NEWS ABOUT GM ISSUES • January - February - March 2005
30 March 2005
GMO corn scandal - Syngenta misled the world
European Commission urged to take action
Friends of the Earth Europe, 30 March 2005. Brussels - Friends of the Earth has accused the world's largest agro-chemical company, Syngenta, of misleading Governments and the public. The company has been claiming that the unapproved genetically modified (GM) corn, which they sold to US farmers for four years, is identical to a GM corn previously approved for consumption.
But according to Nature, who published an article on their website last night, Syngenta has now admitted that the corn, called Bt10, actually contains a gene which confers resistance to an important group of antibiotics (1). The approved GMO, Bt11, does not contain this gene. Friends of the Earth revealed this information last week but Syngenta refused to confirm it publicly. The use of antibiotic resistant genes has been widely condemned by eminent bodies such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Royal Society and the Pasteur Institute, who are concerned that the genes could flow from crops to micro-organisms and spread problems of antibiotic resistance in humans and animals.(2)
The European Commission last week mimicked Syngenta's view and stated in
the press that the Bt10 is "genetically the same as Bt-11 which is already
approved in the EU". In April 2004, the European Food Safety Authority said
that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be restricted
to field trials and not be present in genetically modified plants placed on
the market". (3)
Adrian Bebb, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth said:
"Governments around the world have been taken in by Syngenta's attempt to
play down the real scale of their huge error. In view of this new
information, the European Commission must take immediate action to ensure
that foods which aren't permitted for human consumption are removed from
the food chain. "
Contact: Adrian Bebb, + 49 1609 490 1163 (mobile)
1. The Nature article can be found at: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050328/full/434548a.html
2. Bt 10 contains the amp gene, which confers resistance to the ampicillin
family of antibiotics. In recent guidance, the European Food Safety
Authority stated that GMOs containing this gene should not be approved for
cultivation and their use restricted to field trials.
3.The EFSA opinion can be found at: http://www.efsa.eu.int/science/gmo/gmo_opinions/384_en.html
Stray seeds had antibiotic-resistance genes
Accidental release of genetically-modified crops sparks new worries
Nature magazine, 29 March 2005. By Colin MacIlwain. Hundreds of tonnes of genetically modified corn seeds sold to farmers by mistake over the past four years contained a gene for antibiotic resistance, Nature has learned. The release of such genes into the environment is sometimes considered inadvisable, as there is a small chance that they could flow from crops to microorganisms and spread problems of antibiotic resistance.
The Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta admitted last week that it had accidentally released a variety of corn (maize) called Bt10 between 2001 and 2004. Like other crops with the name Bt, this corn had been genetically modified to produce a protective pesticide. But Bt10 has not been approved for sale by regulatory agencies.
Officials at the company last week argued that Bt10 is basically identical to Bt11 corn, which has been approved for sale (see Nature 434, 423; 2005). But this week, Sarah Hull, a spokeswoman for Syngenta, confirmed that a marker gene that confers resistance to ampicillin, a commonly used antibiotic, was present in the Bt10 seeds. She adds that this gene would not have been active in the corn plants that grew from the seeds.
Antibiotic-resistance genes are widely used as 'tags' during the production of genetically modified crops, to help breeders identify and preserve desirable strains. But the genes are often removed before the seeds enter the food chain. The presence of the marker gene in Bt10 corn was noted in a 2003 advice notice from a UK government committee, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, which was using Bt10 as a comparison to prove that there were no marker genes in Bt11 corn.
Critics have expressed surprise that neither Syngenta nor the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the presence of the marker when they admitted that the release of Bt10 had taken place. "It is quite scandalous," says Greg Jaffe, head of the biotechnology project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a pressure group in Washington DC. "This shows that the government and the company are not being forthright."
Hull says that the company didn't mention the gene's presence because "it wasn't relevant to the health and safety discussion". She adds that the antibiotic-resistance genes have been around for a long time. "They've been studied extensively, and they pose no risk to humans or animals," she says. Regulators say that the genes present a very small risk to human health, either directly - if in the stomach of a patient on antibiotics, for example - or indirectly through gene flow into microbes.
Michael Rodemeyer, director of the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a think-tank in Washington DC, says that the presence of such genes would be unlikely to see a crop declared unsafe in the United States - but adds that it could cause problems in Europe.
In a ruling published last April, for example, the European Food Safety Authority, which advises European Union governments on food issues, said that marker genes conferring resistance to ampicillin "should be restricted to field trials and not be present in genetically modified plants placed on the market". And the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the international food-standards body, has urged the agricultural biotechnology industry to use alternative methods to refine genetically modified strains in the future.
The EPA, which is jointly investigating the release of the Bt10 corn with the US Department of Agriculture, declined to say what it knew about the antibiotic-resistance marker. "What the company told us and when about the marker gene is part of our ongoing investigation and we are not able to discuss it at this time," the agency said in a statement.
"I think they've done a terrible job," says Margaret Mellon, head of the food and environment programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC, referring to both Syngenta and the government agencies. "There are lots and lots of unanswered questions, and the longer they remain, the less confidence people are going to have in the technology and in the regulatory system."
29 March 2005
DEFRA accused of key role in GM contamination cover-up
Press Notice from GM Free Cymru, 30th March 2005. DEFRA was accused today of playing a key role in a spin-doctored
cover-up designed to protect the GM industry from the effects of the
latest GM contamination scandal. According to GM Free Cymru, the
Government Department rushed into print last week to protect the
corporate giant Syngenta, within 24 hours of receiving notification of
the contamination of maize supplies with the unauthorized variety Bt10.
The organization insists that the DEFRA press notice was inaccurate
and misleading, and contained statements which DEFRA must have known to
be untrue (1).
** The DEFRA statement stresses in several places that the
contamination incident was on "an extremely small scale". But GM Free
Cymru points out that by using Syngenta's own figures (2) it is clear
that around 187,000 tonnes of contaminated maize has entered the food
chain, and that unauthorised GM material has been distributed on a
massive scale. Some of this material has been exported to Europe, but
Syngenta refuses to release details.
** DEFRA pretends that because USDA has concluded that there are no
safety concerns about the contamination incident, we should all come to
the same conclusion. What DEFRA does not say is that there is no
effective regulation of GM crops and foods in the USA, and that Bt 10
maize has never come before the authorities for assessment or
regulation either in the US or Europe (3). The DEFRA attitude is
complacent and even negligent.
** DEFRA states that Bt10 maize "is covered by the existing tolerance
exemption for Bt11" and that it is virtually identical in its proteins.
This is a disingenuous and dangerous statement, since DEFRA and ACRE
knew as long ago as 2003 that Bt10 is unique and identifiable (4). It
also contains ampicillin antibiotic resistant marker genes, which makes
it illegal in Europe (5).
** DEFRA and ACRE are in possession of detailed technical data about
Bt10 which they have refused, in spite of requests from a number of
NGOs, to place in the public domain. This information is not
commercially sensitive. We believe that since Bt10 was developed about
ten years ago by the Northrup-King company (later taken over by
Syngenta) it has changed its character and may be unstable. If this is
the case, and if Bt10 really is a "failed" variety, DEFRA should be
taking steps to protect the public instead of taking steps to protect
Syngenta.
Speaking for GM Free Cymru, Dr Brian John said: "It is well known that
one of DEFRA's policy objectives is the promotion of GM crops and foods
against the clearly-expressed wishes of the British public. But in
rushing to "damp down" speculation about the extent of Bt10
contamination, and any associated health dangers, it has danced to
Syngenta's tune and has failed in its duty of care. Has DEFRA not
learned anything from the BSE disaster and the F&M disaster? We may
now have maize products on our supermarket shelves that contain
antibiotics, and our Government appears to be quite disinterested."
ENDS
Contact: Dr Brian John
Tel + 44 1239 820470
(1) DEFRA Press Release, 23 March 2005 (see below)
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=153346&NewsAreaID=2
(2) Press Release: Following Syngenta-initiated investigation of
unintended corn release, EPA and USDA conclude existing food safety
clearance applies, no human health or environmental concerns ,
Washington, DC (USA), 21 March 2005, Syngenta web site. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/full/nature03570.html
http://www.syngenta.com
(3) http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5029
GM Maize imported into Europe had no US or EU approval
Press Notice from GM Free Cymru, 24 March 2005
Seven packages of information about Bt10 were submitted to EPA between
Jan 7th and March 10th 2005; these were reviewed, and EPA then
confirmed the Syngenta view that there was no risk associated with the
releases of Bt10 into the environment and the food chain. There appear
to have been no laboratory analyses of Bt10 maize either by EPA, USDA
or FDA.
(4) We now know that the differences between the Bt10 and Bt11
varieties were so significant that the former was used as a 'control'
to establish the distinctiveness of the latter. If these differences
had not been established, Bt11 would never have been given approval in
Europe. See ACRE advice as follows: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/advice/pdf/acre_advice35.pdf
www.defra.gov.uk/environment/ acre/advice/pdf/acre_advice46.pdf
In the Syngenta press release, the company said that the Bt protein
produced by the Bt10 breeding lines is identical to that produced by
the commercialized, fully approved Bt11 varieties. They claimed, on
this basis, that there is no change to the food, health and
environmental profile of the corn. In the view of GM Free Cymru this
is a fraudulent statement.
(5) According to FoE Europe, the Advisory Committee on Releases to the
Environment (ACRE) notes that Bt10 contains one or more copies of the
ampicillin resistance marker gene (beta lactamase), which is not
present in Bt11. This therefore makes Bt10 a very different GMO than
Bt11. Since ampicillin is a widely used clinical antibiotic, and EFSA,
Codex Alimentarius, FAO-WHO and many medical and scientific experts
have recommended against the use of genes for such antibiotics in GM
foods, it would certainly not be licenced in the EU.
GM Maize imported into Europe had no US or EU approval
Press Notice from GM Free Cymru, 28 March 2005. In another twist to the biggest scandal ever to hit the GM
multinationals, it has now been revealed that Syngenta's BT10
(Punchstock A) maize has never been authorized for release in the USA,
and never authorized for export (1). Neither has it received any
approvals for growing or food use within Europe (2).
GM Free Cymru has discovered that the GM variety has been imported into
Europe, probably for use in human food rather than in animal feed. And
since these imports have been going on, undetected and undeclared, for
more than four years, the corn is probably already on supermarket
shelves. This has happened in spite of accumulating evidence that BT10
is unfit for human consumption:
** BT10 is virtually indistinguishable from BT11 sweetcorn, which was
given EC approval for use in food (fresh or processed) in 2004 in spite
of grave reservations and even protests from independent scientists and
member states (3).
** BT10 was clearly an "experimental GM variety" which never entered
the US approvals process, probably because it was found to be defective
or genetically unstable.
** The variety has never had its genetic "character" described in the
literature, which means that even if the EU countries had effective
import monitoring in place (which they do not) the GM testing
laboratories would not know what they are supposed to look for.
** Syngenta has stated that the approved BT11 strain and the
experimental BT10 strain produce the same proteins. This has not been
demonstrated. This is a cause for considerable concern, because the BT
toxins produced in these varieties are almost completely unknown and
are untested for toxicity (3).
** Belgian and French studies have shown that BT11 is an unstable
transgenic line which is contaminated with BT176. This component
contains antibiotic marker genes, and was linked with "unexplained"
cattle deaths in Hesse, Germany, in 2001-2002 (4). It is reasonable to
assume that BT10 is also unstable and contaminated with BT176.
** BT10 contains certain synthetic genes and proteins which are not
easily broken down by stomach enzymes. In some cases, such proteins
may survive in the gut for ten to twenty times as long as most
"natural" proteins, and this may account for the lesions and other
physiological abnormalities observed in animal feeding studies
involving GM crops (5). There are concerns that allergic reactions may
follow, and that some abnormalities may lead to cancerous growths (6).
Syngenta refuses to name the countries into which contaminated maize
supplies have been exported, but it has admitted that 37,000 acres of
BT10 crops were grown between 2000 and 2004 (7). That means that at
least 185,000 tonnes of BT10 maize grain (not "several hundred tonnes"
as claimed by Syngenta) that should have been condemned has entered the
food chain in many different countries (8).
Following the revelations about the four-year-long contamination of US
maize supplies by BT10 crops, and the coordinated attempts by Syngenta
and the US authorities to cover up the scandal, there is now a
concerted effort emanating from the US to convince the rest of the
world that BT10 maize is safe to eat and poses no environmental threat.
GM Free Cymru refuses to accept these bland assurances, and says that
the episode shows that the US regulatory system is a shambles, with no
serious attempt to control GM contamination of related crops in the
countryside, and no effective method for keeping GM and non-GM food
supplies apart. Like many other NGOs, GM Free Cymru claims that there
is an undeclared Bush Administration policy to allow the whole of the
US food chain to be polluted with GM materials. Through the WTO and
through foreign aid programmes and diplomacy, the Adminstration is
seeking to extend this policy across the planet.
GM Free Cymru spokesman Dr Brian John said today: "This really is the
last straw. American complacency about GM crops and foods has allowed
a large GM corporation to pollute food supplies with unauthorised GM
materials, and to go on polluting them for five years. Then they
withhold information for at least four months, try to cover the whole
episode up, and finally mount a massive PR campaign designed to allay
our fears. And what has the EC, the British Government, and our own
FSA done about it? Nothing at all, as far as we can see, apart from a
bland and complacent response from DEFRA (9) (10). We demand an
immediate halt to all American maize imports into Europe as a minimum
first step. We also demand the immediate implementation of GM testing
measures at all British ports -- something that should have been done
long ago (11). The US exporters and the EU importers must be
prosecuted if any traces of BT10 are found in their shipments or food
products or if their documentation is defective. And then imports
should not be resumed until the EU has effective monitoring and testing
procedures in place, and until GM liability legislation is on the
statute books of all the EU countries. If they want it, let the
Americans eat their own BT10 sweetcorn."
ENDS
Contact: Dr Brian John, GM Free Cymru, tel + 44 1239 820470.
(1) "I have confirmed with FDA that 'BT10 never went through an FDA
consultation process.'Ý Therefore, it was never reviewed for
unintended human health effects, at least not by the U.S."
Ý– Doug Gurian-Sherman, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Center for Food
Safety, 660 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 302, Washington, D.C. 20003.
(2) A search of the EC / EFSA web site reveals that BT10 has never
featured in any studies or discussions. The Syngenta event Bt 10 is a
Lepadopteran toxin Cry1Ab.
(3) http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Bt11.php
24 May 2004. Approval of Bt11 Maize Endangers Humans and Livestock, by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho.
(4) http://www.indsp.org/ManorBeast.php
GM Food & Feed Not Fit for "Man or Beast" by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho and Prof.
Joe Cummins.
(5) The Lancet 354, 1353-4; also
http://plab.ku.dk/tcbh/PusztaiPusztai.htm.
(6) http://www.indsp.org/StanleyEwenSummary.php.
(7) http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/full/nature03570.html.
http://www.syngenta.com.
(8) For typical Bt maize grain yield statistics, see:
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/icm/1998/1-19-1998/yieldbt.html.
Bt maize yields are c 150 bushels per acre or c 5 tonnes per acre.
(9) DEFRA and FSA were informed by Syngenta of the contamination incident
on 22 March 2005; http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=153346&NewsAreaID=2.
(10) According to DEFRA: "Food or feed derived from a mixture of Bt 11
and Bt 10 maize seeds would not reveal the two original sources of Bt
protein as they are identical." This is an unsupportable contention,
and has no scientific validity.
(11) At present, in spite of the EU's claim that it has the best GM
regulatory system in the world, there is no mechanism for testing
imported cargoes of GM grains -- or other materials that might be
contaminated with GM -- at ports and other points of entry into the EU.
GM blunder has polluted food for years
Western Mail, Mar 29 2005. NEWS that a strain of unapproved genetically modified sweetcorn has been
accidentally sold in Britain for the past four years was described yesterday as
"the last straw".
GM Free Cymru spokesman Dr Brian John said that he believed American
complacency about GM crops had allowed food to be polluted with unauthorised GM
materials for years.
He also alleged that the case revealed a lack of adequate controls over GM
crops, and demanded an immediate halt to imports of American GM maize.
Liberal Democrat shadow agriculture secretary Andrew George said,
"Ministers simply don't know how many unapproved or experimental GM products
are unwittingly getting on to our plates. Today's news will only raise
further suspicions among consumers. It is about time Defra got its act together
and made sure there was a tight system of controls to prevent this."
Regulators in the United States have launched an inquiry into the mistake,
which came to their attention at the end of last year but was only revealed in
the scientific journal Nature last week.
Dr John believes the case raises serious questions about how carefully GM
technology is controlled.
The maize was modified with a gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt), inserted into the crop to act as a pesticide.
Syngenta, one of the world's largest agricultural biotech companies, has
permission to sell a variety of the GM crop called Bt 11 which has been used for
many years in the US and elsewhere.
The strain has been approved for consumption in the EU and may be one of the
first GM food crops licensed for cultivation in Europe. According to the
magazine Nature, Syngenta accidentally produced and distributed several hundred
tonnes of a different strain, Bt 10, which has not been approved, between
2001 and 2004.
When the mistake came to light, Syngenta promptly revealed it to the US
authorities responsible for approving GM crops.
Bt 10 differs from Bt 11 by only a handful of DNA "letters" on a part of the
gene that does not code for the pesticide toxin. US government scientists
have concluded that it is safe to eat and poses no environmental threat.
About 150sq km of Bt 10 strain were planted over four years, just 0.01% of
corn planted in the US.
But Michael Rodemeyer, director of the Washington DC think-tank the Pew
Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, told Nature, "This will raise questions in
the minds of countries that import food from the United States about whether
we have adequate controls in place. It will provide ammunition for critics of
genetically modified food."
The corn may have been sold abroad, but Syngenta officials refused a request
from Nature for a list of the countries involved.
The US Environmental Protection Agency said agencies were conducting an
investigation.
The last major accidental release of a GM crop in the United States occurred
in 2000 when a Bt corn "StarLink", for animals, was planted for human
consumption. Recalling the corn cost the food industry an estimated £530m.
Dr John said the British Government's latest response had been "bland and
complacent". He said, "We demand an immediate halt to all American maize
imports into Europe as a minimum first step.
"We also demand the immediate implementation of GM testing measures at all
British ports - something that should have been done long ago." He believes US
exporters and EU importers should be prosecuted if traces of Bt 10 were
found in shipments or food products. Imports should not be resumed until the EU
has effective monitoring and testing.
Friends of the Earth demanded an inquiry. Campaigner Clare Oxborrow said,
"The British public will be concerned that this unapproved GM ingredient may
have found its way into human food and animal feed, and will demand answers.
The Food Standards Agency needs to urgently reassure us that this maize was not
imported into the UK. And if it was, it must ensure that any contaminated
products are withdrawn immediately."
26 March 2005
GMO and Public Opinion in Macedonia
OneWorld Southeast Europe, 26 March 2005.
By Elene Simoniska. The Movement of Environmentalists of Macedonia ‚ DEM presented the results of the public opinion poll on the Genetically Modified Organisms in Macedonia.
The poll was conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, the Environmental Press Centre ‚ ERINA, professor Cane Stojkovski from the Faculty of Agriculture. The survey was supported by the Regional Environmental Centre for SEE.
The poll was conducted in ten municipalities in Macedonia, and the sample included consumers, farmers, food processing industry, and government and public institutions with competencies in the field of GMO use and application.
According to DEM, the citizens in Macedonia are only partially informed about the GMO related issues. The only clear position is that, for the majority of the polled, the genetically modified organisms are harmful, and that only a few of them noticed ìGMO Freeî products in their local groceries and supermarkets.
A huge majority (80.2%) don't want to consume GMO food, while 93.8% of the polled said that the adoption of legislation to regulate the use and production of GMOs should be the priority for the Republic of Macedonia, as well as establishment of an official procedure and institution that would mark the GMO products on the market. [Contines].
_______________________
24 March 2005
EU says unapproved Syngenta GMO maize sets no risk
Reuters, 24 March 2005. By Jeremy Smith. BRUSSELS - The European Union on Wednesday played down fears about the impact of an unauthorised strain of US genetically modified maize, saying it was similar to a type already approved.
This week, Swiss agrochemicals group Syngenta said some of its maize seeds were mistakenly contaminated between 2001 and 2004 with Bt-10, an insect-resistant strain that was not approved for distribution.
Industry sources said a small amount of Bt-10 maize seeds, probably as little as 100 kilograms, may have been shipped from the United States into France and Spain during the three-year period -- for research, not for commercial growing.
"We've alerted the member states," said Michael Mann, agriculture spokesman at the European Commission.
"We've also been assured there should be no health or environmental risks as basically, this product is genetically the same as Bt-11 which is already approved in the EU," he said.
But green groups were furious at the prospect of an unapproved GMO finding its way from the United States to Europe.
"This is an industry out of control," said Adrian Bebb, GMO campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "This case makes a complete mockery of the US regulatory system for GM crops," he said in a statement.
Britain's farm ministry said there was no indication that the contamination could have affected maize exports to the UK.
Imports of Bt-11 maize were approved by the EU for use in industrial processing in 1998. The product is mainly used in animal feed rather than in food production.
Most EU consumers are sceptical about GMO foods, worried about possible risks to health and the environment. But gene-altered products are widely accepted in the United States, the world's top GMO grower where consumer opposition is minimal compared with Europe.
Syngenta insists Bt-10 poses no health or safety risk, saying Bt-11 and Bt-10 strains have identical characteristics.
This week, the Commission said it would carry on authorising GMO foods and crops, if necessary without the agreement of EU states if they could not break years of deadlock over GMOs.
23 March 2005
The end for GM crops: Final British trial confirms threat to wildlife
The Independent, 22 March 2005. By Steve Connor, Michael McCarthy and Colin Brown. Yet another nail was hammered into the coffin of the GM food industry in Britain yesterday when the final trial of a four-year series of experiments found, once more, that genetically modified crops can be harmful to wildlife.
The study was the fourth in a series that has, in effect, sealed the fate of GM in the UK - at least in the foreseeable future. They showed the ultra-powerful weedkillers that the crops are engineered to tolerate would bring about further damage to a countryside already devastated by intensive farming.
Only one of the four farm-scale trials, which have gone on for nearly five years, showed that growing GM crops might be less harmful to birds, flowers and insects than the non-GM equivalent - and even that was attacked as flawed, because the weedkiller the particular conventional crop required was so destructive it was about to be banned by the EU.
Even so, a year ago the Government gave a licence for that crop - a maize known as Chardon LL, created by the German chemical group Bayer - to be grown in Britain, thus officially opening the way for the GM era in Britain, to loud protests from environmentalists.
However, only three weeks later Bayer withdrew its application, suggesting the regulatory climate would be too inhibiting. That followed the withdrawal from Europe of the world leader in GM crops, the American biotech giant Monsanto, which also seemed to have tired of the struggle.
Since then, the GM industry in Britain has withered on the vine, despite the fact that some members of the Government, and Tony Blair in particular, were privately great supporters of it from the outset. Official policy is portrayed as being neutral and based simply on scientific advice.
But yesterday's results make it even less likely that other big agribusiness firms will want to come forward and go through the extensive testing process - and public opposition - that bringing a GM crop to market in Britain would involve.
Last night, the Conservatives spotted a political opportunity from the latest test results and, this morning, the shadow Environment Secretary, Tim Yeo, will pledge to prevent any commercial planting of GM crops until science showed it would be safe for people and the environment, and there was a liability regime in place to deal with any cross-contamination.
Observers saw that as yet another Tory attempt to win over Middle England voters in the pre-election campaign.
The fourth and final mass experiment involving GM crops has found that they caused significant harm to wild flowers, butterflies, bees and probably songbirds. Results of the farm-scale trial of winter-sown oilseed rape raised further doubts about whether GM crops can ever be grown in Britain without causing further damage to the nation's wildlife.
Although the experiment did not look directly at the catastrophic demise of farmland birds over the past 50 years, ornithologists said the results suggested that growing GM oilseed rape would almost certainly exacerbate the problem.
David Gibbons, the head of conservation at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said the herbicides used to spray GM rape killed broad-leaved wild flowers such as chickweed and fat hen which are important to the diet of songbirds such as skylarks, tree sparrows and bullfinches.
"For most farmland birds, broad-leaved weeds are a particularly important part of their diet. There are a few birds that will take grass seeds but, by and large, it would be hard to see how the loss of broad-leaved weeds would be beneficial to them," Dr Gibbons said. "Broad-leaved weeds are particularly important to farmland birds and the widespread cultivation of this crop, in this way, would damage hopes of reversing their decline."
The trial of winter oilseed rape involved planting conventional and GM forms of the crop in adjacent plots at 65 sites across Britain. Scientists then carefully monitored wild flowers, grasses, seeds, bees, butterflies and other invertebrates. Over the course of the three-year experiment, the scientists counted a million weeds, two million insects and made 7,000 field trips. Although they found similar overall numbers of weeds in the two types of crop, broad-leaved weeds such as chickweed were far fewer in the GM plots. The scientists counted fewer bees and butterflies in the GM plots compared to plots of conventional oilseed rape.
Les Firbank, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster, who led the study, said that there was about one-third fewer seeds from broad-leaved flowers in the GM plots compared to fields with conventional oilseed rape.
"These differences were still present two years after the crop had been sown ... So we've got a significant biological difference that is carrying on from season to season," he said.
