing countries it is organic agriculture that offers the real promise of increasing yields.

Even some biotech chiefs seem to be admitting the truth. Hans Kast, managing director of the plant science branch of the chemical giant BASF, said: 'Genetically modified agriculture will not solve the world's hunger problem.'

How long will it be before the increasingly noisy British GM lobby display similar honesty? If I were you, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Geoffrey Lean is Environment Editor of the Independent On Sunday

Ministers and industry accused of exploiting world food crisis to relaunch campaign for GM food

Daily Mail (UK), 20 June 2008. By Sean Poulter.

Ministers have been accused of exploiting the world food crisis to relaunch the campaign for GM food.

The industry says genetically modified crops with higher yields will help tackle starvation and rising food prices.

And although critics believe this is simply 'propaganda', yesterday Environment Minister Phil Woolas added his voice to the debate.

The Government said previously that commercial planting would only go ahead if it can be shown to be safe for humans and the environment

Mr Woolas, who appears to be lined up as the Government's GM cheerleader, said: 'There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis.

'It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way,' he told The Independent newspaper.

Mr Woolas has held talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, the GM industry's trade body.

Meanwhile, an unnamed minister told another newspaper: 'With the current problems, the first priority must be to increase food production. That means we must reopen the debate on GM.

'The green groups won't like it but we will have to take them on.'

However, campaigners said the GM industry had made claims of higher-yield crops for 20 years without delivering.

Clare Oxborrow, of Friends of the Earth, said attempts to push GM crops as the solution to world hunger were 'cynical'.

'The Government has been seriously misled if it thinks that GM crops are going to help tackle the food crisis. GM crops do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty.

'Instead of helping the GM industry to use the food crisis for financial gain, the Government should be encouraging a radical shift towards sustainable farming.'

Jan van Aken, of Greenpeace, said: 'I am appalled that the GM industry is abusing the misery of millions of hungry people around the world, using it as propaganda to sell a product by claiming it would reduce hunger. There is no science behind the industry's claim.'

Pressure on global food supplies have stemmed from increased demand in China and India for a more Western diet of meat and dairy, poor harvests in Australia and a switch by some farmers to growing biofuels.

But some studies suggest that GM farming is not the answer.

The respected International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development recently reported there is no increase in average yields from GM crops, although the ABC denies this.

Professor Robert Watson, the chief scientist in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, headed the study involving more than 60 countries. It concluded that industrialisation of farming, including GM, has failed to provide sufficient food.

GM or transgenics - moving genes between plant species - would not supply plentiful, cheap food, his team found. He said: 'Are transgenics the simple answer to hunger and poverty? I would argue: No.'

More research was needed to establish whether GM crops offer any benefits, he added.

But the ABC said higher yields have been produced by certain types of GM corn, modified to include a toxin that kills pests. There are concerns these toxins also harm beneficial insects.

ABC's chairman, Dr Julian Little, said that the organisation 'welcomes the Government's recognition that GM crops could be a valuable tool in responding to the increase in food and fuel prices'.

'GM crops are not a "silver bullet", but must be seen as part of the solution, by producing crops which are more productive, which make more efficient use of scarce resources.'

In Britain, polls have shown that 70 per cent are opposed to GM crops in the food chain. Trials have shown harm to wildlife - and there are fears the food could trigger allergies.

Analysis

•

Genetically modifying crops generally involves inserting genes to make them immune to certain weedkillers, so they survive but weeds die

•

Some GM plants have been modified to include a toxin that kills the insects which eat them

•

In 2002, research in France and the U.S. identified super-weeds. Genes resistant to weedkillers had been passed to wild plants

•

In 2003, two out of three GM crop trials in the UK found a significant fall in insects and wild plants - threatening birds' food

•

In 2005, Australian scientists abandoned a ten-year programme to create a GM pea after it triggered allergic reactions in rats

•

No GM crops are under commercial cultivation in Britain. A trial is being carried out on a disease-resistant GM potato.

•

GM firms hope the first commercial crops will be grown here within two years.

_______________________

Salmond sticks to his guns in opposing GM

The Herald (UK), 20 June 2008.

First Minister Alex Salmond stood by the Scottish National Party manifesto pledge opposing genetically modified crops at the Royal Highland Show yesterday and stated that while he did not mind a debate on the subject, the SNP was against it.

"The reason we're against it is because we have got a very clear vision of Scotland's future in food and that is of clean, green quality food, and the problem with GM is that it cuts across that image."

Speaking to the farming press, Salmond, who worked as an economist at the old Department of Agriculture before he entered the political arena, pointed out that the most likely first GM crop to be grown was maize.

"We don't grow much maize in Scotland," he said.

That did not cut much ice with a member of his press audience, who pointed out that potato growers last year had to spray their crops 10 or 12 times to protect them from blight that became rampant in a difficult year.

It was put to the First Minister that if they had been allowed to grow GM potatoes that were resistant to blight they would have saved a lot of fuel and chemical sprays.

Salmond stuck to his guns and replied that the cost of GM technology would be "quite fundamental" to the image of Scottish farming and the benefits - even if they could be realised - would be small in comparison.

"What is shifting right now is the costs pressure. These are the things that will determine the immediate fate of the industry."

There was much talk on the showground about GM technology following Wednesday's revelations that Westminster was to begin a debate on the subject.

Speaking at the launch of Scotland's first national food and drink policy, held in the food hall, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment, Richard Lochhead, said: "As we enter the delivery phase of the policy, I am determined to continue to involve individuals from across the country, as well as stakeholders and experts".

That comment raised a wry smile from Ralph Macleod, of feed miller and agricultural merchant Galloway & Macleod, and an office bearer of the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC).

"The AIC have tried to have a meeting with Lochhead but we have been turned down, although we are still hopeful of one," said Macleod. "We want to be involved and be part of the discussion he's having on the food debate. We are an important part in the food industry and deserve a hearing."

Another important part of the national food and drink policy is labelling. Lochhead stressed: "We want to make it easier for Scottish consumers to identify and trust the Scottish' label on their supermarket shelves and eating out menus."

That drew a response from NFU Scotland chief executive James Withers, who said: "The issue of food labelling remains an area where progress is frustratingly slow.

"The commitment to country of origin labelling on beef within the catering sector is now four years old with no progress made. We recognise it is a complex area and we're committed to playing our part, working with government, to try and break the impasse. That must involve a close look at the use of the distinctive Scottish saltire on food products."

Withers pointed out that that there is increased use of the Scottish flag by food retailers to demonstrate support for local produce. "However, it runs the risk of confusing or misleading consumers.

"The Scottish brand is hugely valuable to our members and in the eyes of consumers so we need to ensure it is used to best effect."

'Scotland doesn't need GM'

The Scotsman, 20 June 2008.

FEARS over spiralling global food prices yesterday reignited the debate over GM foods, with Scottish and English ministers polarised on the issue.

Richard Lochhead, secretary for the environment at Holyrood, insisted genetically modified food had no part to play in the nation's diet - just after his Westminster counterpart had said it needed to be looked at again.

After launching the national food policy, Mr Lochhead said: "One of the reasons why Scotland has such a fantastic international reputation for food and drink is because we have a fantastic, clean, green image of lochs and land. That would be distorted, I believe, by going down the GM route.

"I believe it's in the interests of Scottish food and drink to be GM-free."

However, UK environment minister Phil Woolas said there was "a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food-price crisis".

Mr Woolas reportedly held talks this week with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.

His position angered green groups, who claimed the government was "seriously misled" if it thought GM crops were going to stop the food crisis.

Greenpeace accused the biotech industry of "abusing the misery of millions of hungry people" by trying to promote its products as a solution to rising food prices.

Research body backs 'crucial role' of GM food

The Herald (UK), 20 June 2008.

Scotland's leading crop research institute said yesterday that genetically modified harvests could play a crucial role in feeding a growing planet and welcomed calls for a "grown up" debate on the issue as renewed protests against the farming experiment grew.

The Herald revealed yesterday that a senior UK Government minister wants a rethink on the use of GM crops in light of rising food prices and crop shortages caused by climate change.

Mass protests in 2004 led to strict limits placed on GM experiments, with a voluntary ban on engineered crops put in place north of the border after demonstrators destroyed a small number of test sites in Aberdeenshire and Fife.

The Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), based at Invergowrie near Dundee, said yesterday that "the time was right" to put a discussion about GM crops back on the agenda.

Professor Peter Gregory, chief executive of the SCRI, said: "There should be an informed debate about GM technology and I think that the lesson learned from last time round was on how not to have a grown up debate on the issue. Talk about Frankenstein foods' does not allow a rational exploration of the potential for the technology."

The SCRI said that GM technology could play a vital role in insuring a stable and healthy food supply.

Mr Gregory said plant diseases such as Late Blight, which was responsible for the Irish Potato Famine, remained a significant concern for farmers but could be easily controlled if a GM potato seed, engineered to resist the pathogen, was allowed.

He said: "In the 20 years of GM, there have been no environmental disasters and there is no proven case of human illness linked to the use of GM plant products. There are a lot of misleading press statements about GM food."

The Scottish Government said it would be "very concerned" about the viability of GM crops being reconsidered.

At Westminster, Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: "We understand the public concern caused by the development of genetically modified organisms and remain concerned that proper husbandry guidelines to prevent cross-contamination are still lacking in this country.

"No GM crops should be grown in the UK until the science shows that this would be safe for people and the environment and until issues of liability and crop segregation are resolved."

Angus Robertson, the SNP leader in the Commons, welcomed a debate where people had access to all of the facts but he added: "I have remaining concerns about GM foods and the ability of consumers to secure products which do not have GM ingredients. If the UK Government can clarify this point as part of the debate that would be a major step forward."

For the Liberal Democrats, Mike Rumbles MSP, the Shadow Rural Affairs Secretary at Holyrood, said: "Liberal Democrats will oppose any attempts to contravene the tough and restrictive regime for GM crops in Scotland that we implemented whilst in government."

Soil Association Scotland's director Hugh Raven said: "I don't think there is anything new which merits a resumption of the national conversation we had about GM crops a few years ago, nor do I think GM has anything to offer to stem current problems of high food prices, which are largely driven by high oil prices."

Friends of the Earth Scotland also reacted against any revival of the GM option.

Duncan McLaren, chief executive, said: "The UK government has been seriously misled if it thinks GM crops are going to help tackle the food crisis - GM crops do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty."

Food crisis: Is GM the solution?

Sky News, 20 June 2008.

The row over genetically modified crops has been reignited after the UK Government said they could help address the global food crisis.

Are GM crops the solution?

Green groups have accused the biotech industry of "abusing the misery of millions of hungry people" by trying to promote its products as a solution to rising food prices.

According to reports, Environment Minister Phil Woolas has held talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.

And he told The Independent: "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis.

"It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way. "Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."

But Tricia O'Rourke, a spokeswoman for Oxfam, said: "The present food crisis needs more than a technology fix.

"Science and technology have a vital role to play but more focus is needed on sustainable farming technology that the 400 million smallholder farmers can use to improve their productivity."

Greenpeace agricultural campaigner Jan van Aken said there was no science behind the biotechnology industry's claims that genetically modified crops could ease the crisis. "I am appalled that the GM industry is abusing the misery of millions of hungry people around the world, using it as propaganda to sell a product by claiming it would reduce hunger."

Green groups are anti-GM

And Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow, said: "In the UK, the public have rejected GM food and extensive trials have showed that GM crops are more damaging for farmland wildlife than their conventional equivalents."

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said it was possible GM crops could offer "a range of benefits" over the longer term, and there was no scientific evidence suggesting GM food is unsafe.

A report earlier this year from Friends of the Earth claimed none of the GM crops introduced so far increased yield, enhanced nutrition, drought-tolerance or salt-tolerance and were contributing to rising levels of pesticide use.

Rather than tackling poverty in developing countries much of the GM crops grown - the vast majority of which are in the US and South America - is used for animal feed or for biofuels, the report suggested.

Political briefing: Green agenda poses thorny problems

The Guardian, June 20 2008. By Michael White.

Growing demand for food, fuel and votes raises the price of not doing anything and puts the pressure on politicians to act, both globally and locally. In Britain this week Labour and the Tories have moved in opposing directions on the green agenda - not quite in the way their core supporters would expect.

Yesterday Phil Woolas, combative junior environment minister, renewed calls for fresh public debate on the risks and benefits of genetically modified crops, embraced in Asia and the Americas but not in Europe, as part of the response to food shortages.

Woolas, less sympathetic to green campaigners than his predecessors, is cautiously pro-GM. But safety is uppermost, Whitehall says, well aware that the scientific case - yields as well as wider concerns - is disputed and that "Frankenstein food" tabloid headlines can shout down rational debate. Green heavies call GM-sown fields "green concrete" where the natural world dies.[It was actually the environment correspondent of The Guardian's rival, The Indpendent, who used this term in a headline yesterday]

Yesterday's Guardian reported that the Gallagher review on the dash to biofuels will warn that it is inadvertently pushing up food prices. As with GM crops, so with biofuels - there are good ones and bad, says Whitehall.

Gordon Brown's supporters say he is as concerned as anyone about these issues, some of which will be aired at today's EU Brussels summit. But green groups view the ex-chancellor's decade in office as basically pro-growth, anti-green. They see this weekend's trip to Saudi Arabia to urge it to increase oil production as typical.

Even George Bush is finally talking about curbing US oil demands, they murmur. Worse, David Cameron chose this week to make a smart green speech, ticking enough boxes about a future Tory government's goals to make some Greens contemplate voting blue. The Tory leader, who seems genuinely onside, dismissed claims that an economic downturn means shelving the reformers' agenda.

Cameron even came close to saying no to a third runway at Heathrow. He cites economic arguments as well as environmental ones, the idea that spoke-and-hub airports don't really work and that transit passengers don't pay their way. Brave stuff for a man 20% ahead in the polls, though easier to say in opposition. Business lobbyists were dismayed, but Nimby voters living below the flightpath (Cameron does himself) will be delighted.

Cynics counter that Cameron's speech was a last hurrah before his influential aide, Steve Hilton, moves to California, leaving the boss to be reprogrammed by ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson. But Hilton will be watching governor Schwarzenegger's climate change reforms at close hand and will return an even stronger evangelist.

Meanwhile, Britain has no GM crops in the ground, just one potato trial under way. Greenpeace accuses ministers of being manipulated by a cynical, greedy industry. Next week's Commons row is over contentious Labour reforms to planning law: for which read those nuclear power stations. They may be long overdue.

Brown pushes EU to allow more modified animal feeds

The Independent (UK, 20 June 2008. By Andrew Grice, Political Editor in Brussels.

Gordon Brown is calling on the European Union to relax its rules on importing genetically modified animal feed in a further sign of the Government's willingness to embrace the controversial technology. Mr Brown believes GM crops are vital to the attempt to cut spiralling food prices.

His proposal comes the day after The Independent revealed that the Environment minister, Phil Woolas, has held private talks with the biotechnology industry about relaxing Britain's policy on the use of GM crops.

The Prime Minister also signalled that he is happy to see a public debate over whether GM crops should be grown commercially in Britain to reduce global prices by boosting production. His spokesman said last night: "His view is that we must be guided by the scientific evidence."

Ministers who support GM crops believe there are no convincing arguments against them. They want to turn the tables on environmental groups who campaigned successfully against widespread GM production in Britain during the last government review in 2004. Although there is no ban, the ministers want the rules changed in light of the food crisis, as no GM crops are currently being grown commercially in this country.

At a two-day summit in Brussels which began last night, EU leaders were urged to "bite the bullet" and embrace GM products as a solution to rocketing food prices. The plea came from Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission. Several EU countries, led by France, are unconvinced that "Frankenstein foods" are safe.

At the meeting, Mr Brown suggested allowing more GM animal food into the EU. The move may raise safety fears because contaminated feed was blamed for the outbreak in Britain of BSE in the 1990s.

The Commission fears that Europe could run short of animal feed because of its strict licensing regime, which could further raise food prices. Europe is heavily dependent on imports as it does not have enough land to both farm animals and grow the feed they need. The other elements of the Brown plan are a global trade deal; further reform of the Common Agricultural Policy; a review of the role to be played by biofuels; and a plan to use aid for poor nations for new technology farm products.

The Independent revealed yesterday that ministers believe Britain's cautious approach to GM should be relaxed because of current global food problems. But the Government's rethink provoked a furious backlash from opponents of GM crops.

Tricia O'Rourke, a spokeswoman for Oxfam, said: "The present food crisis needs more than a technology fix. More focus is needed on sustainable technology that 400 million smallholders can use to improve their productivity."

Caroline Lucas, a Green Party MEP, added: "There are no guarantees that GM crops are safe, sustainable or the solution to the problem of hunger. Over 70 per cent of citizens and several governments in the EU have expressed concerns over the negative effects that such crops may have on human health, biodiversity and the environment."

Friends of the Earth accused ministers of falling for "hype" by GM firms. Its GM campaigner Clare Oxborrow said: "GM crops do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty."

In response, a Downing Street said: "As Phil Woolas has reiterated, it is... our position that safety is the top priority and that GM crops are to be considered on a case-by-case basis, based entirely on the science."

So, what benefits do GM crops bring us?

In theory, GM technology might bring countless benefits to us all, from crops that can be grown in droughts to crops that might have much bigger yields. Most of the world would welcome both. However - and this is at the heart of the controversy - neither of these modifications is on offer at the moment.

The vast majority of GM crops currently on the market are engineered only in one of two, quite similar ways: to be tolerant of ultra-powerful weedkillers, or to be resistant to insect pests.

Who benefits from the modifications?

Principally farmers, especially large-scale agribusiness farmers in countries such as the US or Argentina, because the genetic engineering simplifies and cheapens the business of applying pesticides and herbicides to crops. Using the ultra-powerful "broad-spectrum" herbicides which crops such as maize and soya can be engineered to tolerate, a single pesticide dressing - which kills everything except the crop - can replace several such treatments with conventional pesticides, thus saving time, labour and money.

But doesn't this also produce bigger yields, which would be vital at a time of global food shortages?

Unfortunately not. In fact, GM crops can even produce smaller yields. There is plenty of evidence, for example an April 2006 report from the United States Department of Agriculture stating that "currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential of a hybrid variety. In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide- tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars".

So why on earth are the GM companies concentrating simply on herbicide-tolerance and insect-resistance?

Take Monsanto, the world leader in GM products, busy marketing its herbicide-tolerant maize and soya. The ultra-powerful weedkiller its crops can live with, glyphosate (trade name Roundup) is made by... Monsanto, of course! And what sort of company is Monsanto, even if it presents itself as an agribusiness firm? Yes, you've guessed it - it's a weedkiller company. Monsanto gave us Agent Orange, the defoliant used by the US to destroy jungles during the Vietnam War. Producing herbicide-tolerant crops is a fantastic way for it to sell vast amounts of its core products.

So why aren't drought-resistant crops, say, on the market yet?

Probably because of the culture in which GM crops have been developed - not so much in universities or national government laboratories, but, like pharmaceuticals, in the research departments of big companies such as Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and BSAF. The dominant aim of these companies is to maximise profits rather than to pull the world out of poverty and hunger. However, in the developing countries, governments and universities are now working on drought-resistant crop strains.

But can GM crops actually cause harm to people and to the environment?

There is no doubt that the "broad-spectrum" weedkillers used with herbicide-tolerant crops would have a devastating effect on farmland wildlife if widely grown in Britain. The GM companies will tell you that the dosage of these pesticides will be less. That is true. What they don't tell you, however, is that the impact will be greater. As for effects on people, there does not appear to be a body of convincing evidence showing any GM crops or foods so far cause harm to humans.

Are there any GM foods on the shelves in Britain?

There is a very small amount of soya oil, labelled as GM. The tomato paste that was the first GM product more than a decade ago was withdrawn when sales collapsed after people discovered its GM origin. A significant amount of GM soya and maize is now brought into Britain as animal feed from the US and South America, and items such as milk and processed chicken which have been produced with this feed will be on the shelves - but will not be labelled GM.

Michael McCarthy

Leading article: There is no reason for a blanket ban on GM crops

The Independent (UK), Opinon, 20 June 2008

Some plants that look dead can suddenly spring back to life again. Genetically modified crops seem to have accomplished such a trick. After a prolonged period of quiet, GM is back on the political agenda. The environment minister, Phil Woolas, told this newspaper yesterday, after talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, that these crops might help alleviate the present global food price crisis.

Gordon Brown reiterated this message yesterday at a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels. After years of bowing to public hostility to GM crops, the Government seems ready to play a more active role in promoting them.

Longstanding opponents of GM, such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, have reacted with hostility. While these environmental groups do a valuable service in influencing many aspects of public policy, this newspaper believes they are misguided in their blanket rejection of GM.

Some of humankind's most significant advances throughout history have been a result of agricultural innovation, from irrigation in ancient Mesopotamia, to Jethro Tull's seed drill. The genetic modification of crops can be part of this noble tradition. Drought and salt-resistant strains of crops have the potential to increase yields considerably and to bring more land under cultivation.

