NEWS ABOUT GM ISSUES • March 2010
This page provides only minimal coverage for the month of March
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Novinite.com, 12 March 2010:
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=114142
[Photo caption: Bulgaria's President, Georgi Parvanov, says he insists on a country free from GMO.]
Bulgaria's President, Georgi Parvanov, strongly criticized the amendments of the Bulgarian Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) Act.
During a special press conference Friday, dedicated to the economic crisis and the crisis between the Bulgarian institutions, Parvanov pointed out that he insists on a country free from GMO.
The President announced that if the Act is passed the way it has been proposed, he would veto it. In case the veto is not approved by the Parliament, Parvanov reiterated his earlier warnings that he would call a referendum on it.
On Monday, the President stated that the amendments to the GMO Act should include strict safeguards to protect Bulgaria from contamination, adding he may use his right to call on the Bulgarian Parliament to hold a national referendum on the issue for or against retention of the prohibitions on release into the environment of GMOs.
On Friday, the Parliament fell into an interesting predicament when the GMO Act was discussed almost simultaneously by the MPs from the Bulgaria Parliamentary Environment Committee and in plenary hall.
Deputy Environment Minister, Evdokia Maneva, reported that the Committee's MPs had unanimously endorsed the proposal made by the MP from the ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, Kostadin Yazov, to prohibit the release of GMOs into the environment and also to add that all NATURA 2000 areas will be protected from GMOs.
In plenary hall, the second reading of the Act stalled over the failure to reach consensus and was postponed.
Petar Kurumbashev, MP from the left-wing Coalition for Bulgaria, which includes the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) as its main formation, said that there is an obvious Parliament lobby for GMO and the GERB majority approves it. He was backed by his fellow party member, Georgi Bozhinov, who pointed out that the GMO Act is the cause of big businesses that have invested billions in GMO.
Meanwhile, NGOs and civic organizations informed they are planning a large protest rally against GMO Saturday.
GMO protections needed
• Canadian farmers could suffer if markets refuse entry to genetically modified crops
Jean Crowder
The Citizen [Canada], 12 March 2010:
http://www.canada.com/business/protections+needed/2673582/story.html
I was pleased to introduce Percy Schmeiser, the farmers' rights activist, at a presentation in Duncan on the issues of food security and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) hosted by Cowichan Green Community.
The New Democrats are very concerned about the limiting of farmers' rights to re-use their own seed and to be protected from contamination by GMOs.
That is why New Democrats introduced a private member's bill to amend the Seed Regulations Act to require that an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any genetically engineered (GE) seeds is permitted.
In September 2009 Canadian farmers and our European customers, who have a zero-tolerance policy for unapproved GE crops and products; found that an illegal GE flax seed, called the CDC Triffid had contaminated Canadian flax exports. Contamination reached 35 countries.
European countries began removing products from their shelves and quarantined all shipments of flax from Canada. As a result, the price of flax has plummeted and the market is still uncertain while farmers are forced to pay for testing and clean-up.
The recent loss of our flax export markets due to GE contamination makes it very clear that any GE technology that is not accepted by our major export markets has little economic value to Canadian farmers.
Zero tolerance for contamination by unapproved GE products is a firmly entrenched policy in Europe. And many other countries on other continents are following Europe's lead. This policy is not going to change and our farmers should not suffer economic harm because of it.
Why does this matter to our community? GE alfalfa has already been approved for release in Canada, with only variety registration needed before it can be legally sold. Alfalfa is grown throughout Vancouver Island and dehydrated forage for export is a growing market.
Monsanto is re-launching its GE wheat research. More than 80 per cent of the wheat grown in Canada is exported. Imagine the devastation of that industry if overseas markets shut down that export market.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has indicated support for the spirit of the bill and will be following the debate and any amendments that are put forward closely. The National Farmers Union, The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), and the organic food and farm community are in support. An action to support C-474 has been set up on the CBAN website www.cban.ca/474action.
I will keep you up-to-date on what happens with this Bill. Please let me know if you have other ideas on how to protect our food security.
Jean Crowder is the Member of Parliament for Nanaimo-Cowichan. She can be reached at her local office at 250-746-4896.
US pledges to probe, bust agribusiness monopolies
• Special focus on patent law misuse
• Attorney General cites "historic era of enforcement"
Carey Gillam
Reuters [USA], 12 March 2010:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1214000120100312
ANKENY, Iowa - Two U.S. cabinet members and other top officials on Friday pledged a thorough examination of allegations that monopolistic practices in agriculture are driving small farmers out of business, and said they would aggressively enforce antitrust laws.
A day after farmers, consumers and other critics of corporate agriculture held a rally calling for a government crackdown on agribusiness monopolies, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack addressed a standing-room-only crowd at a college auditorium in Iowa.
The cabinet members said they recognized several key components of agriculture were concentrated into a few corporate hands. They said they need to determine how that helps or hinders farmers overall.
Holder told the crowd of farmers, labor and consumer groups and corporate representatives that the Justice Department recognized some farmers were finding it more difficult to survive. He said erosion of competitive markets would be a significant threat to the U.S. economy, thus a national security matter.
"We want everybody to have a fair shot," said Holder. "Big is not necessarily bad but big can be bad if power that comes from being big is misused. That is simply not something that this Department of Justice is going to stand for."
Friday's meeting in Ankeny, Iowa, was the first of a series of five such gatherings the federal agencies are holding around the United States to examine complaints about concentration in the seed, livestock and dairy industries.
The day-long meeting is organized as a forum for farmers, academics, corporate officials and consumer groups to voice their concerns to federal officials.
"What farmers need is opportunity," Iowa farmer Ken Fawcett told federal officials at the forum. "That needs to be free of the corporations that control so much of the industry. Corporations decide too much."
The joint Justice Department/USDA meeting in Iowa, the top U.S. corn-growing state, was focused in part on complaints about leading seed company Monsanto (MON.N). Critics say the company has gained sweeping control of the corn and soybean seed markets, driving up prices and its profits by buying up independent seed companies, patenting seed traits and inducing dealers to promote Monsanto products over rivals.
Monsanto has denied engaging in unfair monopolistic practices and said its licensing arrangements foster broad competition.
But farmers and many seed industry players, as well as Monsanto rival DuPont Co (DD.N), are pushing for U.S. government action against Monsanto, particularly changes in Monsanto's patented control of seed germplasm.
Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, who oversees antitrust issues for the Justice Department, did not speak directly about Monsanto, but drew applause when she said Justice would vigorously examine any misuse of patent protections to gain monopolies.
She said the antitrust division has appointed investigators with agricultural backgrounds as part of an "unrelenting quest" to ensure a balanced marketplace.
Holder also emphasized the Justice Department's interest in pursuing any misuse of patents as part of an aggressive probe into agriculture.
"You will see an historic era of enforcement that will grow," said Holder.
The officials would not comment about specific companies or actions that they may take.
"We are looking to enforce the law vigorously and fairly," Varney said. (Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by David Gregorio)
Call to "Bust Up Big Ag"
Ben Lilliston
Think Forward blog, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy [USA], 12 March 2010:
http://iatp.typepad.com/thinkforward/2010/03/call-to-bust-up-big-ag.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20typepad/iatp/thinkforward%20%28IATP:%20Think%20Forward%29
"It is a lie that we have a free market. It's a lie that we have an open market. It's a market controlled by corporations." This remark from an Iowa farmer last night captured the fiery sentiment at a townhall meeting of over 250 people, packed into a room at the Best Western in Ankeny, Iowa.
The townhall was held on the eve of the first ever U.S. government workshop on competition in agriculture, that will start in a few minutes. The joint USDA/Department of Justice workshop is the start of a series of similar events to be held around the country this year. The room last night was full of farmers from the region, local Iowans and the bright yellow shirts of United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) members from surrounding meatpacking areas.
Barb Kalbach, a fourth-generation farmer from Dexter, Iowa and part of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI), kicked off the meeting: "We're here today to make sure the voices of everyday people are heard loud and clear. And that message is: 'bust up big ag.' A handful of multinationals have run roughshod for too long. Antitrust laws have not been enforced. We want action now and we expect the government to represent the people and the common good.î
The concentration of the seed industry and excessive use of patents took center stage with many of the comments - with Monsanto a common target. "The only thing they haven't done is put a patent on air and charge us for breathing it," said one farmer from Iowa.
"This monopolistic system is rigged against family farmers," George Naylor, a corn and soybean farmer from Churdan, Iowa and also part of ICCI, told the crowd. "This casino economy is rigged so farmers don't have much of a choice of the seeds that they buy. Monsanto has intentionally bought up seed companies to eliminate competition."
Todd Leake, a wheat and soybean farmer from North Dakota told the crowd, "If anything belongs in the public domain, it's the crops we grow for food."
Many also focused on the livestock and poultry industry. Rhonda Perry, a livestock farmer from Armstrong, Missouri and part of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, said, "A handful of meatpackers and poultry companies completely dominate the entire livestock industry. The big corporations say that they are more efficient. The reality is that they don't have to be more efficient - they just have to control the market. It's not good for farmers or consumers."
UFCW's Mark Lauritsen talked about growing up in a meatpacking family in Iowa during the farm crisis in the 1980s. " I saw the pain in the face of farmers - and I saw the meatpacking plants closed, and wages lowered for those that stayed open. Fewer and fewer corporations are controlling the food industry. The Justice Department needs to be pushed to include the impact of concentration on workers, family farmers and the communities we live in."
IATP's Alexandra Spieldoch talked about how farmers in the U.S., Mexico and Canada all were facing a simlar squeeze from a few big companies that now dominate the North American market. You can read our fact sheet we prepared for the meeting, as well as watch a short video of Alexandra summarizing IATP's comment to the USDA and DOJ.
Patty Lovera of Food and Water Watch, summarized the sense of people in the room as they await Friday's workshop: "Games have rules, they have referees. The government is our referee - it's time for the referee to get back in the game."
Monsanto's Seed Patents May Trump Antitrust Claims, Lawyers Say
Jack Kaskey and William McQuillen
Business Week / Bloomberg [USA], 12 March 2010:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-12/monsanto-s-seed-patents-may-trump-antitrust-claims-lawyers-say.html
Monsanto Co., facing antitrust probes into its genetically modified seeds, may benefit from previous court rulings in which intellectual property rights trumped competition concerns, antitrust lawyers say.
The Department of Justice and seven state attorneys general are investigating whether the world's largest seed company is using gene licenses to keep competing technologies off the market. At issue is how the St. Louis-based company sells and licenses its patented trait that allows farmers to kill weeds with Roundup herbicide while leaving crops unharmed. The company's Roundup Ready gene was in 93 percent of U.S. soybeans last year.
"Justice is clearly trying every way it can to see whether Monsanto is exceeding its rights under the patent," said James Weiss, a Washington-based attorney at K&L Gates LLP who helped defend Microsoft Corp. against a federal antitrust probe. "At the end of the day, they may not be able to do much with it because of the scope of those patents. In almost all the cases, the courts come out on the side of intellectual property."
Yet Monsanto's seeds are so ubiquitous that they have become like AT&T's telephone lines before the company's 1984 breakup or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system in the 1990s, said James P. Denvir, an attorney who represents rival seedmaker DuPont Co. and led the government's AT&T case.
"Both cases involve what I think of as a classic platform monopoly," Denvir said. "It's a facility that competitors need access to, to compete against the monopolist."
Monsanto and DuPont, which are suing each other over a biotech seed license, both hired former Justice Department lawyers who have handled high-profile cases.
'Revolutionizing the Marketplace'
Monsanto's attorney, Dan Webb, defended Microsoft in 2002 against government antitrust claims. A former U.S. Attorney in Chicago, he also prosecuted Admiral John Poindexter in the Iran- Contra affair.
Webb credits Monsanto with "revolutionizing the agriculture marketplace" and said antitrust claims such as those in DuPont's suit aren't an uncommon response to patent infringement cases such as Monsanto's.
"The perception among farmers is that DuPont's complaints about exclusivity are without merit," said Webb, a Chicago- based Winston & Strawn LLP partner.
Denvir, who represents DuPont, said farmers are among the victims.
"Clearly, we are too," he said. "The bigger harm, the more important harm, is to farmers in denying them the best seeds they can get at the lowest possible prices."
Legal Monopoly
While patents provide some protection from antitrust claims, giving a company a legal monopoly for a specified time, patent rights can be abused, DuPont lawyers and others said.
"The question becomes whether or not somebody in that position has engaged in some bad acts that either got it in that position or are designed to maintain that position or to extend that position to other markets," said Charles "Rick" Rule, a lawyer at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP who ran the Justice Department's antitrust unit under President Ronald Reagan.
The Justice Department and Department of Agriculture will hold a workshop on competition in agricultural markets, including biotech seeds, today in Ankeny, Iowa. Christine Varney, who heads the antitrust division now, has signaled she'll be more aggressive than the Bush administration, Rule said.
The department probably is looking at whether Monsanto's licensing restrictions on seeds have a legitimate business justification, said Rule, who occasionally advises Monsanto and isn't working with Webb on the antitrust case.
Potential for Abuse
"When you have that sort of monopoly power, it can lead to abuse, which is what we've been experiencing over the past several years," said Thomas L. Sager, DuPont's general counsel.
Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont claims Monsanto protects its lead in biotech seeds, including the Roundup Ready seeds sold since 1996, by controlling whether competitors can add their own genetics.
Monsanto also has begun switching seedmakers and growers from Roundup Ready soybeans to the newer Roundup Ready 2 Yield version in advance of the original's patent expiration in 2014. DuPont says Monsanto is using incentives and penalties to switch the industry to the new product in a way that unlawfully extends the Roundup Ready monopoly.
'Level Playing Field'
"This is about trying to obtain a level playing field so innovators can introduce combinations of choices to the farmer that increase yield and of course feed the world," Sager said.
At least seven states are investigating many of the same claims, as well as whether Monsanto illegally offered rebates to distributors who limit sales of competing seed, according to one person involved in the probe who asked not to be named because he isn't authorized to discuss it.
3M Co.'s use of rebates to induce retailers to buy more transparent tape and curtail purchases from a smaller supplier was ruled anticompetitive by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003.
Monsanto has amended its practices to address some criticisms. The company will help the introduction of generic Roundup Ready soybeans by maintaining foreign import approvals during the transition, a process that will be followed for off- patent biotech seeds in the future, Chief Executive Officer Hugh Grant said in a January interview. Monsanto last year stopped giving rebates to dealers who limited competing seeds' sales, said Kelli Powers, a spokeswoman.
AT&T, Microsoft Parallels
DuPont filed its federal antitrust case last year after Monsanto sued to block its rival from adding the Roundup Ready trait to seeds already modified to tolerate Roundup weed killer.
"Trait development has been stunted by the inability to get access to the Roundup Ready platform," Denvir, an attorney with Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, said in an interview in his Washington office. The firm was founded by David Boies, who led the government's successful antitrust suit against Microsoft. Roundup Ready is "licensed so broadly that if you want to offer any trait, it has to be somehow combined with that trait."
While Monsanto has promised to allow generic versions of its products to emerge, Denvir said he is unconvinced that will happen without government intervention.
Monsanto got its lead in seed biotechnology because it invested in research long before DuPont and other competitors, said Webb, Monsanto's counsel. The company spent $6 billion on seed research in the 10 years through 2008 and $1 billion a year since then, said Powers, the company spokeswoman.
Among the cases relevant to the claims against Monsanto is a 2004 Supreme Court decision that Verizon Communications Inc. and other phone companies didn't break laws by doing too little to encourage competition, said Rule, the former antitrust division head.
Xerox Ruling
A Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in February 2000 that Xerox Corp. can't be sued for using patents to establish or entrench a monopoly also may apply to the Monsanto disputes, he said.
The cases reflect how U.S. courts have given intellectual property owners leeway to control licensing to make the property more valuable, encourage the owner to widely license the technology and support further investment, he said.
Greg Neppl, with Foley & Lardner, agreed that intellectual property rights often trump antitrust concerns.
"The patent concerns are well protected in the law," said Neppl. "Where the patent rights are clear, the antitrust issues are secondary. The antitrust concerns must respect the patent owner."
Monsanto persuaded U.S. District Judge Richard Webber in September to separate the licensing case from DuPont's antitrust counterclaim. The seedmaker won an additional incremental victory in January when Webber ruled that DuPont violated the companies' licensing agreement by combining Monsanto's Roundup- tolerance gene with a DuPont gene that does the same thing.
Counterclaim 'Clutter'
Patent infringement is "a fair and proper case," Webb said. "Monsanto will have its day in court and it will not be cluttered with the antitrust counterclaim."
Monsanto shares climbed 50 cents to $71.61 yesterday, paring the decrease since DuPont filed its antitrust case in mid-June to 15 percent. DuPont has climbed 42 percent in the same period.
Justice Department probes typically move in tandem with related civil litigation because plaintiffs share information with the government, Neppl said.
"The antitrust division today is more willing to look at assertions" of anticompetitive behavior, Rule said. "This is something they have a right to look at. Once they get into an investigation, they are pretty good at making up their own mind."
The case is Monsanto Co. v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 09cv686, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis).
--With reporting by Alison Fitzgerald in Washington and Carlyn Kolker in New York. Editors: James Langford, Peter Blumberg, Jeffrey Taylor
To contact the reporters on this story: Jack Kaskey in New York at jkaskey@bloomberg.net; William McQuillen in Washington at bmcquillen@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Miller at kmiller@bloomberg.net.
Bt cotton failure a profit ploy?
Nitin Sethi
The Times of India, March 12 2010:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bt-cotton-failure-a-profit-ploy/articleshow/5673195.cms
NEW DELHI: Did declining profitability prompt Monsanto's announcement that its Bt cotton variety had failed to beat the pink bollworm pest in four districts in Gujarat and could this be part of a ploy to promote its second generation GM cotton variety? The Union government thinks so.
In an internal note, that TOI accessed, the ministry of environment and forests said, "It appears that this (announcing the failure of Bt cotton) could be a business strategy to phase out single gene events (the current variety) and promote double (stacked) genes which would fetch higher price."
Believing that the seed giant is attempting to hardsell its new Bollgard II variety, the internal note said Monsanto may not have any incentive to continue with single gene event (the current Bollgard 1 variety) as a court order restricted Monsanto to sell the Bt cotton variety at a much lower price.
The note stressed that the earlier variety was giving dwindling profits and the technology provider (Monsanto)'s financial returns on technology fee had greatly diminished in the last few years. "Switching to Bollgard II will not only fetch higher trait fee, but will also leave the competition, which as of now has only single gene products, far behind," the note said.
The note also questioned the veracity of tests conducted by Monsanto and questioned the way the company went about announcing the failure of Bt cotton against the pink bollworm in Gujarat. The ministry noted that it was puzzling that the company had gone public with the failure of its own product without consultation with CICR Nagpur, which is the government body vested with powers to monitor the crop.
The government also noted that even if the company's statement was to be taken at face value, the danger that the new variety could also fail against the pest remained. "The company has indicated that the resistance development would have been caused by planting of unauthorised Bt cotton seeds and the non-adoption of refugia planting by the farmers. These are plausible causes, however, why has it not happened earlier and not in other bollworms? If these are issues with the adoption of refugia strategy, as it is being recommended today, then Bollgard II may also not be a solution," the note said.
The company, responding to the note, told TOI, "Firstly, we are unaware of a note you refer to, hence prefer not to speculate." A spokesperson for Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech added, "In 2009, over 65% of Gujarat cotton farmers chose to plant Bollgard II cotton seeds, and pre-season bookings for the 2010 season indicate that over 90% of Gujarat cotton farmers are expected to plant Bollgard II in the coming season. Overall, approximately 80% of cotton farmers nationally are expected to plant Bollgard II in the 2010 season."
But the ministry, which has been batting for a cautious approach to GM technology, warned, "It is a natural phenomenon that when pest population is exposed to Bt crops continuously for several years, may develop resistance to Bt toxin through natural selection or mutation."
11 March 2010
Entire province must move to organic farming, NDP leader says
Editorial Staff
The Guardian [Prince Edward Island, Canada], 11 March 2010:
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=331926&sc=101
The ongoing crisis in Prince Edward Island's agricultural sector has prompted Island New Democrat Leader James Rodd to call for a wholescale conversion to organic farming.
But he doubts if either the current Liberal government or the opposition Conservatives will move in that direction.