GM oilseed rape is genetically designed to be resistant to a weedkiller that would kill the non-GM crop. It means that farmers are free to use broader-spectrum herbicides.
The three previous farm-scale trials into crops investigated spring-sown oilseed rape, maize and beet. These showed that growing GM rape and GM beet did more harm to wildlife than their conventional counterparts.
"All of the evidence that we've got from the farm-scale evaluations points out that differences between the treatments are due to the herbicides. It's the nature of the chemicals and the timing at which the farming is done," Dr Firbank said.
Christopher Pollock, chairman of the scientific steering committee that oversaw the farm-scale trials, said: "What's good for the farmer is not always good for the natural populations of weeds, insects, birds and butterflies that share that space."
Farm-scale trials of GM crops are unique to Britain and represent the first time that scientists have evaluated the environmental impact of a new farming practice before it has been introduced, Professor Pollock said. Results of the latest trial are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The Four Tests
Test 1: Spring-sown oilseed rape, October 2003
Nationwide tests found that biotech oilseed rape sown in the spring could be more harmful to many groups of wildlife than their conventional equivalent. There were fewer butterflies among modified crops, due to there being less weeds. Verdict: GM fails.
Test 2: Sugar beet, October 2003
The GM crop was found to be potentially more harmful to its environment than crops that were unmodified. Bees and butterflies were recorded more frequently around conventional crops, due to greater numbers of weeds. Verdict: GM fails.
Test 3: Maize, October 2003
The production of biotech maize was shown to be kinder to other plants and animals compared to conventional crops. More weeds grew around the biotech maize crops, attracting more butterflies, bees and weed seeds. Verdict: GM passes, but critics brand study as flawed.
Test 4: Winter-sown oilseed rape, March 2005
Tests showed that fields sown with the biotech crop had fewer broad-leaved weeds growing in them. This impacted on the numbers of bees and butterflies, which feed on such weeds. Verdict: GM fails.
HALF A CENTURY OF DEBATE
1953: James Watson and Francis Crick unravel double-helix form of DNA, making biotechnology a possibility.
1983: Kary Mullis, a scientist and surfer from California, discovers the polymerase chain-reaction which allows tiny pieces of DNA to be replicated rapidly. Shortly after, US patents to produce GM plants are awarded to companies. US Environment Protection Agency approves release of first GM crop: virus-resistant tobacco.
1987: Potato becomes first GM plant introduced to UK.
1994: Flavr Savr tomato is approved by US Food and Drug Administration, paving way for more GM products.
1997: Public find Monsanto GM soya is used, unlabelled, in processed UK food.
June 1998:The Prince of Wales stokes debate by saying he will neither eat GM produce nor serve it to his family or friends.
July 1998: English Nature, the Government's wildlife advisory body, calls for a moratorium on planting of GM crops while trials are conducted into effects on wildlife of their weedkillers.
February 1999:Michael Meacher, the environment minister, persuades GM companies to agree to a moratorium until farm-scale weedkiller trials are done.
Spring 2000: Farm-scale trials of GM crops begin.
October 2003: Preliminary results find that two of three GM crops are believed to damage the environment.
March 2004: Cabinet members approve qualified planting of first UK GM crop.
Cress overturns textbook genetics
Surprise finding shows that plants rewrite genetic code
news@ature.com, 23 March 2005. In a discovery that has flabbergasted geneticists, researchers have shown that plants can overwrite the genetic code they inherit from their parents, and revert to that of their grandparents.
The finding challenges textbook rules of inheritance, which state that children simply receive combinations of the genes carried by their parents. The principle was famously established by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in his nineteenth-century studies on pea plants.
The study, published this week in Nature1, shows that not all genes are so well behaved. It suggests that plants, and perhaps other organisms including humans, might possess a back-up mechanism that can bypass unhealthy sequences from their parents and revert to the healthier genetic code possessed by their grandparents or great-grandparents.
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GMO crop scandal - Did Syngenta's illegal corn come to Europe?
Friends of the Earth Europe press release, 23 March 2005. Brussels - Friends of the Earth has written to the European
Commission asking for urgent reassurance that unapproved genetically
modified (GM) corn has not been imported into Europe. The threat was
highlighted as Swiss-based Syngenta admitted yesterday that they
inadvertently sold hundreds of tonnes of the wrong GM corn to US farmers
over the past four years.
According to Nature, who published a story on their website last night (22
March), Syngenta produced and sold several hundred tonnes of a corn
containing an insecticide, called Bt10 between 2001 and 2004. The corn has
not been approved for human consumption anywhere worldwide. According to
the article, Syngenta and the US Government have been in discussions since
last year over what should be done about the error, and how and when
information should be released to the public.
Adrian Bebb, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth said:
"This is an industry out of control. For four years Syngenta failed to
notice that they were selling farmers an unapproved genetically modified
seed. How are consumers and farmers supposed to trust them to produce our
food in the future? This case makes a complete mockery of the US regulatory
system for GM crops. To make matters worse the US Government has known
about this accident for months and together with Syngenta decided to keep
it a secret until now. This is complete scandal."
"Friends of the Earth is seeking urgent assurances from the European
Commission that this corn was not imported illegally into Europe. The
public will be concerned that they may have been exposed to unapproved GM
foods and will demand answers. The Commission should insist that the US
withdraws all corn suspected of contamination."
Contact: Adrian Bebb, + 49 1609 490 1163 (mobile)
_______________________
EU to push approving GMOs, could come in few weeks
Reuters. 22 March 2005. By Jeremy Smith. BRUSSELS - Europe will quietly press ahead with authorising more genetically modified (GMO) crops, if necessary without the blessing of EU governments or the majority of European consumers, the EU's executive said on Tuesday.
The first could be approved in a matter of weeks.
Holding its first debate on GMO policy since January 2004, the European Commission said it was ready to push a backlog of GMO requests through the EU's complex authorisation process if member states could not break their years of deadlock over GMOs.
"The Commission concluded that it would continue to comply fully with its legal obligations and proceed with the approval of pending authorisations as appropriate," it said.
Green groups say the Commission's pledge to return to "business as usual" on GMOs flies in the face of public opinion -- although the biotech industry disputes this -- since most EU consumers oppose GMOs, calling them "Frankenstein foods".
One aim of the Commission is to see clearer member-state positions on GMOs. Since taking office in November, the new team has put several key decisions "on hold" while it sorts out a common position on the way forward for biotech policy.
One of these, a Commission approval of a GMO rapeseed, was due for mid-January and can now be expected within a few weeks, officials say.
A proposal on whether to order a handful of EU governments to lift national bans on specific GMO products should be debated by environment ministers in June. "This morning, the Commission was not trying to question the existing system," Commission spokeswoman Francoise Le Bail told a news briefing. "What the Commission would like to see is that member states assume more responsibility within the system."
More and more countries now abstain in GMO votes, which reduces the chances of a consensus agreement. A small group always votes in favour, such as Finland and the Netherlands; a counter-group, including Austria, Denmark and Greece, always votes against. The rest either abstain or vary their vote.
When this happens, EU law allows for the Commission to take a decision when member states fail to do so themselves.
BID TO WOO CONSUMERS?
Surveys show more than 70 percent of European consumers oppose GMO foods, usually on health and environment grounds, although these figures are disputed by the biotech industry which claims that a "silent majority" holds different views.
Only one EU country, Spain, grows substantial amounts of GMO crops and the continent as a whole remains a major holdout against the spread of the largely U.S.-engineered plants, which are meant to increase yields and be resistant to pests.
"Consumers don't want to eat genetically modified foods, regions across Europe want GM crops banned and member states refuse to support new applications," said Adrian Bebb at Friends of the Earth. "This has all been ignored by the Commission."
Commission officials hinted that one goal was to reduce Europe's high level of scepticism over biotech foods.
"We have to pay attention to communication ... and the benefits of GMOs," one official told reporters.
"We know a lot of people are doubtful about the benefits of GMOs, and there is a lot of unfounded fear," she said. "We need to bring a subjective debate onto an objective level."
EU member states have not themselves approved any new GMO since 1998, when a moratorium on new approvals came into effect.
This was triggered when a handful of governments said they would refuse to endorse new approvals until there were tougher laws on GMO traceability and labelling.
The moratorium, which inspired an international trade suit against the EU from Argentina, Canada and the United States, was lifted by a legal default procedure in May 2004.
Commission confirms quality of European GMO legislative framework
EC press release, 22 March 2005. Today the European Commission took stock of the EU legislative framework on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). During the debate, the Commission confirmed its full confidence in the existing regulatory framework on GMOs, one of the strictest in the world, which provides for a high level of scientific assessment and at the same time safeguards the consumers' right to choose. The Commission concluded that it would continue to comply fully with its legal obligations and proceed with the approval of pending authorisations as appropriate. While continuing to fulfil the responsibilities imposed on it by the EU legislative framework, the Commission has reflected on the need to develop consensus between all interested parties.
Over the past four years, the EU has put in place a stringent system to regulate genetically modified food, feed and crops. The authorisation procedure under this new system ensures that only GMOs which are safe for human and animal consumption and for release into the environment can be placed on the European market. Clear labelling rules allow farmers, other users and consumers to choose whether or not to purchase such products.
Individual authorisations are granted following scientific evaluation on a case by case basis. Requests for authorisations which do not fulfil all criteria have been and will continue to be rejected.
The Commission will fulfil its responsibilities in the establishment of labelling thresholds and, on the implementation of co-existence measures, it will reflect on possible further steps on the basis of a report to be finalised by the end of this year concerning the experience gained in the Member States.
Syngenta says sold some unapproved GMO corn in US
Reuters, 22 March 2005. WASHINGTON - Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta AG said Tuesday it mistakenly sold to farmers an experimental corn seed genetically engineered to resist bugs that was never approved by U.S. regulators.
Hundreds of tons of the resulting corn crop were shipped to consumers and overseas between 2001 and 2004, but three U.S. government agencies investigating said there was no health or environmental risk because of the seed's similarity to another Syngenta product approved for sale and consumption by federal regulators.
"While there are no safety concerns, the regulatory agencies are conducting investigations to determine the circumstances surrounding and extent of any violations of relevant laws and regulations," said Cynthia Bergman, an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman. "The U.S. government is also communicating with our major trading partners to ensure they understand there are no food safety or environmental concerns that could affect trade."
The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration are also investigating.
In trading Tuesday, U.S.-traded Syngenta shares fell 39 cents, or 1.8%, to close at $21.45 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $13.93 to $23.26.
Biotechnology critics say the incident confirms their fears that the industry can't ensure genetically engineered seeds won't mix with conventionally grown crops and contaminate the food supply.
Nearly half the nation's corn approved for market by the Department of Agriculture is genetically modified, but many consumers pay a premium for organic food or otherwise demand their groceries remain biotechnology free.
Also Tuesday, Syngenta acknowledged some of the unapproved corn may have been shipped overseas to countries that allow the company's approved genetically engineered corn in some form.
The company's approved genetically engineered corn seed is allowed to be sold in Canada, Argentina, Japan, South Africa, and Uruguay. Additionally, food and feed produced by the company's approved corn can be imported in the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, the Philippines, China, Russia, and Korea.
The United States and the European Union are in a bitter trade dispute over how to strictly to regulate U.S. biotechnology imports, but Syngenta spokeswoman Sarah Hull did not say whether any of its member countries have received the unapproved corn.
"Instead of building international confidence in genetic engineering, the industry continues to shoot itself in the foot," said Greg Jaffe, biotech director for the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington D.C. "It proves this technology is hard to control and we have an industry that is not as diligent as we would like."
The corn in question is spliced with bacteria genes to resist bugs without the need for pesticides. It differs from Syngenta's approved seeds only where the foreign genetic material is placed in the plant's genome, said Jeff Stein, head of Syngenta's U.S. regulatory affairs.
Syngenta also did not say where in the United States the corn was grown, other than to say it sprouted on a total of 37,000 acres in four states ó representing less than 1% of all U.S. corn. Still, the mislabeled corn amounted to several hundred tons shipped over the last four years.
In 2000, the inadvertent planting and distributing of genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption ó so-called StarLink ó cost the food industry an estimated $1 billion in recalled products.
Hull said because the government has declared the corn poses no health or environmental risks, no recall of the wrongly shipped corn is planned. But all the plants involved have been destroyed, she said. She declined to say how much the incident is expected to cost the company.
Hull said the Swiss-based company discovered the mistake itself in mid-December and reported it immediately as required by law to federal authorities. She said Syngenta didn't publicize the mishap because of the ongoing investigation.
The science journal Nature first reported the mishap on its Web site Tuesday. Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Rogers said the government had not wanted to publicize the problem until the investigation was completed.
Poland to ban Monsanto GMO maize seed
Reuters, 23 March 2005. WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland wants to ban the import and planting of 17 varieties of genetically modified (GMO) maize seed made by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto for two years, a senior Farm Ministry official said on Tuesday.
The EU newcomer will soon notify its plan to ban the seed, made from a parent seed known as MON 810, to the European Commission and expects a decision within one to two months, said Wieslaw Podyma, deputy director at the ministry's plant protection department.
Poland is the second central European country to ban a GMO maize type after Hungary, which outlawed the planting of Monsanto's MON 810 hybrid seeds in January.
While MON 810 is permitted across the 25-nation bloc, individual countries have discretion on whether to allow it and other gene-altered crops on their national territory.
"We are not yet announcing a ban. We are going to submit a motion to ban the imports and trading of 17 types of genetically modified MON 810 seeds for two years," Podyma said. "The ban will be introduced if Brussels approves this.
"Our motion was prepared on a different basis than in the case of Hungary. We have had no field experience related to these types of maize in Poland," he added.
Hungary banned biotech seed planting pending tests to establish whether GMO crops contaminated other crops and said old stocks must be destroyed, although it will continue to allow GMO maize in food production.
No GMO crops are yet grown in Poland, where maize production reached around 2.3 million tonnes last year.
Environmental lobby group Greenpeace welcomed Poland's decision and called on all EU member states to take action to prevent cultivation of gene crops in Europe.
Opponents of the genetic modification have expressed concern that the new EU countries, many of them relatively poor ex-communist states, could provide a back door for GMO production -- a claim strongly denied by the biotech industry.
In the late 1990s, Austria, France, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg imposed national bans on a number of GMO products.
22 March 2005
Poland asks EU to ban genetically modified corn cultivation for two years
eubusiness.com, 22 March 2005. The Polish government is to ask the European Union to ban the genetically modified corn seed in Poland for two years to allow environmental safety tests to be carried out, a statement issued Tuesday said.
"Given the absence of tests conducted locally, there is a risk to farming... As a result, until tests are carried out, Poland will ask for the right to ban for two years the use of and trade in genetically modified MON 810 corn seed," the statement said.
Environmental groups in the central European country called the government's move "responsible."
The ban would "protect Polish farmers against the pollution of their crops by genetically modified organisms," said an official from Greenpeace Poland, Maciej Muskat.
"Given the irresponsibility of the European Commission, other EU countries should follow Poland's example," he added.
GMOs on the Commission's table: still not edible for farmers, consumers and the environment
Joint press release from:
European Environmental Bureau (EEB)
European Community of Consumer Cooperatives (EURO COOP)
Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE)
Greenpeace European Unit
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) EU Group:
Brussels, 21 March 2005 - Environmental organisations, consumers and organic farming groups urged the European Commission today to listen to public opinion and break with the former executive's pro-GMO policy. They also presented a legal opinion criticising EU plans on the "co-existence" (growing together) of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops. The Commission will debate its policy on genetically-modified organisms tomorrow.
The document that Commissioners will discuss tomorrow is likely to acknowledge the growing demand for GMO-free zones across Europe, and express concern about the fact that decisions on new GMOs default to the Commission, due to deadlocks and disagreement among member states. Even so, the Commission will say that it plans to press ahead with new approvals for the cultivation of GMOs, in spite of a legal loophole in EU legislation concerning coexistence.
"The Commission has to send a signal that it is ready to listen to the concerns of the public, farmers and member states on the impact of GMOs on the environment and the economy," said Eric Gall of Greenpeace. "The Commission cannot simply pass the hot potato to member states and then blame them for failing to agree. It should first ensure that the EU's own legal requirements on risk evaluation and monitoring of GMOs are properly implemented."
A new legal opinion, published today, has criticised the European Commission's approach on GM crop co-existence with other crops as 'fundamentally flawed". The opinion, by Paul Lasok QC, an expert in European law, was commissioned by a coalition of environment and consumer organisations in the UK and criticises the Commission Recommendation as having "no basis in Community legislation" and being "wrong in law". [1] [2]
"The Commission's plan to release GMOs without proper co-existence legislation to protect the environment, consumers, conventional and organic farmers is totally irresponsible. If this policy is adopted, Europe's countryside will soon be completely contaminated by GMOs. These outrageous plans need to be stopped by all means," said Geert Ritsema of Friends of the Earth Europe.
Mauro Albrizio of the European Environmental Bureau added: "The Commission needs to initiate EU legislation on co-existence as soon as possible, and it must recognise that local authorities and regions have the right to set up GM-free zones,"
Francesco Montanari of Euro Coop said: "At this stage, a stricter EU legal framework for GM labelling is urgently needed in order to ensure an adequate protection both for the large number of consumers who do not want to eat GM foods and the food chain operators who want to be GM-free. Labelling of seed contamination must therefore be fixed at the detection level of 0.1% and labelling of products derived from animals fed GM feed needs to be introduced.
"Endangering jobs in Europe's organic farming and GM-free sector for the benefit of a few GMO producers is economic madness," said Marco Schl¸ter of the organic farming association IFOAM EU Group. "In Germany alone, the organic farming sector has created around 75,000 new jobs, compared to some hundred new jobs in the agri-GMO business. The only new jobs the GMO business creates are in laboratories, to test products to exclude any GMO contamination."
Contacts:
Mauro Albrizio, Vice-president, EEB, tel + 32 (0) 479 940251
Eric Gall, GMO policy advisor, Greenpeace European Unit, tel + 32 (0)2 274 1906, tel + 32 (0) 496 161582
Francesco Montanari, EURO COOP Food Policy Officer, tel + 32 (0)2 285 0074
Geert Ritsema, GMO co-ordinator, Friends of the Earth Europe, tel + 31 (0)6 290 05 908
Marco Schlüter, IFOAM EU Group (organic farmers association), tel + 32 (0)2 735 2797
Notes:
[1] See press release for further details: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/coexistence/FOE/UKpressrelease21march.doc
[2] See full legal advice: http://www.gmfreeireland.org/coexistence/FOE/CoexLasok.pdf (180K PDF file)
European Commission to ram GM foods through
Green group slams lack of democracy or precaution
Friends of the Earth Europe, Brussels, 22 March 2005 - Friends of the Earth today attacked the European
Commission for putting business interests before the safety of the public
or the environment. The Commission's newly announced policy to force
through genetically modified (GM) foods despite overwhelming public
opposition, was described by the green group as "a bad day for consumers,
democracy and the environment."
The new European Commission agreed today to:
* push through new approvals of GM foods regardless of the lack of
consensus over their safety by EU member states
* submit to the Environment Council proposals to get countries to lift
their bans on GM products
* approve GM crops for cultivation without proper (so called "coexistence")
legislation to avoid the contamination of the countryside by GMOs
Friends of the Earth believes the Commission should have instead:
* Stopped all approvals in order to re-evaluate safety concerns raised by
member states and the public
* Introduced EU legislation that would prevent contamination from fields of
GM crops and ensure biotech companies are liable for any damage caused by
their products
* Allow regions a say in whether GM crops should be grown
Adrian Bebb, GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth said:
" The European Commission is more interested in supporting big business
then in food safety and the environment. Consumers don't want to eat
genetically modified foods, regions across Europe want GM crops banned and
member states refuse to support new applications. But this has all been
ignored by the Commission. This is a bad day for consumers, democracy and
the environment."
Key facts
* According to Eurobarometer 70% of the public don't want to eat GM foods.
* 23 out of the 25 member states are against the growing of GM oilseed
rape, Bayer does not want to proceed, but the Commission nevertheless wants
to press ahead and has submitted it to a scientific panel for their
opinion. (1)
* The final results of the world's largest experiments of GM crops were
published in the UK yesterday showing that there were less bees and
butterflies in the GM winter oilseed rape trialled than in non-GM fields. (2)
* A legal opinion published yesterday showed that the European Commission's
policy on the coexistence of GM crops with conventional crops is
"fundamentally flawed" and "wrong in law". (3)
Contact: Adrian Bebb, +49-1609 490 1163 (mobile)
Notes to editors
1. www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/biotech_firm_rejects_gm_cr_18032005.html.
2. www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/gm_crop_trial_blow_to_biot_21032005.html.
3. http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2005/UKpressrelease21march.doc.
EU states urged to take responsibility for GMOs
Environment Daily, 21 March 2005. The European Commission is to press EU governments to take more responsibility for European policy on commercial approval of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in a communication due for adoption after debate on Tuesday. The move reflects continuing political strains over GMO policy despite the supposed end of the bloc's five-year moratorium on such approvals.
A draft of the document seen by Environment Daily criticises current procedures. Under these, if national governments fail to agree for or against an application, responsibility passes back to the Commission, which is legally obliged to rubber stamp an approval.
In practice, the council is reaching stalemate on every new application. As a result the Commission has had to approve unilaterally three GM farm products in the last 12 months. Each decision has drawn a hail of criticism from environmental and consumer groups, accusing the EU executive of behaving undemocratically.
In the longer term, the communication states, the Commission will have to "reflect how to improve the decision making process". For now, it says ministers "should be requested to hold a thorough debate in order to avoid adoption by abstention and to openly discuss the reasons for their reluctance to support the authorisation."
Environmentalists on Monday accused the Commission of shirking its responsibility when it comes to biotech crops. A coalition of NGOs said the EU executive "cannot simply pass the hot potato to member states and then blame them for failing to agree."
* In a related development, NGOs also released a legal opinion which they say shows the Commission should withdraw its recommendation on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops. The 2003 recommendation, though not legally binding, is intended to be used as a starting point for EU countries planning their own biotech crop laws.
The opinion says that the recommendation's advice that member states should not introduce coexistence laws stricter than necessary to keep crop contamination below 0.9% is "legally irrelevant". It also dismisses the recommendation's claim that only economic concerns should be taken into account when setting coexistence rules, saying that environment and health issues should also be considered.
** Meanwhile, the UK announced completion of a major series of field tests of herbicide-tolerant GM crops. Wildlife protection group RSPB said the latest results - on winter oilseed rape - show that the herbicides used are a threat to bird life.
Follow-up:
European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm, tel: +32 2 299 1111
NGO reaction http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2005/joint_21_March_GMOs.htm.
Legal opinion http://www.eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/gmo/CoexLasok.pdf
on coexistence.
UK environment ministry press releases:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2005/050321c.htm
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2005/050321b.htm.
EU Commission to continue introducing GM products amid opposition
Finfacts.com, Mar 22, 2005.
The European Commission is set to keep going with its practice of introducing new genetically modified products to the EU market, amid reluctance by several member states and general public opposition.
The forthcoming steps by the Commission on GM products in Europe are outlined in a paper put forward by the institution's president and six other commissioners, which is to be adopted today.
According to the document, the Commission will take steps to authorise several products that have been neither approved nor rejected by a sufficient number of member states ‚ such as GM oilseed rape and maize.
Existing legislation allows the Commission to go ahead with the authorisation procedure if a threshold of votes by member states against the proposal is not obtained.
The Commission argues that member states have so far abstained from taking a clear position, leaving it up to the Brussels executive to make unpopular decisions.
However, several environment organisations oppose the plans to introduce new GM products without necessary European legislation to protect the consumers - as well as conventional and organic crops - from contamination.
Meanwhile, the EU is facing an on-going trade dispute in the World Trade Organisation, initiated by the US, Argentina and Canada in 2003, due to its failure to apply its own regulatory regime on GMOs.
The Commission's paper points out that the EU food market of GM labelled food remains limited, while the genetically modified products are more accepted in the feed sector.
It mentions a rising number of highly restrictive national or regional measures on the cultivation of GMOs, and a network of twenty European "GMO-free" regions, mainly in Spain, France, Germany, Greece and the UK.
There is a new regulatory framework for placing new GM products on the EU markets, but member states are reluctant to implement it by taking decisions on specific products.
Also, several of the Commission's recommendations on the rules adopted in the individual countries "have not been taken into account", according to the paper.
Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, Italy and Denmark are those member states most strongly opposed to new GMOs being introduced in Europe. But opposition is mounting in the new member states, as well.
"There was a great miscalculation in Brussels about the countries from eastern and central Europe. As strong US allies in other issues, they were expected to be also pro-GMO, but the opposite has been the case," said Mauro Albrizio, Vice-president of the European Environmental Bureau.
On the other hand, the UK, Netherlands and Finland are on the pro-GMO side of the argument, and usually vote in favour of new products to be authorised.
Polls show that around 70 per cent of Europeans are against the GMOs.
A number of environmental groups have rebuffed the Commissionís position, suggesting Brussels should not press ahead with the new GMOs without properly enforced rules for preventing contamination at place.
"The document is a great disappointment for us as it does not make any suggestions on how to fill in the legal loopholes for preventing some countries contaminating the agricultural areas of the others by growing the GMOs," said Geert Ritsema of Friends of Europe.
He suggested that different standards in different countries cause huge costs for the conventional and organic farmers, as they are left alone to prevent contamination.