It is, of course, simplistic to argue that GM alone can solve the global food shortage. The present crisis is too complex for any quick-fix solution. And there are, at present, no GM crops with these particular capabilities on the market. But GM technology certainly has the potential to play an important part down the line in bringing more land under cultivation in the developing world and Africa.

The projected growth of the global population presents one of the most serious long-term challenges to world policy makers. To put it bluntly, if we fail to increase agricultural yields on our planet, people will starve. Faced with such a chilling scenario, it would be positively immoral for governments to reject GM out of hand.

This is a story that governments around the world need to tell. They also need to confront public fears about the health impacts of so-called "Frankenstein foods". There is no scientific basis for arguing that these crops present a threat to human health. And the environmental lobby groups have done a disservice to the debate by seeming to endorse such scare stories.

Yet, despite all that, there are legitimate public concerns about the effect of herbicide resistant GM crops on ecological diversity. This is where a crucial distinction needs to be drawn.

At present the only commercially available GM crops are those that have been designed to be resistant to powerful weed killers. This enables farmers to dump vast quantities of chemicals on the land without harming the crop. Not only does this have a catastrophic impact on the local ecology, it also does very little to boost yields. There is also justified scepticism of companies such as Monsanto which have, thus far, deployed their energies, not in boosting overall production levels, but cornering the agricultural seed market.

The Government's re-invigorated support for GM technology is welcome. But if it is to be successful in winning over public support for these crops, it needs to make it clear that what it wants to see is improved yields, not crops resistant to ever more powerful weed killers. We will not feed the world by decimating its plant and wildlife.

Corn as fuel has hurt world food supply

Newsday, June 20 2008. By Andrew Kimbrell.

Rising food prices are a hardship here at home, but they're truly disastrous for many beyond our borders. The staggering 83 percent rise in food prices reported by the World Bank over the past three years hits developing nations hardest. It's a complex situation with many causes, but the crisis is teaching us important and urgent lessons.

First among these is what we've learned about biofuels. Once considered the "green" solution to foreign oil dependence, corn ethanol has morphed into a humanitarian and environmental disaster. Diverting one-quarter of America's massive corn harvest from food to fuel has nearly crippled the globalized food system. A bushel of corn fetches about three times the price it did two years ago, one big reason for quadrupling tortilla prices in Mexico. Wheat and soybean farmers, lured by higher profits, switched over to corn. As a result, supplies of those crops are limited and wheat prices have risen an astronomical 130 percent since 2007, exacerbated by poor Australian harvests.

If you thought corn ethanol was at least lessening our dependence on foreign oil, think again: Ethanol displaces only 3 percent of our oil use. Additionally, the journal "Science" recently published research suggesting that biofuels are worsening global warming as well as hunger. High demand for energy crops is driving deforestation, which in turn releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases that far exceed minor reductions provided by the energy crops themselves.

Even those who embraced biofuels so enthusiastically a year ago are beginning to see what a chimera they actually are. Until alternative technologies are embraced, crop-based biofuels will continue to deprive the hungry of desperately needed food.

The second lesson: our industrialized approach to agriculture essentially transforms fossil fuels into human food. Food production American style consumes mountains of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, over half-a-billion pounds of petroleum-based pesticides, and millions of gallons of fuel to drive farm equipment each year. Processing food and getting it to market consumes still more. The cost of a pound of beef, a gallon of milk or a box of cereal climbs ever higher, entangled with the skyrocketing price of oil.

A third lesson is that biotechnology can provide no solution. Biotech firms are pushing the idea that genetically engineered, or GE, crops will feed the world. But two decades of costly research has not produced a single marketable GE crop with increased yield, drought-resistance, enhanced nutrition or other attractive traits touted by boosters. What has succeeded are "herbicide-tolerant" GE varieties - engineered to survive application of weed killers - which remarkably make up 81 percent of the world's biotech crops. Small wonder that weed killer use is rising, and resistant weeds are proliferating.

To top it off, university studies show that Roundup Ready soybeans - which make up more than half of all biotech crops - get 6 percent lower yield than their conventional counterparts and are more susceptible to drought.

Despite these failures, government and biotechnology firms continue to tout genetic engineering as a magic bullet. Meanwhile, hundreds of conventional breeding and agroecological solutions remain unimplemented, thanks to draconian cuts to public sector agricultural development programs.

These lessons all remind us to beware the quick fix. H.L. Mencken famously observed that "for every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." We're seeing right now that easy answers are destined to be failures, and changing our habits - always more difficult than simply buying something new - hold the answers.

If petroleum inputs are increasing costs, we need to use less of them. We should support organic farming without pesticides and without petroleum-based fertilizers. If genetically engineered crops are failing, we should instead promote readily available, high-yielding conventional varieties bred for drought resistance.

Through the lens of this crisis, we also see the sense in buying abundant, locally grown foods. Since they travel less and now cost less than processed food or produce flown from across the globe, local crops are looking more and more attractive. They're also fresher, more healthful and more beneficial to consumers. And, in buying them, we support local farmers.

The food crisis is conjoined to the fuel crisis, and this has opened our eyes to the flaws in our food production and distribution practices. It has also, thankfully, pointed us in the direction of real solutions - if we as consumers, policymakers and businesspeople are bold enough to make the needed changes.

Andy Kimbrell is founder and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Food Safety.

19 June 2008

US Embassy tries to convince the Biosafety Commission to accept GMOs
Greenpeace offers the scientists 'AntiCorp' remedy against corporate power and GMOs



Bucharest - With the occasion of a GMO promotion organized today at the US Embassy, Greenpeace activists offer 'AntiCorp' pills as a remedy against corporate power and GMOs to the participants from the Romanian Parliament, Government and the Biosafety Commission.

'It's already obvious that the GMO industry is in crisis. After they unsuccesfully resorted to threats, they have mobilized the big land agents league, politicians and researches with GMO affinity and after they [took them on a trip to] Brazil and Spain, today they try to glue the last responsible people in Romania that can save the country from GMOs. We offer special pills called Anticorp to save them from brainwashing', said Gabriel Paun of Greenpeace Romania.

AntiCorp is an urgent remedy for the members of the Biosafety Commission and other decision makers affected by 'Bacillus Biotechnologicus'. This renders them heavily influenced by agro-chemical companies when it comes to approvals of GMOs. In cases of scientific uncertainty AntiCorp also provides a strong stimulus to the affected people's minds.

It provides instant recall of the Precautionary Principle, which stresses the importance of protecting human health and the environment. AntiCorp is recommended in times of outbreak of corporate lobbying viruses. These highly dangerous infections often cause delusions where Commission members believe that protecting the interests of transnational corporations means progress for Romania.

The virus causes mental blurriness, loss of common sense and moral values. It leads to intolerance against preserving the earth's ecosystems and biodiversity and can generate death to democracy, nature, and food as we know it.

The virus is also known to make the Commission members act against farmers, consumers, independent scientists and the environment [1]. With AntiCorp, you can prevent a Monsantosis [2] attack and help protect Biodiversity, Health, and Food Sovereignty from corporate control by biotech companies.

The agrochemical companies insist that GMOs are a safe tool, sustainable and economicaly important to fight the food crisis and the world hunger. This statement is false.

In reality GE will not help reduce soaring food prices or solve poverty, a fact that is recognised by over 400 of the world's leading agronomists at the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). GE is an expensive and risky option for farmers and puts the world's natural biodiversity at risk of contamination in an unforeseeable and uncontrolled way.

'The solution to the current food crisis is not genetically engineered crops nor more chemicals. Instead, we need to resort to modern ecological farming methods that bring higher yields and a more just distribution system. We also need an end to the developed world's over consumption of meat that puts so many lives at risk. Biofuels should only be used if they meet strict sustainability criteria and if they do not compete with food production.'

Greenpeace urges the 12 members of the Biosafety Commission to be confident in using AntiCorp every time they present contamination symptoms after being in contact with the agrochemical industry and to encourage themselves to ban cultivation of GM maize.

For more details: Gabriel Paun - anti GMO Campaigner, Greenpeace Romania, +40 744 351977

Notes:

[1] More info about AntiCorp at www.greenpeace.ro

[2] Monsanto's deadly sins: http://www.greenpeace.ro/uploads/articole/MONS%207%20Deadly%2008%20update%20Romania.pdf

[3] The IAASTD is a unique collaboration initiated by the World Bank in partnership with a multi-stakeholder group of organisations, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environmental Programme, the World Health Organisation and representatives of governments, civil society, private sector and scientific institutions from around the world. In April 2008, nearly 60 governments signed the IAASTD's final reports in Johannesburg, South Africa. The underlying reports were accepted by governments without a detailed discussion. The IAASTD is a scientific assessment, very similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). At its heart is the work of over 400 scientists from all around the world who took stock of the current situation in global agriculture and identified some key challenges and options for action for the future of farming. The IAASTD was guided by broad set of goals: 'the reduction of hunger and poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.'

Brown and Woolas Short on GM Facts and History

GM Freeze, 19 June 2008

Prime Minster Gordon Brown's and Environment Minister Phil Woolas' calls for a re-think on GM crops in the UK to increase yields have been described by GM Freeze as "short on facts and history".

The group point out that four crops were extensively tested in the UK during the late 1990s and early 2000s[1]. The Government's scientific advisory committee[2] advised Ministers that three of the crops (herbicide tolerant winter and spring oilseed rape and sugar/fodder beet) would cause long-term harm to farmland wildlife because they reduced weed cover and with it food and cover for insects and birds. The Government listened to the advise and announced the GM crops would not be approved [3]. The fourth GM crop, GM fodder maize, was given the go-ahead by Ministers, but was withdrawn a month later by its developer, Bayer CropScience, for "commercial reasons", which was widely accepted to mean that the GM variety did not perform as well as contemporary non-GM bred strains of maize. Yields were not measured as part of the trials.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) [4] published its 2500 page report based on peer reviewed publications concluded that the yield gains in GM crops "were highly variable" and in some places "yields declined" (see briefing for fuller explanation). Asked at a press conference if GM crops were the answer to world hunger, IAASTD Director Professor Bob Watson (now Chief Scientist at Defra) said, "The simple answer is, 'No'." [5]. The Government approved the IAASTD report on 9th June.

GM Freeze today publish new analysis examining claims that GM crops will increase yields [6] and that the causes of current food price rises. It concludes that they are due to with commodity crop speculators, rising oil prices, poor crops in some areas due to climate change and diversion of food crops into biofuels. Other new GM Freeze analysis published this week showed that conventionally bred crops still dominate world agriculture covering over 97% of agricultural land and 92% of arable land. [7]. v Pete Riley of GM Freeze commented:

"Mr Brown and Mr Woolas seem to be dangerously obsessed with technical fixes for world hunger, which the IAASTD report has shown to be based on flawed analysis. Comments on GM crops in the UK and yield are short on facts and history. They should stop listening to industry propaganda that is shamelessly trying to exploit the current food price rises - there is no evidence that GM crops have increased average yields. The reasons we have no GM crops in the UK are either that the Labour Government did not approve them or the industry withdrew approved crops on a voluntary basis.

"World hunger and food shortage are complex issues largely social and economic in nature. There is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone, it's just that the economic system put in place by politicians has failed to ensure that that food reaches the people who need it most whilst other sectors of the population are becoming obese. The IAASTD process concluded that 'business as usual is not the answer' to world hunger. Unfortunately the Prime Minister and his Minister have not been listening so far".

ENDS

Calls to Pete Riley 0845 217 8992 or 07903 341065.

Please note GM Freeze's new land line number 0845 217 8992.

Notes

1. From 1999 to 2003 Defra funded the Farm Scale Evaluations of herbicide tolerant spring and winter oilseed rape, sugar and fodder beet and fodder maize to test their impact on farmland wildlife.

2. See www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/advice/pdf/acre_advice44.pdf and www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/advice/pdf/acre_advice65.pdf

3. See www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/statements/mb040309.htm

4 See www.agassessment.org/docs/SR_Exec_Sum_210408_Final.pdf

5. See www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exposed-the-great-gm-crops-myth-812179.html

6. See www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/89D_yields_briefing%5B1%5D.pdf

7. see www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/GM_crops_land_area_final.pdf

GM won't yield a harvest for the world
The government is keen to reassess GM crops in light of the food crisis - but running to profit-seeking companies is not the answer

The Guardian, June 19 2008. By Mark Lynas.

The biotechnology industry has never been shy of making outlandish claims on behalf of its products. Back in the late 1990s we were sold genetically modified soya and oilseed rape on the promise that it would feed the world. On closer examination, it became clear that these first-generation GM crops were more about intensifying chemical agriculture and sealing corporate control of the food chain than feeding starving babies in Africa. Consumers, especially in Europe, rose in revolt, and the industry was forced into retreat.

But big companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF are not easily kept at bay for long. Now their PR-men have discovered a new line in emotional blackmail: that without GM crops we will be unable to produce enough food in an era of climate change. Transgenic crops will be able to grow in drought-stricken, saline areas, we are assured, helping to augment food supplies in an era of rapidly intensifying crisis. So is it time to follow in the steps of the UK environment minister Phil Woolas and reassess the potential of GM? As Woolas says: "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis. It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves." So is he right?

I doubt it. For starters, the current food price crisis is only partly about supply. Yes, falling harvests have affected the amount of food available, and the recent severe flooding in the US midwest certainly won't help the situation. But, as with oil, rising demand is the biggest factor driving prices towards the stratosphere. As countries such as India and China get richer and adopt more western diets, they consume more meat, sucking grain off the market to feed growing numbers of livestock. The misconceived rush to biofuels has further intensified the problem, gobbling up vast quantities of corn and soya in order to produce the fuel Americans and Europeans need to feed their addiction to the car. Underlying all this, the human population continues to grow, adding another 80 million mouths every single year.

But look a little closer at the companies which are promising our salvation - and which Woolas rushed to meet yesterday under the aegis of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council - and their motivations seem somewhat less than altruistic. According to the Canada-based ETC Group, big biotech companies have already filed some 532 patents on "climate-ready" genes at patent offices around the world. I doubt these companies have any intention of giving out free seeds to the world's poorest farmers: instead, they seal up intellectual property rights in transgenic crops and force growers to pay a licence fee. Traditional practices of saving or exchanging seeds are of course forbidden. This concentration of ownership of the food chain is not going to reduce hunger; it is much more likely to intensify it.

I am not arguing that these companies are somehow bad or evil. It is their job to maximise profits - anything else, and their directors would quickly be punished by loss-making shareholders. It is entirely natural therefore that they seek to retain ownership over their inventions, in this case by seeking patents on transgenic seeds. But on the other hand, they should not claim that their products are going to feed the world either - allowing their public relations teams to create soft-focus adverts of hungry people being fed is utterly misleading.

There are also much deeper ethical questions around GM which have never been addressed - and cannot be addressed by science, because they lie outside the scientific arena. One is the question of whether it is ethically justified to mix genetic material from completely unrelated organisms, like viruses and potato plants. GM proponents constantly argue that this is simply another stage on from traditional selective breeding techniques, but this is clearly untrue. Mixing DNA from unrelated species is an entirely different undertaking, and one which raises all sorts of new risks - as well as deeper questions about humankind playing God. In my view, the technology moves entirely in the wrong direction, intensifying human technological manipulation of nature when we should be aiming at a more holistic ecological approach instead.

If something goes wrong with a transgenic organism, this raises a whole new category of risk. Traditional pollution - whether of toxins like DDT or radioactive waste - will mix and eventually be dispersed or broken down in the environment. Genetic pollution on the other hand is self-replicating because it is contained in living organisms; once released, it can never be recalled, and possibly never controlled as GM superweeds, bacteria or viruses run rampant and breed. I am not raising scare stories here: there are countless cases recorded internationally now where GM crops have begun to infest supposedly organic or GM-free fields.

It may be, as Woolas suggests, that we need to swallow these ethical and ecological concerns in an era where rapidly rising global temperatures and diminishing oil supplies are already putting serious constraints on food production. Would I be prepared to reconsider my opposition to GM so that a million Sudanese or Ethiopians don't have to watch their children starve as the rains fail once again? Yes, of course. But am I prepared to accept GM just so that rich consumers - whether in Beijing or Birmingham - can drive around in biofuelled SUVs? No. Which of these options is more likely is not about technology or science, it's about economics and social policy. And that requires us to keep asking difficult questions, and to not be browbeaten by emotionally manipulative advertising from profit-seeking corporations.

GM crops: we mustn't rush decisions
In a panic to claw our way out of one crisis, we're in danger of creating another

The Guardian (UK) blogs, June 19 2008

Aaargh, PANIC! Quick, force through some new legislation, announce some new initiatives, make it look as if we're doing something, anything! This more or less sums up the government's current position on the food crisis. Think Jim Hacker from Yes Minister with his eyes rolling round and round in their sockets and you've probably got it.

The results, of course, are bad, because decisions taken under stress are so very often rubbish. I give you, for example, biofuels - a quick answer to a complex fuel problem which has caused international catastrophe.

Today the Guardian revealed that a government report has concluded that biofuels played a "significant" role in the rise in global fuel prices.

Humiliating for the government, and much worse than humiliating for the hungry in India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Haiti, Egypt ... Biofuels, it turns out, was not any kind of answer at all. Cue frantic searches for the correct answer. Frantic, desperate searches.

We are in such a dangerous position at the moment. I'm not now talking about the crises themselves (we've actually got two going on at the same time, cleverly - an economic crisis in the west with a resulting consumer slowdown which is partially prompting inflation, and a global crisis of food supply and demand). I'm talking about what we do to get out of this fine mess. Already UK ministers are talking about the need for GM crops, even though their efficacy at delivering higher yields is still, after all this research, not proven.

Elsewhere the focus is on other forms of hi-tech farming: the New Scientist concludes that the only answer is to invest in science (a really surprising conclusion from the New Scientist), and to concentrate on boosting yields in Africa and parts of South Asia by sending them high-yield varieties, fertiliser, and pesticides. It kind of seems about right, but didn't biofuels seem like a good idea once upon a time?

And there is the danger. We jump for the quick solution only to give ourselves long term problems in the end. How will these farmers be able to afford these expensive farming products? Studies show that long-term use of fertilisers and pesticides leads to degraded soil: it also sets off a cycle of ever-increasing chemical dependency. Just as with biofuels we could end up in a worse position than that from which we started.

It will be interesting to see how the government responds to this news on biofuels. Will they gracefully dismantle the programme? Or will they bluster their way into another, comparable error - such as GM crops? A little cool-headedness would be so very welcome. But cool-headedness is not, so far, what this government specialises in.

Gordon does 'a Tony': falls for GM hype

Soil Association, 19 June 2008

Fact: GM crops don't increase yields, do have negative health impacts

Against all the evidence and in direct opposition to the recommendations of his Chief Scientist [1], Gordon Brown, like his predecessor, is being bamboozled by PR from the Agrobiotech lobby that GM crops 'can feed the world'.

Contrary to the claims of some government ministers that 'there are no scientific arguments' against GM crops, there is a strong body of published evidence that shows GM crops do not increase yields and also indicating negative health impacts for livestock eating GM feed and potentially for humans consuming produce from those animals. This research is set out below. [2]

But the main argument against GM crops is that they reinforce an outdated model of agriculture that is wholly unsuited for adapting to and contending with the conditions that climate change and more costly, scarcer oil bring for global food security. [3]

Patrick Holden, Soil Association director said,

"The GM industry is desperate to prove it offers any benefits beyond the self-interested, commercial one of locking farmers into dependency on its own patented seeds and linked inputs of pesticides and fertilisers. The evidence after decades of claims is that GM crops are no better and often poorer in terms of yields, and more worryingly that there are real animal and human health concerns.

"GM's greatest flaw is that it reinforces agriculture's inherently unsustainable reliance on vast inputs of fossil-fuel derived inputs in the form of fertilisers and pesticides - which are becoming economically, as well environmentally unaffordable.

"Poor farmers in developing countries cannot afford expensive chemicals and even big arable producers in the UK question their viability as fertiliser costs double in price to over GBP350 a tonne. [4] GM crops will add to climate change, by requiring the added inputs of the same old chemical fertilisers that consume half of all the energy used in agriculture, so giving off vast amounts of damaging greenhouse gases. [5]

"The Prime Minister would do better to listen to his Chief Scientist at Defra, Professor Bob Watson, who chaired the recent international agricultural assessment that concluded 'business as usual is no longer an option' and called for a shift to 'agroecological' food production. The assessment questioned GM's claims to be the solution to global poverty, hunger or climate change and in contrast inclined towards organic, causing the GM representatives to storm out of the process." [6]

Ends

For media enquiries please contact Clio Turton, Soil Association senior press officer, 0117 914 2448 / cturton@soilassociation.org

Notes to editor:

[1] Professor Bob Watson, Chief Scientist at Defra, chair of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). Previously Chief Scientist at World Bank. Leading expert on climate change. 'Discovered' the Ozone Hole whilst working at NASA.