"The industrial model of farming has been on the rise in Prince Edward Island and elsewhere for at least 50 years and if it isn't soon reversed, the agricultural landscape of this province will soon be limited exclusively to large-scale farming operations owned or controlled by multinational agrifood businesses."
Rodd, an organic vegetable grower, cited figures showing the dramatic decline in the farming community under both Liberal and Conservative governments.
In 1921, there were 13,701 farms in Prince Edward Island, with an average size of 89 acres. The total area farmed was over 1.2 million acres, he said. In 2006, the census showed only 1,700 farms. Meanwhile, the average size of a P.E.I. farm had quadrupled to 369 acres and the total farming acreage had been cut in half to just over 600,000 acres.
Rodd also pointed to a continuing decline under the current Ghiz government and cited the crisis in both the potato and livestock sectors as examples of how things were getting worse.
"Our hog and beef industries are on life support and potato growers are suffering from a chronic inability to recover even the cost of production. Clearly, the current system isn't working and a significant change of direction is required."
Rodd said the only solution is to implement a long-term plan to convert the entire provincial agriculture sector to organic production. Such an approach would support the development of a comprehensive Garden of the Gulf branding and marketing campaign, along with an enhanced Buy Local initiative.
It would also involve co-ordination between producers and the provincial government and the investment of public monies to enable the conversion to organic farming on a provincewide scale, he said.
"The first step would be to ban genetically modified crops," Rodd said. "That's exactly what Ireland is doing, for example, and Japan and other countries have already implemented such a ban."
He admits it would cost to make the conversion, even if it was phased in over a decade or two. But he sees it as a case of pay now or pay more later.
Canadian Groups Urge U.S. to Stop New GE Alfalfa
Checkbiotech.org, 11 March 2010:
http://greenbio.checkbiotech.org/news/canadian_groups_urge_us_stop_new_ge_alfalfa
Monsanto's new GE lines could contaminate Canadian crops if approved for commercialization in the U.S., say critics Canadian farmers are worried that a ruling prohibiting the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa in the United States may soon be overturned.
Several farmer and consumer groups are urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) not to permit the introduction of GE alfalfa in the United States, saying the move could have an irreversible negative impact on the future of organic food and farming in Canada.
The USDA is currently inviting comments on its environmental impact statement concerning the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of allowing the deregulation of two lines of GE alfalfa produced by Monsanto Company and Forage Genetics International.
If the USDA decides in favor of the herbicide tolerant alfalfa, the current court injunction on plantings in the United States will be lifted. A hearing is scheduled for April 27.
In responding to the FDA, groups including the National Farmers Union, the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate, and Beyond Factory Farming argue that commercializing GE alfalfa in the United States would result in widespread contamination of Canadian alfalfa and loss of markets.
Arnold Taylor, national president of Canadian Organic Growers, says there are several ways in which GE alfalfa could make its way across the border, including being carried by honeybees.
"Bees don't recognize the border, they'll fly right across that border," he says, adding that since GE alfalfa is an "approved event" in Canada (though not approved for commercial use), there's nothing to stop people from importing alfalfa hay, seed, feed, or pellets into Canada from the United States.
"The biggest threat is importation of seed as well as the fact that if they do deregulate in the United States, Monsanto will most certainly try to introduce it in Canada. That's the biggest threat as far as I'm concerned."
An important rotational crop in organic and conventional agriculture, alfalfa's many attributions make it particularly important in organic farming.
The plant prevents erosion, is a soil builder that aids soil fertility, and its competitive nature gives it the ability to crowd out weedsómaking it invaluable in organic agriculture where using herbicides and fertilizers is not an option.
GE crops are also not an option. In compliance with organic standards worldwide, Canada prohibits the use of GE organisms in organic production. Contamination, says Taylor, would almost certainly destroy organic agriculture in many areas.
"This alfalfa thing is directly aimed at the heart of organic farming because without alfalfa it's going to be a big disaster. The biggest threat to us is once that [genetically modified organism] gets into our alfalfa, we won't be able to seed alfalfa and there's no substitute for alfalfa for soil building," said Taylor.
In addition, animals that consume contaminated alfalfa could no longer be classified as organic, and organic dairy production would become extremely difficult, if not impossible, once feedstock became contaminated.
The USDA supports the "co-existence" of GE crops with conventional and organic crops. In its environmental impact statement, the agency suggests that contamination is unlikely to occur because alfalfa is typically harvested before 10 percent of the plants reach full flower. 'Here in Canada there is virtually no organic canola any more as everything is contaminated by genetic material." - Terry Pugh, Canadian National Farmers Union.
Terry Pugh, executive secretary with the Canadian National Farmers Union (NFU), says that while this may be true in theory, it won't work in practice.
"The reality is that when you're farming, you can't always harvest [alfalfa] at the appropriate time. Sometimes it rains, so that means you lose a few days or a week and you can't get at it. Then the flowering occurs and you've got the spread of that gene. So even the best of intentions often just can't overcome the vagaries of nature," said Pugh.
Pugh says the USDA is not looking at the market impact, has not provided any protections for non-GE alfalfa farmers and exporters in the EIS, and in fact puts the onus on non-GE farmers to prevent contamination by avoiding simultaneous flowering with GE alfalfa in neighboring fields.
Non-GE alfalfa farmers are also required to be responsible for removing commercial beekeepers's hives from the vicinity of GM alfalfa fields.
"Given the fact that honey bees forage at distances over 10 kilometers [6.2 miles], the task of controlling this method of contamination is nothing short of herculean," says the Farmer's Union in their submission to the USDA.
Monsanto Canada spokesperson Trish Jordan says alfalfa markets wouldn't be negatively impacted if Canadian non-GE alfalfa became contaminated because Roundup Ready alfalfa is fully approved in both Canada and Japan, which is a market for Canadian flax.
"There is zero-tolerance anywhere in the world, by any country, for unapproved events and rightly so. Once the events are approved then it's a different situation, because there are typically thresholds and tolerance levels in place," said Jordan.
Roundup Ready is Monsanto's line of GE crops designed to be resistant to Roundup, the agrochemical company's best-selling pesticide. When Roundup is sprayed on a field, it kills the weeds but not the crop.
Jordan maintains the reason the European Union blocked shipments of Canadian flax last September that were contaminated with a deregistered GE seed, was because the seed was unapproved. After the incident, flax prices fell from $12 a bushel down to about $6, dealing a devastating blow to Canada's flax industry. Shipments resumed in late 2009 under new restrictions.
As for introducing GE alfalfa in Canada, Jordan says Forage Genetics, which handles commercialization of the product, hasn't made a decision on that yet.
"They haven't even looked at Canada really and from everything that I understand they don't intend to do that until this situation in the U.S. gets resolved, because that's their priority market right now."
A number of American groups are also urging the USDA not to deregulate Monsanto's GE alfalfa lines.
The National Organic Coalition (NOC), an alliance of U.S. organizations that includes farmer, rancher, environmentalist, and consumer groups, said in a statement that the contamination of non-GE and organic alfalfa hay and seed would "devastate livelihoods and the organic industry."
"If Roundup Ready Alfalfa is permitted to be sold commercially, the ripple effect would wipe out many organic and non-GE businesses, from organic seed and forage growers to organic dairy farmers and retailers," said NOC Director Liana Hoodes. "Every American's right to cultivate, sell, and eat non-GE and organic food would no longer exist."
Pugh from the Canadian Farmer's Union fears that if alfalfa becomes contaminated in Canada, there will be a repeat of what happened with the organic canola market. GE canola was approved for commercial use in Canada 15 years ago.
"Here in Canada there is virtually no organic canola any more as everything is contaminated by genetic material," Pugh said.
He believes the only truly effective way to safeguard non-GE alfalfa is to prevent genetically engineered varieties from getting into the environment in the first place.
"That's the only way you can do it. Because what happens is it is a living organism, and all genetic material is driven to reproduce, you can't stop it. So once it's out there it's out thereóyou can't round it up and bring it back," he said.
US On International Trade Crusade With New Agenda
Intellectual Property Watch, 11 March 2010:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/03/11/us-on-international-trade-crusade-with-new-agenda/
The recently released US annual trade agenda shows an intention to conquer new international markets, strengthen the global trade system and enforce obligations and US intellectual property rights. The US also means to address what they consider as trade barriers. [Update: President Obama spoke on the trade agenda today, more below.]
Enforcement of trade rules and rights, notably IP rights, and addressing market access barriers are described as very important to the objective of expanding trade opportunities, according to President Obama's agenda released by the US Trade Representative's Office on 1 March.
[Update: In remarks today to the Export-Import Bank, President Obama hailed the US trade agenda as a significant job-generator, and highlighted the importance of intellectual property rights. He said: "we're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property. Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people. It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor. There's nothing wrong with other people using our technologies, we welcome it - we just want to make sure that it's licensed, and that American businesses are getting paid appropriately. That's why USTR is using the full arsenal of tools available to crack down on practices that blatantly harm our businesses, and that includes negotiating proper protections and enforcing our existing agreements, and moving forward on new agreements, including the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement."]
[Mark Esper of the US Chamber of Commerce Global IP Center commented, "As the President stated in his address today before the Export-Import Bank, we cannot achieve job growth without aggressively protecting our intellectual property."]
The US trade agenda was warmly welcomed by the Chamber Global IP Center on 9 March, and by other US industry, although some items referred to in the agenda are being debated internationally, such as the World Trade Organization Doha Round of negotiations and bilateral trade agreements. Meanwhile, the overly strong enforcement of IP rights has been considered by human rights advocates as hindering access to technology, health and knowledge.
US WTO Objectives: TRIPS Implementation, GI Register
In 2010, the US plans to engage with "key advanced developing trading partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally" to penetrate new markets, in the framework of the WTO Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access.
The 2010 US objectives in the TRIPS Council are, among others, to "continue efforts to ensure that developing country members fully implement the TRIPS agreement, engage in constructive dialogue regarding the technical assistance and capacity-related needs of developing countries in connection with TRIPS implementation," and "ensure that provisions of the TRIPS agreement are not weakened."
In many fora, the issue of TRIPS implementation is being discussed, notably in the context of bilateral and multilateral agreements, with complaints from civil society and some developing country governments that some agreements include some measures going beyond TRIPS rules, known as TRIPS-plus measures.
Another agenda item is the mandated establishment at the WTO of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits, which are protected under the WTO agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The US intends to "aggressively pursue additional support for the joint proposal" of predominately New World countries who seek a softer, voluntary approach to the register. They will "seek a more flexible and pragmatic approach on the part of the EU so that negotiations can be completed." Europe is a primary proponent of a mandatory register (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 12 June 2009).
The US trade agenda does not appear to include intent to consider of proposals by a majority of WTO members to negotiate on an extension to other products of the high level of GI protection given to wines and spirits, and a proposal to amend the TRIPS agreement to improve protection of biodiversity. The US has been a staunch opponent of discussing those issues in the WTO round.
In the context of the Doha Round, given the US "significant duty-free and quota-free market access to least-developed countries," the trade agenda asks if "advanced developing economies will accept responsibility commensurate with their growing economic influence."
The agenda also compared the "value of what the US would give in market opening along with a reduction of US agriculture support," supposedly well known, and the "value of new opportunities" allegedly rendered vague by the "broad flexibilities available to key emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil."
In 2010 the WTO Committee on Regional Trade Agreements will review three US regional agreements: US-Bahrain, US-Peru and Dominican Republic-Central America-United States under the transparency mechanism. Under this mechanism, the WTO launched a database in January 2009 that includes information on regional trade agreements, available to the public.
"Vexing" Foreign Standards and Sanitary/Phytosanitary Barriers
The US is determined to identify and address "unnecessary or unjustified barriers stemming from sanitary and phytosanitary [plant-related] measures as well as technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures" restricting US exports. The country will try to identify which of those measures and regulations may be inconsistent with international trade agreements.
"We will tackle one of the most vexing problems for American firms on world markets: the costly and time-consuming regulatory review of products across many national markets," according to the President's agenda. The US will use trade policy to ensure that US products can access markets "more simply and more efficiently."
Behind-the-borders barriers, such as trade restrictions brought by safety rules that might not be documented, should be addressed, the agenda said. "Too frequently scientific judgements and internationally accepted guidelines are ignored when making policies for agricultural products, including rules governing poultry, sanitation, restrictions on port and port products in response to the H1N1 virus," and "regulations governing some genetically modified food [GMO] products."
Even the European Union and Japan, "trading partners with sophisticated regulatory systems," are taking certain regulations that are "inconsistent with scientific evidence and internationally accepted guidelines," it said.
The European Commission recently approved the cultivation of five GMOs but announced shortly afterward that a proposal would follow allowing member states to choose if they wish to cultivate GMOs or not. The approvals were based on the evaluation of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
According to French newspaper Le Monde, interviewing a French Green Party representative, EFSA members have links with biotechnology industry, such as the former GMO specialist of the agency who became a Syngenta employee. Some other staff both belongs to EFSA and are consultants for companies linked to GMOs producers, the representative said.
Vigorous IP Rights Protection: A Must for Innovation
The US trade agenda means to use "all the tools of trade policy" to protect IP rights, it said. Insufficient protection of IP rights will be addressed "by negotiating and enforcing effective" IP.
USTR vowed to continue work on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a negotiation which has been criticised for lack of transparency and public interest concerns. The trade agenda accentuates that efforts will be made to address transparency, and "assure meaningful public input to the proposed ACTA. "We will address insufficient protection in a manner compatible with basic principles of the public welfare," it said.
According to the US Chamber of Commerce Global IP Center, "IP industries account for over half of all US exports," and "18 million workers are employed in IP-dependent industries."
They also applauded the Obama administration for their efforts to conclude ACTA, and called for the administration to continue its transparency efforts as "some anti-IP activists want to kill this agreement by claiming the talks are too opaque."
Catherine Saez may be reached at csaez@ip-watch.ch.
Farm groups call on U.S. to 'bust up big ag'
• Farm groups call for halt to patenting of seed
• Monsanto target of farmer complaints
Carey Gillam
Reuters, 11 March 2010:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKN1122982620100312?type=companyNews
ANKENY, Iowa - A coalition of family farmers, consumers and other critics of corporate agriculture on Thursday called on the U.S. government to crack down on what they see as unfair consolidation of the nation's food system into the hands of a few multinationals.
Chanting "bust up big ag," a group of more than 250 packed a town hall meeting in the top corn-growing state of Iowa to rally support ahead of a Justice Department meeting on Friday aimed at scrutinizing concentration in the seed business.
The Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are holding a meeting Friday in Ankeny to look at the "competitive dynamics in the seed industry." U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Christine Varney, the Justice Department's assistant attorney general for antitrust, are slated to attend.
The meeting in Ankeny is the first ever of its kind and is slated as the first in a series of five such gatherings planned by federal officials to gather input on concentration in the poultry, dairy and livestock industries.
While corporate giants like Wal-mart (WMT.N) and Cargill are among the companies facing attack from the farm and consumer groups, the events in Iowa this week are largely targeted at global biotech seed leader Monsanto Co. (MON.N). The Justice Department and several state attorneys general are probing allegations that Monsanto controls the U.S. commercial seed market via unfair, and in some cases illegal, practices.
"This monopolistic system is rigged against family farmers," said George Naylor, and Iowa corn and soybean farmer who said he struggles to find seed to plant that is not controlled by Monsanto.
Monsanto critics say the company, which develops, licenses and markets genetically altered corn, soybeans and other crops, manipulates the seed market by buying up independent seed companies, patenting seed products and then spiking prices.
Monsanto's Roundup Ready seed traits, which are genetically engineered to resist Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, are embedded in the majority of all soybeans and corn grown in the United States, a penetration level that helped Monsanto post net income of $2.1 billion for 2009.
The farm groups said they hope the attention by the Justice Department will spur policy moves in Washington, chiefly a change that would eliminate the ability of companies like Monsanto to patent seed germplasm, and re-establish farmer rights to save seed from their harvested crops and replant it.
"The crops that we grow are the basis of our civilization. If anything belongs in the public domain it is the crops we grow for food," said Dakota Resource Council member and farmer Todd Leake. "They claim that they own them. That is not right. We need to turn that back."
Monsanto has said its technology helps farmers and that their broad licensing of their technology to other companies helps ensure competition is "alive and flourishing."
On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Pat Roberts of Kansas, both Republicans, weighed in on the issue, cautioning that a U.S. probe might lead to market intervention that could "stifle innovation."
"Any new activity proposed must avoid the unintended consequence of chilling innovation, investment or job creation in American agriculture," the senators said in letters sent Wednesday to Vilsack and Holder. (Reporting by Carey Gillam; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Chinese scholars up in arms over transgenic certificates
Zuo Likun
China Daily, 11 March 2010:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/11/content_9576374.htm
More than 120 Chinese scholars have filed a petition to the nation's
top legislature, demanding, on the grounds of bio-safety, the
revocation of the Agriculture Ministry's certificates on two
transgenic rice breeds and more cautious licensing in the future,
eastern Hangzhou's Youth Times reported Thursday.
The scholars are "seriously concerned" about the potential perils of
transgenic foods, especially on domestic breeds' heredity and
consumers' health, which they said would threaten to jeopardize "the
national security and its people."
The juggernauts opposed by the petitioners are pest-resistant rice
"Huahui No.1" and hybrid rice "Bt Shanyou 63", both granted safety
certificates last August by the Agriculture Ministry, a national
precedent that scholars feared would open the gates for the
commercialization of genetically modified (GM) food.
The ministry all but denied the accusation, saying the certificates
were merely a green light on breed safety, rather than a clear signal
for GM food marketing, which would require further authorization of a
production license and operation license.
However, the 120-strong petition team was not convinced.
Too much uncertainty remains for GM foods, they said. While
acknowledging certain merits of biotechnology, they also cited a
failed three-year trial on GM cotton as evidence of potential
long-term hazards. Besides, they feared that GM food cultivation might
irreversibly damage domestic breeds' heredity.
Meanwhile, Professor Tu Jumin, a veteran transgenic researcher with
renowned Zhejiang University and maker of the two controversial rice
breeds, has a different outlook.
"I spent 15 years on the two breeds. They are extremely resistant to
rice borers," said Tu, referring to the destructive insects that eat
up rice leaves with their elongated snout-like mouths.
"Such biotechnology greatly reduces pesticide usage and is a highly
competitive know-how coveted by international researchers," he added.
As for domestic bio-safety, the professor said the problem could be
circumvented by limited cultivation at designated fields.
Still, the doomsaying scholars, dominated by humanities professionals,
remained vocally opposed to technological novelty. Their petition
letter was initiated by an unlikely trio -- a historian, a financial
scholar and a former village Party secretary.
Among the signatories was Lv Xinyu, a journalism professor at
Shanghai-based Fudan University.
"To be honest, I don't want to argue with transgenic specialists. We
think, whether or not the GM food is dangerous, it could be judged by
common sense alone," she said.
She added, "We are no longer credulous to so many so-called
agricultural specialists."
Food & Water Europe Welcomes U.S. Court Ruling: Bayer "Intentionally" Contaminated U.S. Rice
Food & Water Europe, 11 March 2010:
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/world/europe/press/court-ruling-bayer/
Statement of Food & Water Europe Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
Brussels - "We welcome the Woodruff County, Arkansas court finding that German corporation Bayer CropScience 'intentionally' contaminated US rice supplies. We applaud the decision requiring the company to pay Lennie Joe Kyle, the farmer who suffered losses when his rice was contaminated with Bayer's genetically modified (GM) product, a total of US$1.3 million. This amount includes the first punitive damages for loss of future earnings ever awarded against Bayer."
"The case is one of a raft of hundreds of cases stemming from the 2006 contamination of US rice supplies with Bayer's experimental GM LL601 rice - an incident which continues to undermine US exports years later. The company has already been ordered by federal courts to pay four other farmers a total of US$3.5 million."
"While we are pleased to see the courts step in to protect farmers and consumers when regulatory bodies fail, it is a pity that farmers have to go to these lengths to get satisfaction for their losses. As Mr. Kyle said, "It's a lot to do with the way the big companies act. They think the farmer is just going to tuck his tail and take it, but we're not going to anymore.'"
"GM is clearly an unpredictable technology that has proved both difficult to contain and damaging when it escapes. It is simply not necessary to take these chances with the safety of our food supply or the viability of our farms. It is important to see Bayer being held accountable for the damage they have done. Hopefully the court decision will act as a warning to other GM companies."