The Commission argues that there is currently not enough support for new pan-European rules.
But according to Eric Gall of Greenpeace, the Commission's position is influenced by pressure from the WTO, the US and lobby groups.
"We have seen evidence of real American pressure in various member states, with letters to Greek and Austrian embassies threatening US sanctions if the countries go ahead with anti-GMO steps. But it is up to the European Commission not to bow to such pressure," said Mr Gall.
Biggest study of GMO finds impact on birds, bees
Reuters, 21 March 2005. By David Cullen.
The world's biggest study to date on the impact of genetically modified (GMO) crops on wildlife found birds and bees are more likely to thrive in fields of natural rapeseed than GMO seed, scientists said.
But scientists behind the British study were keen to stress the differences between the two arose not because the crop was genetically engineered but because of the way pesticides were applied.
"The study demonstrates the important of the effects of herbicide management on wildlife in fields and adjacent areas," researcher David Bohan said.
Green groups, however, were aghast.
"These results are yet another major blow to the biotech industry. Growing GM winter oilseed rape would have a negative impact on farmland wildlife," Friends of the Earth campaigner Clare Oxborrow said.
The trial was the last in a four-part 5.5 million-pound ($9.5 million) test of controversial technology -- the largest experiment of its kind in the world.
Scientists said that when compared with conventional winter-sown rapeseed, GMO herbicide-resistant plants kept the same number of weeds overall, having more grass weeds but fewer broad-leaved weeds.
Flowers of broad-leaved weeds provide food for insects, while their seeds are an important food source for other wildlife.
Researchers said that while fields planted with the biotech version were found to have fewer butterflies and bees, differences arose not because the crop was genetically-changed but because of the way they were sprayed.
In October 2003, the same government trials found that GMO sugar beet spraying was significantly more damaging to the environment than the management of conventional varieties.
They also concluded that gene-spliced spring-sown rapeseed may also have a negative impact on wildlife, while GMO feed maize did not.
"GMO CROPS ARE BETTER"
The biotech lobby insist the crops are safe.
"GM crops offer a better, more flexible weed management option for farmers and, as the results today indicate, the difference between the impact of growing GM and non-GM crops on biodiversity is minimal," Tony Combes, deputy chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which represents biotech firms like Monsanto and Syngenta.
Despite optimism from proponents of the technology, GMO crops seem a long way off in Britain.
Last year, the only firm to win approval to grow a GMO crop in Britain -- Germany's Bayer CropScience -- abandoned field testing of GMO crops in Britain. It also withdrew any outstanding applications awaiting government approval to sell biotech seeds.
As a result, no new GMO seeds are awaiting approval in Britain, whereas in the mid-1990s more than 50 different GMO
EU states overruled on GMOs by own deadlock -greens
Reuters, 21 March 2005. By Jeremy Smith. BRUSSELS, March 21 (Reuters) - Europe could see a series of new biotech foods quietly approved with no influence from EU governments if they cannot escape from years of deadlock over genetically modified (GMO) foods, green groups warned on Monday.
The European Commission will hold its first debate on GMO policy on Tuesday, the first such discussion of the issue since January 2004. It appears keen to push a backlog of GMO requests through the EU's complex authorisation process.
For the environmental lobby, this would be riding roughshod over public opinion since most European consumers oppose GMOs -- calling them "Frankenstein foods".
"The Commission is not giving a lot of space to member states in the process. They are overruling an overwhelming majority of member states and the public, who say 'We don't want them'," said Geert Ritsema of Friends of the Earth Europe.
Apart from recommending that new GMOs should continue to be submitted for EU approval, the Commission is also expected to ask EU governments to "participate effectively in the process with a view to reaching clear positions", a draft document says.
"The Commission simply cannot pass the hot potato to member states and then blame them for failing to agree," said Eric Gall, GMO campaigner at environmental lobby group Greenpeace.
"They simply advocate going along as they used to, throwing the ball back to the member states. We don't think this is a responsible attitude and they will end up again as they were in 1998 before the moratorium," he told a news conference.
The EU's de facto moratorium on new GMOs came about in late 1998 when a handful of governments said they would refuse to endorse new approvals until there were tougher laws on GMO traceability and labelling, among other areas.
The moratorium, which inspired an international trade suit against the EU from Argentina, Canada and the United States, was lifted by a legal default procedure in May 2004. But EU member states have not themselves approved any new GMO since 1998.
More and more countries now abstain in Europe's GMO votes, reducing the chances of agreement. A small group always votes in favour, while a counter-group always votes against.
The result is that no decision is taken, and it falls to the Commission to approve the new GMO, months later, under a complex process that allows the EU executive to step in if member states cannot reach a decision themselves.
If it fell to the Commission to approve new GMOs, Europe might find itself faced with a new moratorium, other greens say.
Surveys show 70 percent of European consumers oppose GMO foods, usually on health and environment grounds, although these figures are disputed by the biotech industry which claims that, instead, a "silent majority" of the public has different views.
TANZANIA: Involve other stakeholders in GMO plan, government urged
IRIN, 21 March 2005.
DAR ES SALAAM, 21 March (IRIN) - A network of about 40 civil society organisations working with smallholder farmers in Tanzania has cautioned the government against its plans to introduce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country, saying stakeholders in the agricultural sector must be involved in approving the move.
"GM crops and foods have a potential negative impact on the environment, economy, culture and health," the network said in a statement on Friday.
The network comprises PELUM, an umbrella body for 30 civil society organisations that work with farmers in 14 regions of the country, and then MVIWATA, a network of farmers' groups in 17 regions of the country.
"Even GM [genetically modified] crop-producing countries in the north have been unable to ensure the safety of GM crops," the organisations said.
They said GMOs reduced small-scale farmers into "slaves" for big companies in the rich countries, which have a monopoly of the technology, setting the stage for diminished food production.
"Blind adoption of the technology will bring a lot of problems to farmers as it will lead to dependency, loss of natural biodiversity, promotion of inappropriate farming systems and denial of farmers' right to save, share and choose seeds to plant," the network said.
The network was reacting to a decision by the government to form a team that would look at the feasibility of introducing GMOs in the country and to prepare relevant rules to govern imports.
Another environmental organisation, the National Environmental Management Commission (NEMC) said the threat of GMOs at global and domestic levels were real, particularly the impact on natural biodiversity.
"We may, for example, lose natural strains of maize after bringing in GMO maize seeds," Magnus Ngoile, the NEMC director-general, told IRIN on Monday. "Likewise, GMO animals could wipe out the indigenous species if the imported ones have problems that could lead to disasters."
However, he said because of globalisation, it was impossible to avoid the importation of GMOs, therefore, strong monitoring and control mechanisms must be put in place.
Ngoile said GMO seeds were normally patented and care should be taken to ensure the indigenous strains were not lost; otherwise the country would remain dependent on foreign firms forever.
"We must build up the capacity to control the imported stuff," he said, "and where possible, we can allow the importation of maize flour instead of seeds."
21 March 2005
Welsh farmers dismiss claim by GM firm's boss
Farmers Union of Wales press release, 16 March 2005. THE Farmers' Union of Wales today hit back at the boss of American biotechnology giant Monsanto after he claimed that most British farmers want to grow genetically modified crops.
Speaking on Radio 4's Farming Today programme, company president Hugh Grant also said that he hoped that GM crops could be grown in the UK within five to 10 years.
"Hugh Grant is taking us all for a ride if he really believes that most farmers want to grow GM crops," said FUW President Gareth Vaughan.
"This may come as a blow to Mr Grant, but surveys have shown that 90 per cent of the British public don't want GM crops and it is our experience that the vast majority of farmers don't want them either," said Mr Vaughan.
The FUW is at the forefront of a campaign to make Wales a GM-free zone, and the organisation has worked alongside Friends of the Earth Cymru, GM Free Wales and the National Federation of Women's Institutes to achieve this aim.
"In our experience, the vast majority of Welsh farmers are against the growing of GM crops because of the seemingly endless list of unanswered questions that surround them," said Mr Vaughan.
"Most Welsh farmers believe that GM crops are unnecessary and could damage Wales' excellent reputation as a supplier of clean, green, traditionally produced food - sentiments that reflect the general public's widely held views on GM crops," he said.
"As well as worries over adverse environmental effects and the possible dangers of GM food, the FUW is also concerned that GM crops are being developed in a way that could effectively enslave farmers, compelling them to become customers of particular companies."
The FUW, together with its three anti-GM partners and a cross party group of AMs, have already called on the National Assembly to maintain its restrictive policy on the growth of GM crops; prohibit the growth of specific GM crops in Wales similar to restrictions already imposed in other parts of Europe and continue its European campaign to declare Wales a GM-free zone.
If this is not possible, the alliance partners wants legislation governing coexistence to be as tough as possible with any additional costs met by the GM industry. In this case the alliance has called for:
* The right of the public to choose GM-free food;
* Strict laws to prevent GM contamination;
* Liability laws to ensure biotech companies pay for all damage arising from contamination;
* Meaningful protection for organic farmers.
Mr Vaughan said: "The position of Welsh farmers is clear, as was the conclusion of the Government's five year consultation on GM crops - we don't want them and the general public don't want them.
"Wales must not let these powerful biotechnology companies dictate a policy that goes against the wishes of the general public and the farming community," he said.
EC accused of "ongoing conspiracy" to suppress research on GM health hazards
GM Free Cymry press release, 20 March 2005. The EC has been accused today by community groups across Europe of an ongoing conspiracy
to keep sensitive information on GM safety studies out of the public domain. It has also been
accused of "playing politics with public health" by turning a blind eye on inconvenient scientific
findings and approving potentially dangerous GM varieties simply to please the Americans and
the WTO.
GM Free Cymru, a watchdog group based in West Wales, has been trying without success to
obtain sight of a secret dossier relating to Monsanto's MON863 maize variety, which is one of a
family of GM crops already listed for use in Europe. The dossier contains the full application
submitted by Monsanto for EC approval, details of a 90-day rat feeding study commissioned by
the seed owners, a critique of that study commissioned from Dr Arpad Pusztai by the German
Environment Ministry, and other material sent to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA)
by its own GMO Scientific Panel. None of this material has been released for public perusal, in
spite of many requests from Greenpeace, GeneWatch, GM Watch, Friends of the Earth and other
organizations.
According to GM Free Cymru this conspiracy extends back at least five years. Members claim
that the holding of "secret dossiers" acts against the public interest, and that it is also unlawful.
With respect to MON863, there are now strong indications that the rat feeding study completed
five years ago (and still not peer reviewed or released to the public) has thrown up physiological
changes which show the crop to be unsuitable for either animal or human consumption (1).
Doubts have been thrown on the integrity of Monsanto's commissioned research results by a
French study published last year (5), by a Belgian review of the evidence, and finally by the
refusal of other EU nations to accept releases of MON863 into the food chain. Now it has
emerged that Dr Pusztai's September 2004 review of the rat feeding study was only allowed by
Monsanto on condition that it would not be published or released to the public. Furthermore, Dr
Pusztai himself was required to sign a "confidentiality agreement" which means that he can not
even talk about the study. The creation of what is in effect a "secret dossier" by Monsanto and
the EC contravenes EU law (2), and NGOs are furious about the "gagging" of a respected
independent scientist.
This is not all. Monsanto is seeking approvals for MON863 in Australia and New Zealand as
well, and although it has signed a declaration to the effect that it will not withhold any
information that might prejudice its application, it now appears that the company has broken
the law and failed to submit the full report on the study showing abnormalities in rats fed on
MON863 (3). Further, the evidence that it HAS submitted is highly selective and misleading.
"This situation is totally unacceptable, and shows that the whole GM approvals process is
corrupt (8)," said Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru. "Critical health and safety information is
being kept out of the public domain simply because Monsanto, a gigantic biotechnology
corporation, insists on its right to "commercial confidentiality." [contines]
Download full press release (64k PDF file)
19 March 2005
More info needed for GM food debate
Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan), 18 March 2005. By Noriyuki Yoshida.
A bill to create the nation's first ordinance to restrict growing genetically modified crops is being deliberated by the Hokkaido Assembly.
As the assembly votes on whether to enact punitive measures against farmers growing GM crops without permission, the central government needs to join its local counterparts in providing more information on GM crops, because public debate at the moment is suffering from a lack of information.
The ordinance bill being discussed in Hokkaido is aimed at preventing GM crops from affecting non-GM farm produce.
If the assembly enacts the ordinance, farmers in Hokkaido will have to get approval to commercially grow GM crops outside, a move that in reality will put a virtual ban on commercial production of GM crops.
Under the bill, farmers wishing to grow GM crops would have to hold a meeting to explain their neighbors on how to prevent their GM products from being mixed with others' non-GM crops before requesting approval from the governor of Hokkaido.
The governor would then decide whether to approve the request after screening its content and the hearings of a panel on food safety.
Under the ordinance, those growing GM crops without approval would be subject to a prison sentence of up to one year or a fine of up to 500,000 yen...
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18 March 2005
EU to push for GMO foods despite opposition
Reuters, 18 March 2005. BRUSSELS: Europe should press ahead with authorising more genetically modified (GMO) foods despite overwhelming opposition among European consumers, a draft EU document showed on Friday. Citing the lack of unanimity among the European Union's 25 member states on gene-altered crops, viewed by many European consumers as "Frankenstein foods", the EU executive plans to push new products through the system.
The document, obtained by Reuters, says the commission should back the "continued submission of draft decisions for the placing on the market of new GMO products".
It will need support from a majority in the 25-strong commission to become policy. This proposed position for the EU executive comes in the face of surveys that show 70% of European consumers oppose GMO foods, usually on health and environment grounds.
Only one EU country, Spain, grows substantial amounts of GMO crops and the continent as a whole remains a major holdout against the spread of the largely US-engineered plants, which are meant to increase yields and be resistant to pests. Next week, the EU executive will debate the subject, hoping to end the policy vacuum that has existed since it took office in November.
The discussion, slated for Tuesday, will be the commission's first on biotechnology since January 2004. Apart from guarded comments from some members of the new commission, little of substance has been said on where the EU might head next with its policy on GMO crops and imports.
Six commissioners carry the most weight, since they are directly involved in GMO policy. They represent agriculture, environment, trade, research, industry and food safety. The six will present a discussion document that calls for GMO authorisations to continue despite years of stalemate among governments, even after the EU lifted its six-year moratorium on approving new GMOs by a default legal procedure last year.
"So far, every single one of the 13 commission proposals (for GMO approval) failed to get the required qualified (voting) majority, even for those GMOs not intended for cultivation, but for import and processing only," the draft document says. "It is expected that ... the commission will have to continue to take ultimate responsibility for adoption of pending decisions for the placing on the market of new GMO products, at least for the immediate future," it said.
Under the EU's decision-making process, if EU member states cannot agree after three months at ministerial level on allowing imports of a new GMO, then the Commission may rubber-stamp an approval. This is how the EU moratorium was lifted in May 2004. More and more countries now abstain in GMO votes, reducing the chances of agreement. A small group always votes in favour, such as Finland and the Netherlands; a counter-group, including Austria, Denmark, Greece and Luxembourg, always votes against.
The rest either abstain or vary their vote. The result is that no decision is taken, and it falls to the commission to approve the new GMO, months later. To avoid this, governments should be asked to "participate effectively in the process with a view to reaching clear positions", the Commission document said.
GMO Use is Madness
One World Southeast Europe, 18 March 2005. The participants in the debate "Does Croatia Need GMO Crops?", held yesterday in Osijek, gave negative answer to that question. They also concluded that it is the ecological agricultural production that can bring great benefits for Croatia.
The GMO seeds didn't get the support of a single participant. To the contrary, the panel supported the initiative of the Osijek Greens and the Croatian Environmental Press Centre, the organizers of the debate, to declare the Osijek-Baranja District GMO free area.
The debate was mediated by professor Marijan Jost, prominent Croatian scientist in the field of genetics and an outspoken opponent of genetically modified seeds and their use in Croatia.
Jost said that he was convinced that Croatia will be able to resist "the powerful global GMO lobbyists", but that the success will depend on the "people who will sit on the competent committees".
Jost added that the science, lamentably, lost its ethics when faced by the capital. He pointed out that in the US, the members of the scientific community that support the use of GMOs are well paid lobbyists of the multinational corporations.
"The claim that GM products are placed under strict scrutiny and control is not true," said Jost. "Analyses show that GMO seeds don't yield better crops. Quite to the opposite, the yields are weaker by 15% on average. Also, it is not true that they require less herbicides, for they need, for some crops, up to 30% more", warned Jost, convinced that organic food has much better chances to be sold profitably in the global markets.
Ljiljanka Mitos-Svoboda, from the Osijek Greens, said that Croatia, under the obligations it accepted with the WTO membership, can't close its borders to the imports of genetically modified food, but that the public has the right to be informed and decide what to buy on its own. It implies the obligation to declare the contents of the products. Mitos-Svoboda believes that the Law on GMOs, currently in the process of drafting, should clearly state the Croatia doesn't need GMOs and that control and supervision have to be strict and efficient.
The Director of the Croatian Food Agency, Boris Antunovic, presented the organizers and participants with a letter of support of the need to debate this issue. In the letter, Antunovic emphasizes that the draft-Law on GMOs obligates the Government to permanently or temporarily restrict or prohibit GMO imports if they miss the proper scientific data on possible harmful consequences for the environment of human health.
Declare Ireland a GM-free zone
Irish Farmers Journal, 18 March 2005, letter to the Editor:
Dear Sir,
Genetically modified crops are spreading round the world.
With the intense commercial pressure from the US chemical companies to encourage us to grow more food, supposedly safely, by using their products - when we have set-aside to stop us growing food - Ireland is, like everyone else, being squeezed to follow the herd.
However, there are a considerable number of people, apparently the majority in Europe, who do not wish to succumb.
We always complain that we cannot compete on the world market for meat or cereals.
This is because we have been foolishly pushed by idiotic bureaucrats to produce quantity, when quality should have been the aim all along. Subsidy encouraged this.
However, we have an immense opportunity staring us in the face.
This island should immediately declare that we will only produce GM-free food. Don't let's have some fool civil servant or minister squander this opportunity through heir onw brainlessness as so often happened before.
This is an opportunity - seize it.
– Johnny Couchman, Johnston House, Carlow.
EU Parliament conference on GMO-free zones
The Assembly of European Regions (AER) and Friends of the Earth Europe (FOEE) will co-host a conference on "Safeguarding sustainable European agriculture: Coexistence, GMO free zones and the promotion of quality food produce in Europe" on 17 May 2005 in the European Parliament, Brussels. This is taking place with the kind invitation of Mr Janusz Wojciechowski - member of the European Parliament - and the support of the regions of Upper Austria and Tuscany.
How can we safeguard the rights of farmers and manufacturers to produce food without genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? And how do we ensure that traditional and organic agriculture can not only be safeguarded but also effectively promoted in future European agriculture?
These two questions will be at the heart of the conference. For the first time members of the European Parliament, representatives from European regions, the European Commission, the EU member states, farmersorganisations and environmental NGOs will discuss together the possible content of an EU wide legislative framework for the coexistence between genetically modified (GM), conventional, traditional and organic agriculture.
The conference will take place against a highly charged background. As a consequence of the decision by the European Commission in May 2004 to restart the EU authorisation process for genetically modified products, more than 100 regions and 3500 areas throughout Europe have declared themselves a GMO free area. This growing movement is driven by concerns over the freedom of choice for farmers and consumers, environmental safety and the lack of so-called coexistence rules at the EU level, that tell farmers how they should separate traditional, organic and GM crops.
However, a new political opportunity is opening up with the EU agricultural Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boell, stating that she will consider a new EU regulatory framework on coexistence. The conference on 17 May will explore the legal possibilities to include the concerns and wishes of the regions into any new legislative framework. The conference will be free of charge and there will be simultaneous translation in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, German and Polish).
Further information about the conference and a registration form are available at
www.gmofree-conference.org.
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Food fight looms over Europe
Reuters, 14 March 2005. Brussels - Europe looks on course for another clash with its top trading partners over genetically modified (GMO) foods as negotiations get under way for the gradual enforcement of a treaty to control global GMO trade.
Europe's skeptical stance on GMOs has long poisoned its trade relations with biotech-friendly countries like the United States, Canada and Argentina, where consumers shrug off claims from green groups that these products may be pose risks.
In Europe, genetically modified maize, soybeans and other crops and their products are shunned as "Frankenstein Foods" by most consumers, leading retailers to keep them off shelves.
This puts a dent in world trade and prompted the GMO-growing trio to file suit against the EU at the World Trade Organization for its policy, begun in 1998, of not accepting imports of new GMOs: the EU's de facto moratorium, which ended last year.
The battleground now switches to a UN treaty, the Cartagena Protocol, that came into force in 2003 and aims for more transparency and control in international GMO trade.
It has been signed by 116 countries but not the United States, the world's GMO giant. Negotiations on implementation and enforcement have moved slowly, with the next meeting set for Montreal in late May and early June.
The protocol obliges exporters to provide more information on GMO products like maize and soybeans before any shipment to recipient countries, to help them decide whether to accept it.
Crucially, it lets a nation reject GMO imports or donations, even without scientific proof, if it fears they pose a danger to traditional crops, undermine local cultures or cut the value of biodiversity to indigenous communities.
U.S. frustration
The biotech industry complains the treaty will create costs running into millions of dollars for testing export cargoes for the presence of gene-altered grains.
In the meantime, those countries that have not signed the treaty -- the major exporters, who say GMOs are no different from natural organisms -- are struggling to make their voices heard.
This was the situation at the last major meeting of the protocol's signatory countries in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004.
"They (exporters) were unhappy (at Kuala Lumpur). They get their view heard and then it's ignored," said Doreen Stabinsky, genetic engineering campaigner at Greenpeace International.
"They were frustrated, they will continue to be frustrated and they'll do what they can to influence the terms of the agreement," she told Reuters.
Too complex, industry says
Many details on how countries put the protocol into practice still have to be thrashed out. Whatever happens, all signatories must work its provisions into national laws. And this is where GMO exporters, and the biotech industry, want to play a role.
"The protocol itself is not so bad, it's how it would be interpreted. It's a question of how far you go. That's where the battleground for ideas will be," said Christian Verschueren, director-general of CropLife International, a Brussels-based federation representing the global plant science industry.
"The complexity of this could grind the trade to a halt and add costs. Liability is also one of the major issues," he said. "We're seeing two trading blocs emerge, GMO and non-GMO. It will eventually equalize out, but it's creating some tension."
U.S. officials say they want to see proper implementation of the protocol by its signatories, in line with WTO rules. If not, this would disrupt trade and could be challenged.
EU diplomats were skeptical about U.S. attempts to influence the final shape of the treaty.
"It really doesn't look like it's progressing very fast," said one. "The U.S. doesn't think we (EU) have implemented it in a particularly fair way so I can't see what the immediate incentive is for them to take the process very seriously."
Problem areas for the Montreal meeting will be agreeing requirements for labeling and documentation of GMO cargoes, as well as thresholds for the percentage content of GMO material that may exist by chance in a non-GMO shipment.
"There will be a push by the United States and other countries for allowing adventitious presence of unapproved GMOs -- for which Europe has a zero percent threshold. Those things are on the table," Stabinsky said.
Half of Poland Declares Itself GMO Free Zone
International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside, Press release, 17 March 2005. Mazowieckie Province (with capitol Warsaw), with a population of over five
million, has become the sixth Province in Poland whose local authorities
have passed a resolution declaring themselves a GMO Free Zone.
Earlier, similar decisions were made by the boards of Podkarpackie (with
capitol Rzeszow), Malopolska (with capitol Krakow), Podlaskie (with capitol
Bialystok), Lubelskie (with capitol Lublin) and Kajawsko-Pomorskie (with
capitol Torun). Further, strong declarations of intent against GMO's have
been made by the main farmers organisation in Donaslaskie.
Together with single communities in different parts of Poland, in total
almost half the Polish population are now living in an area where local
authorities have declared GMO Free Zones. Another four Provinces are
currently taking steps in this direction.
This situation highlights the success of ICPPC's campaign "Stop GMOs in
Poland' for a GMO Free Poland. However, this is just the begining of the
campaign. Provinces and local authorities, in common with many other
European GMO Free Zones, are not empowered to 'make laws' to stop GMOs in
their regions. So consequently, growing pressure is needed to pursuade the
Polish Government and European Commission to officialy recognise and respect
regional declarations of GMO Free Status; and to create legal tools for
local gavernments.
ICPPC is so far operating on a very minimum budget and badly needs help to
carry out the next phase of the campaign - to achieve a complete ban on the planting
of GM crops and the sale of GM seeds. This will require a major awareness
raising campaign for both farmers and consumers in Poland, as well as
Pan-European pressure on the Commission of the European Union.
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Greenpeace alleges double standards over GM food practices
China Daily, 15 March 2005, by Qin Chuan. Greenpeace has accused two international food companies in Beijing of double-standards with their genetically modified (GM) food policies.
Meanwhile, the latest consumer survey commissioned by the environmental group shows that Chinese consumers have become more aware of GM food, and more of them are rejecting it.
During December and January, a total of 28 food products were bought in markets in Beijing and Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province, and then tested by GeneScan, an international testing company, according to Greenpeace's Ma Tianjie.
The testing found that Kraft Food's Ritz cracker and Campbell Soup Company's Golden Corn soup contain ingredients made from GM soybean, Ma said.