[2] Scientific evidence of health impacts of GM crops: Despite GM industry claims, over a dozen GM feeding trials (12 animal, 1 human) show negative health impacts of GM:

•

Russian rat trial of GM soya: high mortality and stunted growth in offspring (Ermakova, 2005)

•

Italian mice trial of GM soya: metabolic effects on body organs (Malatesta et al, 2002 and 2003; Vecchio et al, 2004)

•

FSA-commissioned human trial of GM soya by Newcastle University: GM DNA transfers out of food into the body's gut bacteria (Netherwood et al, 2004)

•

Monsanto rat trial of GM maize: changes in body organs indicating toxic effects (report by Monsanto, 2002; review by Dr Pusztai, 2004; Seralini et al, 2007)

•

Aventis chicken trial of GM maize: mortality doubled and significant change in composition of meat (reports for the Chardon LL hearing, 2002; review in Food safety - contaminants and toxins, CABI publishing, 2003)

•

Aventis rat trial of the novel protein of GM maize: reduced body weight and metabolic effects (same references as for Aventis chicken trial)

•

UK study on sheep: in a few minutes, the genes in the GM maize move into the bacteria in the mouth, changing their characteristics (Duggan et al, 2003)

•

Monsanto rat trials of GM oilseed rape: reduction in body weight and increased liver weight (significant as the liver is the organ of detoxification) (US FDA, 2002; Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms, 2004)

•

Australian mice trial of GM peas: allergic reactions, including inflammation of lungs (Prescott et al, 2005) Calgene mice trials of GM tomatoes: gut lesions and 7 of 40 died within two weeks (review in Food safety - contaminants and toxins, CABI publishing, 2003)

•

UK Government-commissioned rat trial of GM potatoes by Rowett Research Institute: gut lesions (Ewen and Pusztai, 1999)

NB: These studies were all designed to identify health impacts; the animal trials often referred to by the GM companies as 'showing no negative impacts' are largely irrelevant as proof of safety, because they are mostly studies carried out for commercial purposes on the efficacy of the feed, rather than 'toxicological' studies involving tissue analysis.

GM Crops do NOT increase yields: the Science

GM crops in general

•

Firstly, the current generation of GM crops were modified for insect resistance and weed control, not to increase the intrinsic yield capacity of the plant.

•

An April 2006 report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) states that "currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential of a hybrid variety. In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars". (Fernandez-Cornejo, J. and Caswell, 2006)

•

UN Food and Agriculture Organization 2004 report on agricultural biotechnology acknowledges that GM crops can have reduced yields (FAO, 2004).

•

2003 report published in Science stated that "in the United States and Argentina, average yield effects [of GM crops] are negligible and in some cases even slightly negative". (Qaim and Zilberman, 2003).

•

Yields of both GM and conventional varieties vary - sometimes greatly - depending on growing conditions, such as degree of infestation with insects or weeds, weather, region of production, etc. (European Commission, 2000)

Roundup Ready (RR) GM soya

Studies from 1999 - 2007 consistently show RR GM soya to yield 4 - 12% lower than conventional varieties:

•

A 2007 study by Kansas State University agronomist Dr. Barney Gordon suggests that Roundup Ready soya continues to suffer from a yield drag: RR soya yielded 9% less than a close conventional relative.

A study by University of Nebraska agronomists found that RR soya varieties yielded 6% less than their closest conventional relatives, and 11% less than high yielding conventional lines (Elmore et al, 2001). This 6% 'yield drag' was attributed to genetic modification, and corresponds to a substantial loss in production of 202 kg/ha.

•

In 1998 several universities carried out a study demonstrating that, on average, RR soy varieties were 4% lower in yield than conventional varieties (Oplinger et al., 1999). These results clearly refuted Monsanto's claim to the contrary (Gianessi, 2000).

Yields of GM soybeans are especially low under drought conditions. Due to pleiotropic effects (stems splitting under high temperatures and water stress), GM soybeans suffer 25% higher losses than conventional soybeans( Altieri and Pengue, 2005)

5 studies between 2001 -2007 show that glyphosate applied to Roundup Ready soybeans inhibits the uptake of important nutrients essential to plant health and performance. The resultant mineral deficiencies have been implicated in various problems, from increased disease susceptibility to inhibition of photosynthesis. Thus, the same factors implicated in the GM soya yield drag may also be responsible for increased susceptibility to disease. (Motavalli, et al., 2004; Neumann et al., 2006; King, et al.,2001; Bernards,M.L, 2005; Gordon, B., 2007).

The yield drag of RR soya is reflected in flat overall soybean yields from 1995 to 2003, the very years in which GM soya adoption went from nil to 81% of U.S. soybean acreage. By one estimate, stagnating soybean yields in the U.S. cost soybean farmers $1.28 billion in lost revenues from1995 to 2003 (Ron Eliason, 2004).

More recent evidence shows that the kilogram per hectare ratio of soybean has been in decline since 2002, leading to the conclusion that RR soy does not have an impact on yield (ABIOVE, 2006a).

Bt Maize

Only GM maize has shown a persistent trend for yield increase, but even here the rate of increase is no greater than those being achieved by conventional varieties.

•

A US study conducted under controlled conditions demonstrated that Bt maize yields anywhere from 12% less to the same as highly similar, but conventional varieties (Ma & Subedi, 2005).

Bt Cotton

Despite the claims, Bt cotton has delivered no significant impacts in real terms:

•

Average cotton yields have increased 5-fold since 1930, surging from 1980 to the early 1990s. Cotton yields then went flat, and stagnated during the seven years of GM cotton's rise to dominance. The steep yield and production increases in 2004 and 2005 were chiefly attributable to excellent weather conditions (Meyer et al., 2007).

•

Bt cotton, introduced to Australia in 1996, has not offered a boost to the cotton sector, and since its adoption has not provided improvements in either yield, or quality (ISAAA, 2006b).

•

Cotton South Africa show constant yield levels before and after adoption of Bt cotton (Witt et al 2005, cited in FoEI Who Benefits 2007), in contradiction to ISAAA claims that Bt has brought about a 24% yield increase in the region.

•

Outbreaks of the secondary pests that are not killed by the Bt insecticide have rendered Bt cotton ineffective in China (Connor, S., July 27, 2006), and are also becoming a problem in North Carolina (Caldwell, D. 2002) and Georgia (Hollis, P.L., 2006).

•

An article in Nature Biotechnology notes that the poor performance of Bt cotton varieties used in India (which were developed for the short U.S. growing season) is linked to the loss of their insecticidal properties late in India's longer growing season, and because Bt cotton insecticide is not expressed in 25% of the cotton bolls of India's preferred hybrid cotton varieties (Jayaraman, K.S., 2005)

[3] Agriculture, like all sectors, must cut its greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change by 60-80%. Detailed studies of ten agricultural sectors by Cranfield University for Defra, and earlier studies of five other vegetables, show that organic farming uses on average around 26% less energy per tonne of output than conventional systems

[4] In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that the price of fertiliser could hit £500 a tonne. At these prices, the claimed efficiency of fossil-fuel and fertiliser dependent industrial farming begins to collapse.

[5] The environmental imperative of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% across all sectors to curb dangerous climate change already make intensive agriculture's dependence on nitrogen fertiliser unsustainable:

•

The manufacture of nitrogen fertiliser is the main use of energy in agriculture, accounting for 37% of total energy use Agriculture in the UK, 2004

•

Globally agriculture is the single largest source of the powerful greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide - over 310 times more damaging than carbon dioxide

•

For each tonne of fertiliser made 6.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases are emitted

•

Fertiliser manufacture is also a major user of water, requiring 37 tonnes of water to make 1 tonne of nitrogen fertiliser

Organic farming does not use artificial chemical fertilisers, instead building soil fertility through crop rotations and particularly the use of clover that fixes nitrogen naturally from the atmosphere using the Sun's energy and photosynthesis. Clover can fix 200 kg of nitrogen per hectare over a year. Average applications of N fertiliser across all arable and grassland are 110 kg/ha (arable = 150kg/ha; grassland = 77kg/ha). Fertiliser Statistics, 2005 report, AIC)

6. 'Representatives of the biotechnology industry, for example, stormed out of the negotiations earlier this year, arguing that the potential of GM crops to help poor farmers and comabat global warming was being overlooked and undue weight given to alternatives such as organic farming,' NewScientist feature on IAASTD report, 5/4/08.

For full references for note [2] above please see the following press release: 'Soil Association report shows GM crops do not yield more - sometimes less' http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/
3cacfd251aab6d318025742700407f02!OpenDocument

Government must not fall for GM hype

Friends of the Earth Press Release, Thursday 19 June 2008

Today's revelation that the Government is looking for ways to grow GM crops in Britain in the wake of rising food prices around the world [1] has been condemned by Friends of the Earth. The environment group has accused Ministers of falling for the GM industry's hype and ignoring its damaging track record. The move comes after the Environment Minister reportedly met with the GM industry's lobby group last night.

In the UK, a national GM debate concluded that 85% of the public didn't want GM crops grown in this country and 95% rejected Government proposals on weak rules for growing GM crops in England [2]. Furthermore, the Government-sponsored farm scale trials of GM crops found that growing two out of three GM crops were more damaging to farmland wildlife than growing conventional equivalents.

There is no evidence that GM crops will help tackle the food crisis. There are many complex causes including commodity speculation, the global rush for biofuels and the underlying unfair trade system [3]. GM crops do not increase average yields and there are no GM drought-tolerant or salt-tolerant crops on the market. Most GM crops grown around the world are grown in intensive monocultures, have resulted in a massive increase in pesticide use, and are used for animal feed, not food.

Last week the Government signed up to the UN International Agriculture Assessment [4] which saw no clear role for GM crops to tackle global food needs. The report was so lukewarm over GM crops that the biotech industry pulled out of the process last year [5], and the US has refused to sign up to the final document.

Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow said:

"The Government has been seriously misled if it thinks that GM crops are going to help tackle the food crisis - GM crops do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty.

"In the UK, the public have rejected GM food and extensive trials have showed that GM crops are more damaging for farmland wildlife than their conventional equivalents.

"Instead of helping the GM industry to use the food crisis for financial gain, the Government should be encouraging a radical shift towards sustainable farming systems that genuinely benefit local farmers, communities and the environment worldwide."

ENDS

Notes:

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gm-crops-needed-in-britain-says
-minister-849991.html At today's EU leader's summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister will also propose a 'six-point plan' to tackle food prices which includes "improving the EU regulatory regime for GM organisms". This is expected to involve weakening EU laws to allow contamination with unapproved GM material.

[2] The GM Nation? public debate in 2003: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/national_debate_rejects_gm.html and the responses to the GM 'coexistence' consultation in England: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/anger_over_governmemt_gm_c_13112007.html

[3] See Friends of the Earth's media briefing on the food crisis: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/media_briefing/food_crisis.pdf

And Who Benefits Report showing GM crops have failed to tackle hunger and poverty and lead to a massive increase in pesticide use: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/gm_crops_increase_pesticid_13022008.html

[4] http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200708/
cmhansrd/cm080609/wmstext/80609m0001.htm

IAASTD global press release: http://www.agassessment.org/docs/Global_Press_Release_final.doc

[5] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/full/451223b.html

GM crops needed in Britain, says minister
Government seeks to relax restrictions to tackle the worsening global food crisis

The Independent (UK), 19 June 2008. By Andrew Grice.

Ministers are preparing to open the way for genetically modified crops to be grown in Britain on the grounds they could help combat the global food crisis.

Ministers have told The Independent that rocketing food prices and food shortages in the world's poorest countries mean the time is right to relax Britain's policy on use of GM crops.

Last night, the Environment minister Phil Woolas held preliminary talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture. It is run by representatives from the companies Monsanto, Bayer CropSciences, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer (DuPont), and Syngenta.

He said: "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis. It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."

He stressed that the "very robust" procedures for ensuring the safety of experiments would continue, with scientists looking at each application on its merits.

The move will anger environmental groups, who accuse the GM industry of trying to exploit the global crisis to win approval for their products.

In 2004, after a heated public debate, the Government decided there was no scientific case for a blanket ban on GM crops. But amid fears over so-called "Frankenstein foods", it decided that commercial production would be allowed on a case-by-case basis, only if evidence showed it would not pose a risk to human health or the environment. There are no GM crops being grown in Britain and only one trial is taking place - of GM potatoes in Cambridgeshire.

Ministers are treading carefully, aware that strong government support for GM crops would provoke a backlash by opponents. Those ministers who favour a renewed push believe there are no scientific arguments against the idea. They argue that Britain has a duty to look at the issue on the grounds that boosting production is the best way to reduce global food prices.

They want the new debate to focus on the science to avoid a re-run of the one in 2004, when the GM industry was accused of trying to bounce the Government into giving the go-ahead for purely commercial reasons.

Gordon Brown is believed to be sympathetic to taking a fresh look at the issue in the light of mounting problems including "food riots" around the world. There are no plans yet for a formal cabinet decision but government sources acknowledge the issue is rising up the agenda. "Enough time has elapsed since the 2004 decision," one said. At a summit of EU leaders in Brussels today, the Prime Minister will propose a six-point plan to drive down food prices which includes " improving the EU regulatory regime for GM organisms". This is aimed at cutting the cost of GM products used in animal feed.

Green groups reacted angrily to the prospect of a government rethink. Clare Oxborrow, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "Industry claims that GM crops are necessary to feed the world are a cynical attempt to use the food crisis for financial gain - and governments should look at the industry's record before believing the hype.

"After a decade of commercialisation most GM crops are used for animal feed, not food; they do not yield more than conventional crops; and GM drought and salt-tolerant crops remain a PR promise rather than reality. We now need a radical shift towards sustainable farming systems that genuinely benefit local farmers communities and the environment worldwide."

Jan van Aken, agricultural campaigner for Greenpeace International, said: "I am appalled that the GM industry is abusing the misery of millions of hungry people around the world, using it as propaganda to sell a product by claiming it would reduce hunger. By all means the Government can have a look at it, but it should look at the facts and then drop it. There is no science behind the industry's claim."

The EU is also reviewing its stance on GM foods after coming under pressure from the US, which dominates the GM industry, to relax an unofficial moratorium on new licences ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation. France, Germany and Austria are cautious but the European Commission, backed by Britain and other EU nations, believes that lifting the ban could help to solve the global food crisis. George Bush has said GM crops could help to ease the problems because of their high yields and resistance to drought.

An uneasy history

1983: US Environment Protection Agency approves the release of first genetically modified crop after scientists create GM tobacco.

1985: GM crop trials take place in the UK and around the world.

1992: US professor Paul Lewis coins the expression "Frankenfood".

1993: US Food and Drug Administration allows the marketing of GM seed.

1994: The Flavr Savr tomato becomes the first GM food to be approved in the US.

1996: GM tomato paste arrives in UK, amid protests.

1999: Downing Street says Tony Blair has eaten GM food and views it as safe.

2004: Planting of GM maize is approved in the UK.

2006: The German biotech firm BASF is given go-ahead for five-year trial of blight-resistant GM potatoes in Britain.

2007: Government backs industry calls to support GM.

2008: Ministers discuss relaxing approach to GM crops to tackle global food crisis.

Comment from GM Watch:

It says everything that the environment minister has already been holding "preliminary talks" with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council - the biotech industry's PR front group run by Lexington Communications, a PR agency intimately connecting to New Labour at the highest levels. http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=139

If you're in the UK, please write to your MP and explain why New Labour's heirs to Blair need to finally stop cosying up to the industry and promoting its hype.

You can find all your MP's contact details at http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/

Michael McCarthy: Hello green concrete, goodbye wildlife

The Independent (UK) Commentators, 19 June 2008.

The argument against allowing genetically modified crops to be grown commercially in Britain can be summed up in two words: green concrete.

It means a landscape in which fields have a crop growing in them but nothing else. No wild plants or flowers of any sort, no butterflies or moths, no smaller insects on which birds and their chicks can feed, and so no birds. Green concrete means a countryside that still may be called the countryside, and may still appear green, but apart from the crop, it will be entirely sterile and lifeless.

That is what would happen if the GM crops previously proposed, including maize, beet and oilseed rape, were allowed to be grown on a commercial scale. For they were all genetically engineered to be able to survive the application of increasingly powerful weedkillers, known as "broad spectrum" herbicides, which would kill everything else in the field.

The best known of these chemicals is glyphosate, made by Monsanto under the trade name Roundup. Why is it called Roundup? Because nothing escapes.

In some countries, losing farmland wildlife might not matter so much. In the US, for example, people do not go to the grain prairies of Kansas to see flowers and birds; American agricultural areas are for agriculture. If you want to see wildlife you go to a wilderness area. The US is so big that there are plenty of these, some of them the size of Wales.

But Britain is different. It is a relatively small nation with an intimate, patchwork countryside and, if we want our wildlife to survive, much of it must survive on farms. Yet our farmland wildlife, especially birds and wild flowers, has already been given a catastrophic battering by the intensification of agriculture that has taken place in recent decades.

Who sees a cornfield dotted with red poppies now? How many people hear skylarks? Declines in farmland birds are incredible. Since the 1970s, tree sparrows have declined by 93 per cent, corn buntings by 89 per cent, grey partridges by 88 per cent, turtle doves by 83 per cent and so the list runs on.

This has happened just with conventional weedkillers and pesticides, which do allow some fauna to survive. The introduction of broad-spectrum chemicals, which GM technology would allow, would be a further and fatal ratcheting-up of the intensification process for farming. Nothing would be left. The Government demonstrated this with its farm-scale evaluations of GM crops from 1998 to 2003. They proved wildlife was damaged far more by the GM process than by conventional methods.

Of course, there are many other crop modifications possible besides herbicide tolerance. In years to come, as climate change takes hold, we may need crops engineered to be drought-tolerant or salt-tolerant. They could be real life-savers - but they are not on offer yet.

UK must think again on growing GM crops, says cabinet minister

The Herald (UK), 19 June 2008. By Michael Settle.

Britain must reconsider growing genetically modified crops to help increase food yields, lower prices and enhance security of supply, a senior UK Government minister has told The Herald.

In a deeply controversial move that will place Westminster at odds with anti-GM Holyrood, the cabinet member made it clear, in the face of rising commodity prices, crop shortages caused by climate change and the increasing world population, Britain could simply no longer afford not to reconsider introducing GM crops .

"With the current problems, the first priority must be to increase food production; that means we must reopen the debate on GM. It's a global issue but each government has a duty to do what it can," said the minister, adding: "The green groups won't like it but we will have to take them on."

The subject could be raised at today's EU summit in Brussels, which will be dominated by the food and fuel crises. Gordon Brown will put forward a six-point plan to help combat rising food prices, which includes increasing investment in agricultural research.

No 10 sources made it clear the Prime Minister is willing to have the debate on GM crops reopened. His cabinet colleague's remarks come as UK inflation has hit 3.3% and is on course to top 4% later this year, a rise fuelled largely by soaring food prices. In the year to May, world agricultural prices rocketed 60%, with domestic food retail prices up 8%.

Last night, a spokesman for Alex Salmond, the First Minister, said the Scottish Government would be strongly opposed to the reconsideration of GM crops; it has a veto on them north of the border.

"We would be very concerned about that. Scotland has an international reputation second to none in terms of the quality of our environment and trust in the quality of our foodstuffs. These could be jeopardised by GM," he added.

However, there is support for a reconsideration of the technology in Britain. James Withers, chief executive of the National Farmers Union Scotland, said: "GM and whether it has a future in Scotland should be on the agenda. The world has turned on its head in 12 months.

"It would be negligent not to look at every opportunity to improve production and reduce costs. There is a danger that the world is moving on while we are stuck in time."

Bill McElvey, principal of the Scottish Agricultural College in Edinburgh, said: "It should be on the research agenda. It's up to society to decide which is the lesser of two evils: expensive food or GM crops?"

The GM food controversy erupted in 2003 when a mixture of public unease and hostility from green campaigners and political opponents meant the UK Government did not pursue the policy. At present, there are no GM crops grown commercially in Britain

Pro-GM lobbyist misleads parliamentary committee

GM Watch, 19 June 2008.

Yesterday's Farming Today programme on BBC Radio 4 proved just how far pro-GM lobbyists are prepared to go to mislead people over GM crops - and just how willing some BBC editors and journalists are prepared to go to provide them with a platform.

The piece was supposedly about the 60% decline in UK biodiversity reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), but Farming Today chose to headline the suggestion that GM crops would "help Nature" given the "significant environmental benefits of the GM field trials".

This was based on no more than the pro-GM ultra-industry-friendly vice president of the NFU, Paul Temple, responding to a passing question from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, who were enquiring into the broader issues around the UK's biodiversity decline, "Are GMs a threat to biodiversity?"