Food & Water Europe is a program of Food & Water Watch, Inc., a non-profit consumer NGO based in Washington, DC, working to ensure clean water and safe food in Europe and around the world. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.
Contact:
Eve Mitchell, Food and Water Europe, The Black Isle, Scotland
emitchell@fweurope.org +44 (0)1381 610 740
Gabriella Zanzanaini, Food and Water Europe, Brussels
gzanzanaini@fweurope.org, +3248840966
10 March 2010
China never approves GM seed imports for commercial plantation - official
Xinhua News Agency [China], 10 March 2010:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2010-03/10/content_9567534.htm
BEIJING - China's Vice Agriculture Minister Wei Chaoan said here Wednesday that his ministry had never approved the import of any genetically modified seeds for commercial plantation in the country.
"There are no GM grain plants being grown in China," Wei said at a press conference on the sidelines of the parliament annual session.
Vatican official cautions against genetically modified organisms
Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service (via The Criterion) [USA], 10 March 2010:
http://www.archindy.org/criterion/national/03-10-genetic.html
VATICAN CITY -- Genetically modified food crops could be used as "weapons of infliction of hunger and poverty" if they are managed unjustly, said the new head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Cardinal Peter Turkson told Catholic News Service March 9 that he would urge an attitude of caution and further study of the possible negative effects of genetically engineered organisms.
Under Cardinal Turkson's predecessor, Cardinal Renato Martino, the justice and peace council sponsored several conferences on genetically modified food as a way to alleviate hunger in poor countries.
Agribusinesses and biotech industries that produce genetically modified organisms are justified in wanting to recoup the expenses laid out for research and development, and they have a right to want to make a profit from their work, said Cardinal Turkson, who took over the reins of the council in January.
But the issue becomes problematic when a company that controls the use of genetically modified seeds and crops is motivated more by profit than by "the declared desire to want to help feed humanity," he said.
There are also doubts about the efficacy and long-term effects of genetically engineered crops, he said.
"There are a lot of claims that are disputed (like) that GMOs never call for the use of pesticides or insecticides or anything because they are resistant," he said. Such claims have been challenged, he said, and some say "at a certain point (these crops) require insecticides whose chemicals break up later in the soil and render the soil less fertile."
Given the disputed claims and doubts, "I think that we should go easy and probably satisfy all of these objections to the full satisfaction of those who raise these objections," he said.
The biggest concern is how small farmers are affected, he said.
Some critics say genetically modified crops could breed further dependence by small farmers on corporations who supply the seeds.
Because of the companies' control over the patented seeds, "what is meant to alleviate hunger and poverty may actually in the hands of some people become really weapons of infliction of poverty and hunger," Cardinal Turkson said.
"Everybody is for the advancement of science and everybody is for the improvement of human conditions and livelihood through the products of scientific research," he said.
If further research and study on the effects and impact of GMOs could alleviate people's fears and concerns, he said, then maybe "everybody can come on board to fashion food security for the world."
Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the continued scandal of hunger in the world, saying its root causes have more to do with problems of distribution and sharing than with there not being enough food in the world.
The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, said March 4 the Vatican has never pronounced an official position supporting or opposing genetically modified foods.
However, the paper said it was not a coincidence that in 2009 the use of genetically modified food crops grew by 13 percent in developing countries and that GM crops covered almost half of the world's total arable land and yet "the number of hungry people in the world has for the first time reached 1 billion people."
Resistant weeds threaten to cripple Iowa's agriculture economy
• Glyphosate-resistant weeds now established in 19 states
Lynda Waddington
The Iowa Independent, 10 March 2010:
http://iowaindependent.com/29429/resistant-weeds-threaten-to-cripple-iowas-agriculture-economy
Iowa crop farmers are battling an old problem with potentially new and devastating repercussions for the entire state's agricultural economy: Herbicide-resistant weeds.
The phenomenon is not all that new, said Mike Owen, a weed specialist at Iowa State University who has been discussing herbicide-resistant weeds since the 1980s. But widespread adoption of certain biotech advances have made matters much more complicated.
It has only been in the last few years that crops have been selectively engineered to tolerate topical application of active ingredients in a specific herbicide. The resistance that weeds have developed to that ingredient - called glyphosate - combined with its widespread adoption, has the potential of costing Iowa producers millions of bushels of produce, and severely crippling the state's ag-based economy.
An herbicide with glyphosate was introduced by the Monsanto Co. in 1974 under the commercial name Roundup. Roughly 18 years later, the company introduced its first biotech crop, Roundup Ready soybeans, which would tolerate direct application of the glysophate-based herbicide. Modified corn was introduced two years later.
When these glyphosate-resistant crops came onto the market, many hoped and some believed that another herbicide or genetically-modified crop wouldn't need to be developed. However, over time, crop farmers encountered more and more glyphosate-resistant weeds, and no new herbicide ingredients being developed to control them. Within a decade, some environmental and consumer groups were beginning to question the safety of the Roundup Ready crop line, specifically pointing to the emergence of "super weeds."
Despite the concerns voiced by some, and increasingly aggressive tactics by Monsanto to protect its seed patents, use of the Roundup Ready crop brands were widely adopted by farmers in Iowa and throughout the nation. While each individual grower had his or her own specific reasons for changing to the Roundup Ready system, Owen believes that larger scale operations' search for simplicity and convenience as well as corporate marketing played key roles.
"[P]art of this is definitely the issue of scale. Growers are looking at time management. They are looking for simplicity and convenience because of the scale that agriculture has achieved over the past 10 years," Owen said. "We also need to look at how the marketing has influenced the growers' decisions. Certainly marketing campaigns are very influential in the decisions that growers make. They are very persuasive, and they are very pervasive in the marketplace."
From television to radio to numerous ag-specific print publications, Iowa's rural community has been bombarded by a wealth of advertising by corporations that need growers to adopt their systems. As agriculture has grown, and larger growing plots have become more time-consuming for producers, the companies have successfully highlighted the aspects of their products they believe will most appeal to producers.
"These are very powerful and very desirable things in the marketplace. Convenience and simplicity are both very useful and very important; however, they are also something that have considerable risks associated," he explained.
Although it might seem logical to point an immediate accusatory finger at either the modified crops or the herbicides as being the key forces behind the problem, Owen warns that while both might play an indirect role, neither are fully or totally to blame.
"The predominant system that has emerged in Iowa is based on glyphosate-resistant crops, and the subsequent use of glyphosate," he said. "Now, as a result of that, we are beginning to see weeds that no longer respond to that herbicide. The question becomes if this resistance is because we are planting these crops. No, because the trait that dictates resistance to glyphosate is essentially benign in the environment. Is the herbicide causing the problem? The answer to that is directly no, but indirectly yes."
If the situation cannot be fully placed on the back of the crops or herbicide, what or who is to blame?
"The who or what is the manner by which the growers decide to use the technology," he said. "Their decisions are influenced by obviously their own interpretation and assessment of the technology, but also influenced by the marketing that the corporations use to move their proprietary traits and herbicides into the grower marketplace."
While Owen has no doubt that farmers and producers are some of the best stewards of our land, water and overall environment, he is also concerned that they are not seeing the big picture when it comes to management and control of weeds.
"In relation to some of the obvious issues that reflect land and environmental quality - tillage, waterways and things like that - I think [growers] can foresee long-term problems, and they do make stewardship efforts once those issues are identified," Owen said. "In relation to weed management and the potential evolution of resistant weeds, however, I don't think they fully understand the implications of the practices that they use or anticipate the severity of the problems that may result."
To some degree that is the industry's fault, Owen said, because "historically we have always been able to come back with a better tool, a new tool, that would take care of those problems. What we've found ourselves in now is a situation where those tools are not readily available and they are not, at least in the near future, observable."
There needs to be a renewed understanding on the part of growers that "what we've got is what we've got, and there's going to be nothing - that is, the Lone Ranger isn't going to come riding in on Silver to fix the problem."
There is no new silver bullet, he said, so growers need to take care of the tools that they have.
"I think we can do this and, as it turns out, based on what I've observed, we can actually make money by using some of the practices that provide better diversity of management practices for weed control," he said. "But growers, at least at this point, just don't seem to be accepting this message for a number of different reasons."
[Chart showing soybean farmers who believe higher rates or application frequency of glyphosate is required for weed control. (Source: Iowa State University/Iowa Soybean Association)]
Although glysophate-based herbicide had been on the market for a number of years, the 1996 Field Crops Summary conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicated that less than 1 million pounds of the herbicide were applied to roughly 15 percent of Iowa soybean fields - a figure well below what was being used at the same time by farmers in Illinois and Indiana.
In 2006, however, use by Iowa farmers had skyrocketed to more than 12 million pounds on nearly 90 percent of all soybean acreage - and had out-paced use by any other Midwestern state known for soybean production. Not only had the percent of Iowa's land use for soybean production increased during that time frame, but the statistics clearly show that producers were more than doubling the amount of glyphosate that was initially used for weed control.
Just as diseases can evolve resistance to antibiotics, weeds can evolve resistance to herbicides, prompting more frequent application to provide adequate control and maintain crop yield potential. Glyphosate-resistant weeds are now established in 19 states and deemed a serious economic concern - both for the increased cost to destroy the weed, and for the potential to drag crop yield.
Currently there are at least 15 different types of herbicide-resistant weeds in Iowa. The first, Kochia scoparia, was reported in 1985 with a resistance to atrazine. The most widespread glyphosate-resistant weed in the state is common waterhemp, which infests an estimated 1,000 to 10,000 acres. The most recently discovered glyphosate-resistant weed, identified just last year, is giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida). It is estimated by state weed scientists that there are 1,210 sites and more than 12,400 acres invested with herbicide resistant weeds in Iowa, and that they infest corn, railways and soybeans.
Although those figures may seem striking to a person who is not familiar with the problem of resistant weeds, the truth is that Iowa has fared much better than Southeast states. For instance, producers in Macon, Georgia abandoned about 10,000 acres of cropland in 2007 following an infestation of glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth, a member of the pigweed family.
"My sense is that we are going to see more weed problems if growers continue to rely only on glyphosate," said Owen. "If the only thing they are planning to do this year is use glyphosate, then I would suggest that they may have greater problems with weeds this year than what they may have had last year.!
For now, there are other options available to farmers - options they should use wisely, Owen said. Despite the initial cost of using a soil residual pre-emergent herbicide, Owen believes there is a significant yield boost associated with the application. He and his colleagues at Iowa State University have developed a 2010 Herbicide Guide for Iowa Corn and Soybean Production that outlines and highlights some of the best practices they have used for maintaining crop profits.
"Just as an estimate, if growers are only using glyphosate, and if they are making application at only particular instances, they are likely losing five or so bushels of soybeans per acre. And there are similar, if not higher, numbers of bushels of corn being lost," he said. "If you project that over all the acres - five bushels of soybeans over 9 million acres of soybeans produced - then you are looking at 45 million bushels of soybeans that may be lost because of poor timing of weed management. Although that's just a 'back-of-the-envelope' projection, it seems reasonable based on some of the modeling routines that we've done.
"Suffice it to say that it is a butt-load of money."
Monsanto 7-State Probe Threatens Profit From 93% Soybean Share
Alison Fitzgerald
Bloomberg [USA], March 10 2010:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-10/monsanto-7-state-probe-threatens-profit-from-93-soybean-share.html
At least seven U.S. state attorneys general are investigating whether Monsanto Co., the world's largest seed producer, has abused its market power to lock out competitors and raise prices.
Iowa and Illinois, whose antitrust probes Monsanto disclosed previously, have joined with Ohio, Texas, Virginia and two other states in a working group coordinating the inquiries, according to investigators, farmers and seed dealers. They declined to identify the sixth and seventh states.
The state investigations add to pressure on Monsanto over allegations of abusive competitive tactics. The U.S. Justice Department is probing the company's marketing practices, and DuPont Co. has accused its rival in licensing litigation of anti-competitive actions. At stake are the costs to farmers who produce $80.3 billion a year in corn and soybeans, used in products ranging from Coca-Cola to cattle feed to ethanol.
"Monsanto has become such a dominant player in the seed business that producers have real concerns that the price they pay for seed is going to be anywhere near reasonable," said John Crabtree, a spokesman for the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, a nonprofit group that provides services to farm communities. "The fear is that the sky's the limit."
Monsanto rose to dominance via its genetically engineered Roundup Ready seed line, which was in 93 percent of the soybeans and 82 percent of the corn produced in the U.S. last year. The gene Monsanto adds to the seeds allows crops to withstand use of its Roundup weed killer.
Rebates, Incentives
The states are probing whether Monsanto violated any laws by offering rebates to distributors for excluding rival seeds, imposing limits on combining the product with other genetic enhancements, or offering cash incentives to switch farmers to a more-expensive generation of seeds, according to one person involved in the probe who asked not to be named because he isn't authorized to discuss it.
The five states known to be part of the inquiry accounted for almost 39%, or $31 billion, of U.S. corn and soybeans last year, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data. A state- level investigation, on top of the federal one, "can lengthen the lawsuit and potential settlements, and it can increase uncertainty and costs for Monsanto," said Daniel Sokol, a law professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville who edits a blog on antitrust and competition policy.
Monsanto Vice President Jim Tobin will address the concerns at a hearing March 12 in Ankeny, Iowa, where the U.S. Justice and Agriculture departments are holding a workshop on seed- industry competition. It's the first of a series of sessions the agencies are sponsoring to examine whether consolidation in agriculture is harming competition.
'Unsubstantiated Allegations'
"There have been unsubstantiated allegations of a lack of competition in the seed market for several years now," said Kelli Powers, a spokeswoman for St. Louis-based Monsanto. "We're confident an objective review will reveal competition is alive and flourishing in the seed market." Monsanto has a "broad licensing approach that is "in fact pro-competitive," she said.
"We produced millions of pages of documents" for the state working group, said Scott Partridge, a Monsanto attorney, in an interview. "For about a year now they haven't had any more questions." Seed producers and dealers say the state group has spoken to them as recently as December about their Monsanto licensing agreements.
The rebates investigators are exploring in the Monsanto case are similar to incentives that have figured in past antitrust inquiries that led to settlements, said Herb Hovenkamp a professor at the University of Iowa Law School in Iowa City and the author of "Antitrust Law," a 23-volume text.
FTC Sues Intel
The Federal Trade Commission sued Intel Corp. in December alleging it used "threats and rewards," including rebates, to coerce companies not to buy rivals' computer chips. In a separate civil dispute, Intel agreed in November, without admitting any liability or fault, to pay $1.25 billion to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to settle allegations Intel gave discounts to customers that avoided AMD products.
Courts disagree on whether such financial incentives are anti-competitive, Hovenkamp said.
"These things have been so controversial and so heavily litigated that some firms have taken preventative steps and just gotten rid of them," Hovenkamp said.
Monsanto phased out its market-share discounts as of last year, said Powers, the spokeswoman.
Of Monsanto's $11.7 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009, $7.3 billion came from sales and licensing of seeds and seed genes. Revenue grew by an annual average of 17% from 2004 to 2009, as earnings expanded eight-fold to $2.11 billion, driven by genetically engineered products and acquisitions of other seed companies.
Generic Roundup
Revenue then declined as generic rivals to Roundup flooded into the U.S. from China. In the fiscal first quarter ended Nov. 30, Monsanto had a loss of $19 million as sales declined 36% to $1.70 billion.
Monsanto lost 74 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $71.28 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Showing that Monsanto engaged in anti-competitive behavior that harmed residents of their states could enable the attorneys general to demand civil monetary damages in addition to any penalties that the Justice Department may seek, Hovenkamp said.
In one soybean licensing agreement reviewed by Bloomberg, Monsanto offered the licensee financial incentives to favor Roundup Ready seeds and Roundup brand chemicals over those of competitors. The dealer's agreement with Monsanto is confidential, and he asked that his name not be used.
'You Had To'
Under the agreement, the licensee would earn a rebate of 7.5 percent of the royalty it pays Monsanto if Roundup Ready accounts for 70 percent of the dealer's annual herbicide- resistant seed sales. The rebate is halved if the Roundup Ready share is between 50 percent and 75 percent, and isn't paid at all below 50 percent.
Similar terms were in Monsanto's licensing agreements with Stine Seed Co. until Monsanto phased them out in recent years, according to Harry Stine, president and founder of the largest closely held seed company in the U.S., based in Adel, Iowa.
"In order to get the large rebate they would give you, you had to minimize your sales of other companies' seeds," Stine said. "The rebates were so large that for all practical purposes you had to do it." At one time, the requirement for earning the full rebate was as high as 90 percent, he said. Stine has a collaborative agreement to develop seeds with Monsanto, he said.
Gene Restrictions
The agreement reviewed by Bloomberg prohibited the dealer from combining the Roundup Ready trait with herbicide-tolerant traits that the licensee or other companies developed. It specifically bars the dealer from using any non-Monsanto genetic modification that makes crops tolerant to glyphosate, the herbicide found in Roundup. Such terms could be anti-competitive because Monsanto controls such a large share of the corn and soybean markets with its Roundup Ready gene, Hovenkamp said.
Monsanto's Partridge said the company routinely negotiates agreements that allow seed companies to combine Roundup Ready with genetic modifications of its competitors.
"Monsanto has a demonstrated track record of both in- licensing and out-licensing trait technologies to support the development of stacked products," he said in an interview. "We've done this more than any other company in this industry."
Monsanto is also under scrutiny because the rising price of its seeds has been a sore point for farmers, said Peter Carstensen, a antitrust professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.
Farmers' Costs Rise
"Buying seed used to be not terribly costly," said Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center in Boulder, Colorado, who in December completed a study of 35 years of seed pricing. "Now farmers are locked into these high seed costs on an annual basis."
The study showed that soybean farmers spent between 4 percent and 8 percent of their farm income on seeds from 1975 through 1997. Last year, farmers who planted genetically modified soybeans spent 16.4 percent of their income on seeds, it found.
Monsanto's licensing royalty on soybean seeds with the Roundup Ready trait climbed to $15.65 for each 140,000-seed bag last year from about $6.50 a decade ago, according to the owner of one seed company. A bag of Roundup Ready seed sells for about $35 and can plant three-quarters of an acre (0.3 hectare). He asked not to be named because the terms are confidential under his licensing agreement. Monsanto sells him seeds including the genetic trait, which he then reproduces and sells under his own brand, the person said.
'Triple Stack' Corn
Farmers who adopt Monsanto's Roundup Ready 2 Yield technology, being introduced this year as a replacement for Roundup Ready, will have to pay a royalty of as much as $39.75 a bag, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
Cal Dalton, a farmer in Pardeeville, Wisconsin, said he switched to a competitor last year when Monsanto sought a $30 price increase, to $210 a bag, for its "triple stack" corn seed, a line that resists glyphosate, rootworm, and corn borers. Monsanto still earned a royalty on the purchase because the seeds he bought carried the Roundup Ready trait, he said.
The list price for Monsanto's "Yieldgard VT Triple" brand of triple-stack corn seed rose to about $277.50 a bag this year from $201.83 in 2008, based on seed prices per acre provided by Powers, the spokeswoman. She declined to discuss prices or royalties individual customers pay.
Roundup Ready 2
In the licensing agreement reviewed by Bloomberg, Monsanto agreed to rebate to the dealer as much as 4% of the dealer's royalty if he developed a plan to move his customers from Roundup Ready to Roundup Ready 2. Monsanto says Roundup Ready 2 soybean seeds boost crop yields by 4.7 bushels an acre compared with traditional Roundup Ready. Soybeans yielded on average 44 bushels an acre last year, according to the USDA.
Stine, who said he's been on conference calls with the state attorneys general group to discuss the Monsanto investigation, hasn't made up his mind whether Monsanto's dealings are anticompetitive.
"On the one hand," Monsanto is "hard to get along with and very restrictive," Stine said. "However, in general, their traits and products have been superior to other companies'."
--With assistance from Lorraine Woellert in Washington and Jack Kaskey in New York. Editors: Gary Putka, Robert L. Simison
To contact the reporter on this story: Alison Fitzgerald in Washington at Afitzgerald2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robert Blau in Washington at rblau1@bloomberg.net.