The two companies have both promised not to use GM ingredients in Europe, but have not done so in China, Ma said.
"We are asking these companies not to sell GM food in China, as consumers deserve the same rights and safety standards everywhere," he said...
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17 March 2005
GM 'forced on public' by EC
Western Mail (Wales), 15 March 2005, by Steve Dube.
THE European Commission has been accused of covering up major concerns about the safety and environmental hazards of GM crops and foods.
The environmental group Friends of the Earth has lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman over the EC's refusal to allow public access to the Second Submission it made to the World Trade Organisation Dispute Panel in August last year.
The revelations led GM Free Cymru to renew its call on the National Assembly Government for an outright ban on GM crops and food.
The dispute centres on the claim by the United States, Canada and Argentina, the world's three largest producers of GM crops, that the EU is breaking WTO rules with its moratorium on GM products for human consumption.
They say that the moratorium, together with national bans in France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg, are not scientifically justified and hinder the development of the technology, which they claim could benefit health and reduce hunger.
The EU's Second Submission was considered by scientists and politicians at the final meeting of the Dispute Panel in Geneva last month.
FoE says the submission argues that the science is constantly evolving, that uncertainties about antibiotic resistant genes and the side effects of GM crops on beneficial insects are legitimate scientific concerns and that EU member states should be able to determine their own level of protection.
FoE Europe, which is monitoring the WTO case, says the submission shows that the EC is admitting on the one hand to legitimate scientific concerns about the safety of GM foods and crops.
But on the other hand, the EC is effectively putting people's health and the environment at risk by forcing new GM products on to the European market despite these concerns.
GM Free Cymru spokesman Dr Brian John said the revelations showed that the EC attitude to GM was shot through with hypocrisy and disregard for the health and safety of the people of Europe.
The group has written to Wales Environment Minister Carwyn Jones calling for Wales to harden opposition to GM crops from being as restrictive as possible to a complete ban.
Dr John said the first signs of EC doubt over the human and environmental risks came with its First Submission to the WTO Dispute Panel.
"But we now know that by August 2004 - more than six months ago - those doubts had become firmed up into real concerns, expressed in writing," said Dr John.
"But in spite of this the EC has continued to push GM crops and foods on to a reluctant European public."
For example, last October the EC approved the import of Monsanto NK603 maize despite the fact that EU members failed to agree on its safety. And last November the Commission tried to force various member states to lift their de facto bans on GM crop plantings. Most refused, although the UK Government was in favour.
"To call the European Commission's actions hypocritical and two-faced would be to put it mildly," said Dr John.
"It would be more appropriate to say that it has been criminally negligent."
Ireland's climate is set to get warmer
Irish News, 17 March 2005. Ireland's climate is set to change slowly but surely over the next century, with winter floods and summer droughts becoming regular events. The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) yesterday held a conference at W5 in the Odyssey in Belfast to draw the attention of public bodies such as councils and government departments to the effects global climate change will have on the north. Nine of the 15 warmest years on record in Northern Ireland have occurred since 1990, and a Met Office study predicts that in less than 20 years, average temperatures will rise by up to 1C, with summer rainfall falling by up to 20 per cent and winter precipitation rising by up to 10 per cent.
Temperature changes will become even more marked by the 2050s, with summer and autumn daily temperatures being up to 2.5C warmer. Summers will also be up to 30 per cent drier and winters 15 per cent wetter. By the 2080s, autumn days could be up to 4C warmer and summers 50 per cent drier. Conference delegates heard that benefits of a warmer climate could include reduced year-round heating costs, increased tourism and the ability to grow new crops such as maize. Downsides include increased frequency of extreme weather, such as flash-flooding, storm surges, droughts and heat waves.
The science of Iraqi farming
Western Mail (Wales), 15 March 2005. By Gill Evans, MEP. THE Western Mail has reported in detail on the GM crops debate, and the latest articles in these pages concerned whether or not GM crops could benefit developing countries.
I believe the evidence is quite clear that the shortage of food in developing countries is due to poverty not to the lack of GM crops. But if anyone needs further evidence of how the biotech companies try to influence governments and the GM debate itself, just look at the evidence from Iraq this week.
Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru has discovered that new laws were quietly introduced by the United States in Iraq last year which effectively put the whole of the country's agriculture sector under the control of Western multinational companies.
The new Order 81 was put in place last April by the US Administrator Paul Bremer, aided by the United States Agriculture Department.
It enables the US to shape the kind of agricultural system they want in Iraq - a small number of cash crops controlled by a small number of big companies which supply both the seeds and the pesticides.
The order basically means that Iraqi farmers will have to use "protected" crop varieties and enter into contracts with the registered owner of the seed, which is normally one of the major companies which also supply the pesticides and herbicides. Seed saving from these "protected" crops is not allowed.
Most worryingly, there is no distinction made between GM plants and other plants.
Given the disastrous state of Iraq following the attack and occupation, it will be of no surprise that most new seed will be brought into the country by US and other aid agencies and that within a few years the Iraqi farmers will find themselves having to pay out royalties every year for their seeds.
With no protection for conventional crops, contamination is inevitable.
While the debate about GMOs and co-existence goes on in Europe and elsewhere, the reality is that the use of GMOs worldwide is increasing.
From June this year there will be applications to the EU for permission to grow GM maize and GM sweet maize crops which are resistant to insects and to the herbicide Glufosinate.
The European Commission has at last recognised that EU-wide regulations on co-existence are needed and will produce a report by the end of this year.
But they will have to move much faster to keep up with the companies which are pressing ahead regardless, as they have done in Iraq.
Jill Evans MEP is Deputy Leader of Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales
16 March 2005
Plowing Iraq for Profits
American agribusiness isn't wasting any time exploiting Iraq's fragile food sector, battered by decades of war and sanctions.
Guerilla News Network, 16 March 2005. Summary:
Critics of American agribusiness warn that this confluence of privatization policies, GMO-friendly patent protections and U.S. exports is a volatile mix that could further destabilize war-ravaged Iraqi farmers while producing few benefits for their American counterparts.
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GMO ban legal: province
Canadian Broadcasting Company - Prince Edward Island, 16 March 2005. CHARLOTTETOWN - Lawyers with the provincial government say the province has the legal latitude to ban genetically modified organisms.
A legislative committee has been hearing submissions over the last few months about a possible ban of GMOs.
Last week, two grain producers asked the committee if it was even possible to ban seed that has already been approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The province's legal department said Wednesday that the Constitution allows provinces make their own rules for agriculture.
The only exception is if there are rules on the federal level that override the provincial laws.
Provincial lawyers have found there are no federal rules in place to prevent a ban on GMOs.
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29952/story.htm
The committee's is about half way through hearing the presentations.
Bulgaria Bans Some GMO's To Harmonise With EU
Reuters, 16 March 2005. SOFIA - Bulgaria's parliament passed a law on Tuesday banning the produce and sale of some genetically modified organisms (GMOs), including wheat, to harmonise with EU norms as it gears up for entry in 2007.
The law represents an about-face for the poor Balkan state, which experimented extensively with GMO strains of tobacco and other products last decade but has since changed tack to join the largely GMO-sceptical EU.
"In passing this law, we fully meet our commitments to the EU in the accession process, and at the same time we are defending Bulgaria's interests," Dzhevdet Chakurov, head of the parliamentary commission on environment, told Reuters.
Deputies voted to ban, as of June 1, a list of foods including wheat, tobacco, grapes, roses and all fruits and vegetables, as well as produce already banned in the Union and those with marker genes for antibiotic resistance....
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Stay away from genetically modified foods
Fiji Times. 16 March 2005. Consumers have a fundamental right to know what they are eating and that it is safe, says Minister for Commerce Mr Tomasi Vuetilovoni.
Launching yesterday's World Consumers Rights Day in Suva, Mr Vuetilovoni said governments should not be complacent about developments in areas such as the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in food.
"Genetically engineered products are a new phenomenon that are yet to be introduced within Pacific Island countries. However in an era of increasing globalisation and trade liberalization, it is crucial that the governments of these countries do not adopt a complacent attitude towards these serious issues," he said.
"Food is different from other consumer products in that it is something we literally take inside ourselves. It's necessary on a daily basis for growth and life and bound up in our cultures and traditions so we care about it intensely."
The theme for this year's celebrations was "Consumers say NO to GMOs".
Mr Vuetilovoni said the World Health Organisation defined GMOs as organisms in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.
The Consumer Council of Fiji is joining with their international partners in their campaign on Genetically Modified Foods in ensuring that all GM foods are required to be safe for human health and the environment.
Trends in Citizens' Movements against GM crops in 2005
Citizens' Biotechnology Information Center - Bio Journal, Japan, February 2005 issue. It is predicted that world areas planted to GM crops will further expand this year, but especially notable is the problem of China's GM rice approval. China already cultivates GM cotton, but if GM rice is approved this will possibly open the gates for a flood of other GM crop approvals, making China a large GM crop cultivator similar to the USA. If GM crop cultivation expands in China, India will probably be influenced, and this may lead to a wave of GM crop cultivation expansion throughout the whole of Asia.
The trend being observed in Japan is that of a strategic shift on the part of the GM crop developers. As well as the continuation from last year of the anti-pollen allergy rice being developed by NIAS, Syngenta is developing an ethanol-producing corn (maize), and Monsanto has a herbicide-resistant lawn variety in the works. Thus there is a shift towards non-food GM crop applications, including flowers.
In the opposition movement to genetic engineering, the expansion of the GMO-free zone movement is now attracting attention. The movement is now spreading like wildfire in Europe and has also begun anew in North America, Asia, and Australia. It will possibly spread to the whole world. In Japan, Hokkaido has produced a bylaw to regulate GM crop cultivation, and a GMO-free zone movement has begun, showing that not only consumers but also local administrations and farmers are likely to become very active in this movement.
With the spread of genetic pollution from GM crops, contamination of food is continually increasing. The further amplification of consumer anxiety is expected, and with the citizen investigation of rapeseed pollution now well underway, the reality of the situation is expected to come to light during the year. It is also expected that the movement for a review of the GM food labeling system will gather momentum during the year. .
30% of processed foods are contaminated with GM crops
Citizens' Biotechnology Information Center - Bio Journal, Japan, February 2005 issue. On December 10, 2004, MAFF announced results of its investigation into the actual situation regarding food labelling of processed foods, concerning GM crops and place of origin. 1845 products were objected, and 3 samples of each were purchased and analysed by the IAA Center for Food Quality, Labelling and Consumer Services. Concerning the GM crops, 117 processed food products, which are sold all over Japan, and which carried NON-GM labels, were tested. Traces of GM varieties were found in 37 products (31.6%).
15 March 2005
MEPs demand dedicated EU biodiversity fund
The European parliament has urged the creation of a dedicated EU biodiversity fund to finance management of the bloc's Natura 2000 network. In a resolution adopted in Strasbourg, MEPs said a European Commission proposal to group funding of protected wildlife sites with existing structural and rural development funds was inadequate.
MEPs want a new fund to be created under the remodelled Life+ programme. Though the resolution does not explicitly propose a budget, it makes it clear that at least € 21bn would be needed over seven years from 2007-13.
In other business, the parliament responded to the European Commission's proposed EU action plan on Organic Farming.Ý In line with the EU executive's "pragmatic" approach, its resolution does not call for quantitative targets to increase organic cultivation.
The parliament also adopted a resolution setting out its thoughts on the mid-term review of the EU's Lisbon Strategy.
Separately, the parliament's environment committee has circulated a highly critical report on European Commission plans to grant exemptions to substance bans under the ROHS Directive.
Initiated by the Greens/EFA group, the draft resolution (see link
below) will be voted on by committee members on Tuesday.
Follow-up:
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Department's animal-feed tests faulty, court finds
Irish Times, 14 March 2005. By Seán MacConnell. The Department of Agriculture and Food's animal-feed sampling and testing regime, under which it has seized hundreds of tonnes of imported animal feedstuffs, has been found by the High Court to be faulty.
The ruling has thrown into doubt the system of checking used by the department, which it claimed is being used across the EU.
A department spokesman confirmed last night that it would be appealing to the Supreme Court the ruling of Mr Justice Peter Kelly in a challenge by importers Albatros Feeds against it and the State for impounding a consignment of animal feed from the United States in November/December last year.
He ruled that the tests carried out, which found samples of bone in the feed, did not prove that the presence of bone fragments indicated processed animal protein.
Irish regulations are based on EU legislation introduced in the early 1990s banning any bone material in cattle feed. It has been used extensively in the last decade as Ireland operates a zero-tolerance attitude towards any bone material found in cattle feed.
Samples of the maize gluten, which formed the basis of the case, were discharged at Foynes and Ringaskiddy and were found to contain particles of bone known as "spitule" when tests were carried out on the them abroad.
However, on Monday in the High Court, Albatros Feeds challenged the seizure of more than 7,400 tonnes of the material, which is normally incorporated into animal feed.
It claimed the authorised officer did not have the necessary powers under the Irish legislation to impound the feed and instruct its recall from the market. It also claimed that the Minister could not prove that the presence of bone fragments indicated processed animal protein.
Mr Justice Kelly found for the appellant on both issues, ruling that the department official did not have the necessary power to seize the material and instruct its recall from the market.
However, of greater significance was his ruling on the second issue, which rendered useless the system of testing for processed animal protein used by the department for the last 15 years.
The incorporation of meat and bone meal into cattle feed has been banned by the EU since 1989 and was banned from pig and poultry rations in 2000.
13 March 2005
Bulgaria to Ban Some GMO's, Harmonise with EU
Reuters News Service, Sofia: March 11, 2005. Bulgaria's parliament will pass a law on Friday banning the production of some genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to harmonise the Balkan state's legislation with EU norms.
The law will ban the growing or sale of a list of products including wheat, tobacco, grapes, cotton, roses and all fruit and vegetables.
It will also include GMO products banned in the EU, which Bulgaria aims to join in 2007.
The list did not include genetically modified maize, but was left open so that the agriculture and environment ministries may add items to it in future.
"We are going to pass this law tomorrow," the head of the parliamentary commission on the environment, Dzhevdet Chakurov, told Reuters on Thursday.
Other GMO foods not on the list will remain strictly regulated and must be clearly labelled as containing genetically modified products.
Many Europeans fear GMO food could be potentially unsafe for humans, and environment groups have accused biotech firms of using poor eastern Europe as a backdoor into the EU, which is still sceptical of biotechnology.
Biotech firms such as US-based Monsanto say the food is safe, while in Bulgaria GMOs have never ignited public debate since a large part of its eight million people live near the poverty line and care mainly about daily survival.
In the mid-1990s, Bulgaria's Institute of Genetic Engineering was one of the first bodies in the world to develop tobacco strains resistant to disease and pesticides, and it also experimented with apple trees, tomatoes and grapes.
In 1999 GM maize from Monsanto was grown on 12,000 hectares for test purposes, but official data for 2004 showed there were no applications to grow GM maize.
Environment groups fear, however, that some Bulgarian farmers may be growing GMO products illicitly, and also say those grown legally are often fed to stock once harvested, allowing them to enter the food chain.
Fines for breaking the new legislation, due to take effect retroactively from January 1, will range up to one million levs ($684,000).
Bulgaria's neighbour Romania, which is also in line for 2007 EU membership, hopes to develop large-scale biotech crops.
It currently grows GM soy on 0.4 percent of its total farmland, but has said it would not allow the world's first biotech wheat, developed by Monsanto, for planting or consumption.
Hungary, one of the EU's biggest grain producers, became the first country in eastern Europe earlier this year to ban GMO maize, when it outlawed the planting of Monsanto's MON 810 hybrid seed.
Australia Struggles to Win Support for GMO Crops
Reuters News Service, 11 March 2005. By Michael Byrnes. Sydney, Australia:
- Consumer opposition in Australia last month forced its three biggest poultry producers to stop using imported, genetically modified feed to fatten the 450 million birds they put on the market each year.
Inghams, Bartter-Steggles and Baiada changed course after thousands of letters, faxes and telephone calls from angry consumers in a campaign spearheaded by Greenpeace. It was a clear win for the anti-GMO (genetically modified organisms) campaign.
"It would not have happened without a hell of a lot of people doing a lot of leg work, writing and calling the companies," said Bob Phelps of GeneEthics Network. He is a long-time opponent of genetic engineering.
The Australian government, meanwhile, has sought to convince people to embrace GMO.
"Greenpeace's recent campaign to intimidate Australian poultry producers into excluding GMO soy from feed had no basis in science," Agriculture Minister Warren Truss told Reuters. Australia's poultry industry is relatively small and caters mainly to the domestic market.
But for canola, it is the second biggest exporter, after Canada.
Concern from state governments has blocked Australia from growing its first commercial GMO canola crop, although the federal government approved it for commercial release in December 2003. Most provincial governments have the bans in place until 2006, with some extending the bans until 2009.
State bans are based on concerns that GMO canola would jeopardize Australia's exports of conventionally-produced canola.
Phelps said the decision to stop the use of GMO feed for chickens, which can be fed canola meal, would make it even more difficult for the ban on commercial GMO canola to be lifted.
But federal government officials said the country's farmers would suffer in the longer term because they were falling behind their counterparts in other key farm commodity producing nations.
"How much longer can Australian farmers compete if unscientific state bans on genetically modified organisms deny access to higher yielding, pest- and disease-resistant, drought-tolerant plant varieties?" Truss said.
IN A FIX
Farmers said it is difficult for them to learn whether there is a viable market for genetically modified canola abroad unless they grow such crops.
"State governments want answers to trade questions if they are to change the moratoria. But if we have the moratoria that don't allow us to grow anything, how do we generate data to answer the questions?" asked Paula Fitzgerald, executive director of farmer-backed group Agrifood Awareness.
US biotech giant Monsanto Co., which pioneered GMO crops in Australia by introducing a transgenic cotton crop eight years ago, pulled out of trials on GMO canola in Australia late last year.
A company spokesman said it was waiting and watching developments. Its rival Bayer CropScience, meanwhile, is continuing with trials on about 100 hectares of land.
"We're not really able to predict commercialisation," said Susie O'Neill, general manager of the science division for Bayer CropScience Australia.
A variety of industry and scientific organisations are conducting field trials for GMO rice, grape vines, sugarcane, pineapples and some other crops.
But trade analysts said the prospect of these crops moving close to commercial production is even more remote than it is for canola.
Australia's importance in the GMO debate is mainly as a producer. Its cotton crop is now 80 percent GMO.
"There's a lot going beyond the basic glass house-and-lab work. The question is when they're scientifically at a point for commercialisation," Fitzgerald said.
11 March 2005
Too much commerce 'harms science'
BBC Online, 11 March 2005. Lord Winston says science risks being tainted by commercial interests, in the same week the government claimed it was essential to the UK's economic success.
Launching National Science Week at London's Dana Centre, the fertility expert said these concerns were not being addressed properly by ministers.
The government has pledged £10bn to science over the next three years.
But critics have complained that most of the money will go to research in money-spinning areas like biotech.
"Too much commercial activity can actually diminish the value of research that is driven purely by universities. I think that is a danger," Lord Winston told journalists at a news conference.
"I'm not sure it's quite well articulated by the government at the present time. And I think that it is something they need to consider carefully."
Trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt announced how the overall £10bn science cake would be carved up between the different UK research councils on Monday.
Objections raised
But Professor Robin Lovell-Badge, head of genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, and others said that little of the increased money would be available to fund research in basic science.
"To my mind, once one sees that science will drive our economy, it worries me too that that is seen as a major part of the whole science agenda," Lord Winston said.
Ý
"If we end up with too much commerce driving science, we may be driving it down avenues that are not always acceptable to everyone in our society."
Lord Winston said that GM crops were a prime example of an issue that many people had rejected because they connected the technology with commercial interests.
"People are generally very concerned about being driven for commercial reasons down a particular avenue where they can see risks but not many benefits," he explained.
Strings attached
The professor of fertility studies, who is based at Hammersmith Hospital in London, went on to say that universities were increasingly being encouraged to think about the commercial value in research.
"That results in research groups doing work that is valuable but not necessarily the best research that they can do. Rather it is research that attracts venture capital," he said.
"I don't actually believe that commercialisation is going to be a pivotal [funding source] on a large scale for a large number of universities.
"But it has the strings attached which often blur what scientists are trying to do."
Lord Winston was speaking as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA).
As part of National Science Week, over a thousand events are being held throughout the UK, including lectures, debates and demonstrations.
Landmark Victory in World's First Case Against Biopiracy!! The Neem Tree
Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi, India The Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), 8 March 2005.
European Patent Office Upholds Decision to Revoke Neem Patent
Munich, March 8, 2005. In a landmark decision today, the European Patent Office upheld a decision to revoke in its entirety a patent on a fungicidal product derived from seeds of the Neem, a tree indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. The historic action resulted from a legal challenge mounted ten years ago by three Opponents: the renowned Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, Magda Aelvoet, then MEP and President of the Greens in the European Parliament, and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Their joint Legal Opposition claimed that the fungicidal properties of the Neem tree had been public knowledge in India for many centuries and that this patent exemplified how international law was being misused to transfer biological wealth from the South into the hands of a few corporations, scientists, and countries of the North. Today the EPO's Technical Board of Appeals dismissed an Appeal by the would-be proprietors-the United States of America and the company Thermo Trilogy-and maintained the decision of its Opposition Division five years ago to revoke the Neem patent in its entirety, thus bringing to a close this ten-year battle in the world's first legal challenge to a biopiracy patent.
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UK Firms Drop GMO Study, Seek to Boost Regular Seed
Reuters, 10 March 2005. By David Cullen. LONDON - Consumer fears of genetically modified (GMO) food have dealt a heavy blow to Britain's biotech industry, with many scientists leaving the sector and firms refocusing on conventional research, industry analysts said.
"Most of the industry has left this country already. It's going to cost us hundreds of millions of pounds a year in lost revenue," said John Pidgeon, director of plant research body Broom's Barn, which is funded by private and government money.
The European Union last year ended an effective six-year embargo on new GMO approvals, but the product in question was for food use only.
Brussels has made no approvals since 1998 of any new gene-spliced crop varieties for planting and growing in the EU.
Analysts say GMO research has been hit hard.
"We're not doing that much in the UK these days," said Julian Little of Bayer CropScience, the company behind much of Britain's GMO studies.
"And if the government in the UK today said we can go ahead (and sell GMO seeds), it would take a number of years for anything to happen."
Bayer decided to abandon field testing of GMO crops in Britain last year and then withdrew any applications awaiting government approval to sell biotech seeds.
The firm, a unit of Germany-based Bayer AG, won conditional approval in Britain last year to sell a GMO variety of forage maize, but it later decided against the move, saying the government rules attached to the go-ahead were too tight.
UNITED STATES, CANADA AHEAD
No new GMO seeds are awaiting approval in Britain, whereas in the mid-1990s more than 50 different GMO applications were in the queue.
Public opposition to so-called Frankenstein Foods is strong in Britain, where last week top supermarket chain Tesco -- which excludes GMOs from its own-brand products -- said consumer attitudes showed little sign of weakening. As a result, analysts estimate that Britain's research competitors in the United States and Canada have a head start equivalent to five years of technological progress.
"In terms of the UK's main crop -- cereals -- then the catch-up period may well be nearer to 10 years," said Roger Turner, CEO of the British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB), an association of private and public plant breeders.
CONVENTIONAL FOCUS
Conventional UK crop breeding continues, as does investment in new farming techniques.
"For most arable crops, conventional plant breeding is still, and will be, the mainstay...for the near future," said John Snape, head of the Crop Genetics department at the independent John Innes plant research centre in eastern England.
The BSPB, which has nearly 50 company members, said conventional plant breeding contributed to around half of the threefold increase in UK wheat yields recorded between 1947 and 1992 and that yields were still rising.
In January a unit of UK cereal trader Grainfarmers opened a new 1.75 million-pound seed processing plant and laboratory facility aimed at improving the quality and marketability of British grain.
10 March 2005
The Zambia Experiment
Sojourners magazine, April 2005. By Peter Henriot. With 86 percent of the country below the poverty line, the southern African nation of Zimbabwe seems an unlikely candidate to face down the United States - and corporate giant Monsanto - over genetically modified seeds.
Mutale, a 40-year-old Zambian peasant farmer, was standing in front of his two hectares of maize (corn), smiling broadly. He had just finished explaining to me that despite poor rains, he was able to raise a good crop to feed his family and to sell a bit of surplus for some extra cash to meet household needs. He looked so very different from the other farmers I had spoken to only a few days earlier. They were his neighbors, worked soil similar to his, and had experienced the same dry season. But they were not at all smiling! No good maize harvest for them.
The difference was that Mutale had planted his maize field using an organic agriculture approach, not relying on heavy doses of chemical fertilizer as his neighbors did. The organic agriculture approach - using cattle manure and decayed materials from nitrogen-rich plants such as legumes - was both much less expensive and much more efficient. During a drought season such as those Zambia has experienced periodically in recent years, it is important to keep as much moisture as possible close to the crops planted. But chemical fertilizers don't store this moisture as does organic matter in the soil. The organic matter retains excess moisture and slowly releases it to the crop in a natural way.
The smile on Mutale's face taught me one more important reason for the wisdom of Zambia's rejection of genetically modified organism (GMO) crops coming into our country. There simply are plenty of alternatives to the GMO approach vigorously pushed by the United States. The U.S. government argues that global hunger can best be dealt with by introducing GMO technologies that are supposed to increase agricultural yields. But those of us who live in Zambia and other poor countries know that the major cause of hunger is not insufficient food production but poverty and the unjust social structures of distribution and accessibility of food.