Temple claimed there were "significant benefits". And the NFU's Vice President justified that answer as follows:

"I took part in the Field Scale Evaluation Trials - what fascinated me was the significant environmental benefits they actually offered, because whenever I took visitors to the site and put them in the middle of a field during the winter, invariably they got the two halves mixed up, and one was a herbicide trial. They looked at the side that was oil seed rape that was full of weeds that provided over winter feed for various animals, and then they looked at the side that was immaculately clean and only had oil seed rape, and in their mind they said the clean side is the GM side, the side with weeds that's the good side. I thought that was particularly telling that that was the sort of thought process of people who had never been actually involved in it."

This is an outrageously misleading answer from someone who claims to be science led in his opinions, because the results of the very trials that Temple is referring to showed that it was the GM oilseed rape he was growing that was worse for biodiversity!!! http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/releases/2003/21a-gmo.asp

Of the crops tested in the farm scale evaluations only GM maize emerged as better for biodiversity than the conventional crop, and even that result was problematic as the conventional maize farmers were treating weeds with atrazine - a herbicide banned in the EU shortly afterwards because of its problematic effects.

It's also the case - since Paul Temple seems so keen on anecdotal evidence - that there were repeated reports from observers of the pro-GM farmers involved in the trials deliberately allowing weed growth in the GM part of the trial in order to try and provide the GM crop with a better biodiversity profile. If this is the case, then the potential damage to biodiversity from GM oilseed rape will be even higher than that shown by the results of the trials. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE4/Fixing-The-FarmMar02.htm

Farming Today pursued the GM question with the Environmental Audit Committee's chair, Tim Yeo. His response was:

"I don't think the evidence is conclusive yet re. claimed benefits. I remain puzzled by the keenness of farmers to grow GM crops when there doesn't appear to be a great consumer demand for food which contains GM ingredients. There's a danger here that farmers are falling back into their old ways of thinking they are producers, but they are also in the marketing business and if you ignore what the market's looking for you'll do yourself an awful lot of harm.

"There appears to be quite a significant body of consumers, as reflected in what the supermarkets in this country are asking for, who would like food free from GM ingredients. And that given what the same witness said (Paul Temple) that most countries abroad can no longer produce such types of food that would give them (farmers) a terrific advantage if for the time being at least they continued following a GM free policy in this country."

Listen again (18 June) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/index.shtml

New study to force ministers to review climate change plan
Exclusive Official review admits biofuel role in food crisis

The Guardian (UK), 19 June 2008. By Julian Borger.

Britain and Europe will be forced to fundamentally rethink a central part of their environment strategy after a government report found that the rush to develop biofuels has played a "significant" role in the dramatic rise in global food prices, which has left 100 million more people without enough to eat.

The Gallagher report, due to be published next week, will trigger a review of British and EU targets for the use of plant-derived fuels in place of petrol and diesel, the Guardian has learned.

The study marks a dramatic reversal in the role of biofuels in the fight against global warming. As recently as last year, corn ethanol and biodiesel derived from vegetable oil were widely seen as important weapons in that fight - and a central plank of Gordon Brown's green strategy. Now even their environmental benefits are in question.

A panel of government experts, chaired by Professor Ed Gallagher, head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, has said that far more research is needed into the indirect impact of biofuels on land use and food production before the government sets targets for their use in transport.

The first such target is already in place. Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to contain 2.5% of biofuels, a stepping stone towards a 2010 target of 5%. The EU is contemplating a 10% target by 2010. The new report means all those goals will have to be reconsidered.

A government official familiar with the Gallagher review said: "Simply setting a target without stipulating what kind of biofuel is to be used in what circumstances can have all sorts of unintended consequences."

Another official said: "The review has thrown up the likelihood of significant impacts. UK and EU targets will have to be addressed."

The report says there is a place for biofuels, both as an alternative to fossil fuels and as a source of income for poor farmers with marginal lands. But it says a distinction must be drawn between "first-generation" biofuels, which use food crops such as corn, rapeseed, palm and soya, and experimental "second-generation" fuels based on fibrous non-food plants which could theoretically be grown without displacing other crops and raising food prices. Criteria to guide fuel policy would consequently have to be drawn up.

It was unclear yesterday whether Britain had left it too late to influence EU biofuel targets, after the government failed to raise objections in a succession of votes in European environment and industry committees. British officials believe the issue can still be revisited in Brussels.

The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, ordered the review in February, at the height of the food price crisis, but the panel only began work in March and was asked to deliver its conclusions three months later. "There was so little time, I expected it would just be a review of the literature, but it has gone much further than I expected. It has substantive things to say," said a government official involved in drafting the report.

The role of biofuels, which pits concerns over climate change against the need for food security for vulnerable populations, was the most controversial issue at a summit on the food crisis earlier this month in Rome. The US and Brazil, both large-scale biofuel producers, argued fiercely against any hint of criticism of their cultivation in the conference's final statement, which called only for "in-depth studies".

An American claim that biofuels contributed less than 3% to food price rises was widely derided. The IMF estimates their impact as 20-30%, and other estimates are even higher. Over a third of US corn is used to produce ethanol, while about half of EU vegetable oils go towards the production of biodiesel.

After the Rome summit, a British government team involved in the Gallagher review visited the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to consult specialists who had drawn up UN recommendations on biofuel use. They emerged saying their views were "identical". The FAO recommendations advised against a moratorium on biofuel use or the continuation of "business as usual" under existing policies, calling instead for a set of international standards to ensure plant-derived ethanol and biodiesel did not harm the food supply. Keith Wiebe, a senior agricultural economist at the FAO, said: "There is a push towards the development of these liquid biofuels that is in advance of our understanding of their impact. We need to know more about those impacts, before pushing too hard."

The UN's World Food Programme has called the food crisis a "silent tsunami" which is pushing more than 100 million people worldwide into hunger.

________

Listen to this audio:

John Vidal on a report that says biofuels have caused world food shortage

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/audio/2008/jun/19/biofuels.food.shortage

Uganda Business News in Brief:
Africa does not need genetically for food security



Wavah Broadcasting Company, 19 June 2008

The need to triple or quadruple the domestic food production in African countries does not call for the genetically modified seeds.

A United Nations food expert, Mafa Chipeta says that the African countries withsing to boost food production should be able to fulfill their needs through simple changes to agricultural practices which will cost them less than use of the genetically modified seeds.

Chipeta, a coordinator for the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, said that governments would need to reduce fertiliser prices, reduces taxes on farm inputs and modernize the ancient method of food production.

Chipeta says that more investments in irrigation and research in agricultural sectors is needed if African countries are to boost food production.

He also says that the continent must drop its reliance on food imports and learn to feed itself.

Africa imports about $25 billion worth of food and receives about a third of the world's food aid, despite being the most fertile continent.

Chipeta says Africa may have to triple or quadruple domestic food production over two seasons in order to meet the food needs of the continent's populations

18 June 2008

Genetic engineering - a crop of hyperbole

The San Diego Union-Tribune (USA), 18 June 2008. By Doug Gurian-Sherman.

The food crisis is much in the news. It is also on the minds of the biotech industry, which is using rising food worries to suggest, contrary to the evidence, that genetically engineered, or GE, crops are needed to help the world feed itself. The recent spike in food prices is due to increased demand, drought and trade policies rather than to inadequate global production. But world population is growing, so it is worthwhile to consider the role of GE for ensuring adequate, affordable and sustainable food in the future.

After 20 years of GE research and 13 years of commercialization, GE crops have a track record that allows us to evaluate their future prospects. And so far, they have shown little progress on the biggest food production issues, such as intrinsic yield, stress tolerance and improving sustainability. The weak performance to date raises questions about how much more of our scarce research dollars should be devoted to this controversial technology. Moreover, the lax regulation of both food safety and environmental risks from GE also remains to be addressed, especially in developing countries that often have no regulatory infrastructure to evaluate GE crops.

Most relevant for food sufficiency are properties such as yield - producing more on available land - and better use of resources, especially in the face of climate change. Agriculture already accounts for about 70 percent of human water use, so using less water to grow crops is increasingly important. And because current industrialized agriculture often degrades soil and causes substantial pollution from fertilizers, pesticides and climate-changing gases, we need to do a better job of producing food without degrading the environment.

Let's be clear. As of this year, there are no commercialized GE crops that inherently increase yield. Similarly, there are no GE crops on the market that were engineered to resist drought, reduce fertilizer pollution or save soil. Not one.

The most widely grown GE crop in the United States, herbicide-tolerant soybeans, has not increased yield above its conventional non-GE counterparts, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture trend data and numerous field studies. Insect-resistant GE crops have sometimes indirectly improved yields by reducing insect damage - so-called operations yield. But such yield increases have been modest, and recent studies suggest that much of the apparent improvements may be due to other advances, such as from conventional breeding. New innovations, using new insights from our growing knowledge of crop genetics, are improving the versatility and speed of these established, productive breeding techniques, without using GE.

What about environmental benefits? Those, too, have been modest at best.

Cutting through the rhetoric, overall pesticide use (herbicides, insecticides and fungicides) has not been reduced through GE. Although there may have been some initial reductions, recent U.S. data suggest that herbicide use in GE crops is now significantly higher than it was prior to their introduction. Weeds that have developed resistance to the herbicide used with GE crops now infest several million acres, forcing greater herbicide use. Insect-resistant GE crops have reduced overall insecticide use somewhat, but on balance GE crops have not reduced our dependence on pesticides.

Soil erosion and degradation can be reduced by reducing tillage. And reduced tillage often accompanies GE herbicide-tolerant crops. But reduced-till methods were on the rise prior to the adoption of GE crops. The USDA reported in 2002 that the data did not point to GE as a significant contributor to reduced tillage.

In many cases we can accomplish the same or better results at less expense by applying the science of agroecology. Insecticide use can be reduced by alternating the use of more crop types rather than growing nothing but corn, or only corn and soybeans. Soil erosion can be largely eliminated by the common organic practice of using cover crops between seasons. These and other practices improve soil, which thereby retains more water, helping crops during droughts. Large improvements in water use can be achieved through technologies such as drip irrigation rather than wasteful methods commonly used now.

Many of these issues are discussed in a recently published report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, sponsored by the World Bank and U.N., which concluded that the role of GE in improving food security in the developing world should be secondary to other approaches.

Finally, to the extent that GE may provide benefits in the future, GE must be adequately regulated to ensure food safety and protect the environment. Unfortunately, the United States, with industry support, has neglected the regulation of GE crops. The Food and Drug Administration does not approve the safety of GE foods; it simply ushers them into the market. The FDA has only a voluntary regulatory process for GE food safety, fundamentally unchanged since 1992, that requires no specific safety tests and largely allows companies to determine the tests they conduct. USDA was criticized in 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences for insufficient scientific rigor in its environmental safety assessments, and has recently lost several cases in federal courts for its lax regulation. Its own inspector general severely criticized its regulatory apparatus in 2005. USDA is revising its regulations, but current drafts do not adequately address previous criticisms.

The challenge of growing and distributing food for a hungry world deserves serious attention. So far the inflated claims of the biotechnology industry are not backed up by scientific evidence, but its rosy rhetoric obscures our choices. This can keep us from investing in tools such as conventional breeding and agroecology that, based on their track record, should be leading the way to helping the world feed itself.

Gurian-Sherman is a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C.

Drought-tolerant wheat on the way

RTE News (Ireland), 18 June 2008.

Australian researchers developing a drought-tolerant wheat have had early success in field trials.

The researchers hope to have the world's first transgenic wheat in farmers' hands in five to 10 years.

The researchers have identified two genetically modified lines that generate yield increases of 20%. Advertisement

German Spangenberg, Executive Director of the Victorian AgriBiosciences Centre, part of a state government research division, said there were very significant grain yield gains.

The test plots were planted in northern Victoria, an area of Australia that suffered significant drought losses in its 2006/2007 wheat crop.

Researchers have asked for regulatory approval to conduct more field trials over the next two years.

The availability of water for agriculture is an important constraint, Mr Spangenberg said. 'To see genetic innovation in a major crop like wheat for drought is very exciting.'

No commercial transgenic wheat currently exists in world markets, due to strong opposition by consumer and environmental groups in many countries.

Several biotech crop developers, notably Monsanto Co and Syngenta, have done extensive work in developing different types of biotech wheat.

However, Monsanto shelved its herbicide-resistant wheat project and Syngenta has slowed the pace of its work on a disease-resistant wheat because of the widespread opposition.

That obstacle could be shrinking, however, as food shortages and accompanying skyrocketing prices for grain have applied a recent shock to the world food system.

Syngenta has its genetically modified spring wheat nearly ready to submit for regulatory approval, but plans to wait for further market acceptance.

Genetically engineered wheat not the solution to drought

Greenpeace Australia press release, 18 June 2008.

Sydney -- Reacting to the Victorian Premier John Brumby's statement championing genetically engineered (GE) wheat as a solution to drought at a conference in the US, Greenpeace has accused the biotechnology industry of using the drought as an opportunity to foist GE crops on a justifiably suspicious public.

Louise Sales, Genetic Engineering Campaigner with Greenpeace says "Genetically engineered wheat is not grown commercially anywhere in the world nor accepted by any market, which is why even major GE crop producers such as the US and Canada have rejected it. Consumers simply do not want GE in their daily bread - and with good reason - there is growing evidence that GE crops are harmful to the environment and may be harmful to human health."

"The biotechnology industry thinks it can use drought tolerant GE crops to overcome consumer resistance to GE crops. However there are better techniques to develop drought tolerant crops that don't pose the same unacceptable risk to human health and the environment. The real reason the biotechnology industry wants use GE is that it can then patent the seed - requiring farmers to buy new seed every year" she added

Safe drought resistant crops can be developed using either traditional breeding or modern biotechnology techniques such as marker assisted selection (MAS). MAS does not result in a GE crop, but utilises our knowledge of DNA and the genome to breed new plant varieties. MAS has already been successfully used to develop non-GE drought tolerant canola in Victoria, which should be available to farmers this year.

A recent UN report, produced by over 400 of the world's leading scientists acknowledged that GE crops are highly controversial and will not play a substantial role in addressing the key problems of climate change, biodiversity loss, hunger and poverty.

Contacts:

Louise Sales, Genetic Engineering Campaigner: 0438 679 263
Ruchira Talukdar, Media Officer: 0407 414 572

Notes to the Editor:

1. Victorian Government (2006) Media Release: Victorian scientist develop drought tolerant canola, www.legislation.vic.gov.au/domino/Web_Notes/newmedia.nsf/bc348d5
912436a9cca256cfc0082d800/c405c362f8a2148aca2571c600

2. International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) final report

Uganda GM banana fails to defeat diseases

ASNS, 18 June 2008

A field trial of a Genetically-Modified (GM) banana variety in Uganda has failed to defeat the occurrence of banana diseases. The variety was attacked by Black Sigatoka disease, which can cut a banana tree's fruit production by half.

Scientists at Kawanda National Agricultural Research laboratories had hoped the modified banana would help reduce the occurrence of banana diseases. Local banana varieties are vulnerable to numerous diseases and pests, including the banana bacterial wilt disease and weevils.

Bacterial Wilt hit Uganda in 2001, destroying most plantations and, it is estimated, causing losses of up to $35m (sh57b).

Dr Andrew Kiggundu, the research team leader, said they were changing strategy to ensure that the GM banana's resistance would be enhanced.

He told a science reporters' meeting at Shanghai Restaurant in Kampala recently that an anti- Black Sigatoka gene was inserted in parts of the GM banana seedlings to control the disease.

"Depending on where the gene was inserted, it expressed itself inside the crop in a different manner. Our next target will be to see which crop exhibits stronger resistance when the gene is inserted and then we can conduct more experiments," Kiggundu noted.

He explained that Uganda's GM banana research was still in its infancy. "We are still at a stage where one gene can be introduced. We shall soon acquire dual gene introduction mechanisms," he noted.

'The dual gene technology would enable scientists to introduce multiple genes for desired traits in a single variety, before releasing it for farming. Some of the traits include multiple disease and drought resistance, quick maturity and high production.

Black Sigatoka, which is also known as black leaf streak, causes significant reductions in leaf area, yield losses of 50% or more, and premature ripening, a serious defect in exported fruit.

It is more damaging and difficult to control than the related yellow Sigatoka disease, and has a wider host range that includes the plantains and dessert and ABB cooking bananas that are usually not affected by yellow Sigatoka.

The high rainfall and humidity of the tropical regions in which bananas are grown are especially favourable for disease development.

The fungus that causes Black Sigatoka is spread from tree to tree by wind, rain and irrigation water.

Kiggundu said Black Sigatoka was endemic in almost all the banana growing areas. It has crippled banana production in the central region around Lake Victoria, eastern region and some parts of the north.

The banana research programme has set up a frontline in Bushenyi district to stop the disease from attacking western Uganda, Kiggundu added. The new banana variety was hoped to help tackle the expense of protecting bananas from this disease.

Black Sigatoka is controlled with frequent applications of fungicides and cultural practices, such as the removal of affected leaves, and adequate spacing of plants and efficient drainage within plantation.

For example, fungicide application includes the use of airplanes or helicopters, permanent landing strips and facilities for mixing and loading the fungicides, and the high recurring expense of the spray materials themselves.

In total, it has been estimated that the costs of control are ultimately responsible for 15-20% of the final retail price of these fruit in the importing countries.

Their great expense makes them essentially unavailable to small-holder farmers, especially prolific in Sub Saharan Africa, who grow this crop. It is these producers who are affected most by this important disease.

The Ugandan scientists carrying out a field trial said it was too early to say that the bananas last year had failed.

17 June 2008

Still no GM cultivation in Austria

Co-extra, 17 June 2008.

On 7th May, 2008, the EU Commission lifted the import ban on GM maize lines MON810 and T25. However, the cultivation of GMO and the utilisation of genetically modified products cannot be anticipated in Austria at present. The Austrian Minister of Health, Andrea Kdolsky, has spoken of a voluntary agreement among the larger supermarket chains not to offer GMO-derived food products. The Minister also referred to a refusal of the animal feed industry to use MON810 and T25.

Since June 1999, Austria had prohibited the import, processing and cultivation of the lines MON810 and T25 from the Monsanto and Bayer companies and justified this decision with reasons of health protection. Since then, the Commission has decided that the import and processing of both lines must be permitted and, in the case that this does not occur, has raised the possibility of legal consequences. The Commission responded thereby to concerns of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which demands that scientifically unfounded trade barriers to genetically modified products in the European Union be lifted. Addressing the Commission, scientists have attested to the safety of both maize types for human beings and the environment. [???]

The Austrian Minister of Health, Andrea Kdolsky, announced the formation of a research advisory council to assay "Risk Research and Use-of-Potential Analysis in Green Gene Technology". The minister emphasised that the council is expected to provide "qualitatively valuable arguments" with regard to future approval processes, "in order to effect prohibition throughout Europe".

Drought-Tolerant Wheat Developed in Victoria, Australia Show Yields up 20 Per Cent in First Trials

2008 BIO International Convention

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Drought-tolerant wheat developed in Victoria, Australia is returning yields up to 20 per cent higher than non-GM control crops, the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, today announced at the BIO International Convention.

Mr. Brumby said large wheat-producing countries affected by drought, such as Australia, the USA, Argentina, China and India, were having to embrace new technologies to continue to meet the demands of the global wheat market.

"These initial results are very promising and suggest that these genetically modified wheat lines may be part of the solution to help farmers maintain and improve their crop yields in a changing global environment," Mr. Brumby said.

"Drought significantly reduced Victoria's wheat crops in 2006-07. With average yields worth approximately $300 million, a 20 percent boost could provide as much as $80 million to our wheat industry.

"Around the world, 35-50 per cent of wheat-growing areas are under drought risk. The number of drought-affected wheat growing areas is likely to increase with the effects of climate change."

Mr. Brumby said Victoria's $230 million Biosciences Research Centre - a joint venture between the Victorian Government and La Trobe University in Bundoora - would boost Victoria's capacity to make important discoveries.

Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Research Division Executive Director Professor German Spangenberg, who has been leading trials near Horsham and Mildura, said analysis of the crop, grown last year and harvested early this year, confirmed increased crop yields and maintenance of grain size.

"Twenty-four lines of GM wheat were tested and, of those, seven were identified as providing higher yields under drought stress," Professor Spangenberg said.

"Two lines exceeded the yield of the control experimental variety by 20 per cent."

The four-year moratorium on genetically modified canola lapsed this February. Genetically modified wheat is only grown under trial conditions.

Drought-tolerant GM wheat lines will require many years of research and assessment before they could be considered for commercial use. Professor Spangenberg said the results required confirmation in next season's field trials.

DPI has lodged an application with the Federal Gene Technology Regulator to plant additional trials of GM wheat lines over the next two years.

The new $230 million Biosciences Research Centre, a joint venture between the Victorian Government and La Trobe University, will boost Victoria's ability to make these important scientific discoveries. The centre, at Bundoora, will deliver internationally recognised research and development. Other agencies are invited to work with the centre.

Greenpeace welcomes the extension of the Amazon soya moratorium

Greenpeace press release, 17 June 2008.