Bayer ordered to pay farmer
• $1 million is tab for modified rice
Arkansas Online [USA], 10 March 2010:
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/mar/10/bayer-ordered-pay-farmer-20100310/
A jury in Woodruff County Circuit Court decided Monday evening that Bayer CropScience LP must pay more than $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Lenny Joe Kyle, a rice farmer, for losses he sustained when Bayer's experimental variety of genetically modified rice infiltrated the rice supply.
The jury awarded Kyle $532,643 in compensatory damages, and $500,000 in punitive damages. This is the third verdict against Bayer CropScience in rice lawsuits, but the first to award punitive damages.
"Obviously, we're satisfied that [the] jury paid careful attention and understood the facts and decided that exemplary, or punitive, damages were warranted over and above the compensation, and we think that's significant. Punitive damages in Arkansas... [log-in subscription required to read full story]
1 million signatures sought for GM moratorium in Europe
Avaaz.org, 10 March 2010:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_health_and_biodiversity/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK
The European Commission has just approved growing genetically modified crops for the first time in 12 years, putting the GM lobby's profits over public concerns -- 60% of Europeans feel we need more information before growing foods that could threaten our health and environment.
A new initiative allows 1 million EU citizens a unique chance to make official requests of the European Commission. Let's build a million voices for a ban on GM foods until the research is done. Sign the petition below and forward this email to friends and family. Don't forget to include your address so that all of our signatures count for the citizens' initiative.
To the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso:
We call on you to put a moratorium on the introduction of GM crops into Europe and set up an independent, ethical, scientific body to research the impact of GM crops and determine regulation.
Sign the petition here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_health_and_biodiversity/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK
_______________________Agriculture Minister: No GM Crops Will Be Grown in Bulgaria
Sofia News Agency [Bulgaria], March 9 2010:
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=114011
Bulgaria Agriculture Minister, Miroslav Naydenov, has stated that Geneticaaly Modified foods will not be allowed "to reach Bulgarians' tables".
v
Naydenov stated Tuesday that all the European requirements will be introduced into the Bulgarian legislation, but added that the amendments to the GMO Act will also ban GM crops from being grown in the country.
"We will give sufficient guarantees to the Bulgarian society, that we will not allow the cultivation of genetically modified crops, as this is the great concern," Naydenov said.
He confirmed that if anyone in Bulgaria wants to apply to grow GM crops the Agriculture Ministry would have to give permission, something that he added has not and will not be done.
Switzerland stands strong against GE
Greenpeace International, 9 March 2010:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/switzerland-GMO-moratorium090310
Zurich, Switzerland - The Swiss Parliament has just extended its ban on the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) plants for three more years. Originally enacted in 2005, Switzerland will stay GE-free until at least 2013.
The original moratorium was backed by Swiss voters in a referendum 5 years ago. Supporters of the ban included farmers, who were concerned about the impacts of GE crops on organic produce. Our Swiss office has been supporting these farmers and Swiss consumers to ensure the country remains GE-free. This is a significant national victory, but more than that it is an example for the rest of the EU. It sends a strong message to EU Commission President Barroso, who is clearly trying to force GE crops into the EU and is trying to bypass standard authorisation procedures. The EU needs to follow the Swiss example by implementing a moratorium on all GE food in order to protect the environment, agriculture and people.
Ban Barroso
The recent backdoor approval of the GE potato, by President Barroso, has met a wave of strong opposition from EU member-states. The governments of Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary and France have all publicly announced that they will not allow the GE potato to be grown in their countries. While six EU member-states (Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg) have bans in place on GE maize cultivation.
Genetically engineered failure
GE-crops are part of an outdated intensive agriculture model that promote the use of environmentally harmful chemicals while failing to generate high yields or provide solutions for hunger and climate change. Their costly development as 'solutions' to world hunger or climate change masks the real socio-economic, environmental and political causes of these problems. GE crops also pose unpredictable risks to human and animal health. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H9WZGKQeYg
In 2009, GE cultivation in the European Union decreased by 11 percent. Accross the world farmers are abandoning GE crops due to both high prices and lack of demand. Many farmers are instead turning to ecological farming. They do not want to be at the mercy of bullying multinationals which are threatening to take control of our food.
We are committed to ecological farming worldwide: farming that protects soil, water, the climate, promotes biological diversity and does not contaminate the environment with chemicals and GE-organisms.
Monsanto admits their technology doesn't work!
Greenpeace web log, 9 March 2010:
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2010/03/monsanto_admits_their_technolo.html
Reyes, one of our agriculture campaigners in India, shares her immediate thoughts on this 'first-of-its-kind' admission by Monsanto
This was my Saturday's lyrics to breakfast in sunny Bangalore: Monsanto has decided to tell the truth about something: its technology doesn't work!, reports The Hindu. I'm going to need a second cup of chai to digest this, Monsanto speaking honest!? Indian farmers and scientist have been seeing this in their Bt cotton fields for a few years: pests become resistant to Monsanto's genetically engineered toxins and thus farmers apply huge amounts of pesticides. Monsanto has always denied this, has the recent massive rejection of its Bt brinjal in India woken up its senses?
For years Monsanto has been shouting that the main - read only - benefit of Bt cotton in India (the only genetically engineered crop planted here) was the reduction in pesticide use. Well, it seems they have just admitted this is not true. Pink bollworm, a serious pest for cotton farmers in India, is now resistant to the toxin in Bt cotton. Meaning that this bug is now sort of a super-pest that farmers will have to work harder and harder to avoid.
What is Monsanto's solution to this? Maybe you have guessed it: use Monsanto's next weapon - same technology - Bt cotton 2.0. With double the amount of toxins (and almost double the price of non-Bt seeds). Hmmm? I need another cup of chai! This is looking too much like an arms-race, which due to rapid pest evolution of resistance could reach a battle of infinite proportions... followed closely by Monsanto's profits, of course. Indigestible! -my stomach shouts-, because along with Monsanto's profits from selling their special seeds I see also the struggle of debt and the threats to the livelihoods of the many farmers I've met.
Bt cotton troubles don't end here. A few weeks ago, a pro-GE scientist from the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) in Nagpur, Dr. Kranthi, spoke about other 'wonders' of Bt cotton. According to Dr. Kranthi, Bt cotton has increased, yes increased, the use of dangerous pesticides and now other ferocious pests, like mealybug (never seen before by Indian farmers), are destroying the harvests. Wonderful! Monsanto makes money and the farmers risk huge debts and family health from the massive use of pesticides. My breakfast is tasting very bitter this morning.
But I have also spoken to many Indian farmers that are not so desperate. Last November I spent a few weeks travelling around the cotton fields of Andhra Pradesh. In the mist of a lot of very worried Bt cotton farmers (drought, debts, mealybugs, loans at 50% interest rates, etc), I also met many more cheerful farmers -- the organic ones!
Organic farmers work with several NGOs and farmers associations to develop ways to fight pests without health risks and without money! Yes, without or with very little money. Chetna, one of these farmer associations, support farmers in Karimnagar and Adilabad (very poor areas in Andhra Pradesh) and work with them in making the whole farm, not just the crop, resistant to pests. India is so lucky too, the Neem tree, a wonder of anti-insecticide and many other medicinal properties, grows naturally in almost every farm... its fruits are free and very effective in protecting against pests. Chetna and the rests of the organisations promoting ecological cotton farming, know that the answer is not in a single bullet. The answer is biodiversity - growing a variety of different natural strains and using methods that deal with pests ecologically and with very little investment (and thus less debt for farmers) - like using the Neem tree fruits.
There is hope out there in the dry cotton fields thanks to the hard work of these organic farmers' associations and thanks to Indian biodiversity. My Indian breakfast dosa was a bit hard to swallow, but ended with a very sweet organic chutney!
Barroso's question time
Honor Mahony
Behind the Scenes, EU Observer, 10 March 2010:
http://blogs.euobserver.com/mahony/2010/03/10/barroso%E2%80%99s-question-time/
"I don't have any position in favour or against GMOs," said Barroso in response to a question about why he was "pushing" GMOs onto an unwilling public. The college makes decisions only on the basis of the opinion its scientific advisory board. A cluster of Greens holding placards saying "For a GMO-free Europe," hissed and booed as appropriate.
There were about 30 of them. They roughly tripled participation in Question Hour. Alas, they proved to be a one-issue lot and were soon gone.
9 March 2010
Monsanto May Lose Bid to Halt Argentinean Soy Imports
Stephanie Bodoni
Bloomberg, 9 March 2010:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-09/monsanto-may-lose-bid-to-halt-argentinean-soy-imports-update1-.html
Monsanto Co., the world's biggest seed company, can't rely on a European patent for its Roundup Ready soybeans to block imports of Argentinean soy meal, an adviser to the European Union's highest court said.
The European patent for the trait that makes soybeans resistant to some herbicides doesn't extend to soy meal made from the patented seeds, Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi of the European Court of Justice said in a non-binding opinion today.
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Argentina, the world's third-biggest soybean exporter after Brazil and the U.S., is one of the few countries where Monsanto doesn't hold a patent on the herbicide-resistant seeds. A ruling the European patent is enforceable may allow the company to block imports of Argentinean soy meal and related products.
"This is quite a blow to Monsanto," said Stijn Debaene, a partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP in Brussels who isn't involved in the case. The advocate general "is quite severe."
Monsanto said it was "disappointed" by today's outcome and will wait for the court's final decision. Rulings tend to follow within six months of an opinion.
"The only reason we have this case is because of a very arbitrary and controversial decision 15 years ago to throw out all existing patent applications in Argentina," denying the company its local patent on Roundup Ready soybeans, Lee Quarles, a Monsanto spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement. "We have tried to find ways to be properly compensated for quite a while. This was one of those steps."
Amsterdam harbor
During 2005 and 2006, St. Louis-based Monsanto had shipments of soy meal from Argentina impounded in Amsterdam harbor. Tests showed the products contained some of the patented seed traits and Monsanto sued the importers for infringement. A Dutch court hearing the dispute in 2008 sought the EU tribunal's guidance.
While Monsanto argued the patented trait in the soybeans remains under its protection after the beans have been processed into soy meal, the importers argued the patent's scope isn't that wide under EU biotechnology rules.
"The protection for patents that cover genetic sequences is limited to situations where the genetic information is currently performing the functions described," Mengozzi wrote. The Luxembourg-based EU court typically follows the advice.
Patent Limits
"There is a limit to how far Monsanto can stretch its patent protection," said John J. Allen, a partner in the Amsterdam office of law firm NautaDutilh who represented the importers. The suit against the importers "is not the right way to settle Monsanto's dispute with Argentina."
Unlike in Argentina, Monsanto is compensated for the use of its patents in other countries, such as in Brazil, because of its patents or accords with farmers. In 2008, 68.5 percent of Argentine exports of soybeans and soy products went to the EU, according to data compiled by the Rosario Cereals Exchange.
"If the court decided that Monsanto can invoke its rights in the EU against soy meal originating from Argentina, nothing could stop it to then use its rights against soy meal coming from other countries," said Mengozzi.
Ian Karet, an intellectual property lawyer with Linklaters in London who isn't involved in the case said the opinion could be "quite important" for biotechnology patents because it "has the capacity to restrict significantly the scope of protection for genetic sequences."
The case is C-428/08 Monsanto Technology LLC v. Cefetra BV, Cefetra Feed Service BV, Cefetra Futures BV and State of Argentina and Monsanto Technology LLC v. Vopak Agencies Rotterdam BV and Alfred C. Toepfer International GmbH.
--With assistance from Jack Kaskey in New York, Erik Larson in London and Rodrigo Orihuela in Buenos Aires. Editors: Christopher Scinta, Peter Chapman.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Luxembourg at sbodoni@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net
Land grabbing in Latin America
GRAIN [USA], 9 March 2010:
http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=61
Communities in Latin America and around the world are faced with a new kind of invasion of their territories. Today foreign investors, whether agribusiness companies from Asia and the Gulf or US and European fund managers, are rushing to take over farmland in Latin America. While media attention has focused on land deals in Africa, at least as much money and more projects are in operation in Latin America, where investors claim that their farmland investments are more secure and less controversial - ignoring the struggles over access to land being waged in practically every country on the continent. These land grabbers operate from a distance and wear a halo of neutrality. They are more difficult to identify and the legal mechanisms that communities can utilise to defend against dispossession, devastation or pollution are not clear. This latest wave of invasions creates new challenges for communities and social movements in Latin America.
Read this issue of Against the Grain here: http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=61
Greens criticise Barroso
EuroPolitics, 9 March 2010:
http://www.europolitics.info/sectorial-policies/greens-criticise-barroso-art265587-11.html
The Greens in the European Parliament denounced, on 9 March in Strasbourg, the European Commission president's "rush" to authorise the cultivation of a transgenic potato, by holding up signs stating 'For a GMO-free Europe' at the plenary session. For the first time in 12 years, the Commission has just authorised the cultivation of a genetically modified plant, a potato developed by the German firm BASF, eliciting an outcry among ecologists (see Europolitics3930).
"I salute your group's enthusiasm. You have a very strong position against GMOs, which is your right," said José Manuel Barroso. "Personally, I do not have a position either for or against [...]. The Commission goes by the opinions of the European Food Safety Authority," he explained. The EU countries are very divided over GMOs, recognised Barroso. If no majority emerges, the Commission has to take a decision on whether or not to authorise them. At the same time, the rules are going to be made more flexible. "The Commission plans to propose to give countries the possibility to cultivate such crops or not, as they wish," he added. "If we start putting a finger in nationalisation, we won't have a European policy," warned French Green MEP José Bové. The Greens denounce the Commission's 'fait accompli' approach.
Greens protest genetically modified potato go-ahead
Agence France Presse (via Google News), 9 March 2010:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gevITzg94FFOaV2chgpYp-tYwMMg
STRASBOURG - Green members of the European parliament stood en masse and held up placards Tuesday in protest against the EU Commission approval of the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes.
The deputies help up placards that read "For a GMO free Europe" as one of their number, Rebecca Harms, berated European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso for last week's decision.
German MEP Harms called it a "risky strategy that will not find support" among EU citizens.
"There is no reason to authorise this GMO potato, we don't need it," she said in the protest during question-time in the parliament.
Barroso congratulated the Greens for their "enthusiasm".
"You have a position very strongly against GMOs, that is your right," he said, sometimes shouting over the howls of protest.
He said he had "no prejudice in favour or against GMOs" and merely took advice on their safety from the European Food Safety Agency.
The commission last week approved the cultivation of the Amflora potato, developed by German chemical giant BASF, for industrial use in paper making but not for human consumption.
Modified vegetables and cereals, so-called "Frankenfoods", have long been a matter of fierce debate in Europe.
Some genetically modified products have been approved for sale in Europe but before the BASF potato only MON 810, a strain of genetically modified maize made by Monsanto, had been authorised for cultivation.
The EU's food safety agency has said the Amflora potato, designed to produce industrial starch, is safe for all uses.
But the potato contains a marker gene which is resistant to antibiotics, fuelling fears over the risks of contamination for conventional varieties.
Greenpeace has said the decision to allow the potato to be grown in Europe was shocking and "puts the environment and public health at risk".
Barroso recognised that "there are deep differences among our member states" on the GMO issue.
Where there is no majority, his commission, the EU's executive arm, is authorised to take the decision itself and it had decided "unanimously" to approve its cultivation, he said.
"We believe all scientific issues have been fully addressed," he added.
At the same time he said the intention was to give individual EU nations a choice on whether to cultivate authorised GMOs on their soil.
At present governments must give a reason for blocking the growing of such crops.
Six nations -- Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg -- have banned the planting of the MON 810 maize.
GMO ban raises scientific, economic questions
World Radio Switzerland, 9 March 2010:
http://worldradio.ch/wrs/news/switzerland/questioning-the-gmo-moratorium.shtml?18237
The House of Representatives has voted to extend the moratorium on the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in farming until 2013. The moratorium was originally introduced by popular vote in 2005 and was due to expire this year. Missed opportunity or sensible pause while we wait for the science to come in? Why even pursue research that's so unpopular? What about nations such as China who are going full-steam ahead with GMO research? WRS's Pete Forster invited Marianne Kunzle, head of anti-GMO and sustainable agriculture campaign for Greenpeace, and Professor Denis Monard, President of the Swiss Academy of Sciences to debate the issue:
[Follow link above for audio version of debate]
President Parvanov vetoes the amendments, calls for national referendum on GMOs
Focus News Agency [Bulgaria], 9 March 2010:
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n212528
Sofia - Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov yesterday opposed the lenient regime for the use of GMOs in the country, pointing out he would resort to vetoing the proposed legislation, if amendments were not stringent enough. Officials from his administration said the head of state was ready to call on the Bulgarian Parliament to hold a national referendum on the issue and give a more democratic and justified solution to the problem.
"Our society sees the release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a threat to human health, Bulgarian nature and the development of organic farming." President Parvanov said in a statement.
He added that "the public expressed concerns and a principled position on the legislative framework for the use of GMOs in Bulgaria - the policy should remain conservative and restrictive, based on the principles of prudence and precaution."
EU commission under fire over GM potato
• A row has flared in parliament following the commission's decision to allow a genetically modified potato to be grown in some EU countries.
The Parliament [EU], 9 March 2010:
http://www.theparliament.com/no_cache/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/eu-commission-under-fire-over-gm-potato/
This month's decision comes after a 13-year campaign by the German chemical company BASF.
But commission president Jose Manuel Barroso was jeered when he sought to defend the move during a lively parliamentary Q&A session in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
MEPs, some of whom held up posters which read "For a GMO-free Europe", said the commission had "failed to follow proper parliamentary procedure" by not consulting the assembly before reaching its decision.
SNP deputy Ian Hudghton, a member of the Greens/EFA group, told this website, "Public opinion is massively against genetically modified crops and we oppose this decision because there is insufficient evidence that this particular strain of potato is not harmful."
In his reply in the debate, Barroso said that while groups such as the Greens "take a strong position" on the GM issue, he was "neither for nor against" genetically modified food.
He said, "I am not prejudiced one way or the other. It depends on the independent, scientific evidence we are given. We will accept something if there is no scientific evidence for not doing so."
BASF says that while starch from the GM potato Amflora will not be used in human food, it may use the product in animal feed.
What particularly worries opponents of GM technology, however, is that Amflora carries an extra gene that makes the potato resistant to some antibiotics.
Industry warns of new EU feed import disruption
Charlie Dunmore
Reuters, 9 March 2010:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6281MT20100309?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=11700&sp=true
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union faces renewed disruption to animal feed supplies this year unless policymakers find a rapid solution to traces of genetically modified organisms in soy imports, industry groups have warned.
Last autumn, imports of soybeans from the United States came to a near standstill because of the EU's zero-tolerance rule on shipments containing tiny traces of GMOs not yet approved in the bloc. Soy is a key primary material in animal feed production.
"This spring new GM varieties will be commercially sown in north and south America which are unlikely to be approved in the EU by October," Klaus-Dieter Schumacher, head of markets at European grain trade association Coceral, told Reuters.
"This could lead to a similar situation as last autumn, and the need for a solution is still as urgent as it was then."
John Dalli, the EU health commissioner who oversees EU GMO policy, said last week he would propose a solution to the so-called "low-level presence" of unauthorized GMOs in imports "in the coming weeks".
The executive European Commission will most likely propose new technical guidance under existing EU rules on food and feed imports, telling member states how to interpret the zero-tolerance rule when testing shipments, Schumacher believes.
This could provide a small margin of tolerance for the backlog of GM crop varieties approved in other countries for which EU authorizations have been submitted but not yet granted.
But such a technical approach will only provide a stop-gap solution, and the EU will have to agree a lasting policy on the low-level presence of GMOs in imports, argues Alexander Doering, secretary-general of EU feed manufacturers' federation Fefac.
"The most obvious way would be by amending the EU's GM food and feed legislation," he told Reuters. "It won't be quick, but we have to start now as there's no proof that the EU will ever clear the backlog of applications."
Others fear that opening up the bloc's GMO legislation to lengthy and impassioned debate by governments and the European Parliament will do more harm than good.
"We're talking about a trade distortion that forces EU livestock producers to pay a premium for imported protein supplies," said Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of the EU farmers union Copa-Cogeca.
"We need to keep this issue separate from the wider question of GM acceptance in Europe. We don't favor opening up the legislation just for this," he said.
EU importers face higher costs for sourcing animal feed free of unapproved GMOs from major suppliers such as the U.S. and Brazil, as traders are forced to keep shipments bound for Europe separate from other global supply routes to avoid contamination.