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9 March 2005
EU Member states block vote on biotech maize variety
Euractiv.com - 9 March 2005. Despite the positive safety assessments of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), theÝEU scientific panel on GMOs has put off a decision on the importing and processing of 1507 maize, including animal feed use, in the EU.
The EU regulatory committee on genetically modified organisms (GMOs)Ýfailed, on 7 March 2005,Ýto agree on the authorisation of the import and processing of a new GM maize (1507).
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) hasÝissued two positive opinions on 1507 maize, oneÝrelating toÝthe food use and the other to import, feed and industrial processing and cultivation.ÝThis is the first time that theÝEFSAÝhas given a positive assessmentÝin the controversial area of whether GMO crops are safe to be planted.ÝÝ
Despite the end of the 6-year moratorium on allowing imports of new GMOs in May 2004, the EU-25 member states remain deeply divided on the issue.Ý
The next possibility to vote on 1507 maize is at the GMO panel's next meeting on 22 March 2005. However, the case will probably be handed over to ministers to decide.Ý
The Commission plans to launch, on 22 March 2005, a wide debate on the problems and political aspects related to GMOs.
UN vote urges human cloning ban
BBC, UK, 09.03.05. The UN has voted to approve a non-binding ban on
all human cloning, ending two years of wrangling. The
191-nation assembly voted in favour of the declaration by
84 votes to 34, with 37 abstentions. Ahead of the vote, the...
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Safety Concerns Keep E.Asia Consumers Off GMO Food
JAPAN/SOUTH KOREA: March 9, 2005 TOKYO/SEOUL - Nine years
after the debut of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in
the world market, consumers in East Asia are still worried
about eating GMO food, although the region uses grain from
such crops for feed. In Japan and South Korea, both major...
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China close to production of "safe" genetic rice
(Reuters) 9 March 2005 HONG KONG - As
early as this year, China could start commercial production
of a new breed of genetically engineered rice. If adopted,
it would be the world's first large-scale plantation of a...
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8 March 2005
Environment ministers called upon to reject mandate to European Commission on GMOs
EEB Press Release, Brussels, 8th March 2005. The European Environmental Bureau, the largest federation of environmental citizens organisations in Europe, has called upon EU Environmental Ministers to refuse a negotiation mandate to the Commission on GMOs and public participation.
This Thursday, the EU Environmental Council is to decide on how the EU will act in the final phase of negotiations on amending the Aarhus Convention so that it would include European citizens' rights to public participation in decision-making on GMOs. This would include decisions on deliberate releases of GMOs in agriculture, placing GMO products on the market, and contained use of GMOs. The Aarhus Convention gives citizens the right to access information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters 19 Member States and the European Community have already ratified this Convention and the six remaining Member States are in the process of doing so. However, the current Convention does not include the right to public participation in GMO matters. To remove this exemption, negotations were launched in 2002.
John Hontelez, Secretary General of the EEB comments, "The negotiation process has been very hard, as the EU Member States were divided and had decided they wanted to come to agreement amongst themselves before involving the other Parties of the Convention. As a result, 14 Parties that are outside the EU, most of them clearly demanding an international arrangement that they could use at home, were left in the cold."
According to the EEB, France and the Commission are the hardliners in current negotiations, fighting any Aarhus Convention interference with their internal and global GMO politics. Apparently, in the end, they have succeeded in convincing or at least accepting a majority of Member States. Sources say that only Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece and Italy are likely to oppose the Commission's mandate, too few members to block it...
Read the full text.
7 March 2005
EU Agency All-Clear is First Step to Growing GMO
BELGIUM:
March 7, 2005 BRUSSELS - Europe's leading food safety
agency gave a clean bill of health on Friday for the
planting of a genetically modified (GMO) maize, only the
first step towards possible EU approval for growing. While
the EU has now lifted its 6-year ban on allowing imports of...
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India Allows Transgenic Cotton in Northern States
INDIA:
March 7, 2005 NEW DELHI - India, the world's third largest
cotton producer, will let farmers in northern states grow
genetically modified cotton, an official said on Saturday.
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the
main regulatory body, had approved new varieties of...
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Biotech crops
clear Brazil hurdle
The International Herald Tribune, March 4, 2005 Friday, BYLINE: Todd Benson, The New York Times. In a significant victory for large biotechnology companies
like Monsanto, Brazil's lower house of Congress
overwhelmingly approved legislation paving the way for the...
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Lula Lets Down Greens in the Amazon
Marcelo Ballve, Pacific News Service, Mar 04, 2005 Editor's
Note: In the aftermath of the assassination of an American
nun and environmentalist in the Amazon, Brazilian President
Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva is scrambling to appear
pro-environment. But Latin American commentators...
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Case not made for new seeds
Toronto Star, 4 March 2005. By Cameron Smith.
Large seed companies are trying to change the face of farming in Canada.
They want a lot more power over farmers. They want to be self-regulating and out from under the thumb of government. And they want the Canadian market opened wide to genetically engineered seeds.
All of this is necessary, they say, because global trade has made everything move faster.
In an 82-page report published in May, which can be found at http://www.seedsectorreview.com, they say: "Today, the speed of development for new varieties (of seeds) has escalated to the point where the life of a variety is very short. Innovative technology has brought with it the ability to produce plants with new desirable traits within one or two seasons, working in the laboratory rather than in the field."
As a result, they say, they need robust profits from the sale of seeds in order to finance research and development. And they need better protection of their intellectual property rights in the seeds they develop.
Specifically, they want to be the ones to certify seeds and they want to ensure it is certified seeds that farmers buy. One way of doing this, they say - while at the same time holding back from recommending it - is to "link crop insurance premiums with use of certified seed." In other words, require farmers to pay higher insurance premiums if they don't use certified seeds.
Some of them want to prohibit farmers from saving seeds for planting the following year, so farmers would have to buy new seeds every year from the seed companies.
At the very least, under what is called a "cascading right," they want to increase dramatically a farmer's liability for improperly using or selling seeds saved from a crop grown with a company's seeds. They want to be able to penalize the farmer not just for the use or sale of the seeds, but for all of the crops those seeds produce.
The difference is huge. It multiplies many times over the potential liability that a farmer would face and would give companies a much bigger stick with which to threaten farmers.
The report is called The Report of the Seed Sector Advisory Committee. The public should pay attention to it because the federal government has been deeply supportive.
It provided $600,000 in funding for the report and, through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, donated staff, office space and equipment. In a forward to the report, Bob Speller, the former minister of agriculture and agri-food, congratulated the seed companies for their report and said "I look forward to our continued partnership as the sector pursues this plan for growth and competitiveness."
As I read the report, it hangs on the slender premise that things are changing so fast that seed companies need to transform the way the business is regulated.
I asked Darrin Qualman, director of research for the National Farmers Union, about the claim that changes are necessary because new seeds are produced so quickly. According to him, this is all smoke and mirrors.
Seeds can be developed faster, yes. But are they better? He says he has been researching seed development over the past 40 to 50 years, and has found that "in many cases, seeds are improving now at the same rate, or slower, than they used to."
So, has the case been proved that Canada needs this tectonic change in the seed regulatory system? And do we need to open wide the gates to genetically engineered seeds because companies say it would be profitable?
To both questions, the answer surely is no.
Cameron Smith can be reached at camsmith@kingston.net
5 March 2005
EU food agency approves biotech maize
Environment Daily, 5 March 2005. In its first opinion on a biotech crop, Europe's food safety authority Efsa has concluded that GM1507 maize poses no threat to health or the environment.Ý Based on available evidence, says Efsa, GM1507 will have similar impacts on the environment as non-GM maize varieties.
Meanwhile, Austria has called on the European Commission to ban cultivation of another biotech maize, MON810, until new safety fears have been investigated. MON810 was last year added to the EU's common catalogue of agricultural plant varieties.
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EU food agency says GMO maize type safe to grow
USA Today / Reuters: 4 March 2005. Brussels - Europe's top food safety agency gave a clean bill of health on Friday for the planting of a genetically modified (GMO) maize, giving its first risk assessment on the growing of biotech crops.
The maize, known as 1507, is made jointly by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont Co., and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen seeds.
"In its first environmental risk assessment with regard to cultivation of a GM crop, the possible development of resistance in corn borers as a result of exposure to 1507 maize over several years, was identified," the European Food Safety Authority said in a statement.
"The Panel considers that 1507 maize will have similar impacts on the environment as other comparable non-GM maize cultivated plant varieties," it said. The maize was also safe for use in animal feed and industrial processing, it said.
The maize is engineered to resist the corn borer insect, among other pests, and glufosinate-ammonium herbicide.
Environmentalists fear Brazil's lifting of GMO ban
Reuters, 4 March 2005. By Andrew Hay. Brazilia - Brazil's move to lift a ban on the sale of genetically modified crops poses a serious threat to the country's endangered Amazon rain forest, environmentalists charged on Friday.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defied his environment minister, much of his party and his own campaign promises this week when he won legislation to allow the sale and planting of GMO plants -- most notably soy for export.
Big farmers driving economic growth and biotechnology firms like Monsanto Co.
The legislation, which also cleared the way for research involving human embryonic stem cells, was cheered by many Brazilians who saw it as a step toward a modern Brazil.
But environmentalists said the rain forest and small-scale farmers were the losers...
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Science slim on modified foods
Concord Monitor (USA), 4 March 2005. Letter to the editor from organic farmer Larry Fletcher. I
am compelled to respond to Monday's front-page story regarding Warner's warrant article on genetically engineered food. Although statements attributed to me were accurate, the story ignored my primary concern as expressed to your reporter over the possible human health risks of GMOs. Combined with the outrageous comments attributed to Steve Kerr, Vermont secretary of agriculture, the matter requires clarification.
In the spring of 2002, the Just Foods Citizen Panel sponsored by the UNH Office of Sustainability published a report of their study which concluded that "no one really knows for sure" whether genetically modified foods are safe to eat. After interviewing scientists on both sides of the issue, the panel found that "the rapid entrance of insufficiently tested GMOs into the food chain goes against the democratic ideal of choice."Once GMOs are introduced into a crop's gene pool, like it or not, there is no turning back.
Secretary Kerr's remarks seem intentionally misleading. I have never alleged that scientists are introducing toxins by moving genes from one plant to another. However, the Just Foods Panel found that genetically modified corn results in the production of a misshapen protein that is ingested by consumers.
Such a result raises concerns about possible allergic reactions and enters an area of science that is not yet well understood. The long-term health effects of such protein changes in GMOs have not been tested but are known in other diseases (such as Mad Cow Disease) to be very severe.
No, I am not saying that GMOs cause Mad Cow Disease, but neither can Mr. Kerr legitimately conclude in the long run that GMOs are not going to hurt us. As an organic grower I am prohibited from using GMO plants and seeds. So far, thankfully, I still have that choice.
Sonoma GMO debate heats up
Capital Press Agriculture Weekly (California, USA). Friday, March 04, 2005. By Ali Bay. Davis, Calif. - Activists are keeping the controversy over genetically modified organisms alive in California ‚ and especially in Sonoma County.
In January, anti-GMO activists gathered enough signatures to force the issue onto the November ballot when voters will decide whether or not to approve a 10-year moratorium on the cultivation of GMOS.
The initiative is similar to bans that have been approved in three counties, including Mendocino, and the city of Arcata.
Debate in Sonoma County is heating up following the release of a March 1 county report designed to evaluate the impacts of an anti-GMO ordinance in that region.
While the scope of the report was limited due to the short time frame county staff members had to collect data, it estimates the county would spend as much funding to enforce the ordinance as it currently applies to vector control programs - about $250,000 per year.
"Although the ordinance allows recovery of such costs from the violator, any investigation that does not produce a violation could result in this cost being borne by the county," reads the staff report.
The report also acknowledges that the ordinance could discourage biotechnology business development in Sonoma County by requiring special laboratories for such operations and could impact the $10 million organic farming industry in the region. However, no estimates of potential damage were laid out...
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3 March 2005 2005
Sonoma County to put GMO ordinance on ballot
Bay City News Wire. 1 March 2005. Santa Rosa. Sonoma County's Board of Supervisors agreed this morning to place on the ballot a nuisance abatement ordinance that bans the growth and sale of genetically modified organisms in unincorporated Sonoma County for 10 years.
The ordinance will appear either on the Nov. 8 ballot or on the ballot of a special election Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger might call before then.
The board decided not to adopt outright the proposed ordinance today, preferring to put the controversial issue before voters.
The supervisors on Feb. 8 requested a study by the county administrator's office of the impacts of the proposed ordinance on the county.
The study found it would be "prudent to anticipate and budget for $250,000 per year for additional staffing, legal and investigative costs'' as a result of the ordinance if it is passed. The figure excludes any cleanup costs of sites contaminated with genetically modified organisms or GMOs.
The study notes the proposed Sonoma County GMO ordinance differs from similar measures passed in Marin and Mendocino counties because it expires in 10 years and the supervisors can alter the ordinance.
The proposed ordinance also contains the right to sue the Agricultural Commissioner to "compel compliance'' with the ordinance, the County Administrator's Office said...
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2 March 2005
Brazil Seen Opening Door to GMO Crops in 2005
March 2, 2005 SAO PAULO - Brazil, with an agricultural
potential rivalling the United States, is about to open its
market in 2005 to genetically modified (GMO) crops, 10
years after its government first tried to legalise them. In
the last decade, environment and consumer groups have won...
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China Seen Opening Door Soon to Biotech Rice
CHINA: March 1, 2005 BRUSSELS - China could open the door
to biotech rice within two years, paving the way for the
GMO crop to enter the food stream across Asia, the head of
a trade group said on Monday. "Rice is likely to be
approved in China in the near term, maybe in two years,"...
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1 March 2005
Lawmaking on genetic (GMO) food is minefield for EU
Reuters, 28 Feb 2005. By Jeremy Smith. Brussels - The European Union remains deeply divided over genetically modified (GMO) foods, with the planting of biotech seeds a tremendously touchy area even though Brussels has resumed authorising GMO products after a break of nearly six years.
Several EU states have passed a patchwork of laws to control growing of biotech crops but many are holding back in the hope that uniform EU rules will be drafted, officials say.
At the moment, EU governments must make their own rules for separating different crop types to minimise cross-pollination and for financial liability if a farmer claims a neighbour's sowings have damaged his crop. Very few have yet done so.
Only a few GMO crops are allowed for growing, mostly maize.
Despite calls for more than a year from anti-GMO diehards such as Austria and Luxembourg for a bloc-wide law on crop separation, so-called co-existence, the EU's executive Commission has declined to oblige.
One result of this approach is that several countries now have laws far stricter than the Commission would have wanted, angering the biotech industry and raising the prospect of legal action for distorting the EU's single market.
Germany's law, perhaps the most controversial so far, has attracted the attention of Commission lawyers charged with checking that national laws comply with EU legislation and also conform with broad Commission guidelines from July 2003.
One clause specifies the joint liability of all GMO farmers with fields that border a "contaminated" non-GMO crop in cases where it is impossible to name an individual farmer as liable.
Critics say this would force a GMO farmer to prove that his crops were not to blame in a neighbour's contamination claim -- a powerful and costly deterrent to planting GMO crops at all. "The Commission, being the guardians of the law, should see that the measures introduced aren't disproportionate," said Simon Barber of Brussels-based industry lobby group EuropaBio.
"What the German government has done is way beyond what is required," he said.
FEW LAWS YET
So far, only Germany, Denmark, Italy and five regions of Austria have laws to regulate GMO cultivation, while the main Dutch farming organisations have reached a voluntary agreement.
Another eight countries are drafting laws, with those from Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland and the Czech Republic the most advanced. Others have no plans yet for legislation.
France, the EU's top cereals grower, should submit a first report on a co-existence law to its parliament in a few weeks.
Farmers who oppose GMO agriculture say their crops risk contamination, while those in favour are angry at the high costs that exercising their right to go biotech will entail.
The EU's new agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, says she might consider an EU framework regulation with leeway for national governments to make additional rules.
While green groups broadly welcome the move, they say it might also deter more GMO-sceptic countries from drafting any co-existence law at all, knowing they might not have to do so.
"If there's going to be an EU regulation, there's not going to be any rush from member states to bring out their own co-existence measures," said Adrian Bebb from environment lobby group Friends of the Earth.
Some of the national laws passed so far are tough. All will be reviewed by the Commission at the end of this year.
In Denmark, the first country to pass a co-existence law, farmers wanting to grow GMO crops must obtain a permit and then pay a fee per sown hectare -- in effect, a "GMO tax" -- into a fund to compensate other farmers whose crops get contaminated. Italy, a long-time foe of biotech crops, recently passed a law with an opt-out clause for non-biotech farmers.
That allows regional governments to set their own rules and designate areas for GMO cultivation. They have until December to adopt the law and until then no GMO growing will be allowed. Of Italy's 20 regions, more than half want to stay GMO-free.
And under Luxembourg's draft law, biotech farmers would have to take out insurance before they started growing crops -- many insurance companies are reluctant to offer GMO policies -- and risk a hefty fine, with a jail term, if they break the law.
"We're not worried at the moment. We're looking at the laws as they are introduced in the member states and we will do a review at the end of the year," one Commission official said.
"But you can't have a single set of rules to apply from northern Finland to southern Spain as the climatic differences are so great. Nevertheless, we would look for some consistency across the board," he told Reuters.
Red tape, media stop Russia growing GMO crops
Reuters, 28 Feb 2005. By Aleksandras Budrys.
MOSCOW - Red tape and aggressive media campaigns against genetically modified (GMO) products will keep Russia outside the group of GMO crop-growing countries in the near future, producers and scientists said.
Russia currently does not produce GMOs on a commercial basis, although scientists have been carrying out experiments with genetic modification of livestock and plants for years.
Legislation allows imports of GMOs under special permits. So far such permits have been issued for 18 genetically modified food components for human consumption and 55 for animal feeds.
"There is no legislative ban on production of genetically modified crops, but all attempts to start cultivating them have failed ... as the existing scheme of registration (of domestically produced GMOs) makes such registration virtually impossible," said Konstantin Skryabin, director of the Biological Engineering centre at Russia's Academy of Sciences.
He told Reuters the centre had finished testing pest-resistant potatoes but was unable to collect all the necessary permits for their registration as bureaucrats kept advancing new demands.
"We expected to register the potatoes this year, but we were told that a couple more years of tests are needed," Skryabin said. "No one actually says 'no' -- there are just interminable delays."
"It appears that bureaucrats, who simply do not understand the essence of the problem, believe that it is more safe to change nothing."
PITCHFORKS VS TRACTORS
ISAAA, an industry backed group promoting biotech as a way to halt hunger, has said that last year 8.25 million farmers in 17 countries were involved in growing GMO crops on 81 million hectares of land.
Arkady Zlochevsky, head of the Russian Grain Union, a powerful grain lobby, believes that delays in GMO production are a result of aggressive media campaigns which have instilled in many Russians a negative attitude to transgenic products.
"What should one expect, when all media are full of stories about Frankenstein food? I personally defend labelling GMO food as I prefer buying these Frankenstein foods, which have advantages over ordinary food," he told Reuters.
In Russia all packaged products containing more than 0.9 percent of GMOs are required to have special labels, although GMO opponents have said these rule are not always observed.
Zlochevsky believes that Russia will eventually adopt GMO technology.
"It is just a question of time. The agricultural sector is very conservative, and revolutions in it are very rare. When the previous one happened with the advent of tractors, peasants met them with pitchforks."
27 February 2005
EU Commission plans GMOs debate, end policy void
Reuters News, 24 February 2005. By Jeremy Smith. Brussels - The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, plans to thrash out soon where it stands on biotech foods in a bid to end the current policy vacuum, the EU's farm chief told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
Apart from guarded comments from some members of the new EU executive, little of substance has been said on where the EU might head next with its genetically modified (GMO) food policy. "I think that it's necessary that...those commissioners in charge discuss this, that we sit down round the table," EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told Reuters.
While no date has yet been set for the discussion, senior officials are meeting this week to prepare the ground. In the past, five commissioners have dealt with GMOs: representing agriculture, trade, research, environment and food safety.
After that, the entire group of 25 commissioners should hold a debate on biotechnology, the first time since January 2004.
A number of key EU decisions on GMOs are clearly "on hold" while the Commission sorts out what it thinks, officials say.
These include the Commission's approval of imports of a GMO rapeseed and a vote by EU ministers tentatively slated for March on several national GMO bans that the Commission wants lifted.
The issues to be discussed are likely to be how to break the EU's continuing deadlock on GMOs, thresholds for GMO content in seed batches, the World Trade Organisation case filed against the EU for its GMO policy moratorium on new GMO imports, and coexistence: EU jargon for how farmers should separate traditional, organic and biotech crops.
CROP SEPARATION
Fischer Boel has mentioned several times that she would be prepared to consider some kind of legal framework for how EU governments should regulate coexistence on national territories, instead of the non-binding guidelines they have at present.
Some of the EU's more GMO-sceptic states have been demanding this for well over a year, but Fischer Boel's predecessor, Austria's Franz Fischler, always insisted it was each country's responsibility to make its own laws. Not many have yet done so.
"I'm quite aware of the fact there are different conditions for growing in north and south, for example," Fischer Boel said.
"We'll see if there are some things that might be the same in all the member countries. Then we might give all the good advice that we can pick up to the member states."
But an EU-wide coexistence law could not be envisaged, she said, adding that the Commission would review all national coexistence laws at the end of the year and then see if some kind of legal "framework" might be proposed in this area.
"To make a common legislation for all the member states, I think that's out of the question because the conditions are so different. That's why some sort of a framework might be the outcome but it's too early to give a distinct message on this."
EU Commission pushes ahead on GM despite widespread opposition
Tuesday, February 22, 2005. Just-food.com. By Alan Osborn
Public opposition to genetically modified food remains strong in the European Union, yet scientists and legislators are pushing ahead. The recent EU Commission approval given to Syngenta to sell Bt-11 GM sweet corn for human consumption, despite Council failing to approve it, was interpreted by many as a call to arms. Consumers, farmers, regional bodies and local politicians are responding by setting up GM-free zones, as Alan Osborn reports.
Democracy works in odd ways as far as genetically modified (GM) food in the European Union (EU) is concerned. We start with the fact that most of the public opposes it. A recent survey by the European Commission found that 70.9% of European shoppers were hostile to foods containing GM ingredients. Europe's biggest retailer, the French Carrefour Group, says it could be as high as 75%. And second, most of the 25 EU member states are either opposed to the introduction of GM foods or at least not specifically in favour of it.
You'd have to look hard here to find a mandate for pushing ahead yet that's precisely what the Commission did last year when it approved a bid by the Swiss company Syngenta to sell its Bt-11 sweet corn for human consumption in the EU. The decision effectively broke the de facto moratorium on GM foods that had lasted for over six years. The member states had been split on the Syngenta issue and after many attempts and the pledge of a Commission sweetener in the form of a range of consumer safeguards, they could reach no decision either way. Brussels subsequently pushed it through under the so-called "comitology" procedure, which allows it to make a decision when the Council of Ministers cannot either approve or reject a measure.
How much will change?
Commenting on the decision the European Confederation of Food and Drink Industries said that GM products "will continue to arouse deep consumer suspicion," noting that many consumers were against buying GM-derived foods. "The food and drink sector respects this feeling and consumers should not expect much to change [under the new rules]," the organisation said.
The Commission's go-ahead to Syngenta maize enraged anti-GM campaigners but more importantly perhaps it seems to have stimulated farming groups, regional bodies and local politicians into setting up "GM-free" zones. According to Adrian Bebb, GM specialist at Friends of the Earth, over 3,500 regions or sub regions in Europe have now stated that they will not grow GM crops. "In Greece every region has gone GM-free. In Italy virtually all have and the same is true in Austria. In Germany there are hundreds of GM-free zones. In Britain the whole of the south west and Wales is GM-free and that's where maize would be grown if it was grown in Britain," he said. "Something big is happening here," this is not coming from activists, it's coming from politicians."
Commission's gung-ho stance has triggered protest
Bebb says this development is a direct consequence of the Commission's decision on Syngenta maize and its go-ahead last year for 17 different types of a Monsanto seed. "This has upset many countries and regions" not just the decision itself but the way it was reached by the Commission, which is completely unsustainable," he said. A number of regions have joined with FoE and other NGOs to call for a change in the law "so that a region may say no."
While some of these non-GM zones may be little more than window-dressing, it's often not hard to see the point being made. A region may well pride itself on its local food, proclaiming its purity and authenticity, only to find its produce contaminated by stray GM elements for which no clear democratic mandate exists.
Is coexistence possible?
The buzzword here is "coexistence"; in other words the regulation of GM crops so that they do not cross-pollinate and contaminate conventional agriculture. The outgoing agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler made a "recommendation" that this should be an EU policy. His successor, Mariann Fischer Boel, from Denmark, has gone further. She has called for a report by the end of this year on how different countries have approached coexistence, to see if a European framework, to which national laws might be fitted, could be adopted. "She sees this as like a Christmas tree on to which the member states can hang their own ornaments", says Michael Mann, the Commission agricultural spokesman. But it can only be a framework rather than a hard and fast EU directive because of the widely varying pattern of agriculture through the 25 member countries, he says. Any agreed framework would come into effect from early next year.