Brasilia, Brazil - Greenpeace welcomes the decision to extend by one year the Amazon soya moratorium, made today at a press conference in Brasilia by the soya traders association (Abiove) (1), together with Brazil's new Environment Minister Carlos Minc, Greenpeace and other NGOs.

The moratorium, which prohibits the purchase of soya from newly deforested areas in the Amazon, or from farmers using indentured or forced labourers, was the direct result of a Greenpeace investigation documented in our 2006 report "Eating up the Amazon" (2) and our subsequent campaign. The moratorium will now run until July 2009. (3)

Several soya producers had begun using rising agricultural commodity prices and global demand for grain to pressure Abiove and traders not to extend the moratorium. A handful even used the global food crisis to justify further Amazon deforestation. "The decision to extend the moratorium against the backdrop of rising commodity prices and the food crises shows that government and industry now understand that it is possible to protect the forest, combat climate change and still ensure food production," said Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director in Brazil.

Greenpeace, together with other NGOs, will continue to help Abiove to bring effective governance to the soya industry in the Amazon. Greenpeace warns however, that a one year extension may not be long enough to build the tools necessary to ensure that soya production does not result in further deforestation. (4)

An alliance of soya consumer companies, led by McDonalds, Marks & Spencer and Carrefour also welcomed the extension decision and, in a joint statement, renewed its commitment to remaining actively engaged.' (5) In Brazil, the companies Wal-Mart, Sadia and Yoki also supported the statement.

The direct involvement of the Brazilian government is key to providing the framework essential for farmers to comply with the law. (6)

"The moratorium is a successful initiative by civil society and the soya industry. The Federal Government is entering the process now and is committed to register and license all rural properties in the Amazon biome," Minc told reporters. "Inspired by the success of this initiative, the Brazilian government is negotiating similar approaches with the timber and beef industries."

"We are delighted to see the new environment minister take an active role in ensuring the continuation of the moratorium. Such high level support helps Abiove and the traders convince farmers to support the initiative. His support also serves as a warning to those who continue to destroy forests that their soya will be rejected by the market," concluded Adario.

Tropical forest destruction is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to the energy sector. 75% of Brazil's emissions come from forest destruction, making it the world's fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter.

For more information contact:

Tica Minami, press officer for Greenpeace Amazon campaign: + 55 92 8114 4517
Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon Campaign Director: + 55 92 8115 8928
Daniela Montalto, Greenpeace International Forests campaigner: + 31 6 46 16 20 33

Background images and footage available:

Greenpeace International photo desk: + 44 7801 615 889
Greenpeace International video desk: + 31 6 46 16 20 15

Notes to the editor:

(1) ABIOVE and ANEC members, including major commodities giants Cargill, Bunge, ADM, Dreyfus and the Brazilian-based Ammagi, are responsible for more than 90% of the Brazilian soya trade.

(2) http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/eating-up-the-amazon

(3) On July 24th 2006, ABIOVE (Brazilian Association of Vegetal Oil Industry) and ANEC (National Association of Cereals Exporters) announced a two year moratorium on buying soya from newly deforested areas in the Amazon or from farmers using indentured or forced labourers. The moratorium followed an investigation by Greenpeace that proved that soya cultivation has become a new threat to the Amazon. A Soya Working Group (GTS) including ABIOVE, ANEC; soya traders; NGOs and social organisations was established in October 2006 to ensure the implemen¬tation of the moratorium. See Greenpeace updates on the progress of the implementation at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/amazon/amazon-bulletin

(4) On June 3, 2008, the Brazilian Space Agency INPE showed that Amazon deforestation increased to 1,423 km2 in April 2008 from 145 km2 in March. Because extensive cloud coverage made monitoring through satellite images difficult in certain areas, these are not final figures. More than 70% of the deforestation occurred in Mato Grosso which is the largest soya producing state in Brazil.

(5) The joint statement singed up by Carrefour, McDonald´s Europe, Marks and Spencer, ASDA, Ahold, Nutreco and Ritter Sport can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/statement-on-moratorium-amazonwg.

In Brazil, the companies Wal-Mart, Sadia and Yoki have also signed in support.

(6) Effective measures to tackle deforestation include mapping rural properties and ownership; curbing illegal occupation of public land; harsh penalties for illegal deforestation; driving development to areas away from the rainforest and increasing support to sustainable activities. The System of Environmental Licensing of Rural Properties, a mechanism that enables authorities to monitor farms using geo-referenced maps and satellite imagery, must be implemented.

GMO studies fail to produce definitive answers

SwissInfo.com, 17 June 2008.

Switzerland - Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have no negative impact on bees, worms, snails or fly larvae, according to a national research programme.

But experts say there is no standard definition of what is considered "damage to the environment". All sides in the debate agree there is more work to be done.

"This is a good start, these results from this first exploration," Maya Graf, a Green Party parliamentarian, told swissinfo.

"It is clear though that further exploration is necessary to answer the open questions."

The findings that were presented by the Federal Environment Office on Tuesday are part of a series of eight studies into biosafety in non-human gene technology.

The Environment Office said the research is aimed at ensuring the authorities have suitable methodology for the monitoring of GMOs in the environment and so that the long-term impact of GMOs can be recognised in time.

A ban on growing GMOs in Switzerland runs out in 2010. Outdoor GM crops for scientific purposes are allowed but are subject to approval.

A second national research priority programme on biosafety will be completed by 2011.

Wild bees

Research on wild bees showed that it is highly unlikely genetically modified crops currently being cultivated will affect individual bees adversely, according to researchers from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne University.

The effect on the development of harmful insects was investigated in GM, scab-resistant apples.

Researchers observed an impact but said it reflected natural differences between apple varieties.

Dirk Babendreier, a Swiss-based researcher with CABI Europe, a non-profit scientific and information clearing house, says the existing body of evidence on what effect GMOs have on bees - a vital link in plant and crop regeneration - is incomplete.

"So far, only honey bees and to some degree, bumblebees were assessed at all," he told swissinfo. "Solitary bees are a very important group of pollinators and so far have been completely neglected in risk assessment."

If the solitary bee - there are 700 species in Europe alone - were affected by GMOs, it would have serious effects on crops and wild plants, according to Babendreier.

"All kinds of plants may not be pollinated any more. No reduction would be possible and many plants would basically die," he said.

"In terms of crop issues, it might be that the harvest is simply decreasing."

He believes that GMOs can effectively reduce the amount of pesticides, herbicides and other poisons currently used to treat crops.

Ethics of risk

The question still unanswered is whether it is worth the trade-off. Risks need to be assessed "as thoroughly as we can afford," he said.

Another group of researchers led by Klaus Peter Rippe of the Federal Commission on Ethics for non-human biotechnology examined the debate about the ethics of risk.

They concluded that environmental monitoring, required by law, might not provide solid data to reach decisions on GMOs. Such monitoring was also costly and time consuming.

"Neither a strong precautionary principle nor a simple cost/benefit analysis is adequate for assessing the release of GMOs," said a statement by the Environment Office.

Other studies focused on the soil ecosystem and the early detection of unexpected environmental impacts.

swissinfo, Justin H&aukml;ne and agencies

Victory for Small Farmer

Positive News (UK), 17 June 2008.

After a ten year long David and Goliath battle, Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser has finally won damages from Monsanto in an out-of-court settlement.

The agrochemical company took Percy to court for growing 'their' genetically modified canola - the yellow blossomed plant, known as Canadian rapeseed - without paying them. However, he never wanted to grow any genetically modified crops in the first place. Quite the reverse. Much to his distress, the unwanted seed blew onto his farm and seeded itself.

Over the years Percy Schmeiser has become something of a hero for standing up to the huge multinational. Now they have agreed to pay him 660 dollars to cover all the costs of cleaning up the contamination. This may not be much compensation but the principle has now been established that modified crops can contaminate organic and conventional farms. Furthermore, the companies that are actually promoting the stuff can be held responsible.

Last year, Percy and his wife Louise won the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'. The Jury honoured the Schmeisers "for their courage in defending biodiversity and farmers' rights and for challenging the environmental and moral perversity of current interpretations of patent laws... Percy and Louise have given the world a wake-up call about the dangers to farmers and biodiversity everywhere from the growing dominance and market aggression of those companies engaged in the genetic engineering of crops."

Percy believes that this precedent-setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted 'Roundup Ready' canola or indeed, any other unwanted genetically modified plants.

Contact: www.percyschmeiser.com

GM crops restrain price rises, says economist

FoodNavigator, 17 June 2008. By Jess Halliday.

The present food supply crisis would be worse if it were not for commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops over the last 12 years, claims a new economic report.

GM crops have been grown commercially on a large scale for the past 12 years, although so far a limited number of agronomic traits have actually been commercialised, and in a small range of crops.

According to a new report conducted by UK-based PG Economics called Global impact of biotech crops: socio-economic and environmental effects 1996-2006, these traits have already resulted in improved productivity and profitability for the 10.25m farmers who adopted them over the study period.

Global production of soybeans, corn, cotton and canola were respectively 5 per cent, 1.4 per cent, 5.2 per cent, and 0.5 per cent higher that they would have been if farmers were not using GM technology.

This translated into additional production volumes of 11.6m tonnes for soybeans, 9.65m tonnes for corn, 1.38m tonnes for cotton lint and 0.21m tonnes for canola.

"GM technology is having an important impact on contributing to global supplies of these food, feed and fibre commodities and to limiting the level of price increases that have occurred in the last two to three years," said the report's authors.

For long-term food security, co-author Graham Brookes told FoodNavigator.com that he believes GM technology will to play an important part, but is not a "silver bullet".

There are a variety of other factors, including global policy, that will also contribute to ensuring the world's population has enough to eat.

EU competitiveness

While report indicates there are strong benefits to GM technology, in the EU adoption on a par with other parts of the world has been impeded by political wrangles and resistance.

This, Brookes believes, is lamentable.

"I consider that European citizens are being denied the environmental and economic benefits of GM. We have missed the boat in Europe."

Even if the political hold-ups were to ease, he believes the EU will remain 10 years behind.

Elsewhere, more uptake of available GM traits is expected in the next ten years, together with wider development of the technology by both the private and the public sector.

The public sector is an especially strong driver in developing countries. For instance the Chinese government has been investing in GM research, according to Brookes, with market benefits anticipated.

New traits are also expected to come to market in the foreseeable future. For example, according to Brookes a drought resistant corn trait is under development and in the next five years should allow the staple to be grown in drier regions and places where irrigation is problematic.

GM safety

The anti-GM lobby has repeatedly expressed concerns that the long-term safety of GM crops has not been established.

Since the technology is relatively new, they argue that using GM technology now could be storing up unforeseeable health and environment problems for the future.

In addition, there are concerns about contamination of non-GM crops grown in proximity to GM crops, since cross-pollination is impossible to avoid.

Brookes, on the other hand, stands by the safety record of GM crops. He says it has passed the most rigorous review of safety in agriculture, and there is no one scientifically documented case of GM causing problems for health, safety or the environment.

Report publication

The report was funded by the biotech industry, but Brookes told FoodNavigator.com that in order to counter allegations of self-interest, the researchers insisted on publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The full 118 page version is available online*. A shorter version has been accepted for publication in the journal AgBioForum, and is expected to appear in print within the next month.

* http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/pdf/globalimpactstudyjune2008PGEconomics.pdf

Comment from GM Watch:

AgBioForum is funded by the Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance whose purpose has been stated as: "to fund biotechnology research... directed at expanding the volume of profitable businesses in the US food and agricultural sector". http://www.imba.missouri.edu/

The Alliance is an outgrowth of "an economic development initiative" that emerged out of Monsanto's home town of St. Louis, Missouri, with a Monsanto CEO playing a key role in its inception. http://www.imba.missouri.edu/index.php?region=3

AgBioForum's Editorial Board includes CS Prakash, amongst other well known GM proponents. http://www.agbioforum.missouri.edu/editors.htm

The "PG" in the name of the firm which produced this report - PG Economics - stands for Peter and Graham, the Christian names of the company's co-directors and the authors of this report: Peter Barfoot and Graham Brookes. Barfoot also heads an organisation called Bioportfolio which has the motto: 'Serving the biotechnology industry' and both Brookes and Barfoot have a long and controversial history of producing reports that do exactly that. http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=308

QUESTION: What do you do when the take-up of your product depends massively on hype about productivity gains that's not easily supported by the analysis of the US Dept of Agriculture, etc.?

ANSWER: You order up a report from PG Economics.

US start-up modifies bacteria to produce oil
Software tycoons fund genetic production of Oil 2.0

Infomatics Online UK, 17 June 2008. By Iain Thomson in California, vnunet.com.

A coalition of Silicon Valley investors is funding a company that modifies bacteria to produce oil.

LS9 Inc has genetically modified E Coli so that when it consumes organic products like wood chips or wheat straw it excretes crude oil.

The venture is being funded by investors including Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.

"Our Renewable Petroleum technology can dramatically change global carbon flow, and empower an agriculturally-based fuel economy," said LS9 president Robert Walsh.

"It will decrease the political tensions posed by scarce fossil reserves, and accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable transportation fuels."

The company was set up by Dr Chris Somerville, director of the Carnegie Institution and professor of plant biology at Stanford University, and Dr George Church, director of the MIT-Harvard US Department of Energy GTL Center and professor of genetics at Harvard.

"Thanks to rapid advances in industrial biotechnology and synthetic biology, along with the strength and talent of our scientific team, LS9 is uniquely suited to design, develop and commercialise the next generation of biofuels," said Professor Somerville.

Professor Church added: "We have looked to nature to identify the required biological tools, redesigned them to function under industrial conditions and optimised their performance to meet our economic objectives."

Naturally occurring E Coli produces fatty acids which are similar to crude oil. The genetic modification required is relatively simple, and the new organism produces crude oil which needs minimum refining.

The company claims that the final oil product, known as Oil 2.0, is actually carbon negative, since the carbon it produces is less than was extracted from the atmosphere by the growing medium.

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

Sounds great, but: where will the agricultural raw material inputs come from? Monoculture GM tree plantations and GM crops that displace land needed for food production?

Non-GM Crops Dominate in World Agriculture

GM Freeze, 17 June 2008

Non-GM crops bred using traditional plant breeding methods still provide most of the food and animal feed in the world, covering more than 97% of agricultural land [1] compared with only 2.4% growing GM crops.

The new analysis [2] was carried out by GM Freeze after media reports claimed 25% of global arable land was under GM crops - a figure obtained from the National Environmental Research Council's website [3].

The GM Freeze analysis shows that in fact over 90% of global arable land [4] is used to cultivate non-GM crops. Even in the USA, where GM crops have been widely adopted, over 85% of agricultural land is growing non-GM crops and two thirds of arable land grew non-GM crops in 2007.

Two countries, Argentina and Paraguay, are over dependent on GM crops to the point that sustainable production is under threat. GM Freeze's analysis raises serious concerns about the dominance of Monsanto's GM RR soya (genetically engineered to tolerate the company's top selling weedkiller RoundUp (glyphosate)). In Argentina, 99% of soya production is GM and glyphosate resistant weeds now appear in fields over considerable areas. The data reveal that 85% of Paraguayan arable land is under RR soya, suggesting that little by way of arable rotations are being practiced - a vital component of long-term soil health and productivity.

Recently the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Report [5] called for a rethink in agricultural research to build on the knowledge of farmers, especially women, to improve farming systems with an agro-ecological approach designed to produce high quality food, without damaging soils, other natural resources and biodiversity while at the same time playing a key role in mitigating against climate change.

Commenting Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:

"Our analysis clearly shows just how important non-GM cultivation is in world agriculture. This is likely to remain the case for years to come, and there is an urgent need for Governments to increase funding for research and development in traditional farming, including plant breeding led by farmers.

"Official obsessions with GM crops are leading us into oil dependent monocultures and dangerous reliance on the huge seed and chemical corporations behind GM crops. Our analysis shows that despite billions spent in GM research and development, non-GM crops remain dominant around the world and offer the best hope of a sustainable future."

ENDS

Calls to Pete Riley 0845 217 8992 or 07903 341065

Please note GM Freeze's new land line number 0845 217 8992

Notes

1. Agricultural land includes all land used for arable crops, permanent crops such as fruit trees and forage land (grasslands)

2. See www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/GM_crops_land_area_final.pdf

3. The NERC webpage has now been taken down following representations by Friends of the Earth. A copy of the original site can be obtained from Friends of the Earth or GM Freeze.

4. Arable land is that used to grow annual crops re-sown each year such as wheat, rice and soya.

5. See www.agassessment.org/docs/Global_SDM_050508_FINAL.pdf

Africa Could Triple Food Output Quickly - UN

Reuters, 17 June 2008. By Hereward Holland.

NAIROBI - To counter the global food crisis, Africa could triple or quadruple domestic production over two seasons through simple changes to agricultural practices, a United Nations food expert said on Monday.

In response to rising food prices, the continent must drop its reliance on food imports and learn to feed itself, said Mafa Chipeta, sub-regional coordinator for the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in east Africa.

"Within two seasons we can change (dependence on imports)," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the launch of a regional FAO conference in Nairobi, Kenya. "We can boost production by three or four times by making simple changes."

Governments should reduce fertiliser prices and introduce quality, high-yield seed varieties, he said.

Chipeta also argued more investment in irrigation and dismissed the need for high-tech solutions such as genetically modified organisms.

He said he hoped the week-long conference would produce "actionable decisions" for Africa's agricultural sector which employs about two-thirds of the continent's workforce.

"Africa imports about US$25 billion worth of food and receives about a third of the world's food aid," he said. "The food crisis cannot be solved by the continuation of charity."

Opening the conference, Kenya's Agriculture Minister William Ruto said 46 percent of Africans were hungry.

"Agriculture-led development is fundamental to eradicating hunger, reducing poverty, generating economic growth and minimising the burden of food imports while opening the way to expansion of exports and employment opportunities," he said.

Mobido Traore, FAO assistant director general for Africa, said 20 years ago Africa was a net exporter of food.

However, whilst the urban population has expanded as people abandoned rural areas in search of employment, governments have not invested sufficiently in agricultural production and therefore become net food importers, he said. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Editing by Janet Lawrence)

16 June 2008

Greenpeace publishes pesticides industry ranking
Bayer pesticides are most damaging for humans and the environment

Greenpeace, 16 June 2008

Brussels / Hamburg - Pesticides manufactured by German chemical multinational Bayer pose the biggest threat to human health and the environment, compared to other international producers, Greenpeace found in a report it published today. Syngenta (Switzerland), Monsanto (USA), BASF (Germany) and Dow Chemical (USA) are the next to follow on the company black list.

The Greenpeace report, "The Dirty Portfolios of the Pesticides Industry", (1) provides the first-ever ranking of the world's leading agrochemical companies based on the hazards and risks of their pesticides on human health and the environment. The multinationals together account for 75 percent of the world market, and 243 (or 46 percent) of the 512 pesticides they sell worldwide are particularly hazardous for humans and for nature. The European Union is currently negotiating new legislation for the authorisation of pesticides.

"Our ranking shows how toxic the business of the leading agrochemical companies still is," said Greenpeace chemicals expert Manfred Krautter.

"Politicians must now tighten up EU pesticide laws to protect our health and to preserve biodiversity. Pesticides that can cause cancer, alter genes, and damage the reproductive, endocrine or nervous system must no longer be authorised. Pesticides that harm bees or life in aquatic environments must be banned from the market. The chemical industry is now using its significant lobbying power to try to secure authorisation even for toxins like these."

On average, 46 percent of the multinationals' pesticide portfolios are made up of particularly dangerous substances. In terms of environmental and health protection, another worrying aspect is that only inadequate information is available in public databases concerning the toxic effects of another 16 percent of the pesticide components. Even the best EU laboratories are unable to routinely detect the residues in food of 42 percent of pesticides on the market.

"Pesticides are in the environment, in the food we eat and in our bodies. They are like a time bomb, threatening our health and many endangered animal and plant species," Krautter said.

US company Monsanto has the portfolio with the highest proportion (60 percent) of pesticides that are particularly toxic to humans and the environment. However, Monsanto only ends up in the middle of the overall ranking due to its small share of the market. The overall ranking not only takes into account the hazardous properties of the various pesticides, but also the quantities that are sold worldwide.

Notes to Editor

(1) The report can be found at www.greenpeace.eu. The ranking draws on data from the Greenpeace studies "Black List of Pesticides" and "Limits of Pesticide Analysis" published in January and February 2008. All five companies declined to supply Greenpeace with information about the pesticidal substances that they sell.

(2) The European Commission put forward a proposal on new regulation for the authorisation of pesticides in 2007 and the European Parliament proposed a series of amendments to strengthen legislation in October 2007. EU agriculture ministers are due to meet on 23 June to attempt to reach a common position on the proposal.