Copa-Cogeca estimated that this added between 3.5 billion euros and 5.5 billion euros to the cost of feed imports last year.
Unless a lasting solution is found, the impact on EU livestock production could be serious and irreversible, Fefac's Doering warned.
"Failure to solve the issue will seriously undermine our competitiveness and wipe out individual producers in the short-term," he said. "But ultimately it could result in the export of EU livestock production overseas." (Editing by Jon Boyle)
EU court adviser urges limits to bio-patent protection
Emma Barraclough, London
Managing Intellectual Property [UK], 9 March 2010:
http://www.managingip.com/Article/2417331/EU-court-adviser-urges-limits-to-bio-patent-protection.html
A senior legal adviser to Europe's highest court says that protection for patents over a DNA sequence should be limited to situations where the genetic information is performing the functions described in the patent
In his opinion in a dispute between Monsanto and a group of Argentine soya growers, Advocate General Mengozzi advised the Court to rule that patented DNA can only be protected as a chemical substance where it performs the function for which it is patented.
This is the first case where the Court of justice has been asked to interpret the scope of EU legislation on the protection of biotechnological inventions.
Monsanto's RoundUp ready soya
The dispute began when agrichemical company Monsanto asked a Dutch court to bock imports of soy meal into the EU from Argentina. Monsanto's analysis of the soya revealed that it contained traces of the DNA characteristics of Roundup-ready soya - a herbicide-resistant genetically modified plant developed by Monsanto.
In 1996 the US company was granted a European patent over the DNA sequence, although its Round-up ready soya is not grown in the EU.
The Dutch Court has asked the Court of Justice to clarify the extent to which biotechnological inventions - and, in particular, patents relating to genetic information - are protected in the EU.
It asked: "Must Article 9 of Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions be interpreted as meaning that the protection provided under that article can be invoked even in a situation such as that in the present proceedings, in which the product (the DNA sequence) forms part of a material imported into the European Union (soy meal) and does not perform its function at the time of the alleged infringement, but has indeed performed its function (in the soy plant) or would possibly again be able to perform its function after it has been isolated from that material and inserted into the cell of an organism?"
Now the Advocate General, who advises the Court but whose opinions are not binding on it, has said that patent protection should not be available in this situation.
He argues that to protect all the DNA sequence's possible functions, even those not identified at the time when the patent was applied for, would mean recognising patents as covering functions unknown at the time of the patent application. This, he says, would make mere discoveries patentable, in breach of the basic principles of patent protection.
In response to a second question from the Dutch court, the Advocate General says that member state legislation cannot offer wider protection to biotechnological inventions than that set out in Directive 98/44/EC, which he describes as an exhaustive body of rules.
He also says that the fact that Monsanto's European patent was awarded before the Directive came into force is irrelevant to the case.
Legal setback for Monsanto in Argentine soy dispute
Reuters, 9 March 2010:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6280O520100309?type=marketsNews
LUXEMBOURG - U.S. biotech giant Monsanto's (MON.N) EU patent on its Roundup Ready soybean seeds should not extend to cover imports of processed soybean meal into the 27-nation bloc, an adviser to Europe's top court said.
The opinion from Advocate General Paolo Mengozzi must still be confirmed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a final ruling. But it is a setback for Monsanto in its legal battle to secure royalty payments on the use of its seeds.
At stake is more than 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion) of annual trade in Argentine soymeal to Europe. Argentina is the world's top soymeal supplier and the European Union is its No. 1 client.
Monsanto filed a lawsuit in the Netherlands against Dutch soymeal importer Cefetra after the biotech firm's patented Roundup Ready DNA sequence was discovered in three soymeal shipments from Argentina in 2005 and 2006.
In 2008 a court in The Hague asked the ECJ for an opinion on whether the presence of Monsanto's patented DNA sequence in the imported soymeal constituted a breach of its EU patent.
"The protection for a patent relating to a DNA sequence is limited to the situation in which the genetic information is currently performing the function described in the patent," the European Court of Justice said in a statement on Tuesday.
Protecting Monsanto's patented DNA sequence where it is "a kind of residue" in products would mean "an unspecified number of derivatives products would come under the control of whoever had patented the DNA sequence of a plant", the court adviser said.
Patenting mere discoveries -- such as the isolation of a DNA sequence without any indication of a function -- would breach the basic principles of EU patent law, the adviser said.
EU legislation on the patentability of genetically modified organisms "constitutes an exhaustive body of rules" that precludes individual member states from offering wider patent protection, the statement added.
Monsanto has no patent in Argentina but nearly all local farmers plant the seeds, genetically modified to resist the company's Roundup herbicide. Some farmers buy certified seed, but others buy contraband or legally extract and reuse the GM seeds without paying royalties.
(Reporting by Michele Sinner, writing by Charlie Dunmore, editing by Dale Hudson)
8 March 2010
Bulgaria: President May Call for National Referendum on GMOs
Sofia News Agency, 8 March 2010:
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=113953
Bulgaria President Georgi Parvanov has stated that the amendments to the GMO Act should include strict safeguards to protect Bulgaria from contamination.
Parvanov outlined what he believes need to be included in the GMO Act. He confirmed with that he will veto the amendments if they are not stringent enough. He added that he may also use his right to call on the Bulgarian Parliament to hold a national referendum on the issue for or against retention of the prohibitions on release into the environment of GMOs.
"Our society perceives the release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a threat to human health, Bulgarian nature and the development of organic farming." President Parvanov said in his statement.
He added that "the public expressed concerns and a principled position on the legislative framework for the use of GMOs in Bulgaria - the policy should remain conservative and restrictive, based on the principles of prudence and precaution."
Monsanto watch: Targeting American farmers with lawyers, fear and money
Bob Cesca
Wallet Pop [USA], 8 March 2010:
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/03/08/monsanto-watch-targeting-american-farmers-with-lawyers-fear-an/
One of the most important components in the success or failure of a major corporation (or "person," according to the Supreme Court) is its ability to legally pursue anyone who dares to challenge its hugeness.
Several weeks ago, after writing about agricultural giant Monsanto, arguably the "big" in Big Agribusiness, I spoke with an Iowa farmer who recounted the story of how a protracted battle with Monsanto practically destroyed his life. Another notch on the corporation's billy club.
After confronting the wrath of Monsanto, Scott McAllister went from owning a prosperous farm in Mt. Pleasant with $3 million in gross annual sales to a divorced equipment salesman with health issues and a mountain of debt.
Like McAllister, farmers too often slip into the cross hairs of the $10 million Monsanto legal team, featuring a staff of at least 75 people, not including outsourced private investigators, all tasked with crushing everything in their path. The most often cited trespass against Monsanto is patent-infringement involving its seeds. It might sound innocuous enough -- not unlike the recording industry's pursuit of file sharing internet downloaders -- but this is actually very serious business, and too many farmers have been ruined in the process.
Monsanto has somehow managed to patent organic life forms: genetically modified organisms or GMOs. Seeds. They also control 90% of the GMO market, so for a farmer to successfully compete, he or she is usually corralled by a hyper-competitive marketplace into buying Monsanto seeds. It's a monopoly, basically, and the Obama Justice Department is rightfully investigating Monsanto for anti-trust violations.
Nevertheless, if a farmer wants to recycle seeds from a previous crop and plant the seeds in a new crop, a process known as "seed cleaning," he or she can be sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. The corporation insists that farmers purchase all new seeds for each crop, and, legally, Monsanto is allowed to get away with this.
Furthermore, if you're a neighboring farmer and Monsanto seeds are naturally blown or scattered onto your farm, Monsanto can sue you, too. After all, you could be stealing their property. In this case, seeds.
The other big no-no is what's called "brown bagging" -- storing Monsanto seeds and potentially re-selling them.
Monsanto admits to investigating around 500 farmers every year for these alleged violations and often employs nefarious tactics in the process such as undercover surveillance, trespassing and intimidation. The Seed Police, they're often called. Settlements, which are how these investigations are usually resolved, range anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars, with the largest settlement amount topping $3 million.
"I was doing very well at it, farming 1,200 acres of ground and was enjoying being prosperous," McAllister told me. "Then Monsanto bought the industry's major corn genetic supplier, Holden's Foundation Seed in Williamsburg, Iowa for the sum of $980 million."
Monsanto gathered all of the farmers and urged them to sign a lengthy and binding contract if they wanted access to the GMO corn seed. They had 60 days to think it over. If not, they'd be left behind in a rapidly advancing marketplace for genetically enhanced corn (contract farms using the seed could and would crush non-Monsanto farms). There was no alternative. Sign with Monsanto or shut down.
So McAllister signed. A move he would quickly regret. Almost right away, the terms of contract began to look more and more constricting and suspicious, so he decided to gather some other farmers and attempt to back out of the agreement.
And that's when he became sandwiched in the middle of the corporate battle between Monsanto and DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred International. In order to prove that Monsanto was engaging in monopolistic practices, DuPont's law firm subpoenaed McAllister's contract, so, consequently, Monsanto began to investigate McAllister.
"January of 2000 rolls around and I was late on royalty payments," McAllister continued, "and then they sued me and pulled my license agreements."
That's when McAllister decided to back down and, with DuPont's help, McAllister made an attempt to settle the thing and move on, but it wasn't in the cards. "So after many futile attempts, they refused to settle and kept insisting I was 'brown bagging' beans, which never happened." He says that Monsanto was more interested in making an example of him.
From here, McAllister's story gets really creepy. He alleges that between September, 2000 and June, 2001, Monsanto essentially stalked him. "They started following me, my family, my employees, my customers, and were interrogating people the about my business, telling them I was going to jail and they would too if they didn't cooperate." McAllister claims that investigators broke into his house, tapped his phones and "tailed his vehicles."
"Any allegation of phone tapping, trespassing, or any other illegal activity is simply not true," Monsanto's Mica Veihman wrote to me in an e-mail. "We do not break the law."
Surveillance by Monsanto via a subcontracted private investigation firm, McDowell & Associates out of St. Louis, is business as usual. Court records show numerous other instances of this kind of behavior. In one case, Monsanto's private investigators in produced 17 surveillance videos in the process of tracking the activities of workers on a co-op farm.
According to Vanity Fair, a small mom and pop general store owner, Gary Rinehart, was accosted in his store by a Monsanto agent who warned him, "Monsanto is big. You can't win. We will get you. You will pay."
"We treat farmers with respect and integrity during an investigation," Veihman wrote. "Not only because it's the right thing to do, but because it's bad business not to."
The Monsanto posture in these investigations appears to be less about treating farmers with respect and integrity and more about treating farmers as "guilty until proven innocent -- or coerced to settle."
Vanity Fair reported:
As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities.
When I mentioned these allegations to Veihman, she noted, "Our investigators are persistent in contacting and following up with farmers, and people view this diligence differently." Indeed.
However, Veihman and Monsanto don't dispute or deny the facts surrounding the verbal accosting of store owner Rinehart and the threat: "Monsanto is big. You can't win. We will get you. You will pay." Monsanto does suggest on its website that Rinehart became loud and angry, and that the confrontation ended in "less than two minutes." It turns out, by the way, that Monsanto's investigators were targeting the wrong man. To date, I'm not aware of any formal apology issued from Monsanto to Rinehart.
For a small town business owner like Scott McAllister, the process of corporate intimidation and legal wrangling versus a $10 million legal juggernaut exacted an enormous toll.
"I finally got tired of all the BS and negotiated a $1 million judgement to stay out of court in St. Louis. I wish I had went ahead now, but I lost everything, between legal bills and Monsanto. The farm, my house, all my vehicles -- everything."
McAllister said that he's suffering from stress-related heart problems, on top of Parkinson's Disease, and added that his wife has left him. "I live in my shop and sell farm equipment for $10 an hour."
The argument I hear most often in support of Monsanto is that its technology helps to mitigate starvation in poor and developing nations. Fair point, but genetically modified food could be a serious health risk, according to a recent study, say nothing of how the pest and weed resistant seeds are fostering mutations -- super weeds that could infest and destroy non-GMO crops. But let's concede for argument's sake that the science is still out on the negative health effects of GMO crops. How, then, does Monsanto's business of intimidating and crushing American farmers actually help to feed starving people elsewhere? It doesn't. It's reasonable, then, to suggest that Monsanto can (health aside) continue to feed starving people without destroying small farmers who dare to rub the corporate giant the wrong way.
"Monsanto will not be happy until they have complete control of the seed industry, and they are almost there," McAllister concluded. And unless something is done to blunt their most notorious business practices, they'll surely collect many more notches in the process.
A big week for GMOs
Sandy Bauers
Philadelphia Enquirer (via The Olympian] [USA], 8 March 2010:
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/03/08/1164860/a-big-week-for-gmos.html
News about genetically-engineered crops - also known as GMOs, for genetically-modified organisms - seemed to be growing like weeds last week.
On Monday, it was the corn and soybeans grown on national wildlife refuges. Three groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking to stop the practice of allowing farmers to plant GMO crops at the Bombay Hook refuge in Delaware.
Wednesday, GMO alfalfa took center stage. It was the final day of a public comment period on a draft assessment by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow unrestricted use of that crop. If so, it would be the first perennial crop to be genetically engineered, which adds to the concern of critics. With crops like corn and soybeans, the plants die every year. But critics worry that perennial GMO alfalfa could take over. (Seattle Times reporter Melissa Anderson had an interesting story on the issue last week: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2011227843-alfalfa02.html.)
Friday, it was the turn of GMO sugar beets. Environmental groups were in U.S. District Court, arguing that planting, production and use of genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets and sugar beet seed should be halted until the federal government completes the environmental review process. They included the Center for Food Safety, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Organic Seed Alliance and the Sierra Club.
Again, the concern was unplanned spread of the GMO crops. The attorneys argued that the beets might cross-pollinate with close relatives, including Swiss chard and table beets. They said that in places like Oregon's Willamette Valley, that would threaten the crops of nearby organic farmers. Sugar beet pollen, evolved to disperse over as wide an area as possible on the wind, is extremely light, according to lawyers for EarthJustice. A recent USDA study found that the pollen may travel more than 12 miles, they said.
However, other court filings contended that a ban could hurt farmers, U.S. sugar supply, seed prices, processors such as American Crystal Sugar Co. and Monsanto, which derives millions of dollars in revenue from licensing the herbicide-resistant technology to seed companies, Bloomberg News reported. Sugar beets, grown on 1.3 million acres in 10 states, provide half the nation's sugar supply, according to the Sugar Industry Biotech Council.
Monsanto has touted the seeds' benefits, saying they help production. The seeds are "Roundup Ready," which means farmers can spray the weedkiller, Roundup, without hurting the plants.
Others argue that the widespread use of Roundup is creating "superweeds" that are resistant to it, leading to the use of more aggressive - and more hazardous - substances.
Visit Sandy Bauers' blog at http://go.philly.com/greenspace.
Political hot potato
Nick Jacobs
EU Observer, 8 March 2010:
http://blogs.euobserver.com/jacobs/2010/03/08/political-hot-potato/
[Photo caption: Is the EU at a turning point on GMO crops?]
Last week, the EU issued its first authorisation for cultivation of a genetically modified plant (GMO) in 12 years. BASF's Amflora potato variety quickly became the most famous spud since Toy Story's Mr Potato Head.
The potato, engineered for enhanced starch content and antibiotic resistance, now joins an insecticide-emitting maize variety (MON810) on the lonely list of genetically modified crops which EU farmers are licensed to grow.
Simultaneously, Health Commissioner John Dalli unveiled an interlinking development with much broader consequences. The Commission will come forward with plans for devolving decision-making on GMO cultivation back to member states by this summer.
While rubber-stamping the GMO potato with one hand, Brussels is using its other to hold out the promise to member states that they will soon be allowed a permanent derogation from growing it.
Walking the GMO tightrope
Dalli and Commission President Barroso (who is at the heart of the plan), are clearly engaged in a delicate balancing act.
Sitting on their desks are a list of GMO dossiers carrying a green light from the EU's food safety watchdog (EFSA), and awaiting action from the Commission.
Outside the Commission walls are a European public which is still uncertain and sceptical about the idea of genetically modifying a crop, a European Parliament split down the middle on the issue, and a host of member states who have previously been willing to override the EU rules and block passage of GMO approvals through Council.
Which goes some way to explaining why this week's approval of the Amflora potato was less than emphatic.
While it looks like a normal potato, the Commission stipulates that Amflora will be exclusively grown for the production of starch for industrial uses.
The rules accompanying the approval stipulate that the potatoes must be delivered exclusively to designated starch processing plants in a "closed system", while cultivation of conventional potatoes on the same field is prohibited for the following year.
Despite the stringent rules, and low risks of transgene flow due to the fact that potatoes propagate vegetatively (not through pollination) and have no cross-compatible wild relatives, the Commission has been forced to acknowledge that the possibility of Amflora mixing with potatoes in the food chain "can never be totally excluded".
The rules almost sound like an apology for the approval of a product which the Commission deems to be safe. Coupled with the promise of an EU-approved derogation for sceptical member states, it is as if Brussels is inviting farmers and national authorities to press ahead with GMO cultivation, but at their own risk.
Agreeing to disagree
The new approach may appear as a practical solution for clearing the backlog of stalled GMO dossiers, but the mixed message coming out of Brussels does not bode well for the long term.
By saying 'lets agree to disagree', the EU fails to tackle fundamental concerns about the safety and desirability of GMOs head-on.
Sending responsibility back to national level could set a dangerous precedent for how Brussels handles publicly sensitive issues around food and agriculture.
The cloning dossier is another one gathering dust on Dalli's desk. There are clear parallels with the GMO debate; ethical arguments and food safety concerns again coincide when it comes to the idea of meat being derived from cloned animals and their offspring.
It is a distinct possibility that there will again be insufficient grounds for banning meat from cloned animals on food safety grounds, while moral and ethical aversions are likely to remain. Could a national opt-out again be the pragmatist's solution?
Risks to common market
This is a slippery slope. A multi-tier food safety policy with opt-ins and opt-outs could raise serious questions about fragmentation of the common market. While the concrete effects may be limited (and mostly symbolic) in regard to GMO cultivation, there could be genuine damage to the unity of the internal market if the same principles were eventually applied to the numerous transgenic varieties which are imported into the EU (while not licensed for growing).
How can the EU be taken seriously as a single economic and social entity, if it cannot agree on what crops are safe to grow and consume, or whether cloned animal meat can be dished up?
In reality, the common market has already taken a battering from the de facto GMO bans currently in place in six member states (Germany, France, Greece, Hungary, Austria and Luxembourg). However, the message now being to Paris, Vienna and others is that if you obstruct the current rules successfully enough, your objections will override scientific views and will be translated into a new legal framework.
Their temporary derogation from the common market will be made into a permanent fixture, instead of being challenged through renewed efforts to forge consensus on EU rules and to stick to them.
The importance of a public knowledge base
Forging consensus on GMOs (let alone cloning) remains as difficult a prospect as ever; this is an issue where industry claims that increased yields, farmer satisfaction, environmental sustainability and safe consumption arise from their products, while NGOs simultaneously denounce biotech crops as the tool of a neo-imperialist food monopoly, fuelling farm debts, poverty, biodiversity loss, increased pesticide use, and a host of uncertain environmental outcomes.
But it is surely the EU's role and responsibility to separate fact from fiction, and to engage in rigorous publicly-funded research which could carry broad authority in a way that industry-funded studies and NGO reporting cannot.
This would mean acting on the unanimous conclusions of EU environment ministers from December 2008, which called for environmental risk assessment procedures to be expanded in scope.
Major doubts remain over how GMO plants affect resistance trends in target organisms and non-target species, over the possibility of unpredictable genetic mutations when GMOs contact other organisms, and over how feasible it is for GMO and other farming systems to maintain genetic isolation while being cultivated in close proximity.
These very coexistence concerns are what undermines the idea of any member state remaining genuinely GMO-free in the long run, should neighbouring countries pursue GMO cultivation under a devolved system.
Breaking the monopoly
The majority of scientific evidence on these areas is currently provided by the GMO seed manufacturers themselves (to be analysed by EFSA), a trend which has inevitably undermined legitimacy, and has prompted ample counter-studies.
Taking on the necessary public research could be hugely costly, and could mean delaying approvals for the near future, particularly if the number of new GMO varieties proliferates as quickly as many are predicting. However, the assurance of a publicly-funded, publicly-owned knowledge base on GMOs could help to underpin a common and consistent EU approach to the technology in the future.