The idea that there should be a common approach was supported earlier this month (January) by the EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou, who said that while the GM foods were allowed into the EU in theory "in practice they face major hurdles." Differences between member countries led to complications "and it would be good at some point if Council (the EU Council of Ministers) revises the issue." The problem was that there were at present different approaches among member states on coexistence and on thresholds. "Member states don't even agree between themselves when it comes to the approval of products," he said.
UK and Netherlands lead EU support for GM
Within the EU Council of Ministers, the leading supporters for the introduction of GM as a general principle are Britain and the Netherlands. At the other end the main objectors are Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg and Sweden. Germany and France generally oppose GM introductions though not always. Italy opposes them about half the time. Overall it could be said that there is very seldom a qualified majority within the council's complex population-weighted voting formula either for or against a proposal to approve a GM product.
The new European Commission is too fresh in office for a full and comprehensive proposal to be made in dealing with this problem, but "we are seeing some encouraging language from the new agricultural commissioner," said Bebb. He said that Fischer Boel's mission to ensure that conventional and organic agriculture could co-exist was "a sensible position." The last Commission proposed to contaminate conventional seeds with GMOs "so her position is positive and it is what we've been proposing for four years."
The big test this year will come when the EU has to decide whether or not to admit two maize crops - from Syngenta and Dow - and an oil seed rape crop from Bayer. At present the expectation is that they will be given the go-ahead but they could well be the last products to be allowed before strict EU coexistence rules come into play next year.
25 February 2005
Unanimous GM-free motion passed by Clare County Council
Clare County Council press release, 19 February 2005. FF may be socalist but Clare going green. Clare County Council are attempting to designate Clare a GM free area, following the unanimous passing of a motion tabled by Green Party Councillor Brian Meaney. Cllr. Meaney's motion requested that Clare county council make formal submissions to the Department of the Environment and the European Commission to use the powers provided in Article 19 of directive 2001/18/EC to prevent the growing of particular GM crops in its area, to ensure protection of the environment, to ensure that no GM crops are grown on land over which it has control, and to adopt a GM-free policy for all goods and services for which this Council is responsible.
Speaking while tabling his motion, Cllr. Meaney stated that he did not want to engage in a scientific debate on the issue. "I can trot twenty scientists in here to argue that genetically modified foods are bad, and I can get twenty more to argue the exact opposite. I ask that councillors look at this as a control issue. If genetic modification becomes the norm, farmers and other food producers will become dependant on outside high technology influences that in the main tend to be multinational and have little regard for the smaller producer and less for the consumer."
The adoption of the motion requires that no GM crops are grown over land that the council has control over, and that the council adopt a GM-free policy over all goods and services for which it is responsible.
"The implementation of this policy will not be without its difficulties," stated Cllr Meaney. "Purchasing non fodder cattle feed guaranteed to be GM free in this county could at best be described as a challenge and at worst next to impossible."
"In the unanimous passing of this motion, Clare County Councillors have displayed considerable foresight that backs up the image necessary to promote Clare's farm and food produce on the world market. That image is of clean wholesome food and this Council, in conjunction with other groups like the Clare-based Irish Seed Savers Association, are ensuring that this image abroad is supported by the reality at home" concluded Cllr. Meaney.
Food scare sees rush to organics:
survey finds prices vary widely and bill for daily essentials can nearly double
Irish Independent, 25 February 2005. By Aideen Sheehan. The recent scare over cancer-causing Sudan Red dye in TV dinners is encouraging more people to eat organic food, but a new survey shows the price of organic products varies enormously and 70pc is imported.
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Organic butcher Danny O'Toole said the latest scare had caused a rush to buy more organic foodstuffs, but lack of government support meant the struggling industry could not expand to meet demand at acceptable prices for mainstream shoppers.
A basket of organic products such as vegetables, milk, pasta and sugar will cost you up to twice as much as the same range of conventional foodstuffs, a survey by website shoppingbill.com has found.
However, even the cost of organic foods varies enormously between stores - for example, organic broccoli costs nearly three times as much in SuperValu (€ 9.50/kg) as it does in Superquinn (€ 3.49/kg) compared to € 2.58/kg for non-organic broccoli in Dunnes.
Organic food is always dearer than the conventional product, with potatoes costing 20pc more, yogurt 15pc more and bananas 50pc more expensive.
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Oddly, organic oranges are just 5pc dearer, but Libby's organic orange juice is 73pc dearer; while a 24-pack of organic Weetabix costs € 2.95 compared to € 2.06 for the standard variety; and Bewley's organic fairtrade coffee is only 10pc dearer than the conventional type.
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Organic milk is more than twice as expensive as the normal variety, partly because so little of it is produced in Ireland and organic icecream makers Tipperary Ice Cream are forced to import organic milk as a result.
Baby food is the only sector where most of the products available are organic, and the price differential is very small. The Government had paid lipservice to the organic industry, setting up endless task forces compiling lengthy reports, but failing to actually boost the industry which lags behind the rest of Europe, said Mr O'Toole.
"It's simply too small here. Just half of 1pc of the land is under organics, and it remains a lifestyle option that's not on the commercial scale you need to make it mainstream," he said.
Consequently, a staggering 70pc of organic food eaten in Ireland is imported.
Supervisors to decide on GMO ban
Petaluma Argus Courier, California, USA, Should Sonoma County become the third county in the state to ban the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)? And whose call is this to make -- elected officials or the people themselves in a special election?
On March 1, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors will have to ponder both of these questions when it decides to either adopt an ordinance banning the cultivation of genetically engineered plants and animals in Sonoma County for the next 10 years, or leave the decision up to county residents by scheduling an election for later this year.
At their last meeting on Feb. 8, the supervisors delayed making the decision, instead choosing to order a study on the controversial subject. As South County Supervisor Mike Kerns put it, "We basically just want more information."
The contentious initiative landed on the board's desk after supporters of "GE-Free Sonoma County" as the ban proposal is called, gathered more than 38,000 valid signatures to place the measure on the ballot.
The issue in question is one that could affect the future of farming in Sonoma County and beyond and has propelled the county into an international debate, one in which agriculture, science and economics are deeply intertwined. (Continues...)
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Govt must tell all on GMO
News 24.com, South Africa, 24 February 2005. Pretoria - Environmental lobby group Biowatch obtained a Pretoria High Court order on Thursday compelling the government to divulge details of all genetically modified organisms (GMO) brought into or manufactured in the country.
This includes a list of facts concerning each permit, approval and authorisation granted for all GMO imports, exports, field trials and general releases to date.
It also includes a description of the GMO, its purpose, the name and address of the permit applicant, the area where the GMO would be used, plans for its monitoring and the relevant environmental impact studies.
Acting Judge Eric Dunn granted the order in a 60 page written judgment.
The application was contested by the registrar of genetic resources, the Executive Council for Genetically Modified Organisms and the minister of agriculture.
Biotechnology company Monsanto South Africa, which was also cited as a respondent, has already volunteered to make information available to Biowatch.
Biowatch lodged its court application after several failed attempts to obtain certain information.
Genetically modified organisms: Govt to reveal all
Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa, 25 February 2005. The Pretoria High Court has made an order compelling the government to provide information on all genetically modified organisms (GMOs) brought into or manufactured in South Africa.
The court made the order on Thursday, on the application of the environmental lobby group Biowatch.
Acting Judge Eric Dunn ordered the registrar of genetic resources, the Executive Council for Genetically Modified Organisms and Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza to provide Biowatch with access to data.
The data relates to risk assessments accompanying requests for trials and commercial releases of GMOs, including field-trial risk assessments as well as commodity import and animal-consumption risk assessments.
Biowatch must also be given access to information about all applications for permits and other authorisations submitted under the Genetically Modified Organisms Act. Information about all permits granted and all applications pending in respect of imports, exports, field trials and general releases must also be provided.
This includes a description of the GMO, the name and address of the applicant and the purpose of the contained use, or release and location of use.
The methods and plans for the monitoring of the GMOs, emergency measures in the case of an accident and the evaluation of foreseeable impacts -- particularly any pathogenic or ecologically disruptive impacts -- must also be supplied.
The government bodies must also provide all records pertaining to:
public participation since the commencement of the GMO Act;
a register of academic and research institutions;
the minutes of all meetings of the Executive Council for GMOs and its advisory committee; and
records pertaining to all people currently represented on the advisory committee.
They were also ordered to provide Biowatch access to all records pertaining to the areas of the field trials and commercial releases.
However, Dunn ruled that Biowatch has no statutory right to be furnished with the exact coordinates of the locations of the trials and commercial releases.
The registrar is entitled to refuse access to certain records on the grounds contained in the Promotion of Access to Information Act (which includes a refusal to reveal information that is confidential or contained trade secrets), but has to provide written reasons for such a refusal.
Dunn said Biowatch established that it has a clear right to some of the information and that the registrar's failure to grant access to the information was an infringement of Biowatch's rights.
However, he stressed that the environmental lobby group has no absolute right of access to information.
He said biotechnology company Monsanto's bold denial that there has been "disastrously harmful experiments with, and releases of, GMOs" does not detract from Biowatch's point that GMO technology is unpredictable, and that public health and environmental safety issues arise from the use, control and release of GMOs.
None of the respondents disputed that potential dangers existed in GMO experimentation. This could hardly be disputed since Parliament itself has recognised that statutory intervention is required for the proper governance of matters pertaining to GMOs, Dunn said.
Dunn refused to make a full order about the legal costs, except to order Biowatch to pay the costs of biotechnology company Monsanto, which was forced to come to court to protect its interests.
22 February 2005
A bitter harvest
Europe's bureaucrats have caved in to American pressure over GM, but the decision can be overturned argue Sue Mayer and Robin Grove-White
The Guardian, February 22, 2005. The final act of a controversy over GM crops that sets America against Europe unfolds today in Geneva. The World Trade Organisation will hear the closing arguments in a case where the public authority of both the European commission and the WTO is at stake.
In May 2003 the US, Argentina and Canada, urged on by their industry lobbies, complained to the WTO about Europe's moratorium on GM approvals, imposed in October 1998. As the biggest producers of GM crops, they felt the European position was damaging their trade interests and argued that it could not be scientifically justified.
Throughout the European Union there has been extensive concern about GM crops. Among the public's fears is the potential for long-term harm to the environment - for example through the increased use of herbicides and the gene flow to wild species - and to human health, should new allergens appear. In a wider context of uncertainties about the future of agriculture and of a pervasive lack of confidence in official approaches to the handling of technological risk, consumer rejection of GM has been widespread.
In response to these worries, the EU revised its regulatory framework to include wider issues such as traceablility, labelling and impacts on farmland wildlife. This process is still under way, with countries developing national plans on how, if GM crops are grown, to limit contamination of non-GM crops, and how to ascribe liability should harm result.
The EU's initial submissions to the WTO dispute panel argued that its approach was necessarily "prudent and precautionary". It emphasised that the US, Canada and Argentina were challenging the right of countries to establish levels of protection from the risks of GM appropriate to their circumstances - and that the risks and uncertainties were complex and serious. The outcome of the case would be of enormous significance worldwide.
Continues...
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21 February 2005
GM dispute panel meets in Geneva
Foodnavigator.com. 18/02/2005. With the countdown extended, talks continue this week in Geneva between the US and Brussels to move the entrenched trade dispute on genetically modified organisms forward.
The World Trade Organisation agreed to set up a GMO dispute panel last year following complaints from the US, and backed by Canada and Argentina, that argued European Union (EU) policy on GMOs violates world trade rules.
Officials from the US and the Commission met today, and yesterday, in Geneva to push discussions forward. Already, the panel has overshot the usual timeline for a report, and is now in extension time.
In 1998 a de facto moratorium was born when Europe stopped approving GM crops for food, feed and cultivation. US farmers quickly branded the ban a barrier to trade and won the support of their government.
Ultimately, if the panel rules against the EU, it could impose trade sanctions, giving the US the right to impose retaliatory tariffs on EU goods.
But since the launch of the panel; facing the fury of anti-GM campaigners, early last year the European Commission broke the ban, pushing through approval for a GM sweetcorn supplied by Swiss biotech firm Syngenta to enter the food chain. The first approval of a GM foodstuff since 1998.
While consumer groups complained that Brussels was caving into pressure from the US, the main global exporter of GM crops, the Commission argued that tough new rules on traceability and labelling of GM foodstuffs had cleared the way for the re-launch of approvals.
But EU states are divided. The Commission has, to date, asked EU members nine times to vote on authorising a GMO food or feed product. In eight cases, there was no agreement and in the ninth, the deadlock around the table resulted in the vote being postponed.
In a handful of recent years, genetically modified crops have made huge inroads into US agriculture: eighty per cent of America's soy is now grown from genetically modified seed.
But the unpopularity of biotech crops in the minds of the European consumer means the food industry has been slow to embrace the GM food sources on the grounds of simple business sense.
Food manufacturers keen to keep sales afloat will reject any use of genetically modified sources in their formulations, and consequently any need to GM label.
A recent survey polled by the UK's consumer magazine Which? found that consumers in the UK feel even more strongly about GM foods than they did two years ago and more than six out of 10 people (61 per cent) were concerned about the use of GM material in food production - up from 56 per cent in 2002.
Shoppers are not only concerned about GM ingredients in food; 68 per cent want manufacturers to go one step further and source non-GM animal feed, so meat and dairy products would have no links with the GM process.
Environmentalists Condemn GMO in Food Aid
allafrica.com, 17 February 2005. Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (ERA/FOEN), has joined civil society groups in Central America and the Caribbean countries to denounce the presence of Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO) in food aid being distributed by the World Food Programme (WFP).
The group urges the WFP to immediately recall all the food aid containing GMOs.
In a statement issued in Lagos by Mr Akinbode Oluwafemi, ERA said over 45 samples of maize and soy, taken from food aid and commercial imports distributed in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Dominican Republic, were sent to Genetic ID, an independent laboratory in the United States, to verify whether GMOs were present.
The group lamented that GMOs were identified in more than 80 per cent of the samples, including Starlink, a genetically modified maize forbidden for human consumption in the U.S.
"The Finding of such a high prevalence of banned Starlink, which is illegal for human consumption, in food aid sent to Central America and the Caribbean goes to confirm our fears that food aid has become a weapon for forcing GMOs on unsuspecting peoples," said ERA Director, Nnimmo Bassey.
"The whole idea is to contaminate the world so that everybody will become utterly dependent on the biotech industry," he said.
It is a process of abusing peoples' rights to safe food and right to choose what to eat," he said.
The statement said Starlink has never been authorised for human consumption anywhere in the world due to the potential allergenic content of its genetically modified protein.
The maize was initially authorised for animal feed, but in 2000, it was found in human food products and U.S. authorities spent millions of dollars to remove it from the market and banned its planting altogether.
"This particular case has further reinforced our opposition to the introduction of GMOs in Africa, and we are again calling on the Nigerian government to be weary of the various covert moves by U.S. corporations to introduce GMOs in Nigeria.
The acceptance of genetically modified food and seeds will compromise our food security and make us dependent on transnational biotech firms," Nnimmo said.
18 February 2005
Canadian Government to Unleash Terminator Bombshell at UN Meeting:
All-out push for commercialisation of Sterile Seed Technology
ETC Group (www.etcgroup.org) News Release, 7 February 2005. A confidential document leaked today to ETC Group reveals that the Canadian government, at a United Nations meeting in Bangkok (Feb 7-11), will attempt to overturn an international moratorium on genetic seed sterilisation technology (known universally as Terminator). Even worse, the Canadian government has instructed its negotiators to "block consensus" on any other option.
"Canada is about to launch a devastating kick in the stomach to the world's most vulnerable farmers - the 1.4 billion people who depend on farm saved seed," said ETC Group Executive Director Pat Mooney speaking from Ottawa. "The Canadian government is doing the dirty work for the multinational gene giants and the US government. Even Monsanto wasn't prepared to be this upfront and nasty. Canada is betraying Farmers' Rights and food sovereignty everywhere."
Terminator technology was first developed by the US government and the seed industry to prevent farmers from re-planting saved seed and is considered the most controversial and immoral agricultural application of genetic engineering so far. When first made public in 1998, "suicide seeds" triggered an avalanche of public opposition, forcing Monsanto to abandon the technology and prompting the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to impose a de facto moratorium on its further development. According to the leaked instructions to Canadian negotiators at SBSTTA 10 (a scientific advisory body to the CBD), Canada will insist on Wednesday (9 Feb.) that governments accept the field testing and commercialization of Terminator varieties (referred to as GURTS -- Genetic Use Restriction Technologies). Canada will also attack an official UN report, prepared by an international expert group, which is critical of the potential impacts of Terminator seeds on small farmers and Indigenous Peoples. In stark contrast to Canada's position, the expert report recommends that governments seek prohibitions on the technology.
In Bangkok, civil society and Indigenous Peoples are calling on the Canadian government to abandon its endorsement of Terminator and to join with other governments to prohibit the technology once and for all. Many African and Asian governments have called for Terminator to be banned and the European Union has also been supportive of the existing moratorium.
"It is outrageous that Canada is backing an anti-farmer technology and shameful that it will 'block consensus' on any other outcome. Governments from around the world must not accept this bullying tactic," says ETC Group's Hope Shand from the negotiations in Bangkok. "If Canada blocks decision-making on this issue, the moratorium will be in jeopardy and terminator seeds will be commercialized ending up in the fields of small farmers."
17 February 2005
NGO calls for delay to EU Aarhus ratification
Environment Daily. The European community should not ratify the UN's Aarhus convention until it has guaranteed NGOs they will have access to justice within EU institutions, according to green group EEB (European Environmental Bureau).
Environment ministers last December gave the green light for the European Commission to ratify the Aarhus convention, on public access to environmental justice and information, on behalf of the EU.
The EEB claims that changes made by ministers to a separate regulation applying Aarhus to the EU institutions themselves will effectively deny NGOs the right to challenge member states in the European court of justice. It is therefore calling for ratification - scheduled for this week - to be postponed until MEPs have had chance to challenge the change.
Meanwhile, a directive applying the first 'pillar' of Aarhus - on public access to information - became legally binding for EU member states on Monday. Simultaneously, a coalition of NGOs led by Fern announced that they will be demanding financing information from export credit agencies, in the hope of revealing the damaging environmental impact of loan decisions.
Follow-up:
EEB http://www.eeb.org, tel: + 32 2 289 1090, plus press releases from EEB http://www.eeb.org/press/pr_postpone_eu_ratification_Aarhus_140205.htm
European Commission: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/173.
FERN: www.fern.org/pubs/media/ECA%20release%2014%2002%2005_final.pdf.
Farm group comes out against GM crops
RTE News, 16 February 2005. The Irish Cattle & Sheep Farmers' Association has called on the Government to immediately abandon any plans to allow the use of GM technology in food production in Ireland.
The ICSA's Rural Development Chairman, John Heney, said the outcome of a recent two-day conference in Florence highlights how other European food-producing regions are responding to growing consumer resistance to GM food.
At the conference, 20 EU regions signed up to a 'GMO-free' charter.
Mr Heney said he accepted the Irish Government's current pro-GM stance alone could not force GM food onto the plates of Irish consumers.
However, he said it could have a devastating effect on the value of Irish food exports, which still account for 25% of Ireland's net earnings.
Mr Heney said it is now imperative that Ireland north and south immediately declares itself a GM free area to protect what he called the unique and much-envied clean, green image that Irish food enjoys amongst European consumers.
Syngenta to let Mega-Genome Patent Lapse: "Daisy-cutter" Patent Bomb Busted
ETC Group News Release - www.etcgroup.org - 14 February 2005. Following 72 hours of negotiations by e-mail, telephone and in-person, the Swiss Gene Giant Syngenta confirmed to ETC Group last Friday, February 11, that it would allow its multi-genome patent application covering the flowering sequences in at least 40 plant species to lapse at the European Patent Office (EPO), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and around the world. Syngenta's announcement follows a month-long campaign launched by ETC Group and supported by farmers' organizations, trade unions and other civil society organizations.
The patent was called the "daisy-cutter" after the world's largest conventional bomb, which has parachuted from US Air Force cargo planes to clear troop-landing sites in Vietnam and during the Gulf and Iraq Wars. The daisy-cutter bomb explodes about three feet above the ground and delivers "shock and awe" by destroying everything living within a radius of 1000 feet. The Swiss company's patent application (WO03000904A2/3) claims, among other things, discovery of the DNA sequence coding for the flowering of the rice crop. Beyond rice, however, the company also claims the sequence as it appears in many other major food crops from wheat to bananas. "Syngenta's application even claimed monopoly over the flowering process in yet-to-be-discovered species that use the same sequence," says Pat Mooney ETC Group's Executive Director. Mooney met with Syngenta in Bern, Switzerland last Thursday and received a telephone call from the company Friday morning confirming it would let the patent application lapse.
Mooney and Andrew Bennett of the Syngenta Foundation debated the patent at a Swissaid Conference on Gene Technologies in the Swiss capital before an audience of 240 government- and civil society- representatives including the Minister of Agriculture of Zambia and a number of other Swiss corporation officials. Hope Shand of ETC Group wrote to Syngenta on January 25 calling upon the company to abandon its patent claims. The company replied in an e-mail dated February 8 suggesting that the company was not pursuing the patent in developing countries. "However, it was ambiguous about whether or not it would maintain its applications in Europe and the United States," Mooney said in the debate. Following the public encounter, Mr. Bennett said he would attempt to clarify the situation as soon as possible. The February 11 phone call from Syngenta made clear that the patent application will be allowed to lapse around the world. Subsequently, the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) in Geneva also received a letter from the Corporation confirming that the patent application will be allowed to lapse.
Read the article:
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16 February 2005
European Commission exposes Member States to risks of genetically
engineered crops
Greenpeace IPR. Geneva/Amsterdam, 15 February 2005 - Greenpeace today accused the
European Commission of exposing EU Member States to the irreversible
risks of genetically engineered (GE) crops and of undermining safety
regulations within the EU.
While the Commission claims that Monsanto's GE maize (MON810) (1) has
been monitored for environmental risks and that it meets the
requirements under current EU legislation, Greenpeace investigations
show that no comprehensive monitoring plan exists. Greenpeace calls for
the EU Member States to take initiatives to stop the commercialisation
of Monsanto's GE maize.
"The first time a GE variety is listed to the Common Catalogue and thus
can be sold to farmers and can potentially be grown in many parts of
Europe, the European Commission is misleading Member States," says
Christoph Then, Greenpeace International GE campaigner. "How can they
claim that Monsanto's GE maize is monitored sufficiently under current
European legislations when simple investigations reveal that the only
monitoring plan the EU refers to is nothing more than Monsanto's own
monitoring from 1995."
Greenpeace obtained email correspondence between a journalist and Mrs
Gminder, the then European Commission Spokeswoman for Health and
Consumer Protection. After repeated request for the monitoring plan, as
required to list a GE variety to the Common Catalogue, Gminder conceded
that the monitoring plan was provided to the Member States under the old
EU Directive - that required a far less extensive level of monitoring
than the current Directive - claiming that there was an additional
update. However, in a September 2004 press release the Commission
explicitly states, that the monitoring plan provided by Monsanto fulfils
all necessary requirements and was accepted by the Member States. But
various requests to relevant authorities in Germany, Austria and Denmark
revealed that no such updated monitoring plan exists (2).
MON810 GE Maize contains the so-called Bt-toxin (which normally only
occurs in bacteria) that is intended to protect the maize plants against
a specific corn borer. Monsanto's monitoring plan of 1995 only considers
the issue of the possible emergence of resistance to Bt-toxin in
European corn borer populations. But a significant number of scientific
studies, published after 1995, show a broad range of other potentially
harmful effects in GE plants, like accumulation of the toxin in soil and
putting pressure on species like butterflies.
These revelations come as the parties to the World Trade Organization
trade dispute over GMOs (3) are about to meet with scientific experts in
Geneva. At the WTO, the European Commission has to defend the legal
standards of the EU and the precautionary principle to be applied to GMO
policy. "The European Commission must act in Brussels as it talks in
Geneva. Otherwise the European safety policies will loose credibility.
Europe must defend the environment and the consumers against the
interests of multinationals like Monsanto. As long as the Commission
does not act, Member States should take the lead and stop the
commercialization of GE maize at their own initiative," argues Daniel
Mittler, WTO expert of Greenpeace International.
Current EU legislation allows Member States to impose national bans on
the import and growing of GMOs whenever new scientific evidence on
potential risks occurs. Hungary already took that step and banned the
cultivation of MON810 GE Maize in January. As the EU is still not
capable of setting up sufficient criteria for GMO risk assessment, rules
for coexistence and coherent regulation for monitoring, Greenpeace calls
for a European wide initiative halting the cultivation of all GE plants.
More background information at http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/reports/?campaign%5fid=3942
Notes:
(1) The European Commission decided to put 17 varieties of GM maize
MON810 on the EU Common Catalogue on seeds on 8th September 2004.
(2) See backgrounder "Monitoring of genetically engineered crops:
European Commission fails to protect EU Member States"
(3) See backgrounder "The assault on Biosafety - The WTO dispute on GMO's"
14 February 2005
Canadian provice could ban GMOs
CTV.ca News, 13 February 2005. If Prince Edward Island farmers can prove genetically modified organisms shouldn't be a part of the Island's future, P.E.I. could be the first province to ban GMOs.