Contact information

Mark Breddy
Communications manager
mark.breddy@greenpeace.org
Telephone: +32 2 274 19 03; 0496/15 62 29 (mobile)

Manfred Krautter - Greenpeace Germany chemicals expert,
Telephone: +49 171 87 80 810

Dr. Oliver Worm - Author of the report
Telephone: +49 171 87 80 822

Trading standards check rice for GM traces

Bridgwater Mercury (UK), June 16 2008. By Phil Hill.

Trading standards officers have been carrying out tests in supermarkets across Somerset to ensure no genetically modified rice is on sale.

A batch of GM rice has been imported into the UK from China and the officers are keen to keep it out of the county.

GM rice does not have approval for sale in this country, but the market is suffering a shortage due to price rises and high demand from retailers, who are limiting the amount they sell to each customer.

Councillor Henry Hobhouse, Somerset County Council's portfolio holder for community safety, said: "Due to the current demand for rice from across the world, some producers are keen to produce GM rice to meet demands.

"Somerset County Council is carrying out tests to make sure none of this rice reaches consumers in Somerset.

"Somerset businesses can help by checking with their suppliers that their rice is certified as GM free."

New rules require all rice imported from China to be tested to ensure no GM is present.

The county council introduced a ban on growing GM crops in Somerset in 2003.

Costs to food business to rise if GM zero-tolerance prevails, warns CIAA

Food Navigator.com, 16 June 2008. By Lindsey Partos.

Europe's vast food industry calls for an end to 'uncertainty' over non EU-approved GM traces in foodstuffs, warning that new risks on the horizon could bring massive costs to the European supply chain.

In a joint statement, players ranging from food product makers to European cereal firms estimate immediate costs of detecting unapproved, but deemed safe elsewhere, GMOs in the soybean and derivative supply chain, such as lecithin, at between €1 billion and €2.8 billion.

Further, with new GM soy events due to be rolled-out onto the global food supply chain later this year, the industry believes the risk of finding non-EU approved GM material in the supply chain could rise significantly.

"We want to anticipate the risks, we do not want to appear in the EU rapid alert system," says Beate Kettlitz, director for food policy, science and R&D at the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA).

The CIAA, together with a swathe of other industry groups that includes European cereal group Coceral, the Federation of European Rice Millers, as well as flour and maize millers' associations, assert that minute levels of GM varieties approved elsewhere in the world, 'must be tolerated [in the EU] in order to avoid disruptions to the European food sector'.

"A threshold of 0.5 per cent would be appropriate," Beate Kettlitz tells BakeryandSnacks.com.

Today, EU law dictates a 0.9 per cent threshold for GM (EU-approved) material in food and feed. Any excess to the percentage means the food industry must ensure their products have a GM label.

However, GM material approved by key supplier countries, such as the US and Brazil, but not approved by the European 27 member bloc, is not tolerated at any point in the supply chain.

The CIAA, along with the other food players, insist this lack of tolerance will be extremely harmful to businesses. Findings from a recent study commissioned by the food stakeholders found the key negative effects of 'zero tolerance' are: reduced income and employment in the European food industry; a cost burden to the food supply chain; legal uncertainty for importers and processors; and a disruption for EU processing and increases reliance on imports.

On the burden of cost, the group cites a recent incident for the European rice industry when minute traces of unapproved GM rice were detected in imports of US long-grain rice.

According to the study, this event led to a 90 per cent cut in US rice imports, and has so far cost the European rice milling industry between €52 million and €111 million, 'pushing the average EU rice miller into debt'.

And if zero-tolerance continues, the risk, and cost, to industry will rise as new, non-EU approved events, reach the supply chain.

"The current situation is untenable," said Geoff Thompson at the CIAA. "All we asking for is legal certainty to protect our food supply chains," he added.

According to Beate Kettlitz, the food stakeholders, urging policymakers to seek 'practical and durable solutions' have already presented their findings to Europe's legislative executive, the European Commission. They have also asked their members, that include food firms such as ADM, Unilever and Kellogg's, to approach their respective national governments.

But as Europe continues to ride the wave of fervent anti-GM sentiment, any moves to allow currently unauthorised GM material,however minute, into the food supply chain, are likely to come up against strong opposition. But the food industry believes it is impractical and unrealistic not to accept that trace amounts will turn up in the imports.

"It is simply impossible to guarantee the total absence of GM traces from countries where GM crops are widely grown," said Ruth Rawling, chairwoman of the EU's grain trade group, Coceral.

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

Monsanto, Syngenta and the other agri-biotech corporations - and their friends in the European political and food sectors - first claimed that cultivation and trade of GM crops, feed and food could be kept separate from natural products via "co-existence".

Now that both of these claims have provenm to be a lie, they are using the rise in fuel / feed / food prices which they themselves helped create to make new claims that the solution to the contamination problem which they also created is to cancel the EU's zero tolerance policy for GM seeds and crops that have not been approved by our regulatory authorities (and not even subjected to any proper risk assessment in the USA and other countries).

It is a disgrace that the European Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries (CIAA) and the other groups mentioned above are supporting this agri-biotech strategy, when the actual solution is obvious:

The EU's big agri-food sector and political leaders should make use of their economic clout to insist that our trading partners in the USA, Canada, Argentina and Brazil grow the GM-free produce that European consumers demand.

'Green Revolution' Comes Under Fire Again

All Africa Global Media, 16 June 2008. By John Mbaria.

Nairobi -- In the absence of a co-ordinated approach, the push for a Green Revolution in Africa will not benefit millions of farmers but will instead severely affect their resiliency even as it realises a boom for big-bucks biotech corporates, a new report says.

"Despite assertions to the contrary, there is a real danger that the Green Revolution will turn into a corporate biotech boom and the destruction of rural resiliency - and diversity - in Africa," says Green Revolution 2.0 for Africa? This time the '"silver bullet' has a gun."

Prepared by the Canada-based Erosion Technology and Concentration Group - a respected research and conservation organisation - the report predicts that the mistakes made during the first Green Revolution will be repeated in the second one.

It criticises the introduction of "simplistic" strategies and policies that are not suited to the continent. "The last Green Revolution imposed 'big-box' science institutions and a simplistic 'one-size-fits-all' plant breeding strategy that had little relevance for Africa."

It says that the major undoing is that "green revolutionaries" in the first one "didn't talk with farmers' organisations and dismissed farmers' knowledge as irrelevant."

Since the late 1990s, Africa has received attention from so many quarters, all claiming to be committed to its development. What have been conspicuously missing are declarations on what is in for those pushing the "revolution" agenda (Western governments, big agribusiness and private foundations).

The report questions the difference between the approach adopted during the first Green Revolution and the Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa (Agra) and other initiatives adopted by those driving the second one.

If it is cash, the first green revolution had lots of it. For instance, the report says that between 1971 and 2000, Africa received between $7.9 billion and $10 billion in terms of public research and development funding.

The report cites five major initiatives to jump-start the Green Revolution on the continent this time around. Starting with Agra, it tabulates the cash pumped into the initiative by both Bill & Melinda Gates and the Rockefeller Foundations, which have invested $100 million and $50 million, respectively.

But even with such funds, Agra is yet to receive widespread acceptance on the continent. The report says that besides the 70 civil society groups on the continent who came together to condemn the initiative at the World Social Forum held in Kenya in January 2007, the Mali-based Nyeleni Foundation rejected Agra altogether.

The problem, it seems, is the company that Agra keeps. "When Agra hired two key players formerly connected to Monsanto's biotech division, it further guaranteed anger from the entire anti-globalisation movement," adding that the alliance with Monsanto entrenches suspicions that it will ultimately introduce genetically modified organisms to unsuspecting African farmers.

Bill Gate's fondness for all things technological reinforces this suspicion. However, the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations have denied this claim.

Besides Agra, the G8, in 2003, pledged to finance the construction of four centres of excellence to advance agricultural sciences in Africa.

These included Canada's $30 million commitment to the construction of the Biosciences Centre for Eastern and Central Africa in Nairobi and the French pledge to fund a bioinformatics centre in Senegal. On their part, the UK and the US had agreed to set up similar labs in South Africa and Egypt, respectively.

Other Green Revolution initiatives include Syngenta Foundation's partnership with the Kenya government to set up a $12 million biosafety greenhouse at the headquarters of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and Google Foundation's pledge to offer Tanzania $300 million as development funds during last year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

There is also the Jeffrey Sachs-led Millennium Villages initiative that has been assisting 12 villages in 10 African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals through health, education, community infrastructure and agricultural development and marketing.

But, says the report, lying at the heart of the initiatives is a silent merger between business agendas pushed by the private sector and what Western governments want to achieve in Africa.

"It is also indicative of a growing trend toward privatisation of foreign aid, and the fusing of the private sector with governments. These days, where Bill Gates goes, so goes government," it says.

In addition, big private companies have been gaining increasing influence over such publicly funded international research bodies as the 15 centres that operate under the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Private sector influence over the CGIAR is also growing. The report says that both Syngenta and Rockefeller Foundations attend CGIAR governance meetings.

This was confirmed by Catherine Mgendi of CGIAR. She said the two foundations are part of a number of institutions, organisations and private foundations from 64 countries who constitute the CGIAR.

"The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture joined the CGIAR in 2002 and is in Africa supporting a programme to encourage African women in agricultural sciences to grow and develop their careers in this field."

The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations were behind the establishment of CGIAR in 1971.

The report questions the arrangement that has enabled Sygenta Foundation to play a part in CGIAR's governance

It says the foundation was formed to cater for the business and other interests of the parent companies.

Its parent Syngenta Corporation, a Swiss company, is the world's second largest agrochemical and third largest seed company.

The report is categorical that the 15 CGIAR centres will end up benefiting the corporations rather than the farmers on whose behalf they were allegedly started.

There is also a growing concern that the major beneficiary of all the new science money will be the CGIAR. The report says CGIAR was started 35 years ago, the brainchild of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations who were behind the first Green Revolution.

Over the past two decades, CGIAR has been spending 48 per cent of its global budget on Africa - about $150-$200 million per year on crop and livestock research in Africa.

"After 35 years of lacklustre results in Africa, CGIAR's major donors - the World Bank, the US, Japan, the EU and Canada - are saying that the CGIAR's 'big box' campuses around the world are part of the problem," says the report.

It says that owing to this, the financial support for the CGIAR system "has become problematic," hence, over the past few years, the 15 institutes have been looking for support from private companies and foundations.

NEED: A much smaller investment could strengthen the already-existing capacity of small farmers

The report by the Erosion Technology and concentration Group says that African farmers and their representatives are hardly involved in setting the priorities being pursued by those bankrolling the current Green Revolution initiatives.

This has given rise to the suspicion that behind the schemes is a desire to massively introduce genetically engineered seeds into the continent.

"Africans are right to be cautious," the report says.

Both the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations "are definite high-tech keeners," who have "supported GE crop research" elsewhere, it adds.

It cites the example of the Gates Foundation's $43 million support to synthetic biology (also called nanobiotechnology), which it describes as a "high-tech, high cost and high-risk venture to re-engineer the metabolic pathways of microbes to yield a powerful anti-malarial compound that is derived from the Chinese wormwood tree (artemisia).

"Yet, a much smaller investment could strengthen the already-existing capacity of small farmers, in Africa and elsewhere, to cultivate wormwood."

It says the prospect of synthetic artemisinin production could destabilise the very young market for natural Artemisia, and thus undermine the security of farmers just beginning to plant it for the first time.

However, Agra states in a number of documents that it is not advocating the introduction of genetically engineered seeds in Africa while the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations have also expressed opposition to the use of terminator technology, or suicide seeds, in the developing world.

However, the report casts doubts on these claims, saying, "Ultimately, nothing is written in stone. Neither the G8 in general, Canada in particular, nor the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations have any principled opposition to genetic engineering.

Remember, the staff hired to lead Agra come from Monsanto."

It adds, "While Agra may have made a tactical decision to avoid genetic engineering for the time being, both the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations continue to put money into genetic engineering of crops for Africa outside the Agra envelope."

First Egyptian Approval Of Genetically Modified Corn Raises Questions

Intellectual Property Watch, 16 June 2008. By Wagdy Sawahel.
www.ip-watch.ch

With Egypt's recent approval of the cultivation and commercialisation of a pest-resistant corn variety that marked the first legal introduction of genetically modified crops into the Arab world, the Egyptian scientific community is having mixed reactions.

The approval of a genetically modified crop variety owned by biotechnology company Monsanto was based on a recommendation made by the Egyptian National Biosafety Committee and Seed Registration Committee as a result of experimental field trials. These trials revealed that the infestation of three corn borers - pests that can destroy a corn crop - was "negligible or completely prevented in Bt plants throughout the whole season and the different times of sowing dates." Report results available here.

The approval is detailed in a 16 April report of the Global Agriculture Information Network published by the US Department of Agriculture, available here [pdf].

Called Ajeeb-YG, the pest-resistant corn variety was produced by crossing Monsanto YieldGard Bt Insect Resistant Corn (MON 810) with an Egyptian maize variety called Ajeeb. It will be distributed this month to Egyptian farmers by Cairo-based company Fine Seeds International.

As a result, the Egyptian scientific community has had mixed reactions, some expressing concerns over health, environmental, socioeconomic, political and ownership-related issues.

Magdy Massoud of the plant protection department of the faculty of agriculture at the University of Alexandria in Egypt, who was involved in carrying out the experimental field trials, told Intellectual Property Watch: "All studies prove the importance of Bt corn for Egypt, where it increase yield and reduce the use of chemical insecticides and maintains the role of the beneficial natural enemies as it only harms the targeted borers."

But Nagib Nassar, Egyptian professor of genetics and plant breeding at University of Brazil, told Intellectual Property Watch, "At the end of the day what was originally an Egyptian variety will become not only registered in Egypt but owned by Monsanto, and Egyptian scientists will end up only making the backcrossing as the ancient Egyptian was doing."

GM Plants - from Partnership to Ownership?

This means, said Tarek Saif, biotechnologist at Egypt's National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Egypt's collaboration with Monsanto started with the word "partnership" to pave the way for public acceptance of GM plant and ended with "ownership" for Monsanto.

"How did an Egyptian variety become owned by Monsanto just as a result of crossing it with its line?" Saif asked.

Saif said that at present Monsanto is developing insect resistant long-staple GM cotton by crossing Egyptian elite germplasm with Monsanto's Bollgard II.

"If this so-called 'partnership' is transformed into 'ownership' as in the case of Bt corn, the socioeconomic impact on Egypt will be severe as Egyptian cotton is known as one of the world's finest quality and our most important agricultural export."

But Mohammad Taeb, technology transfer expert and former coordinator of the research and human capacity development programme at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Japan-based United Nations University said, "Activities of the private sector in producing and cultivating GM crops is unavoidable and perhaps necessary. However, what makes the issue controversial in developing countries is the lack of a legal and regulatory framework for the operation of GM-producing companies."

Taeb added that "partnership is an important mechanism of technology transfer from developed to developing countries." But to capture the opportunity, he said, "developing countries require a minimum institutional capability to benefit from partnerships, otherwise companies come and reap commercial benefits in developing countries and give nothing in return."

Taeb pointed out that "the question to be raised is whether Egypt is organised enough to benefit from this partnership with Monsanto or not. If it is going to benefit, how will that happen, and who are the players?"

"The ownership of corn or cotton GM crops per se is not an important matter because you cannot maintain the variety for indefinite time," Taeb said. "The varietals' purity will degenerate in time unless you have access to the parents and could reconstitute the original genetic configuration."

Therefore, he said, "What matters here most is the technical know-how that is used in making the GM corn or cotton. If that technical know-how is transferred to Egypt, the presence of Monsanto would be welcomed."

"But what I have seen in real world is the inability of developing countries to absorb advanced technology brought by foreign firms which again goes back to the issue of institutional capacity in developing countries to manage technology transfer," Taeb concluded.

Socioeconomic Impact of GM Plants on Small Farmers

Nassar said that this Bt corn variety will "bear a heavy economic cost on the shoulder of small farmer," adding, "It remains to be seen what is the content of the contract called "Technology Use Agreement (TUA)" which farmers will have to sign and what legal actions and fines waiting for them if they violate the contract?"

Some TUAs stipulate that farmers cannot save seed for replanting and farmers are prohibited from supplying seed to anyone else.

Moreover, Nassar added, "poor farmers will be obligated to destroy any seed for future plantation. They must buy from the multinational [company] new seed for plantation. When farmers destroy seed, they destroy in the meantime genetic variability which may benefit future plantation.

Nassar expected that the reproduction of corn seeds at the Egyptian village level will be disrupted leading to the broken of the agricultural cycle, which enables farmers to store their seeds and plant them to reap the next harvest.

Nassar added, "Egyptian small and poor farmers depend on rotation as a way of natural fertilisation to their soil by nitrogen fixation [caused by bacteria]. This will not be possible in future. Simply because toxin produced by the Bt plant, mixed with soil will kill nitrogen fixing bacteria"

Political, Environmental and Health Impact

Saif warned of the political impact of the cultivation and commercialisation of a Bt corn variety in Egypt.

"Egyptian corn farmers will become dependent on foreign companies for their corn seed supply and for the costly fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide which might destroy their autonomy and control of seed, their livelihoods and cultural traditions," Saif told Intellectual Property Watch.

Nassar said, "What may be more alarming is the local effect of this Bt maize plant on bees and wildlife, especially in a heavy density of humanity, plants and animals in Nile delta as well as the regional effect of contaminating seeds of neighbouring countries which still prohibit Bt corn, such as Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia and others."

Mohamed El-Defrawy, professor of population genetics at faculty of agriculture of Assuit University in Egypt told Intellectual Property Watch, "I am of the fierce opponents of GM plants release in Egypt as no one knows its consequences on agricultural as well as wild populations."

The Way Forward

To address the potential negative impacts of GM corn, Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid, plant biotechnologist at Cairo's National Research Centre, said: "Research on the different socioeconomic, environmental, health and agronomic issues surrounding GM crops must be done, and an in-depth assessment must be conducted of the country's agricultural food and rural development policies and in particular, how GM plants benefit the poor as well as programmes for awareness about GM crops among the public and farmers in particular must be set up to ensure proper public consultations."

Abdelhamid added that Egypt needs to promote GM plant research and development and to develop its own Bt maize using local technology to protect its small-scale farmers.

"Biosafety measures in Egypt need to be strengthened by approving the biosafety legislation which has not been presented to Parliament yet," Abdelhamid concluded.

Currently, GM plants are regulated in Egypt by a framework including ministerial decrees and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.

The 2002 Egyptian law on the protection of intellectual property rights endorsed the patentability criteria as stipulated in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Taeb said. But, he said TRIPS gives freedom to international agro-industrial companies to enter developing country seed markets and to acquire IP rights on plant varieties.

Wagdy Sawahel may be reached at info@ip-watch.ch.

Environmental citizens' groups score victory on public participation

European Environmental Bureau, 16 June 2008.

This week in Riga, Latvia, during the third Meeting of Parties (MOP-3) to the Aarhus Convention, members of non-governmental organisations and the public, led by the European ECO Forum, helped steer the Convention on access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters in a strong future direction.

MOP-3 adopted a new strategic plan for the Convention, which includes elements outlining details for improving public participation, funding for access to justice and expansion of the Convention to the global level. The MOP also promised to establish a Task Force to oversee the second pillar of the convention on Public Participation, an area of implementation that has been historically weak. Although the Task Force cannot be formally approved until the next MOP, Parties have vowed to set up an informal expert group to work on the issue in the meantime, with Ireland volunteering to lead the effort.ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

"We NGOs have been insisting all along that the Aarhus Convention needs to address the weaknesses in the Convention's pillar on public participation," said John Hontelez, Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau and head of the Public Participation Campaign. "We are very pleased about the Task Force coming to fruition and applaud the Irish delegation for showing leadership on this important issue."ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

Two other main points NGOs worked towards inclusion into the strategic plan did not go through, however. In a disappointing outcome, Norway put a proposal on the table to improve citizens' rights to access to information from private companies, which the European Union ultimately vetoed. NGOs had also been pushing governments to add wording to the strategic plan that would outline a clear perspective for broad and practical access to justice for environmental NGOs in general and concerned citizens, another attempt that ultimately failed.ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

The MOP also decided on an interpretation on how amendments to the Convention enter into force, which will have a crucial impact on when and how the GMO amendment, adopted in Almaty three years ago at MOP-2, will enter into force. "Despite the declarations of all Parties to ensure rapid entry of the GMO amendment, this week the EU in fact practically brought the future of the amendment into doubt," said Serhiy Vykhyrst, European ECO Forum legal expert.ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

But this week NGOs scored another victory regarding issuing a caution to the governments of Ukraine and Turkmenistan, who have been disregarding the requirements of the Aarhus Convention for years.ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

"We are very happy the MOP decided to issue a strong caution to both Ukraine and Turkmenistan," said Andriy Andrusevych, ECO Forum legal focal point for Eastern Europe. "Ukraine has been ignoring its obligations under the Convention for years while Turkmenistan has actually been working toward taking away the right of NGOs to exist at all in their country. We hope this sends these two parties a clear message that their behaviour is not acceptable."ÝÝÝÝÝ Ý

The next Meeting of Parties to the Aarhus Convention will be hosted by Moldova in 2011.Ý

Comment from GM-free Ireland:

Ireland is the only EU member state which has failed to ratify the Aarhus Convention, even though it has been signed by all EU Member States (including Ireland).Ý

15 June 2008

Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again?