Public perception of GMOs as 'unsafe' is not always based on nutritional concerns related to the specific genes inserted into a crop variety; it can often be an expression of broader uncertainties about the environmental impacts, and can also revolve around power imbalances between vulnerable farmers and dominant patent-wielding seed companies.
Ensuring adequate independent public resources for GMO assessments could at least help to assuage concerns that companies such as Monsanto are powerful enough to sway the biotech policy of governments.
The necessary studies could be hugely expensive, unpopularly so at a time of recession, but may be a way of depolarising the issue in the longer term.
GMO-Free is Fastest Growing Retail Brand
Aaron Turpen, citizen journalist
Natural News [USA], 8 March 2010:
http://www.naturalnews.com/028317_GMOs_foods.html
In a blog post on Nielsen.com [1] earlier this month, Nielsen's Tom Pirovano says that U.S. retailers are expanding their store brands and the latest, fastest-growing branding health claim is to label products "GMO-free." This labeling, according to Nielsen's numbers, is up by 67% in 2009 with a sales growth of $60.2 million in that sector.
In fact, healthy claims are tops in many categories of sales growth for store brands, including "Gluten free" and claims of adding or bolstering Omega acids.
Most of these store brands are large and are well-known chains, some known for healthy and whole foods and others more as being cookie-cutter boxes. Supermarkets have been certifying products as organic for in-store brands for some time, so the trend towards healthy claims and marketing is not new.
The rise of sentiment against genetically modified foods (GM or GMO) is growing, however, and market brands reflect that. Readers of NaturalNews are no simpletons when it comes to the dangers of GM foods. [2]
With genetically modified organisms and foods being linked to organ damage, crop failures, increased water usage, and worse, consumers are finally waking up to the dangers of these products.
Another hot growing trend amongst retail store brands is the claim of being high fructose corn syrup free, which gained 28% or $13 million in market share, according to the Nielsen numbers. This one may become a growing trend, and as Pirovano points out, many retailers are adopting a "wait-and-see attutide to determine if a claim has 'legs' or is merely the latest blip on the consumer trend screen."
Further, thousands of organic and natural food products are now enrolled in the Non-GMO Project's Product Verification Program (known as PVP). This is the nation's first and largest system for scientific testing of product standards against genetic modification. [3] This project includes some of the biggest retail names in the food industry and labels from the PVP will be appearing on retail packages this year.
As sentiment against the GMO seeds and products made from their crops grows, so too will the retail market backlash. Although government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration have refused to rule against GM foods, despite the evidence, the free market and consumer demand is turning the tide against them on its own.
As Shelly Roche of Bytestyle.tv says, "The great thing about this new report is that it shows how quickly the market responds when it sees a shift in consumer demand." [4]
It's becoming obvious that many health-conscious consumers in America are indeed voting with their forks.
Resources:
1 - U.S. Healthy Eating Trends Part 4: Store Brands Expand Healthy Offerings by Tom Pirovano, Director of Industry Insights, Nielsen Co.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/u-s-healthy-eating-trends-part-4-store-brands-expand-healthy-offerings/
2 - Feature NaturalNews Articles on GMOs http://www.naturalnews.com/GMO.html and
http://www.naturalnews.com/027931_GMO_crops_organ_damage.html%22%3E
3 - Non-GMO Project
http://www.nongmoproject.org/
4 - 'GMO-free' is fastest-growing retailer brand claim by Shelly Roche, Bytestyle.tv
http://bytestyle.tv/content/gmo-free-fastest-growing-retailer-brand-claim#comment-15990
Seed's failure raises red flag at Monsanto
Georgina Gustin
St. Louis Post-Dispatch [USA], 8 March 2010:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/B76F779D663BDDD3862576DF007F122B?OpenDocument
A genetically modified cotton produced by Monsanto is failing to control pests in four Indian states, the company said last week.
The survival of the pink bollworm in Monsanto's Bollgard brand cotton was detected in four of the nine Indian states where the cotton is grown.
A spokesman for the Creve Coeur-based company said it is taking the matter "very seriously" and will continue to monitor the situation with the help of a team of Indian-based experts. The detection has been reported to the Indian Genetic Engineering Committee, the company said.
The cotton is engineered to resist the pink bollworm, a pest that can ruin crops. However, testing was conducted to assess resistance to Cry1Ac, the Bt protein in the crop, and insects were found to be surviving it.
The company said Friday that the resistance could be occurring because the required refuge areas were not planted by farmers and some may have used unapproved Bt cotton seed.
Recently, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said the country should be more cautious in adopting genetically modified crops.
Ramesh imposed a freeze on commercial cultivation of Monsanto's Bt brinjal, or eggplant, until further health and environmental safety tests can be conducted. The Bt brinjal is the first genetically modified food crop grown in the country.
Both the Bollgard cotton and brinjal were developed in conjunction with Mahyco, an India-based seed company that helped Monsanto introduced Bollgard cotton to the country in 2002.
6 March 2010
GMO Has No Chance in Bulgaria
• The owners of cornfields polluted with GMO to be paid compensations
Tanya Kirkova
Standart [Bulgaria], 6 March 2010:
http://paper.standartnews.com/en/article.php?d=2010-03-06&article=32412
GMO cannot be cultivated in Bulgaria for experimental or commercial purposes - this will be the real-term effect of the GMO Act that will be passed on a second reading by the Parliamentary Committee for Environment next week.
The draft bill provides a distance of at least 30 km between the GMO fields and those protected under Natura 2000 project or other natural parks. The amendment was included in the GMO draft bill under pressure from the environmental organizations in Bulgaria.
Because Bulgaria is a relatively small country, the thirty-kilometer margin between the GMO fields and the natural cornfields is virtually impossible to be kept, which means that it is practically impossible to grow GMO in Bulgaria.
Bt cotton has failed admits Monsanto
Dinesh C. Sharma
India Today, March 6 2010:
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/86939/India/Bt+cotton+has+failed+admits+Monsanto.html
New Delhi - The ongoing debate on biotechnology crops in India took a new turn on Friday when American seed firm Monsanto disclosed that cotton pest--pink bollworm--has developed resistance to its much-touted Bt cotton variety in Gujarat.
The company has reported to the regulator, the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), that pink bollworm has developed resistance to its genetically modified (GM) cotton variety, Bollgard I, in Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot districts in Gujarat.
This was detected by the company during field monitoring in the 2009 cotton season.
The Bt cotton variety in question was developed using a gene--Cry1AC--derived from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. It was supposed to be resistant to pest attacks. But, of late, the pest has developed resistance to the gene.
The same gene has been used in Bt brinjal to make it resistant to pests. Bollgard cotton was cited as a great success of GM technology by Union science minister Prithviraj Chavan in his July 2009 letter to former health minister A. Ramadoss.
"Resistance is natural and expected," Monsanto said in a statement. The company blamed pink bollworm resistance to Cry1Ac protein in Gujarat to "early use of unapproved Bt cotton seeds" by farmers and "limited refuge planting". Farmers are supposed to maintain a distance between Bt cotton farms and other farms as a "refuge". It also advised farmers to take up "need-based application of insecticide sprays" and "properly manage crop residue and unopened bolls after harvest". A second generation variety, Bollgard II, introduced by Monsanto in 2006, contains two proteins, Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab.
The company says no resistance has been observed in the variety anywhere in the country, including Gujarat.
The revelation has not surprised environment action groups. "This is the pattern Monsanto has been following everywhere. Once Bollgard 1 fails, they start pushing Bollgard 2 and tell farmers to apply more pesticides. This is a vicious circle that Indian cotton farmers have got into," Devinder Sharma of Forum for Biotechnology and Food Safety said.
"There is a lesson here for Bt brinjal because the arguments in favour of the crop are same as those given for Bollgard cotton," Kavita Kuruganti of Kheti Virasat said.
In a report submitted to environment minister Jairam Ramesh, K.R. Kranthi of the Central Institute for Cotton Research had cautioned about the likely failure of Bt cotton. "Farmers are not following the recommended 'refugia'. With about 90 per cent area under Bt cotton, bollworms can develop resistance soon. The concern needs to be addressed on priority before it is too late," the report says.
Not only has Bt cotton been rendered ineffective, it has also led to detection of some new pests never before reported from India. It is toxic only to bollworm and does not control any other pests of cotton. "New sucking pests have emerged as major pests causing significant economic losses", the report says.
At the same time, productivity of cotton has fallen from 560 kg lint per hectare in 2007 to 512 kg lint per hectare in 2009.
And pesticide expenditure has gone up from from Rs 597 crore in 2002 to Rs 791 crore in 2009.
Bt cotton ineffective against pest in parts of Gujarat, admits Monsanto
Priscilla Jebaraj
The Hindu [India], 6 March 2010:
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/06/stories/2010030658401400.htm
NEW DELHI - For the first time anywhere in the world, biotech agriculture giant Monsanto has admitted that insects have developed resistance to its Bt cotton crop. Field monitoring in parts of Gujarat has discovered that the Bt crop is no longer effective against the pink bollworm pest there.
The company is advocating that Indian farmers switch to its second-generation product to delay resistance further. Monsanto's critics say that this just proves the ineffectiveness of the Bt technology, which was recently sought to be introduced in India in Bt brinjal as well.
In November 2009, Monsanto's scientists detected unusual survival of the pink bollworm pest while monitoring the Bt cotton crop in Gujarat. In January and February, samples taken from the field were tested in Monsanto's laboratories. It has been confirmed that pink bollworm is now resistant to the pest-killing protein of Bt cotton in four districts - Amreli, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Rajkot.
Until now, Monsanto has held that "there have been no confirmed cases of poor field performance of Bt cotton or Bt corn attributable to insect resistance." Although there have been cases of insects resisting the technology in the laboratory, Monsanto held that "field resistance is the criterion of relevance to agricultural producers."
Now that the company itself has admitted that its product has been proved ineffective against some insects on the fields of Gujarat, its advice to farmers is to start using its second generation product instead. "Farmers have another choice. We have a two-gene product called Bollgard II which has greater ability to delay resistance," says Monsanto India's director of scientific affairs Rashmi Nair. She also recommends that farmers conduct better monitoring and plant "refuges," or areas of non-Bt crop which would attract insects.
Agricultural scientists and activists say Monsanto's advice is "ridiculous". The Bollgard II product has no additional toxin to combat pink bollworm, says G.V. Ramanjaneyulu of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture. It is simply that as a newer product, Bollgard II will take longer for the pest to develop resistance. Anyway, the Bt toxin is only active for 90 days, while pink bollworm is a late season pest, he adds.
"All the hype about the effectiveness of Bt against pests is bogus ...This proves that you can't stay ahead of the pest with ... this shortsighted approach," says Kavitha Kuruganti of the Kheti Virasat Mission. Indian farmers with small holdings cannot be expected to give up large parts of their land for non- productive "refuges," added Dr. Ramanjaneyulu.
Monsanto's Dr. Nair says the Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) was informed about the resistance "about eight to ten days ago." The CICR, which has been collaborating in the field monitoring of Bt cotton since 2003, has reported this to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), she said. However, the Ministry of Environment and Forests seems to have been unaware of the test results until Monsanto issued a statement on Friday.
Over the last month, the GEAC and the Ministry have been at the centre of a storm regarding the government's moratorium on Bt brinjal's commercial release. Critics are now pointing to the ineffectiveness of Bt cotton in Gujarat to strengthen their case against Bt brinjal as well.
Setback for Bt cotton; main pest develops resistance
Business Standard [India], March 6 2010:
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/setback-for-bt-cotton-main-pest-develops-resistance/387703/
5 March 2010
Bulgaria's GMO bill envisages hefty fine for environment minister
The Sofia Echo, Mar 05 2010:
http://www.sofiaecho.com/2010/03/05/868434_bulgarias-gmo-bill-envisages-hefty-fine-for-environment-minister
Bulgaria's minister of environment could be fined from 300 000 to one million leva for allowing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be grown within the 30km restricted belt around Natura 2000 areas, according to an amendment to the GMO bill by passed by Parliament's environment committee.
The sanction, proposed by Deputy Environment minister Evdokia Maneva, had no precedent in the country's legislation, but that in itself was not an obstacle preventing such a provision, the legal affairs committee said.
Under the provision, whenever there are suspicions that the minister broke the law, the prime minister would appoint an expert committee to investigate the case and submit a report to the Supreme Administrative Court, which could then choose to impose the fine, the lawmakers decided.
The same sanction would be imposed on companies that grow GMOs in the specified areas without permission from the environment minister.
According to experts, the introduction of buffer zones practically left no free land for planting GMO crops.
After heated discussions on the ban of the cultivation and sale of genetically modified fruits, vegetables, vines, tobacco and roses, MPs decided to support it with a safeguard clause, implementing a European Commission derogation that allows EU member states to prohibit GMO crops cleared by the EC. Such was the recent case of the Amflora potatoes of Germany's BASF, approved by the EC.
Opposition MPs countered that this opens the door for cultivating gene-modified crops that have not been studied by the EC and field trials with GMOs. Parliament debates were expected to continue in the second week of March, when the bill was to be put for vote.
Health: Potato Drags GM Food Into Europe
David Cronin
Inter Press Service, 5 March 2010:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50566
BRUSSELS - Genetically modified (GM) foods appear to be back on the European Union's political menu - thanks to a potato.
Manufactured by the German chemical firm BASF, a potato named Amflora became the first GM crop to be authorised for cultivation by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, in 12 years Mar. 2.
It is unlikely that the same length of time will elapse before the next such approval is granted by Brussels officials. Files relating to 17 other GM crops - including varieties of maize, oilseed rape and more potatoes - are on those officials' desk and awaiting a formal rubber-stamp.
Although many of the EU's governments are opposed to the introduction of GM foods, the Commission's most powerful representatives have long been eager to resume the approval of new varieties. Last year, it sought unsuccessfully to force France and Greece to ditch moratoria they had placed on the planting of Mon-810, a corn variety developed by the American multinational Monsanto.
EuropaBio, a group representing the biotechnology industry, notes that some of the crops under consideration in Brussels have been grown in North America for nearly two decades. Willy de Greef, the group's secretary- general, said that food safety authorities have "thoroughly assessed" GM crops and found them to pose no threat. "But this has never stopped some of the anti-GM activists from selling the same old story," he told IPS.
BASF, for its part, has wasted no time in announcing that it has developed other types of potatoes, including one resistant to the type of blight widely assumed to have caused a famine that killed one million Irish people - one eighth of the country's inhabitants - in the 19th century.
Claims that GM foods have been scientifically verified as safe and could cure global hunger will be familiar to anyone who has followed the often-heated debate about their effects. The cosy relationship between the scientists happy to give their blessing to these foods and the corporations that have invested heavily in them is not as well known.
Amflora's approval followed a positive opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in Parma, Italy. Since its inception in 2002, the authority has delivered more than 40 assessments on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), all of them favourable. Its panel on GMOs is chaired by Harry Kuiper, a Dutchman who previously coordinated a scientific research programme involving three leading biotech firms Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta.
Greenpeace agriculture campaigner Marco Contiero complains that 18 of the 21 scientists tasked by EFSA with analysing applications to plant GM foods are biochemists "with only one or two experts on the environment."
"If we talk about releasing living organisms into the environment, we must have the advice of scientists who know about this," he added. "The problem we have with EFSA is that it doesn't have the means to carry out risk assessments or independent analysis of data submitted by companies."
In relying on EFSA's counsel, the European Commission has glossed over contradictory information provided by other authorities. The World Health Organisation and the European Medicines Evaluation Agency have both expressed concerns about issues related to Amflora, which contains a gene resistant to some antibiotics.
While the potato's starch is intended for industrial use - such as in glue manufacturing - biotech firms admit that its by-products are likely to be used for animal feed and could therefore enter the human food chain. Policy- makers on public health have warned that planting antibiotic resistant crops could undermine the effectiveness of several medicines deemed vital in treating diseases that affect humans.
The stakes could be particularly high in the case of Amflora, as it is designed to be resistant to neomycine and kanamycine, two drugs used to treat tuberculosis. Across the world 2 billion people are infected with TB, which takes 2 million lives per year. Yet John Dalli, the EU's new commissioner for public health has defended his authorisation of Amflora. He told the TV channel Euronews that that the likelihood of the potato harming efforts to cut TB deaths is "so remote that the assessment is there is no danger at all to human life."
Contiero, however, dismissed claims that GM foods will ultimately benefit humanity, as "propaganda". Far from offering the possibility of wonder foods that will make hunger history, biotech firms are intricately linked to an industrialised system of agriculture that helps exacerbate hardship.
"Monsanto owns 90 percent of GMOs in the world," he said. "And together with Bayer and Syngenta, it owns almost 50 percent of all seeds. The fact is that three companies - Bayer, BASF and Pioneer - also own 65 percent of the pesticide market. Biotech companies buy seed companies because this gives them a direct control of food production and food prices. Decision-makers should look very seriously at how they control food prices. This is an issue that people tend to forget."
EFSA launches public consultation on guidance for environmental risk assessment of GM plants
European Food Safety Authority [EFSA], 5 March 2010:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/gmo100305.htm
EFSA has launched a public consultation on the revised guidance of its GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) Panel for the environmental risk assessment of GM plants. EFSA provided updated guidance for assessing the impact of GM plants on the environment and held discussions with stakeholders and Member States as part of this work. Together with new, strengthened requirements in terms of data generation, collection and analysis, this guidance also contains a revised section on the evaluation of possible effects on non-target organisms. The document is the result of two years' work and demonstrates EFSA's commitment to staying at the forefront of recent developments in the field of GM plant environmental risk assessment. The public consultation will last until 30 April for a total of eight weeks.
EFSA reviewed and updated the specific areas that need to be addressed when assessing the environmental impact of a GM plant. These cover in particular the persistence and invasiveness of the GM plant, taking into account plant-to-plant gene transfer; the likelihood and consequences of gene transfer from the plant to micro-organisms; the potential evolution of resistance in target pests; the impact of the GM plant on non-target organisms; and the impact that the cultivation, management and harvesting techniques associated with the GM plant may have. Specific attention was also given to other environmental processes that may be affected by the GM plant, as well as to the impact that these may have on human and animal health.
EFSA also supplemented its guidance document with specific aspects which will need to be taken into consideration for the assessment. Detailed requirements are given for the choice of appropriate non-GM comparators (which are the non-GM plants with which the GM plant is compared during the safety evaluation) and types of receiving environments to be considered; the experimental design of laboratory and field studies, and their statistical analysis; and the consideration of possible long-term effects.
Some GM plants can produce an insecticide which wards off attacks from certain insects and it is important to ensure that they do not adversely affect other insects (the so called non-target organisms or NTOs). In the context of its work on the new guidance, the GMO Panel produced a scientific opinion on how to evaluate the impact of a GM plant on non-target organisms. The opinion defines criteria for the selection of relevant non-target species; for the identification of those aspects of the environment that need to be protected from harm; and for the experimental design of laboratory and field studies and their statistical analysis.
The revision of the guidance document was undertaken in response to a request from the European Commission. To complement this, EFSA undertook work on non-target organisms on its own initiative. Also, a series of technical discussions was organised to bring together GMO Panel experts, stakeholders and technical experts from the EU Member States to exchange views on the scientific issues and various aspects of the documents[1]. At the end of the public consultation launched on 5 March, EFSA will publish a report with an overview of the comments received and will address the relevant comments in the final EFSA GMO Panel guidance document and related opinion on non-target organisms.
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Public consultation on the draft scientific opinion on the assessment of potential impacts of genetically modified (GM) plants on non-target organisms (NTOs)
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/consultations/call/gmo100305.htmv
For media enquiries, please contact:
Ian Palombi, Press Officer or
Steve Pagani, Head of Press Office
Tel: +39 0521 036149
Email: Press@efsa.europa.eu
[1] For more information and for the minutes of the meetings held with stakeholders and the Member States
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/gmo/gmomsmeetings.htm
Bt cotton flunks pest resistance test in Gujarat
Zia Haq
Hindustan Times [India], 5 March 2010:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Bt-cotton-flunks-pest-resistance-test-in-Gujarat/H1-Article1-515648.aspx
Risky agribusiness: Are GMOs the 'financial innovations' of agriculture?