Several European countries such as Germany, France, Poland, Sweden, Spain and the United Kingdom have introduced strict laws requiring mandatory labelling of GMOs.
Now some islanders, and the high-profile activist group Greenpeace, are pushing for the province to introduce an outright ban in what has become an increasingly divided debate, CTV's John Vennavally-Rao reports.
The Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and the Environment is holding public hearings into whether genetically modified organisms should be banned -- an option no Canadian province has ever seriously considered.
"We're trying to get the pulse of Prince Edward Islanders when it comes to whether or not to have GMOs as part of our agricultural future," said provincial committee member Wayne Collins.
Although Health Canada approved GM crops about 10 years ago, some consumers still have doubts about their safety.
Danny Hendricken is one of the farmers who fears a backlash.
"And if we can't guarantee them that its free of that genetic material we essentially are locked out of the marketplace," said Hendricken, of the National Farmers Union.
Greenpeace's position, as it appears on its website, is: "GMOs should not be released into the environment as there is not adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health."
But there is division even among farmers on the island.
"My opinion is its much much better for the environment -- way better," farmer Allan Ling of the Atlantic Grains Council said. He says GM crops provide bigger yields and require fewer herbicides.
He is not alone -- some genetically modified crops continue to be grown on the Island because some farmers find them easier to manage -- they say GMO seeds fight disease and ward off pests.
"But when it comes to the island's biggest crop though, you won't find a single farmer here growing genetically modified spuds," Vennavally-Rao reports.
In fact, food-processing giant McCain won't purchase genetically modified potatoes because of fears consumers would avoid buying what some call "Franken-fries."
The majority of Canadians surveyed for Health Canada last year said they feared the long-term effects of genetically modified foods, according to a report released earlier this year.
"Almost all Canadians (92 per cent) indicate some level of concern with the long-term risks these products might cause for human health," said a commentary by Pollara Inc., the public opinion research firm that did the survey.
But a scientist with Health Canada told The Canadian Press that the department has not received any evidence of harm from more than 40 GM products, including: canola, soybeans, corn, and rice.
"There is no evidence showing that any of them have triggered any adverse health effects," scientist William Yan said.
Organic farmer Raymond Loo thinks a GM-ban would be a selling point for Island produce.
"I would like to see a big sign coming off of Confederation Bridge saying you're just entering a GMO-free growing zone."
Greenpeace demands Poland ban imports of genetically modified foods
Agence France Presse, Warsaw, Feb 11, 2005.
Around 30 activists from environmental group Greenpeace on Friday blocked the entrance to the office of Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka for nearly two hours to demand that Poland ban imports of genetically modified produce.
Some of the protesters chained themselves to the metal fencing around the prime minister's office while others unfurled a banner above the main entrance reading: "Stop GMOs before it is too late."
They also hoisted a giant, inflatable clock, to signify the rapid passage of time.
"We want the government to ban imports of genetically modified foodstuffs before it is too late," Polish Greenpeace activist Jacek Winiarski told AFP.
The demonstrators were from Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, Greenpeace said.
The protest ended after around two hours, when police and the fire services unchained the demonstrators from the gates and took down the banner.
Several demonstrations have been staged around Europe by Greenpeace activists in recent weeks ahead of the European Commission's authorisation, expected next month, for genetically modified colza produced by US biotech giant Monsanto to be imported and processed in the European Union.
10 February 2005
European regions sign GMO-free charter
Environment Daily, 10 February 2005. Nineteen EU regions have signed an agreement supporting the promotion of GMO-free regions. The 'Florence charter', signed by members of the newly created European GMO-free regional network, brings together regional authorities opposed to biotech crops "to speak with one voice". In 2003 the European Commission ruled that an Austrian GMO-free region had been declared in breach of EU law. The charter also includes a call for the Commission to propose specific liability rules for GM crop growers, something it may already be considering. [For more on this visit the Assembly of European Regions website at www.are-regions-europe.org/GMO.html and the GMO-free Europe website at www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/gmofree/Petition.htm.
Dolly's Creator Granted Human Cloning Licence
Reuters News Service, 9 February 2005. London - The scientist who created Dolly the sheep,
the world's first cloned mammal, was granted a licence on
Tuesday to clone human embryos for medical research.
Professor Ian Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, plans to obtain stem cells for research into Motor Neurone Disease (MND), a procedure that divides the medical world along ethical lines.
Britain's cloning watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), granted the licence on Tuesday to Wilmut, Dr Paul de Sousa from Edinburgh and Professor Christopher Shaw from King's College London.
It is only the second such licence granted in Britain.
"Our aim will be to generate stem cells purely for research purposes," Wilmut said in a statement. "This is not reproductive cloning in any way."
Human reproductive cloning is illegal in Britain but therapeutic cloning, creating embryos as a source of stem cells to cure diseases, is allowed on an approved basis.
Stem cells are the body's master cells. Those from days-old embryos have the ability to form any kind of tissue and scientists are working to learn how to manipulate them for transplants to treat diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer and MND.
The practice has divided the medical world. Opponents argue the use of a human embryo for medical research or even treatment is unethical.
US President George W. Bush says he plans to press for even stricter limits on human embryo research.
But the British group said the stem cell technique would greatly enhance their understanding of MND and accelerate the discovery of new drugs.
"We have spent 20 years looking for genes that cause MND and to date we have come up with just one gene," Shaw said. "This is potentially a big step forward,"
Wilmut and his colleagues plan to use the same technique that was successful in creating Dolly in 1996. They will extract genetic material from a skin or blood cell of patients suffering from an inherited form of the illness and place it in an egg whose nucleus has been removed.
The egg will be stimulated to develop into an embryo and allowed to develop for about six days, when the stem cells will be extracted.
The scientists will compare the stem cells with both healthy and diseased cells from patients to better understand the illness and to test potential medicines.
MND affects nerve cells that carry instructions from the brain to the muscles. It weakens muscles and causes paralysis but the patient's brain is not affected. Last August, a team of scientists from Newcastle University in northern England was granted a licence to clone human embryos to develop new treatments for diabetes and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
8 February 2005
Wales signs European GM charter
Farmers Weekly Interactive. By Robert Davies, Wales correspondent. Wales became the only region of the UK to sign a charter demanding that
conventional and organic farming must be protected when GM crops are grown
commercially.
The charter was signed at a meeting of the 20 member Network of European
Regions in Florence on Friday 4 [February 2005].
It urges the European Commission to acknowledge the growing concern of an
increasing number of regions about threats posed by the introduction of GM
crops.
"It contains a number of declarations, one of which presses for the EC to
recognise the polluter pays principle," said Carwyn Jones, the Welsh
Assembly's rural affairs minister.
"Our continued involvement in the Network is helping the Welsh Assembly
government take forward its clear policy of adopting the most restrictive
approach to the possible commercialisation of GM crops allowable under
existing legislation."
The Farmers' Union of Wales applauded the Welsh Assembly's decision to sign
the charter.
"The union, like the majority of Assembly members and consumers, wants Wales
to be declared a GM-free country," said spokesman Alan Morris.
"It seems that there are legal constraints on this happening, so it is
crucial that organic and conventional farming are given the highest possible
level of protection from GM pollution."
5 February 2005
EU to legislate on GM crops coexistence?
Environment Daily, 6 February 2005. New agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel is considering proposing an EU law on the coexistence of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops. Previously the European Commission has insisted that the issue should be dealt with by national governments.
Ms Fischer Boel's intentions emerged in press interviews she gave in Germany last week [see article of 26 January below - Ed.] A Commission spokesman confirmed on 2 February that EU legislation could now emerge after the Commission has reported on national coexistence measures.
"The report is expected at the end of this year" the spokesman said.
"Based on this, if it looks feasible and practical... Ms Fischer Boel will consider issuing framework legislation."
This legislation would define buffer zones between GM and non-GM crops, German media reported last week. According to the Commission spokesman, it could also extend to the controversial issues of liability for damage caused by GM crops and contamination of non-GM crops by GM material.
"It's too early to say" exactly what the legislation would contain, he told Environment Daily. "But if you're going to have a framework what's the point of having one that doesn't cover everything?"
It is unclear at this stage whether Ms Fischer Boel's motivation is to install yet more hurdles to commercialisation.or to help restart the EU's still congested market approval process for new GM crops.
It might placate anti-GM member states, some of which continue to oppose all commercialisation of new GM crops in the absence of EU-wide coexistence rules. But it would also remove this "excuse" for blanket opposition, said the Commission spokesman.
The move could also be an attempt to rein in member states, like Germany, whose national coexistence rules are seen as being so tough as effectively to exclude any chance of GM crop growing.
Simon Barber of biotechnology trade body Europabio defended the status quo, insisting there was no need for yet more EU legislation. However he also conceded that emerging patchwork of national coexistence rules was not ideal. "We are not at all positive about the way some member states have used [the current state of affairs] as a way of issuing disproportionate and discriminatory laws," he told Environment Daily.
Follow-up: European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm, tel: +32 2
299 1111, plus EU biotechnology policy website http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/food/biotechnology/index_en.htm. See also Europabio http://www.europabio.org.
European Shelves Are Mostly GMO-Free - Greenpeace
Reuters News Service, February 4, 2005. Story by Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS - Europe's supermarket shelves remain free of almost all biotech produce as top retailers shun genetically modified (GMO) foods, environment group Greenpeace said on Thursday, claiming this was due to consumer opposition.
"Europe, one of the world's largest food markets, is firmly closed to GM-labelled food, and there is nothing to indicate that this is likely to change any time soon," Greenpeace said in a survey of the region's largest retailers and food companies.
Very few GMO products can be found across Europe's 30 major retailers, nearly all of which have a non-biotech policy for the entire EU or at least in their main European markets, it said.
This contrasts starkly with the United States, where most supermarket foods have some GMO content and many consumers shrug off claims by green groups that these may be harmful.
Of the thousands of items stocked in European supermarkets, Greenpeace said it found only 77 GMO-labelled products in 10 EU countries, as of November 2004, mostly in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Czech and Slovak Republics.
These products tended to be GMO soyoil or other items imported from Canada, Japan, Korea and the United States.
Consumer scepticism over GM0 food ranges from mild distrust to outright hostility and is estimated at more than 70 percent, deterring shops from ramping up small ranges of biotech foods.
"There has been a prolonged and at times intense public, political and scientific debate about the dangers of GM crops, which has had a number of results," the Greenpeace report said.
"One of the most significant has been the strong and consistent rejection of GM food by well-informed consumers and the change that they have caused in the policies of the European food industry."
Many European retail chains already guarantee that their own-brand products are free of GMO ingredients and say there is no reason to change this unless consumers request GMO products.
Greenpeace conceded that retailers might be stocking GMO-labelled products from other sources. Some companies had only introduced a non-GMO policy on own brands after pressure from customers, not due to any anti-biotech sentiment, it said.
LOOPHOLE IN BIOTECH LAWS?
At present, products from around 18 GMOs may be marketed in the EU. These include types of GMO soy, maize and rapeseed - which appear in items such as ketchups and snack foods.
Non-biotech food products may have a maximum 0.9 percent GMO content without having to be labelled, essential for retailers in countries where there is high consumer resistance to GMOs.
But EU labelling laws do not apply to dairy, eggs and beef coming from animals that have eaten GMO feed, or to foods made with the help of a GMO enzyme, like some bakery products.
For green groups, this is a huge loophole in EU legislation.
"With a few exceptions, the majority of the major European food producers do not guarantee the use of non-GM animal feed for the production of meat and dairy produce," Greenpeace said.
EU to Consider Allowing Imports of More GMO Maize
Reuters News Service, February 4, 2005. BRUSSELS - EU environment experts will discuss whether to allow imports of a gene maize next month, potentially the fourth such food to win approval after the bloc lifted its biotech ban last year, officials said on Thursday.
Two genetically modified (GMO) maize varieties were authorised for EU-wide use last year using a rubberstamp process that kicks in when the 25 governments cannot agree. A third GMO, a rapeseed type, should be approved in a couple of weeks.
Another GMO maize will be discussed on March 7 when EU member state experts should vote on whether to allow imports for processing into animal feed. But the maize, known as 1507, would not be allowed in food products or to be sown as a crop.
"The product may be put to the same uses as any other maize, with the exception of cultivation and uses as...food," read a European Commission draft document, obtained by Reuters.
The maize is made jointly by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of DuPont Co, and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds. It is engineered to resist the corn borer insect and other pests, and glufosinate-ammonium herbicide.
But the chances of the experts reaching agreement, either to approve the maize or reject it, look fairly slim, officials say.
EU governments have been deadlocked over biotech foods for years, with the result that the Commission -- the EU's executive -- has found itself empowered under EU law to issue an approval.
Since November 2003, the Commission has asked EU states nine times to vote on authorising a GMO food or feed product. In eight cases, there was no agreement and in the ninth, the deadlock around the table resulted in the vote being postponed.
PEI Considers Banning Genetically Modified Crops
The Dominion (Canada), February 04, 2005, by Dru Oja Jay. The provincial government of Prince Edward Island has attracted international attention with its plan to hold hearings on a possible ban on the growth of genetically modified (GM) crops. US and Canadian experts and citizens groups opposed to GM foods are directing their energies to setting a precedent on the island province.
Industry groups like the PEI Federation of Agriculture are urging a more cautious approach. "We need to make sure that any decisions that affect farmers are based on truth and science," a spokesperson was quoted as saying. "Right now, GMOs are legal crops in Canada, approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency."
Critics of GM crops also claim the side of truth and science, arguing that new organisms were approved because of corporate political pressure, not because they were proven safe -- a process they say would take years. Other critics say that GM crops are a sophisticated and possibly dangerous means of asserting corporate power insofar as they are used to control the food production process and extract profit with no benefit to Canadians.
Polls have shown that as many as 70 per cent of Canadians want GM foods labeled, but citizens' groups say that the government has been intransigent.
"Ottawa has ignored Canadians' repeated calls for a public debate on GE foods. The federal government has done nothing to address concerns about the potential harmfulness of these products to our health, environment, and economy," says NadËge Adam of the Council of Canadians.
Several municipalities in Canada have passed resolutions banning the cultivation of GM crops. Except in Europe, where distribution without clear labeling is largely banned, banning the sale of GM crops is another matter. An estimated 60 per cent of processed food in North America contains some GM material.
Industry groups have not responded directly to criticism from citizens' groups, instead focusing on economic arguments. "If the PEI government decides it wants to seriously consider a GMO ban, it had better make darn good and sure those markets really do exist for the non-GMO products -- enough to sustain producers who are currently making a living on GMO products," the PEI Federation of Agriculture spokesperson was quoted as saying.
3 February 2005
Study confirms monarch threatened by GE corn
Greenpeace Australia, Thursday, 3 February 2005.
For the third time in recent months, a study has been released that calls into question a critical claim of the genetic engineering (GE) industry.
The first long-term study into the impacts of genetically engineered (Bt) corn on monarch butterflies, has confirmed longstanding fears that the corn has serious impacts on the species.
In a two year study, 'Effects on Monarch Butterfly Larvae' researchers found that the Bt toxin from genetically engineered corn resulted in increased mortality of monarch butterflies and a reduction in the size and number of larvae.
In 1999, the claim that Bt corn was dangerous to the monarch butterfly caused a worldwide uproar in the GE industry. A concerted campaign to discredit the findings and the scientist followed along with the now familiar chorus that there is no evidence that Bt causes any harm. These are all familiar tactics from the GE industry.
However, it has now been shown that Bt in genetically engineered plants represents a potential threat to a variety of non-target insect species. It is already known that the Bt toxin exuded by the roots of GE cotton plants has a significant impact on soils, which may constitute a longer term risk to soil health. Insects and weeds developing resistance to the Bt toxin are also clearly identified risks associated with the continued use of Bt.
This most recent study has resulted in renewed calls for the banning of MON810 in Europe. The corn has already been approved for planting by the European Commission, which has previously claimed the potential impacts on monarchs were negligible.
"The long-term susceptibility of other non-target insect species and the implications for soil health clearly need assessment. While a number of studies have now been conducted into the impacts of GE on monarchs, almost nothing is known of the impacts of Bt and other GE plants on non-target insects ‚ many of them beneficial," said Greeenpeace GE campaigner Jeremy Tager.
28 January 2005
Strong anti-GM signals from Council of Europe
Pan-European forum the Council of Europe has recommended extreme caution in the use and development of GM crops, to avoid "irreversible manipulation of nature and creeping contamination with transgenes". It goes beyond EU legislation in several areas, notably in demanding compulsory labelling of meat, milk and eggs from GM-fed animals. It suggests 0.1% as the acceptable level for accidental GM contamination of conventional seeds; it backs creation of regional GMO-free zones.
See recommendation :
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GE crops threaten organic farming industry
Associated Press, Friday, January 28, 2005. By Lisa Rathke . MONTPELIER (AP) ó Contamination from genetically engineered crops threatens Vermont's growing organic farming industry, advocates said Thursday.
The number of certified organic acres has more than doubled in the past five years, from 15,967 in 1999 to 35,826 in 2004, according to a report released Thursday by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. The number of organic farmers has more than tripled from 90 in 1994 to 332 in 2004, the report said.
Organic dairy farms also have jumped from 38 to 87 between 1999 and 2004, the report said.
But the growing use of genetically modified organisms threatens to contaminate organically certified crops with their pollen, potentially increasing costs for organic growers, the report said.
"Over the past 10 years a remarkable consumer demand for organic food has propelled a very vibrant and rapidly expanding organic sector of Vermont's farm economy," said Ben Davis of VPIRG.
"But there's a problem. And that is for Vermont farmers to cash in on that demand they are going to need to be protected and GMOs undermine that ability for them to cash in," he said.
The amount of GE seeds sold in Vermont rose from 416,698 pounds in 2003 to 506,372 in 2004, the Agriculture Agency reported this month.
GMO contamination of organic corn in Vermont has already been documented, Davis said.
The Senate Agriculture Committee this week passed a bill that would make seed makers liable for damages from genetically engineered seeds or crops.
"I do have great interest in discussing the Farmer Protection Act, the liability bill," said Rep. David Zuckerman, P-Burlington, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
"My goal as chair of the committee is to make sure that all these topics get more adequately addressed, or get fair hearings, get open information from all of those involved, from organic producers, seed producers and lawyers to understand really what are these consequences because we're really going into uncharted territory with genetically engineered seeds in our food system."
VPIRG would like the state to go further and ban the use of GMOs to give lawmakers time to fully consider their economic, ecological, and human health impacts, Davis said.
27 January 2005
FAO expert consultation recommends guidelines for GM crops
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, January 27, 2005. WASHINGTON and ROME - A consultation of experts convened at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), recommended that any responsible deployment of Genetically Modified (GM) crops needs to comprise the whole technology development process, from the pre-release risk assessment, to biosafety considerations and post release monitoring.
Environmental goals must also encompass the maintenance and protection of basic natural resources such as soil, water and biodiversity. In this way monitoring could become the key element in generating the necessary knowledge to protect agro-systems, rural livelihoods and broader ecological integrity.
Potential hazards associated with GM cropping -- according to the scientists -- have all to be placed within the broader context of both positive and negative impacts that are associated with all agricultural practices.
Involving farmer groups
Environmental organizations, farmer groups and community organizations should be actively and continuously engaged in this process. These stakeholders -- the workshop agreed -- are absolutely intrinsic to the system.
FAO is ready to facilitate this process along with other agencies and national and international research centres, encouraging the adoption of rigorously designed monitoring programs. Besides FAO and UNEP, the CGIAR Centres are expected to play an important role in partnership with national research centres.
The consultation was organized in the light of the controversy and public concern over Genetic Modifications (GM). FAO asked a group of agricultural scientists from many parts of the world to provide clear preliminary guidelines on the most accurate and scientifically sound approach to monitoring the environmental effects of existing GM crops.
Protecting agrosystems and livelihoods
"FAO's aim is to provide a tool to assist countries in making their own informed choices on the matter, as well as protect the productivity and ecological integrity of farming systems," said Ms. Louise O. Fresco, FAO Assistant Director-General of the Agriculture Department.
She added "the need to monitor both the benefits and potential hazards of released GM crops to the environment is becoming ever more important with the dramatic increase in the range and scale of their commercial cultivation, especially in developing countries."
The experts acknowledged that a great deal of data is already available. What needs to be done is to bring together and coordinate this volume of often scattered information. They also emphasized that monitoring the effects of GM crops on the environment is not only necessary but feasible even with limited resources when it is integrated with the deployment of these crops.
The experts agreed that it is important to identify the most accurate existing data. They noted that field and traditional expertise should become a strong resource in addition to scientific expertise. These data could be used in indicators to measure the effects of GM crops on the environment. Significant changes that might cause concern should be promptly notified. In this regard, a full stakeholder engagement -- farmers, scientists, consumers, public and the private sector and the civil society -- will be necessary and integral to the process.
One of the difficulties in monitoring agriculture is the heterogeneity of farming systems in the different regions. The group of scientists recommended that the objective of environmental monitoring of GM crops should be nested within processes that address broader goals. There would be a need to adapt any methodology to the specific farming system through a well-designed process.
Monitoring GM crops will provide information for policies and regulations, but mainly will give producers informed options in order to allow technologies to be adopted in a sustainable way.
Contact:
Luisa Guarneri
Information Officer, FAO
luisa.guarneri@fao.org
(+39) 06 570 56350
Italian Parliament Approves GM Farming Law
Reuters New Service, January 27, 2005. ROME - Italy's parliament approved on Tuesday legislation the government said would pave the way for farmers to safely plant genetically modified crops, if they choose to do so.
But biotechnology supporters complained the bill would essentially uphold a "medieval" moratorium based on backward ideas about genetically altered crops.
The so-called "co-existence" law sets out rules to ensure conventional and organic crops are not contaminated by GM seeds, part of a web of European Union legislation aimed at allowing a controlled opening of the market to GM organisms.
But it will be up to each of Italy's 20 regions to set the detailed rules and most of them have said they want to remain GM-free, effectively maintaining an unofficial EU-wide ban on GM foods which was formally lifted earlier this year.
Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno, who sought jail time for farmers who broke the rules, said he was "very pleased" by the legislation's final passage in the Senate on Tuesday. It won approval in the lower house last week.
"We sought to... guarantee freedom of choice for Italian producers, while heading off the risk of diffuse and uncontrolled contamination by GM (organisms)," he was quoted as saying by ANSA news service. Roberto Gradnik, president of pro-bioindustry group Assobiotec, complained to local media the approval of the legislation was a step backwards.
"With this medieval-flavoured decision, our country denies to agriculture companies the freedom to choose to cultivate plants that are genetically modified," he said.
Any attempt to impose a blanket ban on GM farming would probably have prompted legal action from the European Commission, which has to ensure that use of such plants is allowed as long as they have passed safety tests.
Many European consumers and environmentalists fear the crops -- whose genetic makeup has been altered, often for resistance to pesticides -- might pose a hidden risk to health or wildlife.
Consumers have been eating GM food for years in the United States where it is not required to be separated from conventional strains or labelled.
26 January 2005
GM policy shift in Europe
The Scientist, 26 January 2004. Agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel wants new rules for genetically modified crops | By Ned Stafford,
Newly installed European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has signaled a major shift in European Union policies toward genetically modified (GM) crops, telling a German newspaper last week that she believes the European Union should issue guidelines for acceptable distances between GM and non-GM crops.
Currently, the European Union leaves it up to member states to regulate sowing of GM crops so they do not contaminate adjacent non-GM fields with GM pollen. Coexistence of GM and non-GM farm fields is so controversial in several EU nations, including Germany, that Fischer Boel's predecessor, Franz Fischler, simply avoided the issue.
In an interview with the daily Berliner Zeitung, Fischer Boel said that GM and non-GM fields must be separated to avoid GM contamination. However, she said: "Regulations must not be so hard that the producers of GM crops have no chance to come to market."
Some German political observers saw Fischer Boel's comments as a veiled reference to Germany's new strict GM law, which holds planters of GM crops liable for economic damages to adjacent non-GM fields even if they followed planting instructions and other regulations. Many GM crop supporters see the law as an indirect attempt to stop GM planting in Germany. The law was spearheaded by German Agriculture Minister Renate K¸nast, a member of the Green party, which is a junior coalition partner of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, SPD party.
Schroeder's main opposition parties, the CDU/CSU and the FDP, both issued statements applauding Fischer Boel's initiative while at the same time criticizing K¸nast's "ideologically conditioned go-it-alone" law.
In an interview with The Scientist, Michael Mann, spokesman for Fischer Boel, acknowledged that there were issues with the new German law in terms of "whether it was proportional" to the legitimate needs of co-existence.
"We have asked for a clarification," Mann said, adding that the requested study will also look at current GM planting regulations in other EU nations.
Based on that study, expected to be completed by the end of the year, Fischer Boel and her fellow members on the European Commission, the European Union's executive body, will decide what sort of coexistence regulations would be feasible for Europe, Mann said.
When asked whether Fischer Boel in general supports GM crops and research, Mann said: "She does, if GM crops are kept separate [from non-GM fields]. She believes GM crops are a reality; they are with us and need to be properly regulated."
Christoph Then, a GM expert for Greenpeace Germany, which supported passage of the new German law, told The Scientist that Fischer Boel's comments mean that "the issue of coexistence has returned to the EU level."
But Then declined to speculate on the significance of her comments to the anti-GM crop movement. "This is a change of policy in the European Union, but it is too early to know what it means," he said.