New York Times, 15 June 2008. By Donald G. McNeill Jr.

During the last American food-and-gas-price crisis, in the 1970s, one of my colleagues on the Berkeley student newspaper told me that he and his semi-communal housemates had taken a vote. They'd calculated they could afford meat or coffee. They chose coffee.

The decision was slightly less effete than it sounds now ó the Starbucks clone wars were still some years off, so he was talking about choosing Yuban over ground chuck. But it nonetheless said something about us as spoiled Americans. Riots were relatively common in Berkeley in those days. But they were never about food. (That particular revolution was starting without us on Shattuck Avenue, where Chez Panisse had just opened.)

However, elsewhere on the globe, people were on the edge of starvation. Grain prices were soaring, rice stocks plummeting. In Ethiopia and Cambodia, people were well over the edge, and food riots helped lead to the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the victory of the Khmer Rouge.

Now it's happening again. While Americans grumble about gasoline prices, food riots have seared Bangladesh, Egypt and African countries. In Haiti, they cost the prime minister his job. Rice-bowl countries like China, India and Indonesia have restricted exports and rice is shipped under armed guard.

And again, Thomas Malthus, a British economist and demographer at the turn of the 19th century, is being recalled to duty. His basic theory was that populations, which grow geometrically, will inevitably outpace food production, which grows arithmetically. Famine would result. The thought has underlain doomsday scenarios both real and imagined, from the Great Irish Famine of 1845 to the Population Bomb of 1968.

But over the last 200 years, with the Industrial Revolution, the Transportation Revolution, the Green Revolution and the Biotech Revolution, Malthus has been largely discredited. The wrenching dislocations of the last few months do not change that, most experts say. But they do show the kinds of problems that can emerge.

The whole world has never come close to outpacing its ability to produce food. Right now, there is enough grain grown on earth to feed 10 billion vegetarians, said Joel E. Cohen, professor of populations at Rockefeller University and the author of "How Many People Can the Earth Support?" But much of it is being fed to cattle, the S.U.V.'s of the protein world, which are in turn guzzled by the world's wealthy.

Theoretically, there is enough acreage already planted to keep the planet fed forever, because 10 billion humans is roughly where the United Nations predicts that the world population will plateau in 2060. But success depends on portion control; in the late 1980s, Brown University's World Hunger Program calculated that the world then could sustain 5.5 billion vegetarians, 3.7 billion South Americans or 2.8 billion North Americans, who ate more animal protein than South Americans.

Even if fertility rates rose again, many agronomists think the world could easily support 20 billion to 30 billion people.

Anyone who has ever flown across the United States can see how that's possible: there's a lot of empty land down there. The world's entire population, with 1,000 square feet of living space each, could fit into Texas. Pile people atop each other like Manhattanites, and they get even more elbow room.

Water? When it hits $150 a barrel, it will be worth building pipes from the melting polar icecaps, or desalinating the sea as the Saudis do.

The same potential is even more obvious flying around the globe. The slums of Mumbai are vast; but so are the empty arable spaces of Rajasthan. Africa, a huge continent with a mere 770 million people on it, looks practically empty from above. South of the Sahara, the land is rich; south of the Zambezi, the climate is temperate. But it is farmed mostly by people using hoes.

As Harriet Friedmann, an expert on food systems at the University of Toronto, pointed out, Malthus was writing in a Britain that echoed the dichotomy between today's rich countries and the third world: an elite of huge landowners practicing "scientific farming" of wool and wheat who made fat profits; many subsistence farmers barely scratching out livings; migration by those farmers to London slums, followed by emigration. The main difference is that emigration then was to colonies where farmland was waiting, while now it is to richer countries where jobs are.

Malthus's world filled up, and its farmers, defying his predictions, became infinitely more productive. Admittedly, emptying acreage so it can be planted with genetically modified winter wheat and harvested by John Deere combines can be a brutal process, but it is solidly within the Western canon. My Scottish ancestors, for example, became urbanites thanks to the desire of English scientific farmers (for which read "landlords and bribers of clan chiefs") to graze more sheep in the highlands. Four generations later, I got to mull the coffee-meat dilemma while actually living on newsroom pizza.

So it ultimately worked out for one spoiled Scottish-American. But what about the 800 million people who are chronically hungry, even in riot-free years?

Dr. Friedmann argues that there is a Malthusian unsustainability to the way big agriculture is practiced, that it degrades genetic diversity and the environment so much that it will eventually reach a tipping point and hunger will spread.

Others vigorously disagree. In their view, the world is almost endlessly bountiful. If food became as pricey as oil, we would plow Africa, fish-farm the oceans and build hydroponic skyscraper vegetable gardens. But they see the underlying problem in terms more Marxian than Malthusian: the rich grab too much of everything, including biomass.

For the moment, simply ending subsidies to American and European farmers would let poor farmers compete, which besides feeding their families would push down American food prices and American taxes.

Tyler Cowen, a George Mason University economist, notes that global agriculture markets are notoriously unfree and foolishly managed. Rich countries subsidize farmers, but poor governments fix local grain prices or ban exports just when world prices rise ó for example, less than 7 percent of the world's rice crosses borders. That discourages the millions of third world farmers who grow enough for themselves and a bit extra for sale from planting that bit extra.

Americans are attracted to Malthusian doom-saying, Dr. Cowen argues, "because it's a pre-emptive way to hedge your fear. Prepare yourself for the worst, and you feel safer than when you're optimistic."

Dr. Cohen, of Rockefeller University, sees it in more sinister terms: Americans like Malthus because he takes the blame off us. Malthus says the problem is too many poor people.

Or, to put it in the terms in which the current crisis is usually explained: too many hard-working Chinese and Indians who think they should be able to eat pizza, meat and coffee and aspire to a reservation at Chez Panisse. They get blamed for raising global prices so much that poor Africans and Asians can't afford porridge and rice. The truth is, the upward pressure was there before they added to it.

America has always been charitable, so the answer has never been, "Let them eat bean sprouts." But it has been, "Let them eat subsidized American corn shipped over in American ships." That may need to change.

GM field trashed in attack

Sunday Mirror (UK), 15 June 2008. By Vincent Moss.

Eco-warriors have destroyed an entire crop of genetically modified potatoes - wiping out vital research to help end famine worldwide.

No one has claimed responsibility for the destruction of thousands of the spuds in a field near Tadcaster, North Yorks.

But Environment Minister Phil Woolas, who had sanctioned the trial by scientists at Leeds University, last night launched a furious attack on the "gutless" group behind the incident.

Supporters of GM foods believe they could help alleviate food shortages and stop prices spiralling.

But critics claim they harm the environment and have dubbed them "Frankenstein foods".

Mr Woolas said: "The people behind this should have the guts to go public and join the debate about GM foods. Their arrogance appalls me."

The attack on June 5 leaves Britain with just one remaining field of GM crops, government sources said last night.

Comment by GM Watch:

No evidence is produced in this article to support the claim that this was "vital research to help end famine worldwide"!

Indeed, according to GM Freeze not only is there absolutely no demand for GM potatoes (even Monsanto withdrew its GM potatoes in the US) but there is no need to use GM, as in this case, to crerate potato cyst eelworm repellant potatoes because "conventionally bred resistant varieties are already available which... can minimize yield losses." www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/PCN_potato_response.pdf

As for the claim in the article by a UK Government Minister that the people who trashed the crop show "arrogance" by not instead joining "the debate about GM foods", that is positively laughable given that the Government has conducted a public debate on the issue and totally ignored its conclusions!

As someone commented recently in the context of trials in New Zealand, when trials are being approved irrespective of the number and strength of submissions against them: "Why put people through the angst and hassle (of making a submission)? They're better off going in and pulling the crops out."

See also: Defra approve GM Potatoes Application, GM Freeze, 9 May 2008: http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?id=343&iType=

14 June 2008

Altered crops aren't the answer

Southeast Missourian (USA), 14 June 2008. To the editor:

The Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations has been meeting this week to address the growing global food crisis. The U.S. delegation, led by Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, is proposing that the world adopt genetically engineered crops as a silver-bullet solution. However, Shafer's solution is little more than a thinly veiled attempt at subsidizing biotech corporations and advancing the genetic contamination of organic and nongenetically altered crops in famine-stricken countries.

Genetically altered crops are untested and unwanted by the majority of the planet's population. Dozens of countries currently ban the cultivation of any genetically engineered varieties as they have yet to be proven safe for the environment or for human consumption. Additionally, genetically altered crops have not been demonstrated to significantly increase yields, but rather force farmers onto a deadly spiral of agrochemicals and corporate patent monopolies. I think the U.S. population would be shocked to learn how many genetically altered foods are already being forced upon us.

The root cause of hunger abroad has more to do with so-called free-trade agreements and market speculation than crop yields and patented hybrid crops. Genetically altered crops will only deepen the global food crisis. Impoverished and famine-stricken countries need to be supported by redeveloping their food sovereignty to avoid deepening the crisis. Global security is dependent upon long-term sustainability, not short-term corporate subsidies, Lisa Swinford, Jackson.

Western Australia to stay GM free

Australian News, Green Left, 18 June (published 14 June) 2008. By Janet Grogan, Perth.

A group of Japanese consumer representatives currently visiting Western Australia have been assured by Labor Premier Alan Carpenter that the state's current moratorium genetically modified (GM) organisms will not be removed. The assurance was made during parliamentary question time on June 11.

Carpenter acknowledged the presence of the group, which is in WA on a mission to secure ongoing GM-free canola for Japan, and spoke of the importance of the Japanese market to WA canola exporters.

Japan is WA's largest customer for canola and cereal crops, with the industry valued at $550 million per year. The approximately 146,000 tonnes of WA canola currently going to Japan represents about 50% of Australia's canola exports.

Carpenter also said that the present lack of labelling of foods containing GM ingredients was unacceptable and that consumers have the right to know what they are eating. In an earlier statement, Carpenter called for a halt to the approval of GM foods in Australia until more is known about the safety of eating them.

Earlier in the day, WA agriculture minister Kim Chance met the Japanese and accepted petitions from the Say No to GMO that called for a strict liability regime, full labelling of GM ingredients and the extension of the current GM moratorium by 10 years.

Following their visit to parliament the Japanese representatives met with the some members from the Network of Concerned Consumers, part of the Say No to GMO campaign.

Fear of diseases, competition drive global concerns about U.S. beef

Kansas City Star, 14 June 2008. By Scott Canon.

South Korea's hamburger revolution - which drew tens of thousands into Seoul streets and almost toppled a government last week - wasn't just about the fear of U.S. beef.

Protest cries rose because of a poor economy, bungling officials and U.S. influence as much as killer rump roast.

Still, Korean worries about mad cow disease triggered the demonstrations. That, in turn, shows how tough it has become to peddle American food abroad.

Resistance to American-grown food is global - driven both by overseas concerns that U.S. safety standards are too low and fear of competition with our farmers.

Beyond Korea, Japan seems stuck on a not-so-merry-go-round of on-again-off-again bans on Yankee beef.

Europeans effectively quit American beef a decade ago over concerns about hormones. They still look at genetically modified Midwestern grain with disdain.

Russia and China regularly reject American chicken. Even as Asia gobbles up ever more U.S. pork, governments there prohibit meat raised with a common American pig feed supplement. Mexico and Australia routinely threaten to shut out American meat.

In an ever hungrier world, America's net agricultural exports are less than half what they were in 1996.

"Trying to weigh what is truly a food safety issue and what is more a protectionist movement is not very simple," said Scott Brown, a livestock economist at the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "It's not always clear-cut."

Shifting restrictions drive U.S. farmers batty and fuel suspicions that objections are less about food safety and more about shielding a country's own growers from competition.

To be sure, the vastness of U.S. land, easy access to cheap livestock feed and government subsidies make for a tough marketplace adversary.

Yet resistance springs from a broader distaste for U.S. foreign policy, from efforts to gain leverage in trade negotiations and from honest disagreements about what makes for a safe meal.

South Korea provides an example of obstacles to selling a Missouri tenderloin, or a barge load of Kansas corn, overseas. The political furor resulted in the entire Cabinet offering resignations last week.

The number of Koreans raising cattle is small, but their voices are loud. They cannot easily compete with the large scale and great efficiencies of American ranchers, so they try to keep beef imports out. Because Asia has seen far more cases of mad cow disease (none from U.S. beef), consumers are more wary.

At least as important is the South Korean attitude to Washington's foreign policy.

"They may be truly scared of our meat," said James Lilly, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and China. "But ... they think America bullies them on trade, that we impose solutions on them. ... They are very suspicious of large powers kicking them around."

With many South Koreans already hostile to Washington over trade policies and the unease over the fact that Korean forces would fall under U.S. command in a war with North Korea, analysts say the country was especially receptive to fears about American beef.

"There's a sense there that Korea is subordinate. They don't like the U.S. military presence," said Rajan Menon of the New America Foundation think tank. "That changes how they see things."

By traditional international market standards, American beef is both safe and inexpensive, especially for something so high on the food chain. But there have been three cases of mad cow disease in the United States. The first, known in beef circles as "the cow that stole Christmas," came in December 2003.

Cooks in America were unfazed. Enthralled by the high-protein, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet, the country retained its hunger for beef. Besides, then - as today - there was no evidence that anyone had contracted the rare and fatal human version of the disease by eating American beef.

Overseas, it was another story. The United States had exported $3.8 billion of beef a year to about 150 countries. Many countries immediately shut out all U.S. beef for years. Today, 117 nations import it, although many impose severe restrictions. At $2.6 billion annually, that represents just 71 percent of the 2003 level.

In talks to establish a free trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea, President Lee Myung-bak agreed in April to open wide the import market to American beef. About two years ago, the Koreans decided to allow American bone-free beef from cattle 30 months or younger. Mad cow disease typically does not show up in younger cattle and is suspected to be carried in bone, brain and spinal columns.

The deal struck in April would let in any beef approved for sale to American consumers. In the heat of the Seoul protests, Washington has considered labeling meat to show the age of a slaughtered animal.

U.S. problems pale compared with others'. In 1992, the United Kingdom saw more than 32,000 cases of mad cow. About 2,500 cases have shown up in the last 20 years in 22 other countries.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the meat industry say American beef not only boasts a clean record but also should not be expected to carry mad cow disease.

Unlike, for instance, now defunct practices in Great Britain, the industry has never routinely fed the remains of cattle to other cattle. That is the quickest way to transmit the disease and caused the infection of vast herds in Europe and human deaths there in the 1990s.

John Reddington, the vice president of international trade for the American Meat Institute, said free-trade deals had prompted some countries to look for more ways to block agricultural competitors. He said those stakes had gotten only higher with the rise of middle classes in places such as China and India creating a greater demand for meat. "One of the few ways that countries can still restrict trade is through safety concerns," he said. "It's hard to get them to look at the science."

But critics, both abroad and in the United States, say more should be done to screen feed for dangerous contaminants and to test animals at slaughter.

"The combination of food safety and foreign policy and trade policy is really complex and hard to take apart," said Steve Suppan, an analyst at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "But there really is a food safety component that underlies this."

Japan allows meat only from cattle 20 months or younger into the country and nearly halted imports again in April when a spinal column was discovered in a shipment from an American processing plant.

"There is much more that we could do that we've chosen not to do because the industry says it will cost more," said Michael Hansen, a biologist at Consumers Union.

Both the American Meat Institute and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association specifically declined to comment on the South Korea protests, citing the sensitivity of talks between Washington and Seoul.

Still, they insist that American methods of screening against diseases such as mad cow have been validated by scientific panels and the World Trade Organization.

Yet even when foreign governments let U.S. beef back in, consumers remain reluctant. Almost five years after the first American mad cow case, Japanese and South Koreans still buy less than they once did.

"There's some concern that the U.S. is trying to dictate trade patterns to them," said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. "Are they hypersensitive to (mad cow disease)? Possibly. That's something the industry in the United States needs to deal with."

13 June 2008

Monsanto: still reading blogs
PR firm Edleman launches charm offensive for the GMO giant

Gristmill (USA), 13 June 2008. By Tom Philpott.

Not so long ago, I was an utterly obscure farmer-blogger dashing off indictments of industrial agriculture for some 30 loyal readers (many of them house-mates and relatives).

And then, evidently by the miracle of the Google search, a functionary from Monsanto's legal office discovered my blog and fired off a cease-and-desist letter. I published it, added a tart response, and alerted a few editors to the exchange. Within days, my site meter showed thousands of readers piling in. Within months I had a paid writing gig. Thanks, Monsanto! Evidently, the GMO seed giant is still paying folks to scan Google for blogs that dare criticize it -- only now it has evidently outsourced the task to the PR-flack powerhouse Edelman.

Just today, a week after we published a (highly sarcastic) guest post by Claire Hope Cummings titled "All Hail Monsanto", a gentleman from Edelman wrote to one of my Grist colleagues to offer his services "tracking down information or putting one of you in contact with a representative from Monsanto that can insightfully answer any questions you may have concerning the company and its sustainability goals."

You never know -- we might just take him up on that.

I have recently heard similar tales from other food-politics bloggers who have had the unbridled nerve to question Monsanto's benevolence: A cordial email from an Edelman employee offering informational services that might better explain Monsanto's intentions.

In her post that inspired the Edelman missive, Cummings had some fun at the expense of Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant for declaring that "Skepticism is a commodity the world can't afford right now." What he meant was: Let us benevolent experts take care of the food supply -- you consumers just shut up and eat!

Well, I'm here to inform our readers over at Edelman that while we're always open to new information, we'd prefer to keep our skepticism well-honed, thank you very much.

And while we're happy to engage in friendly email exchanges, we also remember that Monsanto is fully capable of turning that smile upside-down -- and even baring its fangs. I remember that cease-and-desist letter. I also note that, according to a 2005 Center for Food Safety report (PDF), Monsanto wields an "annual budget of $10 million and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers" deemed to violate its draconian gene-patent claims.

The World According to Monsanto
Available via the Seeds of Deception website

http://fsicart.com/seeds/?ndrx=99

To order by phone, call + 1 888-717-7000

Monsanto's controversial past combines some of the most toxic products ever sold with misleading reports, pressure tactics, collusion, and attempted corruption. They now race to genetically engineer (and patent) the world's food supply, which profoundly threatens our health, environment, and economy. Combining secret documents with first-hand accounts by victims, scientists, and politicians, this widely praised film exposes why Monsanto has become the world's poster child for malignant corporate influence in government and technology. A film by Marie-Monique Robin.

This DVD also includes a bonus film on rbGH by Jeffrey M. Smith, and the audio CD, Don't Put That in Your Mouth

Ships last week in June.

[More here: http://fsicart.com/seeds/?ndrx=99]

GM Coexistence plans a failure

Network of Concerned Farmers press release, 13 June 2008.

For the first time in Australia, the GRDC funded GM canola coexistence protocols were explained to around 120 farmers in Williams, WA [Western Australia] last night. Participants soon became aware that supplying non-GM markets for market specification is not a viable option if GM crops are commercially released under these existing protocols that have been widely endorsed by farming groups and industry participants. There was outrage in the audience as farmers became aware of the impositions imposed on non-GM farmers and disgust that industry had endorsed the protocols without consideration for farmers wishing to provide a GM-free choice for consumers.

"The protocols are a farce," said Julie Newman, National Spokesperson for the Network of Concerned Farmers. "They only exempt all sectors from liability by placing all the costs, responsibilities and liabilities onto non-GM farmers for every operation from seed production to storage to delivery. The final product can not possibly meet the market specifications for non-GM products. Both consumer and farmer choice will be denied."

"The reason the protocols have not been explained to farmers before is because the industry players who endorsed the protocols are trying to convince decision makers that the promised choice will be provided rather than actually providing workable protocols. The moratoria in NSW and Victoria has been lifted under the deception that these plans provide choice when they can not."

The hypothetical, convened by former ABC Country Hour manager, worked through the steps of the coexistence protocols in order to provide a GM-free product for market, involving a panel discussion and audience participation. The panel included the Japanese Consumers Union representing consumers and markets requiring a GM-free product (hosted by Maggie Lillith from the Conservation Council), Rob Sewell (Former chair of the GRDC coexistence supply chain committee formulating the protocols and former chair of CBH), WA Farmers Grains Council President Derek Clauson (signatory of the protocols on behalf of WA Farmers) and Julie Newman, National Spokesperson for the Network of Concerned Farmers representing the non-GM farmers. The audience involved supply chain participants with vocal interaction between farmers wishing to grow GM and non-GM crops.