Tom Lashkawy
Grist [USA], 5 March 2010:
http://www.grist.org/article/gmos-as-financial-innovations/
[Note: the orginal online version of this article contains numerous hyperlinks not included here.]
Financial blogger Felix Salmon has an essay in Foreign Policy called "How Locavores Can Save the World" -- expanded, by the way, from a wonderful blog post he wrote after attending a panel discussion on world hunger at the Davos World Economic Forum in the company of Blue Hill Farm's Dan Barber. Salmon usually focuses on issues involving economic crises, monetary policy, complex derivatives, macro-economics and governmental oversight of the financial markets, but here he's talking monocultures, sustainable agriculture, and transgenic seeds. Tom Philpott has in the past opined on the similarities between financial and food crises, so I suppose this turn of events is not too surprising.
But the bit I found most striking was how Salmon characterized Big Ag's claim that genetically modified organisms are an "answer" to the problem of world hunger:
[It] is the agricultural equivalent of creating triple-A-rated mortgage bonds, fabricated precisely to prevent the problem of credit risk. It doesn't make the problem go away: It just makes the problem rarer and much more dangerous when it does occur because no one is -- or even can be -- prepared for such a high-impact, low-probability event.
Well, hey. That's a new one. GMOs as CDOs (i.e. Collateralized Debt Obligations), the mortgage-backed securities that helped destroy the economy as we knew it. But I wanted to hear more details. So I asked Salmon if he might expand on the analogy. And this post was his response:
The point here is that a disease-resistant crop is a lot like a triple-A-rated structured bond: they're both artificially engineered to be as safe as possible. That would be a wonderfully good thing if no one knew that they were so safe. But if you're aware of a safety improvement, that often just has the effect of increasing the amount of risk you take: people drive faster when they're wearing seatbelts, and they take on a lot more leverage when they're buying AAA-rated bonds.
The agricultural equivalent is the move to industrial-scale monoculture, "safe" in the knowledge that lots of clever engineers in the US have made the crop into the agribusiness version of a bankruptcy-remote special-purpose entity.
But the problem is that bankruptcy-remote doesn't mean that bankruptcy is impossible: just ask the people running Citigroup's AAA-rated SIVs [Structured Investment Vehicles -- another risk management financial "innovation" that failed spectacularly]. If and when the unlikely event eventually happens, the amount of devastation caused is directly proportional to the degree to which people thought they were protected. When something like that goes wrong, it goes very wrong indeed: artificial safety improvements have the effect of turning outcomes binary.
Essentially, you're trading a large number of small problems for a small probability that at some point you're going to have an absolutely enormous problem.
In a sense, Big Ag -- along with the Obama administration -- is doubling down on the industrial system we have now: one that is already starting to show signs of stress, from the rise of superweeds along with the price of oil. Monsanto and Syngenta are claiming the ability to genetically engineer all the risk out of agriculture. But in narrowing farmers' choices to a small set of patented seeds, seeds that must be bought by and distributed to every far-flung farm in the world every year (most of which lack basic infrastructure like, say, roads, and which must grow them according to strict protocols), these companies presume to have managed all the risks, just like the banks did a few years back. They are also presuming that the "Business as Usual" scenario, the world as it exists today, will continue indefinitely; that, in other words, there are no Black Swans hiding in the reeds.
As Salmon describes it for us so clearly, it's a huge gamble. Only this time we're not gambling with money -- we're being asked to gamble with our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and farmers with their livelihoods. That is a bet that none of us should have to take.
The good news is we don't. Between Dan Barber-style "regionalized breeding" as a bulwark against disease and the kind of sustainable agriculture sketched out in the UN's landmark IASTAAD report, a practical alternative to Big Ag's vision exists. The question is, Must we wait for the Black Swan to take flight before we enact it?
Humana goes GM-free in schools
Dairy Industries International [UK], 5 March 2010:
http://www.dairyindustries.com/story.asp?id=2026694
The third largest milk processor in Germany, Humana Milchunion, is aiming to ensure that all milk delivered to German schools will be guaranteed GM-free by the end of this year.
The company, which has a €2.2 billion annual turnover, will also guarantee that milk powders for baby food are GM-free.
In doing so, Humana is joining market leaders in the Austrian, Swiss and Greek dairy sector.
The dairy that pioneered high-quality mothers' milk substitute in Germany 60 years ago is not planning a full-range change to GM-free milk. Industry sources say the company undertook the limited change in response to a Greenpeace initiative which aims to list those processors offering GM-free foods in a reprint of its multinational "consumers' guide for genetechnology free foods".
France blasts GM crop approvals by EU agency
Reuters, 5 March 2010:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6241ZQ20100305
PARIS (Reuters) - Europe's food safety agency has used partial evidence to approve genetically modified crops, including a GM potato developed by BASF, and should overhaul its methods, a French environment minister said.
France has previously invoked environmental risks to suspend cultivation of Monsanto's MON 810 maize, which was the only GM crop approved for growing in the European Union prior to this week's approval of BASF's Amflora potato.
Chantal Jouanno, a junior minister in the French government, said the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), whose opinions are used by the EU's executive, had ignored the environmental effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
"We do not recognize their expertise because we consider that their opinions are incomplete," she told French daily Le Parisien in an interview published on Friday.
"They are only interested in the sanitary consequences of GMOs, without taking into account their long-term environmental impact," she said, citing potential contamination of soil and adverse effects on other species.
France has asked a national biotechnology committee, the HCB, to give its opinion on the Amflora potato, after already consulting the body last year on MON 810 maize after taking issue with a favorable opinion from EFSA on renewing the European license for growing the crop.
To resolve longstanding divisions between member countries over GM crop approvals, the European Commission also said this week it may propose letting each country decide whether to authorize the cultivation of GM crops on its soil.
France's farm minister told Reuters last month he was opposed to any national decision-making on GM crops, calling for harmonized EU rules.
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; editing by James Jukwey)
Commission allows German GM potato to be grown in EU
Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent
Irish Times, 5 March 2010:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0305/1224265630195.html
A GENETICALLY modified (GM) potato developed by German company BASF, which was prevented from growing it experimentally in Co Meath in 2006, can now be grown in the EU following a decision this week in Brussels.
The European Commission decided the GM potato "Amflora" can be grown for extracting starch but cannot be grown for human consumption. The decision has been severely criticised by organic groups across the EU.
It is unlikely to be grown here because Government policy is to have no GM-produced crops grown despite the fact the farming lobby, including Teagasc, is in favour of using GM systems if proven to be scientifically safe.
The Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association chairwoman, Dr Sinéad Neiland, said the decision to give the green light to the commercial cultivation of the GM potato was moving the EU in the wrong direction.
When BASF tried to test its growth here, she said public opposition was strong with regard to the trial and this, coupled with a demand that BASF pay the cost of independent monitoring of health and environment impacts, ensured BASF pulled out.
"This decision puts profit before people or the environment and will do little to increase public confidence in how EU representatives approach GM cultivation."
Amflora potato is designed to be rich in starch as an alternative thickening agent for paper, adhesives and textiles and an alternative to maize.
"The existence of non-GM alternatives means that there is no reason for farmers to have to cultivate Amflora for the European starch industry and no need to introduce the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance," Dr Neiland added.
The Irish Farmers Association said the GM debate in Europe had been very political and emotional, rather than based on facts. This meant Irish farmers did not have access to GM technology, but had to compete with farmers who did.
"The move by the commission is very much a preliminary one for a particular variety and should be welcomed as an opportunity to open up the debate on the use of GM," it added.
"Either farmers in Europe are allowed to use the technology to remain competitive, or those products that use the technology are restricted."
The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements in the EU-27, representing more than 300 organic groups, said the decision further raised the cost to the organic sector of remaining GM free.
"Although the starch potato is not intended for use as feed and food purposes, it cannot be certain that the tubers, which look like conventional potatoes, will not enter the food chain," Bavo van den Idsert, the federation's vice president, said.
"Even the European Food Safety Authority had to recognise this in its opinion."
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Comment from GM-free Ireland:
Typical disinformation from the Irish Times!
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BASF's GM "Amflora potato" is NOT the same as the experimental GM potato they tried to release in Co. Meath in 2006. Amflora is a non-food crop that produces starch for glue, paper and other industrial purposes. The experiment which BASF tried to conduct in 2006 would have involved the release of 250,000 supposedly "blight-resistant" potatoes. For details see www.gmfreeireland.org/potato/
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Organic farmers are NOT the only ones who are outraged by the Commissions's latest move. The vast majority of consumers and conventional farmers in most EU Member States are also furious. Within days of the announcement, the
Governments of Austria, France, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg will not allow the GM potato to be grown in their territories.
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Irish farmers and food brands do NOT compete against EU farmers who grow GM crops, as virtually none are cultilvated in the EU. Nor do Irish farmers compete against EU farmers who use GM animal feed: most EU retailers and food brands have ended the use of GM animal feed or are phasing it out. And the claim that Irish farmers can win the race to the bottom against farmers in South America who use GM feeds that are not allowed in Europe is plain stupid: South American land and labour costs are so low that they can outcompete us on price, with or without the use of GM animal feedstuffs, regardless of whether they are legal or illegal in the EU.
The Irish Times fails to mention that implementation of our Government policy to ban GM crops and provide a voluntary GM-free quality food label certification for farmers who choose to phase out the use of imported GM animal feed (which we can do more cost-effectively than most of our EU competitors), will enable Ireland – the food island to leverage our clean green image and secure a unique selling point: the most credible safe GM-free food brand in Europe.
The paper also fails to explain the major scientific concerns of this GM potato:
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BASF's "Amflora" potatoes contain inserted anti-biotic resistant genes from a bacterium which, if they escape, could confer animal and human resistance to several antibiotics including kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin, and gentamicin – which are among the only remaining weapons we have against certain diseases including infectious multiple-drug-resistant Tuberculosis;
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the GM potatoes will inevitably contaminate ordinary potatoes.
And no mention of the negative legal, economic and social impacts:
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Contaminated farmers and food chain operators will have to pay for GM testing, GM labelling, GM segregation and decontamination costs.
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The GM potatoes are patented.
Under the World Trade Organisation's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, farmers contaminated by patented seeds and crops no longer own their produce, which become the intellectual property of the patent holder (BASF in this case). Contaminated farmers are not allowed to save their own potatoes or potato seeds for replanting. They will have to buy new stock every year from BASF, and will have to pay higher costs and annual patent royalties, and expose themselves to patent infringement and contamination lawsuits without any insurance company willing to cover the risk.
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Contaminated farmers will be obliged to sue their neighbours, thus destroying traditional community relations.
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Contaminated farmers will not be allowed to sell these GM potatoes for human consumption.
As for Teagasc, the IFA, and the animal feed cartels, their blind faith in GMOs, ignorance of science and disregard for animal and human health will no doubt lead them to feed (locally grown or imported) residues from these GM potatoes to their livestock, thus further damaging the brand value of Ireland - the food island.
Given the rejection of the GMO potatoes by Austria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Luxembourg, the Irish Government should take immediate action to protect farmers, food producers and consumers by banning the cultivation of these GM potatoes as well as their use for animal feed.
4 March 2010
Vatican: No Official OK for Genetically Modified Potato
Zenit.org, 4 March 2010:
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=28542
ROME - After the European Commission approved Tuesday the commercial cultivation of a genetically modified potato, the Vatican's semi-official newspaper clarified that the Church has no official position on the practice of modifying the genes of produce.
The commission's approval of the Amflora potato is only the second OK it's given to genetically modified crops; in 1998 it approved a modified maize strain.
The Amflora potato was developed by the German chemical company BASF, and it is high in starch content. The potato is not designed for human consumption, but rather for manufacturing products such as paper and glue.
The European Commission's approval of the potato has fanned the debate about the eventual effects of genetically modified organisms on human health. The Amflora potato in particular has a gene that is resistant to antibiotics.
L'Osservatore Romano clarified in an article for today's edition that some reports have suggested a hypothetical Vatican approval of the GM potato.
"There has been talk of an explicit 'yes' to the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, confusing once again personal commentaries of ecclesiastics with 'official' statements attributed to the Holy See or the Church," L'Osservatore Romano explained.
The Vatican daily instead cited Benedict XVI's "Caritas in Veritate," where the Pope says that the "Church does not have technical solutions to offer" but does "have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation."
This mission includes the condemnation of world hunger, which the Holy Father asserts is "not so much dependent on lack of material things as on shortage of social resources, the most important of which are institutional."
Proponents of GM organisms propose them as a solution for hunger (though not in the particular case of the Amflora potato).
However, the L'Osservatore Romano article observed that "it is no accident that precisely in 2009 -- a year in which in the developing countries GMOs have grown by 13%, as opposed to a world average of 7%, covering almost half of the cultivated surface of the planet with transgenic plants -- the number of hungry in the world for the first time exceeds one billion."
Fury as EU approves GM potato
• Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans
Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts
The Independent [UK], 4 March 2010:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/fury-as-eu-approves-gm-potato-1915833.html
The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was claimed last night.
German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a gene that could resist antibiotics - useful in the fight against illnesses such as tuberculosis.
Farms in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic may plant the potato for industrial use, with part of the tuber fed to cattle, according to BASF, which fought a 13-year battle to win approval for Amflora. But other EU member states, including Italy and Austria and anti-GM campaigners angrily attacked the move, claiming it could result in a health disaster.
v
During the regulatory tussle over the potato, the EU's pharmaceutical regulator had expressed concern about its potential to interfere with the efficacy of antibiotics on infections that develop multiple resistance to other antibiotics, a growing problem in human and veterinary medicine. Amflora contains a gene that produces an enzyme which generally confers resistance to several antibiotics, including kanamycin, neomycin, butirosin, and gentamicin.
The antibiotics could become "extremely important" to treat otherwise multi-resistant infections and tuberculosis, the European Medicines Authority (EMA) warned. Drug resistance is part of the explanation for the resurgence of TB, which infects eight million people worldwide every year.
"In the absence of an effective therapy, infectious Multiple Drug Resistant TB patients will continue to spread the disease, producing new infections with MDR-TB strains," an EMA spokesman said. "Until we introduce a new drug with demonstrated activity against MDR strains, this aspect of the TB epidemic could explode at an exponential level."
After member states become deadlocked on the potato's approval, the European Commission approved it for use in industries such as paper production, saying it would save energy, water and chemicals. Once the starch has been removed, the skins can be fed to animals, whose meat would not have to be labelled as GM.
The EC, whose decision was backed by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa), said there was no good reason for withholding approval. Health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli said: "Responsible innovation will be my guiding principle when dealing with innovative technologies."
"Stringent" controls would ensure none of the tubers were left in the ground, ensuring altered genes did not escape into the environment. Opponents fear bacteria inside the guts of animals fed the GM potato - which can cause human diseases - may develop resistance to antibiotics.
Some member states were furious. "Not only are we against this decision, but we want to underscore that we will not allow the questioning of member states' sovereignty on this matter," said Italy's Agriculture Minister, Luca Zaia. Austria said it would ban cultivation of the potato within its borders, while France said it would ask an expert panel for further research.
Campaigners accused Brussels of failing to follow the precautionary principle. Friends of the Earth's Heike Moldenhauer said: "The commissioner whose job is to protect consumers has, in one of his first decisions, ignored public opinion and safety concerns to please the world's biggest chemical company."
Campaigners suspect Brussels is in favour of the widespread planting of GM crops despite opposition by some member states. Yesterday it also announced its intention to allow states more leeway in backing GM organisms.
Update on EU backlash against the Commission's GMO potatoes
Greenpeace International, 4 March 2010:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/ge-food-EU020310v
The shocking approval of the GE potato by Barroso's Commission has been met with a wave of strong reactions among the EU member-states. The governments of Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary and France have publicly announced that they will not allow the cultivation of the GE potato in their countries. And various ministers have expressed their frustration with the decision of Barroso -- who is neglecting the unanimous call from the EU Environment Ministers Council to repair the system of authorisations of GE crops. Germany company Emsland, the second biggest starch producer worldwide, has also announced that they will not use the GE potato because of the strong opposition against it.
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Comment from GM-free Ireland
WIll our Environment Minister John Gormley implement the Government's policy to prohibit GM crops and confirm that cultivation of these GMO potatoes will not be allowed in Ireland? Or will he give in to BASF and the powerful agri-biotech lobby? Place your bets now!
A Letter from the Little People of Europe
For the personal attention of
Professor Jerzy Buzek
President, European Parliament
Brussels
4th March 2010
A Letter from the Little People of Europe
Dear Professor Buzek
I am writing to you on behalf of the little people of Europe. We are not listened to very often despite the fact that we are supposed to live in democracies where what we think and want is taken into account when decisions are made by those who we put into positions of power to represent us and to act on our behalf and in our interests and who we thought would always want the best for us in terms of health, education, food, shelter and economic wellbeing. Not to mention providing us with a good working infrastructure and transport system so that, without too many hurdles being put in our paths, we could, through our various skills, talents and desires, contribute to the successes of a Europe that provides first and foremost for the needs of its citizens but also for the little people of this world.
We hoped and believed that you, as President of the European Parliament and as someone from a nation whose little people have suffered endlessly at the hands of the big people over many years, would listen more than most to the voices of the little people who you represent, and that you would shut out the voices of the bullies.
We were therefore shocked to read what you said following your lecture at Sofia University on March 3rd, in response to the questions about GM crops being grown in Europe and the desire of the people of Bulgaria to decide what they grow on their soil. Here once more we heard the interests of the big people, the multinational companies, being voiced by you, dressed up as the interests of the poor and needy of the world. You said "We cannot win this battle, so I am not fighting". You said that if Europe decided to keep itself free from genetically-modified products it risked losing out in terms of competitivity. You are President of the European Parliament and as such you are required to fight for the people of Europe and fulfil their wishes not those of the big multinational companies who seek profit at all costs. The EU policy on GMOs is to keep them out of Europe unless they can be proved safe, and until each one is assessed in a very strict regulatory environment prior to
approval. As for competitivity there is plenty of science and technology out there for Europe to promote and compete with without embracing a dubiously tested, unpopular and risky technology that a large number of those that you represent do not want and will not benefit from.
Yes, as you said, we do need to boost economic performance through investment in science and technology. But we do not need the kind of science and technology that is marketed by huge multinational companies, that do not allow independent scientists access to material (1) allowing them to study the validity of their claims relating to production methods and safety. These corporations only took an interest in seed production in the 1980s when they were allowed to patent seeds for the first time. They then seized upon the chance to make vast amounts of money by taking over as much of the world's seed production as possible. Then they promised that their GM technology would solve all sorts of problems, not least of which was that it would feed the world. Over the next twenty years they did nothing to help the poor and hungry, while at the same time appropriating vast amounts of money for their research that was then denied to other potentially much more successful agricultural
technology research. When top scientists, agronomists, environmentalists and medical bodies questioned the validity, usefulness and safety of these crops millions of dollars were spent by the PR companies and scientists representing these companies in trying to convince politicians, farmers and anyone who would listen of the excellence of these GM crops and in discrediting and indeed threatening anyone of the well informed and learned people who got in their way.
When on the ground, after a few years, yield went down, pesticide use went up and problems such as weed resistance and crop failure emerged, the companies fell back on their last resort argument - that these crops were needed to feed the world. This argument was debunked in 2008 (3) when the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) Report concluded that the best way to feed the world was through the use of traditional agriculture. They did say that GM technology might have only a small part to play at which point the multinational seed companies, who had been involved in the process walked out (2). This Report was funded by, amongst others, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank. It was worked on by 400 top scientists and took four years to compile. The Report answered the question that had been asked by the little people concerned about GM crops. Were the seed companies intent on "Feeding or Fooling the World"? (4)
The flood resistant rice, grown in Bangladesh, that you used as your example of successful and essential GM crops, was in fact developed by using a technique known as precision breeding and so was genetically improved not genetically modified (5). It is a favourite trick of GM proponents to say that a successful crop using another technology is a GM crop. This PR trickery ensures that the huge GM seed companies get the lion's share of research funding and starve other very successful methods of plant breeding of funding.
Yes -- let Europe help itself through investment in science and technology. But please Mr Buzek listen to the independent scientists and not the industry backed scientists sitting on decision making committees and please listen to the little people and the learned amongst us and don't be swayed by the gold backed arguments of the big people. Please fight this battle on our behalf. And a final please Mr Buzek, now that Commissioner Dalli has kindly allowed us to grow Amflora potatoes in the EU (6), please will you ensure that food that is produced using GM feed such as meat, eggs and milk be labelled as such. We would really like to know about and be allowed to choose what we eat. Surely that is not too much to ask.