Then said that however the issue develops at the European Commission level, Greenpeace's goal will continue to be a total moratorium on GMOs in Europe, especially for rapeseed and corn.
The organization will continue to push its theme that unless it can be definitely proven that GMOs are safe, they should be considered unsafe, Then said. "And with the evidence we have now, we believe they are not safe."
To that end, Greenpeace Europe this year plans to issue two reports, Then said. The first, which might be issued by late February, would be a concrete Europe-wide "risk assessment" of the effect of GM crops on non-GM fields.
The second report would be a "more abstract" study of the basic question of the overall safety of GM organisms. It would be designed to spark a major "scientific discussion" in Europe on the use of GMOs, Then said. "We think we need to come back to the basic scientific question of what we really know about the safety of GMOs," he said.
Links for this article:
Mariann Fischer Boel
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commission_barroso/fischer-boel/index _en.htm
"Obligatory standards for the gene crop farming," Berliner Zeitung, January 20, 2005.
www.BerlinOnline.de/berliner-zeitung/politik/414070.html
N. Stafford, "GM law 'a blow for science,'" The Scientist, December 1, 2004.
www.biomedcentral.com/news/20041201/01
25 January 2005
Reuters, Tuesday, January 25, 2005. BRUSSELS - EU food safety experts have postponed a vote on whether to allow imports of a genetically modified (GMO) maize made by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto (MON.N) pending further scientific data, officials said on Tuesday. The herbicide-resistant maize, known as GA21, is designed for use as an ingredient in food processing, not for growing. If approved, it would be imported as a finished product.
"There was a committee meeting and GA21 maize was discussed, but there was no vote. It will be at one of the next meetings, and the provisional date for the next one is March 29," an official at the European Commission told Reuters.
"There was a demand for supplementary information so that's why it (the vote) has been postponed," he said.
Monsanto applied for EU approval under a law covering food products and ingredients derived from GMOs such as flour, starch or oil from a GMO maize, paste or ketchup from a GMO tomato. Only products deemed safe for human consumption may be marketed.
The EU remains as divided as ever over biotech foods, which are shunned by an overwhelming number of European consumers.
Since November 2003, the Commission has asked EU states nine times to vote on authorizing a GMO food or feed product. In eight cases, there was no agreement and in the ninth, the deadlock around the table resulted in the vote being postponed.
But the EU has not yet touched the more contentious issue of allowing new GMO crops to be planted in Europe's fields - the test of whether the bloc's biotech ban is really over - and just a handful of GMO crops have won EU approval for growing.
Greenpeace, Jose Bové protest against genetically engineered soy on high seas
Greenpeace press release, Paris/Amsterdam, 25 January 2005. – This morning the Greenpeace ship
Esperanza intercepted the bulk carrier 'Golden Lion' 140 nautical
miles off the coast of Portugal. The Golden Lion is transporting
30.000 tons of genetically engineered soy from Argentina to France.
Onboard the Esperanza are also leading representatives of the French
farmers movement 'Confédération Paysanne' (part of Via Campesina) and
the 'Les Faucheurs Volontaires d'OGM' activist collective.
"This GMO shipment should never have been sent to Europe, and we call
on the French public to go to the port in Lorient on Friday to take
part in a peaceful protest against GE soy entering the French food
chain," says Arnaud Apoteker. "Millions of tons of GE soy are imported
each year to feed cattle, hogs and poultry in Europe. This is a slap
in face for all European citizens who have rejected GMOs in their food."
The Golden Lion is expected to arrive in Lorient, France, Friday this
week. The Monsanto 'Roundup Ready' soy onboard the ship is destined
for use in animal feed. The GMO soy expansion in Argentina has caused
the destruction of millions of hectares of rainforest and driven small
farmers and indigenous people off their land.
In Europe, strong and consistent public opposition to GMOs has forced
food producers and retailers not to use GMO ingredients directly in
food, but a big loophole in EU labelling legislation means that eggs,
meat and dairy products from animals fed with GMOs do not have to be
labelled. As a consequence food producers are able to hide the use of
GMO soy and maize in animal feed from consumers.
Together the three organisations demand a ban on the import of GMOs to
France, and specifically call on the ports of Brittany to reject GMO
imports in line with the wishes of the regional government, which
recently declared its intention to become a GMO-free zone (1).
"GMO crops represent the ugly head of destructive industrial
agriculture, threatening both the environment and the livelihoods of
small farmers," says Jose Bové. "We denounce the increasing dominance
of a few transnational GMO seed and pesticide companies over the
worlds farmers. We want to end this sick trade cycle where European
farmers have become dependent on dirty protein crops shipped across
the Atlantic. GMOs simply have no place in sustainable agriculture or
in quality food production."
According to a study by U.S. agronomist Charles Benbrook published
last week, the planting of 14 million hectares of herbicide-resistant
soy in Argentina has created a highly vulnerable agricultural system
that has also had severe social impacts (2). An estimated 2.3 million
hectares of forest and savannah have been destroyed since 1996 to make
room for new GMO soy plantations, and areas that used to grow
potatoes, beans and rice and were pasture for beef and dairy cows have
been replaced with soybean production destined for export markets.
"Cutting down rainforests and threatening the home of jaguars and
pumas only to produce animal feed for European factory farming is
down-right crazy," says Arnaud Apoteker. "I don't think any food
producer or retailer in Europe can defend forests being destroyed to
produce animal feed used to make their food products, and we expect
the food industry to move swiftly to protect their reputation among
consumers."
Greenpeace, Confédération Paysanne and Les Faucheurs Volontaires are
calling on their supporters and the public to join a peaceful and
non-violent protest against the import of GMO soy in the port of
Lorient on Friday morning when the Golden Lion is due to arrive.
For more information, footage and stills, please contact
Dan Hindsgaul, GE campaigner Greenpeace International, + 33 144 640 207
or + 45 2810 9021
Anne Castelein, Greenpeace France press desk, + 33 1 4464 0215 or 33 6
8425 0825
Maartje van Boekel, Greenpeace International press desk, + 31 6 4616 2021
For reports, updated weblogs and cyber action: www.greenpeace.org
Notes to the editor
1. With EU governments on the verge of caving in to US and WTO
pressure to allow (more) GMOs, European regions, cities and rural
communities have responded by taking their own steps to keep GMOs away
from European fields and dinner plates. Brittany is the 17th out of
France's 22 regions that has adopted a form of anti-GMO resolution,
thereby joining a rapidly growing movement in Europe where now 100
regions and 3,500 sub-regions have declared themselves as GMO-free
zones. For more information on French and European GMO-free zones, see
www.infogm.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=231
www.genet-info.org/Europe.html and
www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/gmofree/index.htm
2. Benbrook, C.M. (2005), "Rust, Resistance, Run Down Soils, and
rising Costs: Problems Facing Soybean Producers in Argentina", Ag Bio
Tech InfoNet, Technical Paper Number 8, see
www.greenpeace.org/international_en/reports
25 January 2005
GMOs and the restaurant trade
Letter to the Irish Times (24 January 2004) and Independent (20 January 2004).
A Chara,
I am writing in relation to what is becoming a major issue among professional Chefs. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will soon be introduced into Ireland. This is an alarming development. At present the produce which comes from Irish farms is as good, if not better than what you will find anywhere in the world.
As a dedicated chef and restaurateur, I have always been proud to display full details of all produce on my menus, and my raw ingredients have always been of Irish origin. Now however, some genius in the Irish government has decided that introducting GMOs will be of benefit to both the farming and food industries.
I believe this will have serious economic effects. At present the reputation of Irish beef is equalled by very few countries, one of the main competitors being Scotland. This brings me to my main point: if Scotland bans GMO and Ireland decides in its wisdom not to, which beef should I place on my menus?
Ireland has an unique opportunity to stay GMO-free. However as soon as the first blade of altered grass is planted, that is it, game over! Will my customers be happy with non-Irish beef? I am inclined to think thay will have no difficulty, afer all a detailed explanation will be provided about why I will not serve a tarnished product.
Let's keep Ireland GMO-free.
Yours, etc.,
Michael O'Meara, Oscars Restaurant, Galway
Monsanto Assault on U.S. Farmers Detailed in New Report
US Center for Food Safety press release, January 13, 2005 Contact: Craig Culp,
+1 202 547 9359, or + 1 301 509 0925 (mobile).
First-of-its-Kind Analysis Reveals Thousands of Monsanto Investigations, Nearly 100 Lawsuits and Numerous Bankruptcies.
Toll-Free Hotline Established for Farmers Facing Lawsuits or Threats from Monsanto to Get Guidance and Referrals
WASHINGTON - The Center for Food Safety released today an
extensive review of Monsanto's use and abuse of U.S. patent
law to control the usage of staple crop seeds by U.S.
farmers. The Center (CFS) launched its investigation to
determine the extent to which American farmers have been
impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented
genetically engineered crops. Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers
details the results of this research, discusses the
ramifications for the future of farming in the U.S. and
outlines policy options for ending the persecution of
America's farmers.
"These lawsuits and settlements are nothing less than
corporate extortion of American farmers," said Andrew
Kimbrell executive Director of CFS. "Monsanto is polluting
American farms with its genetically engineered crops, not
properly informing farmers about these altered seeds, and
then profiting from its own irresponsibility and negligence
by suing innocent farmers. We are committed to stopping
this corporate persecution of our farmers in its tracks."
The report finds that, in general, Monsanto's efforts to
prosecute farmers can be divided into three stages:
investigations of farmers; out-of-court settlements; and
litigation against farmers Monsanto believes are in breach
of contract or engaged in patent infringement. CFS notes in
the report that, to date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits
against American farmers in 25 states that involve 147
farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies. Monsanto
has set aside an annual budget of $10 million dollars and a
staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting
farmers.
"Monsanto would like nothing more than to be the sole source
for staple crop seeds in this country and around the world,"
said Joseph Mendelson, CFS legal director. "And it will
aggressively overturn centuries-old farming practices and
drive its own clients out of business through lawsuits to
achieve this goal."
The largest recorded judgment CFS has found thus far in
favor of Monsanto as a result of a farmer lawsuit is
$3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments granted to Monsanto
for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82. Farmers have paid a
mean of $412,259.54 for cases with recorded judgments. Many
farmers have to pay additional court and attorney fees and
are sometimes even forced to pay the costs Monsanto incurs
while investigating them. "Monsanto is taking advantage of
farmers with their marketing and their threats and
lawsuits," said Rodney Nelson, a North Dakota farmer sued
by Monsanto. "It's hard enough to farm as it is. You don't
need a big seed supplier trying to trip you up and chase you
down with lawyers."
Farmers even have been sued after their fields were
contaminated by pollen or seed from a previous year's crop
has sprouted, or "volunteered," in fields planted with non-
genetically engineered varieties the following year; and
when they never signed Monsanto's Technology Agreement but
still planted the patented crop seed. In all of these cases,
because of the way patent law has been applied, farmers are
technically liable. It does not appear to matter if the use
was unwitting or if a contract was never signed.
Various policy options supported by CFS include passing
local and state-wide bans or moratoriums on plantings of
genetically engineered crops; amending the Patent Act so
that genetically engineered plants will no longer be
patentable subject matter and so that seed saving is not
considered patent infringement; and legislating to prevent
farmers from being liable for patent infringement through
biological pollution.
CFS has established a US toll-free hotline for farmers facing
lawsuits or threats from Monsanto to get guidance and
referrals: + 1 1 888 FARMHLP.
Full text of the report: www.centerforfoodsafety.org/Monsantovsusfarmersreport.cfm
20 January 2005
GMO maize ban by Hungary
Reuters. Wednesday, January 19, 2005. By David Chance.
Budapest, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Hungary, one of the biggest grain producers in the new EU, became the first country in eastern Europe to ban GMO maize when on Wednesday it outlawed the planting of Monsanto Co's MON 810 maize hybrid seeds.
The Agriculture Ministry said it had banned MON 810 maize seed planting pending tests to establish whether GM crops contaminate other crops and said old stocks must be destroyed, although it will continue to allow GMO maize in food production.
"The temporary measure bans the production, use, distribution and import of hybrids...deriving from the MON 810 maize line," the ministry said in a statement.
MON 810 is allowed in the European Union, but individual countries currently have discretion over whether to allow it and other gene-altered crops.
No GMO crops are grown in Hungary at present and the Hungarian ban on MON 810 will come into force on Thursday and remain until tests are completed.
Anti-GMO campaigners say the technology is not proven and that it could contaminate other crops, while the industry says it vastly benefits consumers and there is no evidence of contamination from numerous trials of the crops.
Monsanto said two maize variants based on MON 810 had been awaiting approval in Hungary and that the ban was not justified, adding that Hungary had made a unilateral decision and did not appear to have consulted the European Commission.
Brussels-based Monsanto spokesman Daniel Rahier said the company did not believe that the issue of the co-existence of GMO and non-GMO crops could be used to justify a ban.
"The ban was a great disappointment for us, there was no condition which required this action, no one wanted to import genetically modified corn seed into Hungary," said Mihaly Czepo, who deals with biotechnology issues for the company in Hungary.
The ministry said the Monsanto hybrid will still be allowed to ship across Hungary, although packages must not be opened, nor the seed modified in any way, the ministry said.
"The ban applies to seed producers and distributors as well as farmers," the ministry said.
Hungary is a major grains producer and had a bumper harvest in 2004 of 16.7 million tonnes of grain, up 90.5 percent on the previous year, and much of that is exported to the European Union. Maize output alone was 8.3 million tonnes in 2004.
Austria, France, Germany, Greece and Luxembourg have bans on particular products -- three GMO maize varieties and two types of rapeseed.
Opponents of the technology have expressed concern that the new European Union countries, many of them relatively poor ex-communist countries, could provide a back door for GMO food production, something the industry has denied.
Poland allows the import of GMO maize and is in the process of passing a law which would allow for growing of GMO maize in Poland, which is expected to be voted on in parliament this year.
Romania, also a big grains producer which hopes to join the EU in 2007, allows genetically modified soya and is keen to expand GMO food production.
16 January 2005
Columban Father finds the devil in the detail
The Irish Times, 16 January 2005.
Another Life: It's getting on for 20 years since Bill McKibben's book The End of Nature summed up our fears of global warming and genetic engineering in human manipulation of the Earth.
In that time, many people have braced themselves for some planetary consequence, perhaps on the scale we have witnessed in the Indian Ocean. The fact that the undersea earthquake was a perfectly natural phenomenon - a periodic easing of one of Gaia's stiffer joints - has served to emphasise Earth's indifference to our species. It has also dramatised, for many, the coming threat of melting icecaps, spreading deserts, engulfing floods.
Its colossal impact has quite wiped from our attention an earlier disaster, elsewhere in the Pacific, for which nature alone was certainly not to blame. At the start of December, rainstorms in the Philippines brought mudslides from denuded hills to wipe out hundreds of people and leave thousands more homeless. They were coincidental and tragic illustration for the early chapters of a small, angry book, The Death of Life, just published in Ireland.
Its author, Fr Sean McDonagh, is a Columban missionary priest who has made a crusade of protest against human mistreatment of the Earth and its poorer peoples. The Death of Life (Columba Press, 9.99) is the latest in a series of books in which he has bravely challenged his Church, and Christianity in general, for their moral and theological neglect of nature - a revelation forced upon him in the Philippines some 40 years ago.
Then, he was helping the tribes of the Philippines' T'Boli hills to protect their primal rainforest, so central to their lives and religious traditions. Decades of corrupt and reckless logging, benefiting only a wealthy few, were to leave many of the islands quite bare.
The loss of the living fabric we have learned to call biodiversity is the chief concern of The Death of Life. Along with its plea for action to save species threatened with extinction, not just in the Philippines but in habitats across the world, he continues to argue for an "ecologically sensitive theology". "A truly pro-life stance," he insists, "would address what is happening to life in every part of the world, especially in rich ecosystems like coral reefs and tropical forests." Woven with this is McDonagh's shrewd appreciation of the ambitions of transnational corporations, agri-business and pharmaceutical, who would chain Third World farmers to production of patented GM crops and use trade agreements to pirate the biological and genetic resources of their countries.
His activism goes beyond books. Columbans are one of many Catholic organisations to express deep concern over the Vatican's inclination to support GM crops in the name of ending world hunger. McDonagh was at a conference at Rome's Gregorian University last autumn, called "Feeding the World: The Moral Imperative of Biotechnology" and sponsored jointly by the US Ambassador to the Holy See and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The speakers, by McDonagh's account, were overwhelmingly Monsanto-allied and the atmosphere "not dialogue-friendly".
For the ambassador, James Nicholson, opposition to GM crops was "cultural imperialism". This did not dissuade McDonagh from challenging him from the floor on such issues as Kyoto, biopiracy and the subversive impact of GM technology and food aid on Third World farmers. The priest's critique of the Pontifical Academy's study document rehearsed a familiar gamut of objections to GM technology, but also contained a detail I found new and arresting. It dealt with some small print in recent American dealings in Iraq: "Before the 'transfer of sovereignty' in June 2004, the former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, left behind 100 executive orders. Order 81 on, Patents, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety, rescinds Iraq's 1970 patent law which prohibited the private ownership of biological resources. The new, US-imposed patent law introduces new monopoly rights over seeds through Plant Variety Protection Orders."
Is it mere paranoia to suppose that such an extraordinary priority somehow fitted in with the corporate marketing designs of companies like Monsanto? Like many environmentalists, I am beginning to wonder if concerns about the potential effects of GM foods on health have not been a fatal distraction from the real and present threat: the extension of transnational corporate power over the human food supply and its farming producers. In that context, even the cost to plant biodiversity, while grave, becomes almost incidental.
American aid is now pouring out to the tsunami countries. It is neither ungracious, unappreciative, nor anti-American to hope it does not carry too many hidden, long-term, corporate strings.
14 January 2005
EU sues state over chronic failures on environment
Irish Independent. 14 January 2005. Treacy Hogan. THE state is being prosecuted for a raft of major environmental and public health timebombs, the European Commission announced yesterday.
In a hard-hitting statement the EU said it was left with no option but to take the Government to court for its persistent failure to tackle eight key problems.
"Substantial fines" running to tens of thousands of euro every day are being levelled at the state if it does not comply with court judgments after the case, the Commission warned.
The EU also publicly spelled out its reasons for rejecting the Government's proposals for curbing nitrates from farm fertiliser, revealing that it had watered down its own proposals for storage times.
The offences covered the failure to reduce agricultural pollution of water supplies, horrible smells from sewage facilities and eradicating ozone depleting chemicals in pesticides.
There was also a failure to restore wetlands and remove waste from the Boyne Estuary.
The Government has also failed to reduce high level of air pollutants, and clean up toxic mine sites like Tynagh Mines in Galway where families have warned about the health impacts on their children.
Water samples taken by tthe EPA showed contamination hundreds of times above permitted EU levels. Cattle have have tested positive for lead poisoning in the Silvermines area of North Tipperary.
The EU said yesterday that the construction of a new metal finishing plant on the site involved the movement and disposal on the site of contaminated material.
"Ireland has not demonstrated that this disposal was made subject to a water permit under the EU Framework Directive on Waste."
The EU also found there was a failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment before work was resumed at the site of the Derrybrien landslide, Co Mayo, in October 2003.
The EU, in its lengthy statement, said it was forced to take the action "to safeguard the Irish environment and public health".
It went on: "The Commission's action in these cases is aimed at reducing agricultural and sewage-related water pollution, protecting citizens from noxious sewage odours, ensuring safe waste disposal, ensuring that significant projects are properly environmentally assessed."
The aim was also to "restore an important nature site and getting Ireland to participate more fully in wider efforts to curb air pollution and protect the Earth's Ozone Layer".
The EU also criticised the Republic's legislation and enforcement practice over the retention of illegal developments, highlighting certain projects, such as quarrying and pig-rearing, which were are being carried out or intensified before an EIA is undertaken or considered.
"The public and the environment and thereby potentially exposed to damage and nuisances," the EU statement added.
13 January 2005
The fast spread of genetically modified crops means transatlantic trouble
The Economist, 13 January 2005. GREENS may hate them, but farmers love them: that is the lesson of statistics out this week on the spread of genetically modified (GM) crops. The area sown with them worldwide last year was up by a startling 20% on 2003, to 81m hectares.
So says the ISAAA (a pro-GM body but the best source of data there is). After an 11% rise, America still accounts for nearly 60% of the total, but GM areas in other big food exporters, bar Australia, were rising fast: in Argentina by 17%, Canada by 23%, Brazil by 66% (maybe: no one can be sure how much of its soya is GM, but certainly plenty and the potential there is huge). Maize and soya remain by far the biggest GM food crops. Wheat has got nowhere. China, though it has rushed into GM cotton, is still dithering about GM rice.
What does the rise of GM mean for business? For specialists in GM seeds such as Monsanto or its European rival Syngenta, very good news. Monsanto has just released quarterly results showing its herbicide sales flat but its seeds business 20% up; after a rough period, the firm is now heading back into profit. But there may be trade trouble ahead. The European Union (EU), whose consumers mostly fear GM, is already under fire from America, Canada and Argentina for its past ban on their GM exports. And though the ban has gone and the EU recently approved some GM varieties of maize, its new GM rules lookófrom the prairiesójust as obstructive, and its national governments, with their voters in mind, are mostly dragging their feet.
Yet the EU has a fifth column inside: Spain plants a small but rapidly increasing area with GM maize and Romania, which is likely to join the EU in 2007, grows GM soya.
7 January 2005
Genetically Modified Foods:
A Concern for the Allergic
allergies.about.com, 05.01.05 Genetically Modified Foods:
A Concern for the Allergic Your Guide, Judy Tidwell From
Judy Tidwell, Your Guide to Allergies. FREE Newsletter.
Sign Up Now! Do They Cause Allergic Reactions? Genetically
modified (GM) foods should be a concern for those who suffer
from food allergies because they are not tested, regulated,...
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Monsanto Settles With US Over Indonesia Bribe
Reuters News Service. NEW YORK - Monsanto Co. on Thursday said it agreed to pay $1.5 million in penalties to settle US criminal and civil charges for bribing an Indonesian government official and concealing the payment as consulting fees.
The agrochemical company said it accepted full responsibility for the improper activities and regretted that people working on behalf of Monsanto engaged in such behavior.
The settlements were reached with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Justice Department said Monsanto was charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for making an illegal payment of $50,000 to a senior official in Indonesia's Ministry of the Environment in 2002 and falsely certifying the bribe as "consultant fees" on the company's books and records.
Monsanto agreed to pay a $1 million penalty, adopt internal compliance measures, and cooperate with continuing criminal and civil investigations.
An "independent compliance expert" will audit and keep watch on Monsanto's compliance program, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The St. Louis-based company also agreed to pay a $500,000 civil penalty to settle SEC charges for the $50,000 bribe and related violations.
The SEC charges also included at least $700,000 of "illegal or questionable payments made to at least 140 current or former Indonesian government officials and their family members," the SEC said.
Some of the payments were for buying land and building a house in the name of the wife of a senior Ministry of Agriculture official, the SEC said.
"Companies cannot bribe their way into favorable treatment by foreign officials," said Christopher Wray, an assistant US Attorney General.
A former US-based Monsanto senior manager directed an Indonesian consulting firm to make the $50,000 bribe to a senior official in the Ministry of the Environment to get him to repeal a requirement for an environmental impact study the company needed before it could cultivate genetically modified crops, the Justice Department said.
The Monsanto manager also ordered the Indonesian consultants to submit false invoices for "consultant fees" to get reimbursed for the bribe money. The manager also agreed to pay the consulting firm's taxes on income from the phony fees, according to the department.
The cash bribe was delivered to the government official in February 2002 and Monsanto, through its Indonesian subsidiary, paid the false invoices the next month and a false entry for the "consulting services" was included in Monsanto's books and records, the department said.
The Indonesian official, however, did not authorize repeal of the environmental study requirement.
Monsanto stock was up 4.7 percent at $53.39 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
6 January 2005
New EU environmental laws published Environment Daily. Several new pieces of environment-related EU legislation were published in the bloc's official journal over the Christmas period:
* Commission directive 2004/115 amends maximum residue levels (MRLs) for 11 pesticides and groups of pesticides in various fruits and vegetables. Member states are required to adopt the legislation by 22 June this year and apply it from 23 June. The directive comes against a background of a major overhaul of EU rules on MRLs, now in its last stages:
(ED 16/12/04: http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=17913).
See directive
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_374/l_37420041222en00640071.pdf
* Commission regulation 2229/2004 extends an ongoing programme of review and re-registration of market approvals for pesticides to the EU's ten new member states. Specifically, the regulation enables manufacturers in the new members to participate in the fourth stage of the programme. Under stages one to three over 400 active substances out of 850 on the market in 1993 have already been withdrawn after manufacturers decided against pursuing re-registration:
(ED 11/07/03 http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=14823).
See regulation
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_379/l_37920041224en00130063.pdf.
* Two Commission decisions set out extensive lists of protected natural sites joining the EU's Natura 2000 ecological network for the Atlantic and Continental biogeographical regions. The decisions run to a combined total of 285 pages. Lists for two other regions have already been published; three more are still pending.
(ED 08/12/04: http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=17855).
Decisions on Atlantic lists:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_387/l_38720041229en00010096.pdf
Decisions on Continental lists:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/l_382/l_38220041228en00010189.pdflink
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