"While market requirements require a guarantee of no GM contamination, if the protocols were followed, the produce sold would be either classified as not known to be over 9%, not known to be grown from GM varieties or that tests done have shown GM content under 0.9% but no guarantee is given. It was clear that the protocols failed on all counts to comply with the coexistence aims that promise to maintain or enhance trade in Australian canola, enable market choice along the supply chain, be open and transparent and provide confidence to all stakeholders, particularly to customers, consumers and governments," explained Mrs Newman.

"The preparation process excluded non-GM farmers from the consultation process and our views were supposedly presented by ex Monsanto manager Mr Hudson."

The first industry notification that non-GM farmers were expected to alter their farming practise was a small paragraph in the latest GRDC Groundcover article titled "Strict Protocols Guide Crop Production":

"Executive director of the Australian Oilseeds Federation Rosemary Richards says that growers wanting to market their grain as non-GM must ensure the status of their seed prior to planting. Also, the grower will need to demonstate traceability through the supply chain. This could involve procedures such as vendor declaration, monitoring contractors and delivery to storage in compliance with customer requirements."

This notification came too late to comply for non-GM farmers in Victoria and New South Wales as farmers had already completed seeding canola.

A written comment from Kim Chance, Minister for Agriculture WA concluded the hypothetical:

"There is no place anywhere in the world where co-existence of GM and convention canola has been achieved. In Canada, they did not even try to achieve coexistence. They did in the US but had to abandon their attempts after just one year. In Canada it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to even source uncontaminated non-GM canola seed for sowing. I have no confidence whatsoever that coexistence of GM and non-GM canola is achievable in Australia or anywhere else in the world.

In addition, no-one has ever shown the State Government how the cost of preserving the identity of non-GM canola is not going to be shifted , at least in part, to existing non-GM canola growers. The State Government is concerned that the adaption GM canola will only impose new costs and market restrictions at the expense of non-GM canola growers and grain farmers as they try to maintain their highly valued and regarded GM free status in domestic and international markets. The Government has always maintained that any additional costs arising from the introduction of GMOs should be borne by those using the technology, but in this instance it is clearly the non-GM farmer that will need to meet the costs of identity preservation under the industry's so called co-existence framework. "

Organiser Comments:

"This was an important opportunity for farmers to germinate seeds of thought of how we can live together with GM and non-GM and if it is possible, as communities don't want to be fighting with each other. This hypothetical will hopefully have farmers thinking and talking about possible options for the future." Rose Crane (convenor) Phone 0447900975 or 08 96371111.

"Farmers basically came believing that coexistence would be extremely difficult but left the meeting knowing that it was not possible." Janette Liddelow (Organiser) Williams 08 98851138.

"Co-existence has not worked anywhere else in the world and we can't take the risk here in WA. Tonight is a positive step in raising awareness of this difficult issue." Maggie Lillith, Conservation Council (Host for Japanese Consumers Union) 0412836777

Comments from both pro and anti-GM farmers within the audience:

"The coexistence principles are a joke. Who will be liable when they fail and non-GM farmers and consumers suffer damage. I doubt that the current batch of so-called farming industry leaders who are supporting GM will be putting up their hands." William Newton-Wordsworthe, Williams 08 98851181

"Coexistence protocols are a marriage made in hell" Ray Harrington, Darkan Ph 97363004

"Coexistence is clearly impossible. Wind and bees will spread contamination over many kilometres." Des O'Connell, Duranillin Ph 98631055

"The protocols can't keep GM and non-GM separate." Richard Johnstone Ph 0407385938

"If tolerance of GM at 0.9% with no guarantee is acceptable to markets, then the principles could work but if not, it won't work." John Bostock, Pingelly 98877043

"I can't see how coexistence has got any chance of working whatsoever. GM growers are to get the supposed benefit while non-GM growers get all the cost. No GM." Duncan South, Darkan.

"Practically, co-existence is a myth, however well intended." Vin Caine Williams.

Contact:

Julie Newman 08 98711562

12 June 2008

Russian President's comment of food crisis

Speech at the 12th Petersburg International Economic Forum by Russian President Medvedev
Office of the President of Russia

[Extract only]

Dear colleagues, one of the clearest examples of economic selfishness is the reaction of a number of national authorities to the rapid increase in food prices. The world has been confronted with this situation for the past year. The reasons for this are obvious.

There was the increased demand for food and the expanding production of bio fuels against the backdrop of higher oil prices. And, of course, short-term problems with the harvest affecting leading world producers.

Increasing desire worldwide to protect the interests of national agricultural producers lead to a spike in prices. This system works with subsidies, governmental and non-tariff measures designed to protect domestic markets - all of these are well known - but they also been unable to prevent the crisis.

And, finally, for the first time the crisis in the markets became systemic, because of the development of complex financial instruments and secured assets in commodities.

The drop in the value of the dollar as a means of saving led to the explosive growth of investment in such instruments. It suddenly became clear that there was just not enough liquidity in the world or relatively reliable sites for investors to put their money.

The most obvious answer to the crisis would be a combination of measures to stimulate agricultural production and to adjust national energy strategies. However, such a policy would inevitably run into opposition from those who seek to profit from the problems that have been created.

Therefore, the reaction of most state governments was easy to predict. Agricultural export restrictions followed, along with an increase in measures to stimulate the production of genetically modified foods, without adequate consumer information or a discussion of the hazards involved.

In our opinion, such actions are capable of stablising the situation in domestic markets only for a short time. In the long run, such measures can only aggravate the global crisis.

It is clear that simple pragmatism does not allow any of the countries to be the first in abandoning safeguards that they have imposed. And the only way out of the prevailing situation can only be concerted, collective action. We are ready for constructive and co-ordinated action to overcome the food crisis. After that we would like to develop effective anti-crisis programmes.

Even a hundred years ago, Russia was one of the largest suppliers of wheat in the world. Output growth in Russia is beneficial not only to us but also to the global food market. What is also beneficial is the use of energy sources such as hydro and nuclear fuel organised on the basis of sound technologies.

We expect that our partners will agree with such a strategy. And we believe that it is indispensable to continue an intensive dialogue in order to create a new, more efficient structure of world food and agricultural trade policies. It should involve politicians andÝ specialists with very different profiles. One of the possible sites for such work might be designated institutions of the United Nations.

Full speech http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/19350

Italian Minister Adolfo Urso urged the European Union on Thursday to step up research on genetically modified organism

ANS, 12 June 2008.

Industry Undersecretary Adolfo Urso urged the European Union on Thursday to step up research on genetically modified organisms (OGM), especially GM biofuels derived from food products.

Addressing a EU meeting on ways of boosting competition in the food and agriculture sector, Urso said it was a mistake to be either "ideologically in favour or against GMOs"." "We need to be responsible and far sighted," said Urso.

"I don't see why not promote important research on GMOs, especially for use as biofuels". But Urso stressed that genetic experimentation should not be carried out in areas used for traditional crops, saying "we need firm rules on this".

The minister's stance sparked an immediate reaction in Italy, where the issue of transgenic crops is particularly explosive. The traditional stance of the Italian government has long been one of blanket opposition to biotech products in any form and Gianni Alemanno, agriculture minister in the previous centre-right government was a staunch defender of traditional crops.

The centre-left President of the Tuscan region, Claudio Martini, said he " missed Alemanno" and reminded Urso that Italy's 20 regions have the "sole legal right to decide how their farm land is used".

In 2005, parliament approved a law aimed at preventing the contamination of conventional and organic products by GM crops.

The law bans the cultivation of GM crops in open fields, permitting only restricted and protected testing of such organisms.

GM seeds must be kept strictly separated from conventional seeds and farmers whose crops are accidentally contaminated can claim compensation. The law also gives regional governments the right tÝ decide whether GM crops are allowed at a local level. Nearly all of the country's 20 regions have implemented legislation against GM crops.

As the largest producer of organic crops in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, there is a widespread fear of the potential damage resulting from accidental GM contamination.

Martini said that Italian agriculture was unique "and had no need of a scheme which would make its production similar to everyone else's".

Farmers' association Coldiretti has estimated that the introduction of GM crops would result in a 60% drop in exports, costing organic farmers six billion euros in lost profits.

A 2007 poll by the National Food and Nutrition Research Institute found that 82% of Italy's farmers would refuse to grow GM crops on their land if given the choice, while eight out of ten consumers distrust them, describing them as "less natural".Ý

Organic market should remain resilient amid spiralling costs

FoodNavigator.com Europe, 12 June 2008. By Laura Crowley.

The growing success of the organic market will be only slightly marred by soaring food prices, which are tightening consumers' purse strings across Europe, say industry experts.

Many analysts and media reports have suggested spiralling costs could spell trouble for niche markets, as demand is expected to waver for goods such as premium product, greener options and organic food and beverages.

For example, the research and advisory division of Rabobank recently commented on the effect the changing economy could have on trends currently driving the beverage sector, saying "a lot depends on the economy's health in the next year".

However, the UK's Soil Association and marketing and information firm Organic Monitor said the ever-increasing popularity of the organic industry will not suffer a U-turn because of rising prices.

Organic sector stays strong

According to the Soil Association, "despite the credit crunch, demand still outstrips supply".

Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, added: "Perhaps it is inevitable that we might see some decline in the demand among less deeply committed organic consumers, but this is more likely to be a plateau than a reverse."

Furthermore, it said government-funded research found organic production uses 26 per cent less energy than non-organic per kilogram of food, largely because of the absence of energy-intensive artificial fertiliser.

This, it said, should give organic food a competitive advantage as oil prices escalate, having reached a record high of $139 per barrel earlier this month.

The charity expects a healthy 10 per cent growth for sales of organic products this year, which it says if four to five times higher than sales growth for the general food market in a good year.Ý

Meanwhile, Organic Monitor, which today released a report demonstrating the increasing success of ethical fresh produce, said the current economic situation will have a varied effect on the organic market.

A spokesperson told FoodNavigator.com: "The organic market will be affected by a downturn in the economy. Some sectors will be adversely affected with demand going down. However, others will be immune."

Products expected to experience a drop in sales are the less established ones. These include organic ready-meals, frozen foods and some confectionery goods.

However, the company expects the largest sectors, like fresh produce, dairy and meat, as well as individual established organic brands, to remain resilient during any economic slowdown.

Fresh organic produce study

In Organic Monitor's report published today, the European Market for Ethical Fruit & Vegetables, it said sales of ethical fruit and vegetables surpassed the €5bn mark for the first time in 2007.

Over 5 per cent of all fresh produce sold in northern European countries, such as the UK, Germany and Finland, is now certified organic and/or fair trade. Switzerland is the forerunner where the market share has already exceeded 10 per cent, according to the firm.

Vegetables reign as the leading organic fresh produce, valued at €2.5bn in 2007. However, organic fruit sales are predicted to overtake as more tropical and exotic varieties are introduced.

However, the report said: "European organic food production is not keeping pace with demand. Indeed, several European countries are reporting declining areas of organic farmland. Rising prices of agricultural products are discouraging farmers to convert to organic practices."

Soaring prices and climate change expose fertilisers as economically and environmentally unsustainable

Soil Association press release, 12 June 2008

As oil and gas prices rise so does the price of artificial chemical fertilisers - the lynch-pin of industrial agriculture's claims to be 'efficient' [1]. In the UK, the price of nitrogen fertiliser has doubled over the past year to around £330 per tonne. With oil currently at over $130 a barrel and with OPEC warning it could reach $200 by the end of the year, it has been suggested that fertilisers could hit GBP500 a tonne. At these prices, the claimed efficiency of fossil-fuel and fertiliser dependent industrial farming begins to collapse.

Robin Maynard, campaigns director at the Soil Association said, "Rising oil and gas prices and the imperative of cutting greenhouse gases to curb climate change expose industrial agriculture's dependency on artificial fertilisers as both economically and environmentally unsustainable. Farmers here in the UK and in developing countries would do better for themselves and the planet by shifting to sustainable organic farming that builds fertility using the Sun's energy and Nature's own fertiliser factory, clover." [2]

The environmental imperative of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 60-80% across all sectors to curb dangerous climate change make intensive agriculture's dependence on nitrogen fertiliser unsustainable:

•

The manufacture of nitrogen fertiliser is the main use of energy in agriculture; accounting for 37% of total energy use [3]

•

Globally, agriculture is the single largest source of the greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide - which is over 310 times more damaging than carbon dioxide

•

The fertiliser industry is the largest industrial user of natural gas in the EU

•

Each tonne of fertiliser made, gives off 6.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases

•

Fertiliser manufacture is also a major user of water, consuming 37 tonnes of water to make 1 tonne of nitrogen fertiliser.

Organic farming does not use artificial chemical fertilisers, instead building soil fertility through crop rotations and particularly the use of clover to fix nitrogen naturally from the atmosphere using the Sun's energy and photosynthesis. Clover can fix 200 kg of nitrogen per hectare over a year. Average applications of N fertiliser across all arable and grassland are 110 kg/ha (arable = 150kg/ha; grassland = 77kg/ha) [4].

Contrary to the claims of the agrochemical and GM lobby, many farmers in developing countries are increasing their yields and building fertility without expensive, environmentally damaging artificial fertilisers. Farmers in Ethiopia have achieved 5-fold increases in yields by supplementing traditional methods with modern organic techniques, such as composting.

Dr Tewolde Berhan Egziabher, Head of the Ethiopian Environment Agency said,

"In a harsh climate and a largely agricultural economy we need to rediscover an approach to agriculture which supports long-term food security and protects soil fertility. Organic farming is the way forward for Ethiopia, and it is also an approach which can help to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by mechanised farming and the petrochemical inputs in richer countries."

Dr Tewolde views are underpinned by Danish research presented to a UN Conference in 2007 that found that in sub-Saharan Africa, a conversion of up to 50 per cent of agriculture to organic methods would be likely to increase food availability and decrease food import dependency. Organic yields can fall off to begin with, typically by only 10-15 per cent, but it brings greater benefits in that poor farmers no longer have to rely on expensive, imported fertilisers and pesticides. Other published research by the University of Michigan reviewing over 290 studies found that in developed countries, organic systems on average produce 92% of the yield produced by conventional agriculture. In developing countries, however, organic systems produce 80% more than conventional farms [5].

Commenting on the research Alexander Mueller, assistant director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said considering climate change will target the world's poor and most vulnerable, "a shift to organic agriculture could be beneficial." [6]

For more information please contact:

Robin Maynard, Soil Association campaigns director: 0117 987 4607 / 07932 040452
Soil Association press office: 0117 914 2448 / press@soilassociation.org

Notes to editors

[1] New threat to food system: pricey fertilizer, Russell Blinch and Roberta Rampton, June 10 2008, Reuters.com http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN20324889._CH_.2400

WASHINGTON/WINNIPEG (Reuters) - 'It powered the Green Revolution and helped save millions from starvation, but now one of the most important tools on the farm is being priced out of reach for many of the world's growers. With food prices soaring and stocks thinning, the world is in need of bumper harvests but once one of most bountiful of commodities, fertilizer, is becoming scarce and expensive.'

[2] According to Defra research, organic farming typically uses 26% less energy to produce the same amount of food as non-organic agriculture: 'Energy use in organic farming systems', 2000, Defra report, OFO182; 'Developing and delivering environmental Life-Cycle Assessment of agricultural systems, Defra project (ISO222), Cranfield University, Williams, A.G.

[3] Agriculture in the UK, Defra, 2004 http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/auk/2004/default.asp

[4] Fertiliser Statistics, 2005 report, AIC

[5] Organic farming could feed the world NewScientist.com news service report 3:46 12 July 2007 Journal reference: Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (vol 22, p 86)

[6] Press reports of UN FAO May Conference, Organic Agriculture & Food Security, 3-5 May 2007, Switch To Organic Farming Won't Hurt World Food Supply, 11th May 07, Dow Jones Newswire

Comment from GM Watch:

And before the GM lobby starts making any more 'voodoo' claims about GM crops magically reducing fertilizer use, there are not only no GM crops at all on the market that do that, but even the attempts to understand the mechanisms involved in making it possible are still at a preliminary stage - see: Genetic Engineering Approaches to Improving Nitrogen Use Efficiency http://www.isb.vt.edu/news/2008/artspdf/may0801.pdf

GE or not GE?

On Line Opinion, 12 June 2008. By Julian Cribb.

[Professor Julian Cribb is a science communicator and Adjunct Professor of Science Communication at the University of Technology Sydney]

The Australian Government has sprung a genetically-engineered cat among the organic pigeons with a recent report claiming that Australia is dipping out on billions of dollars of income by not farming genetically modified (GM, or genetically engineered - GE) grain crops.

The study by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) argues that Australia would be about $7 billion better off over 10 years, if five types of GM crops were introduced as soon as possible.

The report triggered predictable criticism from anti-GM campaigners, greenies and organic farmers, who branded it an effort to coerce Western Australia and South Australia - the two states which still have moratoria on the growing of GM crops - into toeing the pro-GM line.

The ABARE report overlooks the fact that resistance to GM in Australia has emanated mainly from consumers who have concerns about the technology - in particular with the notion of big foreign companies dictating what they eat. This has communicated itself both to politicians and to farmers, who have taken a cautious view.

The broader issue here is how new science and technology is delivered to society, and the complete shemozzle which the pro-GM lobby appears to have made of it in Australia for two decades. By failing to consult with consumers and citizens - many of whom have reasonable concerns or questions they want answered - the GM sector has given itself a much thornier path to adoption than, say, stem cell science which braved the public debate and achieved, eventually, a degree of consensus on the way forward. It has, in other words, been largely the author of its own misfortunes.

In claiming big economic benefits from GM crops the ABARE study cites a range of Australian and overseas research, but fails to clarify which was carried out by independent scientific institutions and which by agrichemical companies or the scientists they fund. It acknowledges much of the data is corporate in origin. Such a failure can only sow further doubt in the public mind about the objectivity of the claims.

It is also unacceptable in another way: imagine, for example, if new medical drugs were to be tested on the public without independent clinical trial, but merely on the manufacturers' claims of economic benefit! Before agreeing to be part of a colossal experiment with their food supply, Australians have a right to know what is being done and to give their informed consent to the risks.

ABARE also claims GM crops will yield more - through better control of weeds and insect pests. However, it downplays the countervailing view that herbicide-resistant GM crops, if they cause excessive use of particular herbicides, will contribute to the global pandemic of herbicide resistance in weeds: the US now has more than 120 resistant weed biotypes and Australia and Canada around 50 each. ABARE offers no estimate for the loss farmers may suffer if use of GM crops accelerates the spread of herbicide resistance in weeds. Weeds cost farmers about $40 billion every 10 years, so the damage could easily outrun the envisaged $7 billion in benefits.

The debate over whether or not GM crops have higher yields has significance for all humans. The world is entering a period of food shortages and soaring prices, having eaten more grain than it has actually grown in each of the last eight years, sending stocks to their lowest recorded level. The need to grow more food, both to prevent starvation and to limit price hikes to the consumer, is paramount.

There is room for doubt about claims that GM crops increase yield. They may reduce chemical use and they may be more profitable, but there is a paucity of objective evidence that they put more actual food on the table than do other farming systems. There is also little or no evidence they reduce food prices - in fact many are designed with the express aim of "value adding", which is technospeak for increasing the cost of food to the consumer.

Recently 400 of the world's top agricultural scientists produced a report for the World Bank on the way forward for global agriculture, to address the problems of malnutrition, poverty, environmental destruction and fouling of water. They expressed reservations about the impact of GM and the intellectual property restrictions which accompany it on world agriculture, especially in poor countries. They warned that over-emphasis on GM diverts money and scientists from other urgently-needed research.

While 57 countries have endorsed this report, Australia, Canada and the US have refused to do so saying, in our case, "Australia cannot agree with all assertions and options". The difference, though unstated, is mainly over GM crops.

Australia has thus taken the morally-indefensible position of failing to support a global approach to the growing problems of hunger, poverty and environmental collapse - in order to further the interests of a few international agrichemical giants and their clients.

GM crops offer many and genuine benefits, not least their potential to reduce the toll of diseases such as cancer and heart disease as well as the use of toxic chemicals in the environment. But seeking to impose them on citizens without listening to their concerns or obtaining their consent is the wrong way to go about it. It gives science a bad name.

It sets a precedent for technology rejection, which other technologies may soon face. The mistrust it engenders means that technology uptake in Australia may now be slower and harder than elsewhere, and the economic benefits longer delayed. It did not have to be this way.

EU food, grain industries call for GMO flexibility

Reuters, June 12 2008. By Jeremy Smith.

BRUSSELS - Leading companies in Europe's vast food industry joined forces on Thursday with key players in much of the EU grain sector to demand tolerance for tiny amounts of genetically modified material not yet allowed in EU markets.

EU feedmakers have long complained of problems sourcing raw material, warning that the consequences of Europe's extreme caution and "zero tolerance" of unauthorised GMOs, could be disastrous for the food and feed sectors.

Europe's food safety chief has already promised to draft a proposal before early August that would permit very limited amounts -- less than one percent -- of una