Gill Rowlands
Farmer, GM free Cymru, Wales, UK
(1) http://www.gmwatch.eu/component/content/article/11573-gm-industrys-strong-arm-tactics-with-researchers-nature-biotechnology-
(2) http://www.inesglobal.com/_News/iaastd.html
(3) http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?Page=IAASTD%20Reports&ItemID=2713
(4) http://www.farmingsolutions.org/pdfdb/Feed_Fool_World.pdf
(5) http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-03-12-voa83-68829232.htmlv
(6) http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/fury-as-eu-approves-gm-potato-1915833.html
3 March 2010
Objection to approval of Amflora potato for cultivation
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development [Poland], 3 March 2010:
http://www.minrol.gov.pl/index.php?/eng/content/view/full/23262
Minister Marek Sawicki sent a letter today to EC Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos in which he expressed his objection to the applied procedure, following yesterday's information (i.e. of 2 March 2010) that the European Commission approved subsequent genetically modified products, including the decision issued based on Directive 2001/18/EC on approval of genetically modified Amflora potato for commercial cultivation and industrial starch production.
The procedure on approving Amflora potato within the Community began in 2005 with a request filed by BASF to an appropriate GMO authority in Great Britain. During the meeting of the Agriculture Council on 16 July 2007, a qualified majority of votes was not reached and the Commission was obliged to reconsider the case. Since then, for almost three years, no information on this issue has been made public officially.
Member States have not been informed about the plans of the European Union.
Minister Marek Sawicki objected to the fact that after such a long period of time, during which new decision-making procedures were introduced and the composition of the European Commission was changed, the Commission, without consulting with the European Parliament, announced its decision on approval of genetically modified Amflora potato for cultivation.
Furthermore, Minister Sawicki protested against making information about the approval of new products public without prior notification to Member States.
Minister Marek Sawicki concluded that the lack of the European Parliament position on this issue, the fact that Member States were deprived of the possibility to express their final opinion and the position of the Polish government, in which Poland opposed the marketing of genetically modified, are the decisive factors in view of which the decision-making process in this particular case should not be considered as completed.
'Battle' on GM foods can't be won: EU official
Agence France-Presse, 3 March 2010:
http://news.ph.msn.com/lifestyle/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3921425
European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said on Wednesday he was against genetically-modified foods but said they were an unavoidable part of the future.
Asked by students in Sofia whether he was against GM foods, after the EU approved their cultivation, he said: "I am, generally speaking, against because we don't know what will be the long-term effect of it."
"But we cannot win that battle," added the Polish European lawmaker.
If Europe decided to keep itself free from genetically-modified products it risked losing out in terms of competitivity, he warned.
"We cannot win this battle, so I am not fighting," the European Parliament president said.
GM foods were also necessary in countries like Bangladesh, where salty-drop hurricanes were devastating rice paddies, he argued.
"No rice can grow there except for GM rice. Without GMO (genetically-modified organisms), half their population should die. Can you take such a decision?" Buzek asked.
A European Commission decision on Tuesday to approve the cultivation of genetically-modified potatoes prompted an angry response from environmental campaign groups across Europe.
Asked whether he supported individual EU member states declaring themselves free from GM food despite the EU ruling, Buzek said no country could run checks on every single imported product in a global economy.
"We are having a lot of GMO around even if we are against. It is very difficult for us to stop it. But it is always possible to try," he said.
Bulgarian organic food supporters recently staged a string of protests following a parliament debate on easing restrictions for growing GM products outside research laboratories and close to protected areas.
On Wednesday, Buzaek was handed 3,000 postcards hand-made by Bulgarian children calling for Bulgaria to remain GM free.
European Commission exceeding its powers to approve more GM crops:
• scientists denounce sinister move to weaken risk assessments
GM-free Ireland press release, 3 March 2010:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI48.pdf
GENEVA – European MEPs, scientists, and NGOs have accused the European Commission of exceeding
its powers in a sinister move to fast-track the approval of more GM crops for cultivation in the EU [1].
European scientists with long-standing expertise in GM issues took action after discovering by chance
that the Commission has notified the World Trade Organisation of a new European Draft Regulation [2] to
drastically weaken the implementing rules for GMO applications and assessments. [3]
The 66-page Draft Regulation was put together by the Commission and the European Food Safety
Authority (EFSA) with backing from an "expert panel" including national representatives from the EU
member states – without participation or the Environment Council or the European Parliament, and
apparently without any scrutiny or input from the national "competent authorities" [4] which are
responsible for receiving GM applications and implementing GM policy on the ground (and which are also
legally and economically liable for contamination caused by GM seeds and crops) [5].
The EC notified this draft regulation directly to the WTO for a period of consultation lasting from 12
January 2010 to 13 March 2010, and declared its intention to adopt it in May 2010 and bring it into force
in June 2010. There was no "notification" anywhere in Europe, no publication on any relevant EU website,
and no consultation process for comments to be received and considered. EFSA controlled the drafting
process and then "sold" it to the "expert panel" national representatives on the pretence that the new
rules would increase consumer safety and ensure stricter control of GMOs. Their impact, if adopted,
would be quite the opposite.
On 22 February 2010, the scientists sent a formal letter of complaint [6] to the President of the European
Parliament Jerzy Buzek. The scientists sent similar letters [7] to the President of the European Council
Herman Van Rompoy, to the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, and to the
European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy John Dalli.
The scientific experts describe the Commission's back-door move as a "sinister trend" and request that
the EC hold back the Draft Regulations, subject them to careful scrutiny, and amend them to protect the
safety and health of the people of Europe. In a related press release [8] the scientists said they only
became aware of the Draft Regulation by chance, and describe the Commission's secretive move as an
"illegal policy change":
"We think this is the most secretive, opportunistic and cynical attempt which the Commission has ever
made to force GM crops into our fields and to thrust GM foods down our throats, even though the people
of Europe have said over and again that they have no taste for them... It is clear to us that the
Commission has far exceeded its powers by seeking to introduce – quite illegally – a raft of new GM
policies when its powers are in fact limited in the GMO field to the introduction of implementation rules.
On this basis, European scientists have made a formal protest to the Parliament and the Council of
Ministers on the grounds that the Commission has broken the law. They demand that these Draft
Regulations be stopped in their tracks and – in view of their great importance– be brought under proper
scrutiny by the Parliament with a period of open and democratic consultation." [9]
The GM-free Ireland Network has written to all the Irish MEPs (apart from Mairéad McGuinness [10])
requesting the European Parliament to take urgent action to stop the Commission from implementing this
undemocratic move before the Commission President José Manuel Barroso signs the new regulations into
law. GM-free Ireland co-ordinator Michael O'Callaghan said "Cultivation of any GM crops on the island of
Ireland (such as the antibiotic-resistant industrial-starch-producing GM potato approved yesterday by the
Commission [11]) would destroy Ireland's untapped economic potential to secure the safest, most
credible GM-free food brand in the EU" [12]. We can't allow the Commission to take this from us."
ENDS
Contact
For enquiries please contact
Michael O'Callaghan, Co-ordinator, GM-free Ireland Network
In Geneva, Switzerland: + 41 22 732 8685
Irish mobile +353 (0)87 799 4761 • mail@gmfreeireland.org
www.gmfreeireland.org
Notes for editors:
The endnote references are available in the PDF version of this press release which you can download here:
http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI48.pdf
Italy, Austria, Greens angered by GM potato
Radio France International, 3 March 2010:
http://www.english.rfi.fr/environment/20100303-italy-austria-greens-angered-gm-potatov
Italy, Austria and Green campaigners have slammed the European Commission after it approved the cultivation of genetically-modified potatoes on Tuesday. Austria said it would immediately ban the potatoes, while Italian Health Minister Luca Zaia said Italy will resist the decision.
"We want to underscore that we will not allow the questioning of member states' sovereignty on this matter," said Zaia after the announcement. "For our part, we will continue to defend and safeguard traditional agriculture and citizens' health."
The Amflora potatoes that were developed by German chemical company BASF will not be for human consumption. But environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth decried the potatoes as a threat to human health. They are earmarked for industrial use, including making starch for use in paper production, and for animal feed.
This is the first approval of genetically-motified food by the EU in 12 years. Monsanto, a US-based chemical company, was approved in 1998 to cultivate MON 810, a modified maize.
Three other maize products were approved along with the potato to be added to the European market, but these would not be grown within the EU.
The EU Commission defended its decision, saying that the crops wold be cultivated a safe distance away from crops grown for human consumption.
"After an extensive and thorough review of the five pending GM files, it became clear to me that there were no new scientific issues that merited further assessment," sais EU Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli.
But environmental groups are worried that the potato, which contains a marker gene that is resistant to antibiotics, could contaminate food.
"The new commissioner whose job is to protect consumers has in one of his first decisions ignored public opinion and safety concerns to please the world's biggest chemical company," said Friends of the Earth spokesperson Heike Moldenhauer.
BASF has expressed its "delight" in the EU approval.
Amflora approval is a hot potato in GM debate
Jess Halliday
Food Navigator, 3 March 2010:
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Legislation/Amflora-approval-is-a-hot-potato-in-GM-debate
The European Commission's approval of BASF's GM Amflora potato for cultivation in the EU could mark the end of European deadlock over genetic modification, and has been celebrated and decried with equal measure by commentators on both sides of the debate.
Although the potato's main use is non-food (the pure amylopectin starch can be used to make paper, concrete and glue), the by-products may find uses in feed. The cultivation approval, announced yesterday, is significant because it is the first granted by the Commission since 1998.
In the last 12 years GM technology has been politically divisive, and applications have bounced back and forth between the law-making institutions. BASF has been waiting 13 years for Amflora to be approved. It now looks set for cultivation in Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic this year.
A clutch of requests for permission to import GM crops for food and feed uses in the EU have gone through, but not via the standard approvals channel. At the same time as the Amflora approval, the Commission has also granted approval for importation and processing of three other GM maize, from Monsanto - MON863xMON810, MON863xNK603, MON863xMON810xNK603.
As in previous incidences, these GM products were passed by the Commission after the dossiers were sent back by the Council, as member states had failed to return a qualified majority. All three have received a positive opinion from EFSA - as has Amflora.
Reactions
Stefan Marcinowski, member of the board of executive directors of BASF Sweden, said of the Amflora approval: "We hope that this decision is a milestone for further innovative products that will promote a competitive and sustainable agriculture in Europe."
The approval has been welcomed by EuropaBio, the bioindustry trade association.
"We feel encouraged by this decisive regulatory approach" said Willy De Greef, EuropaBio's Secretary General. "It offers the necessary predictability to industry and also to the general public regarding the development of a technology that has much to offer to Europeans as a whole".
De Greef pointed out that another 17 products are going through the approval process for cultivation and 44 products awaiting authorization for food and feed as well as for import and processing in the EU. "However, today's approvals represent a step in the right direction and a return to science-based decision making," he said.
Anti-GMO stakeholders have expressed their dismay. Their concerns stem partly from worries over an Amflora gene that is resistant to antibiotics. If this gene were to leak into the food chain, they predict serious implications for human and animal health care.
They are also angry that the move has been made when Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli has only been in his job a matter of weeks.
German Green MEP Martin H¨usling, a member of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, reportedly said the decision shows "flagrant support for industry interests ahead of his own portfolio".
His decision to authorise the Amflora potato variety flies in the face of the 70 per cent of consumers who are against GM food, as well as the anti-GM position of the European Parliament.
Greenpeace EU's agriculture policy director Marco Contiero also said: "It is shocking that one of the Commission's first official acts is to authorise a GM crop that puts the environment and public health at risk."
According to Bavo van den Idsert, vice-president of organic farmers group IFOAM, if Amflora is widely grown in the EU, "organic and conventional farmers and food processors will have to face even higher costs keeping food production chains free from GMOs".
---
Comment by TraceConsult™
We have heard a lot of potato stories since the beginning of last week. In fact, some of our readers may be fed up and have moved on to other areas of interest. But it seems that since the EU Commission gave its green light for the cultivation of Amflora, German biotech wannabe BASF's long-launched starch potato dream, all types of different media activity have broken loose.
So what does this approval really mean for the various sectors of the food supply chain? Amflora itself is not intended for human consumption, so does all the hype carry any relevance? Do food and retail industry decision makers have to devote any attention to these industry potato developments at all?
It may have felt like a breakthrough for BASF managers to learn, 14 years after their initial application, that their biotechnological creation named Amflora had at long last been approved for cultivation in the EU. As usual, the Council of (Member State) Ministers had been unable to muster up a qualified majority so the Commission itself had to decide.
The festive mood in the BASF boardroom echoed by an exceptional number of publications way beyond EU borders seemed just a little too loud in light of the fact that, for quite a while, two conventionally bred potato varieties produce exactly the same results as their hotly debated GM step-sibling. Whether it is attributable to lousy researching or - worse - to biased reporting: The fact that hardly any media have pointed out the existence of such a conventionally bred potato http://is.gd/9V2Y3 with the exact same desired effects1) as GM Amflora should shame a few journalists.
It seems BASF complies with all the big-industry clichés that are so well known: Multinational corporation ignores expressed preferences of vast majority of Europeans as well as warnings by scientists ... - Yet - apparently not quite so.
The German biotech player proclaimed last week that they do not intend to promote planting of their newly approved product. Apparently, they realized that consumer preference is positioned strongly against planting the newly approved GM potato for fear of contamination sooner or later causing Amflora ending up on dinner plates. What may have helped BASF arrive at this decision is EMSLAND Group's press release
Then why does BASF announce one day after the Amflora approval that they will apply for approval of yet another GM potato variety yielding the same starch? Perhaps because they want to test the water around the EU Commission for that new variety will be categorized as food, while Amflora is categorized for industrial use only?
This distinction shows that the Commission approval for Amflora is not the big break-through as it has been portrayed in many editorials. The day of truth comes when new varieties earmarked for food are up for an approval decision.
All this shows how important it is for food and retail industry strategists to run a profound analysis when "consuming" biotech industry press releases. There is a huge desire on the part of proponents of genetic engineering to make biotech progress look great and convincing. The annual ISAAA ritual of numeric "big washing" we commented http://www.traceconsult.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=157%3Awishful-thinking-isaaa-prediction-season-regarding-2nd-wave-of-biotech-growth-and-development-begins-&catid=47%3Anewsticker&Itemid=50&lang=en on only recently is perhaps the most institutionalized example. Another one happens on occasions like the approval of Amflora.
EU commission approves cultivation of first GM crop in 12 years
Leigh Phillips
EU Observer, 3 March 2010:
http://euobserver.com/9/29598/?rk=1
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Tuesday (2 March) approved the first genetically modified crop for cultivation in Europe in 12 years, provoking the ire of environmental groups and some member states and cheers from the biotech industry.
The EU executive gave the green light to the growing of the Amflora potato, produced by Germany's BASF, the largest chemical company in the world, alongside the entry onto the European market of three GM maize products.
Austria denounced the decision, declaring that Vienna would immediately ban the potato, while Italy's agriculture minister warned that the commission had overstepped its authority.
"We will not allow the questioning of member states' sovereignty on this matter," he said.
In the past, a majority of EU member states has opposed the authorisation of the potato, which is not intended for human consumption. Rather, its starch would be used in industrial processes. Critics say however that the crop could cross with potatoes that humans do eat.
EU health commissioner John Dalli announced the decision saying the EU executive was committed to a "science-based union authorisation system."
"It is clear to me that there were no new scientific issues that merited further assessments ... All scientific issues, particularly those concerning safety for human and animal health and the environment have been fully addressed."
He added that the delays to approval were inhibiting innovation: "My guiding principle in the context of innovative technologies will be that of responsible innovation. It is innovation that will give our citizens the best guarantee of safety and the strongest impetus for economic growth."
Green groups however are worried that the BASF potato contains a gene that confers resistance to some antibiotics.
While the European Food Safety Authority has given the potato a passing grade on a number of occasions, the World Health Organisation and the European Medicines Agency have warned of the "critical importance" of the antibiotics affected by the Amflora potato, Greenpeace said in reaction to the commission green light.
"Releasing BASF's GM potato into the environment could raise bacterial resistance to life-saving medicines, including drugs used for the treatment of tuberculosis," said the group's agriculture campaigner, Marco Contiero.
"In six years, [EU Commission President] Barroso has been unable to bury scientific evidence questioning the safety of this GM potato," he continued, but now "health commissioner Dalli has agreed to this cold-blooded approval that flies in the face of science, public opinion and EU law."
In 2001, the EU adopted legislation phasing out products containing antibiotic resistance genes.
BASF for its part was happy with the decision. "After waiting for more than 13 years, we are delighted that the European Commission has approved Amflora," said Stefan Marcinowski, a member of the BASF board.
The company said commercial cultivation of the potato could begin as soon as this year. The potato is intended for industrial processes rather than human consumption. Its starch gives paper a higher gloss, and makes concrete and adhesives stay wet for a longer period of time, reducing the consumption of energy and raw materials.
Europabio, the European biotech industry trade association, said: "Today's approvals represent a step in the right direction and a return to science-based decision making. This is essential if European farmers are to be given the freedom to choose whether or not to cultivate innovative GM crops."
2 March 2010
European Commission gives green light to genetically modified potatoes
• Public let down by EU's new consumer chief, says Friends of the Earth Europe
Friends of the Earth Europe media statement, 2 March 2010:
http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2010/Mar02_EC_gives_green_light_to_GM_potatoes.htmlv
Brussels, March 2 - A decision announced today by Europe's new health and consumer commissioner, John Dalli, to give the go ahead for genetically modified potatoes to be grown in Europe, has been condemned by Friends of the Earth Europe.
The 'Amflora' potato, designed to produce starch for industrial purposes by Germany¥s chemical giant BASF, carries a controversial antibiotic resistant gene which it cannot be guaranteed will not enter the food chain.
Heike Moldenhauer, GMO spokesperson for Friends of the Earth Europe said: "This is a bad day for European citizens and the environment. The new Commissioner whose job is to protect consumers has in one of his first decisions ignored public opinion and safety concerns to please the world's biggest chemical company. This decision puts profit before people or the environment and will do little to increase public confidence in the Brussels bureaucracy.
"There are clear health concerns surrounding this GM potato. The antibiotics affected by Amflora are vital tools against illness and despite growing resistance to these life saving drugs, industry has added them to potatoes with no guarantees that they will not get into the food chain. This is nothing less then a crass decision that puts the public at risk."
Heike Moldenhauer continued: "With this decision Commissioner Dalli has not only snubbed European citizens, the vast majority of who reject GMOs, he has snubbed member states as well. The new Commission promised to let national governments decide on whether to grow GM crops on their own territory but at the first possible opportunity they have broken this promise. Dalli has introduced himself as a Commissioner who can't be trusted."
Amflora is highly controversial mainly due to its antibiotic resistant gene. The potato was given official approval by the European Food Safety Authority but for the first time the judgment of the scientific body wasn't unanimous. Two EFSA scientists stated that the possibility of a transfer of antibiotic resistant genes to bacteria within the gastro-intestinal-tract cannot be predicted.
Two other conventional potato varieties already on the market have the same characteristics as Amflora - one developed by German plant breeder Europlant, the other by Dutch company Avebe. The existence of these non-GM alternatives means that there is no reason for farmers to have to cultivate Amflora for the European starch industry and no need to introduce the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance.
For more information please contact:
Heike Moldenhauer, Friends of the Earth Germany/BUND, 0049 (0) 30 275 86
- 456, mobile: 0049 30 275 86 456, heike.moldenhauer@bund.net
Francesca Gater, communications officer for Friends of the Earth Europe,
+32 2893 1010, +32 485 930515, francesca.gater@foeeurope.org
EC forces through "bad decision" on GM industrial potato and ignores health risks
GM Freeze [UK], 2 March 2010:
http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?id=420&iType=
The announcement by the EC [1] that they have approved BASF's GM starch altered potato for cultivation to produce starch to be used by industry has been described as a "bad and ill informed decision" by GM Freeze.
The pulp remaining after the starch has been extracted will be allowed fed to animals following a parallel decision also announced by the Commission today. Products produced from livestock fed the GM potato pulp will not be required to be labelled under EU traceability and labelling laws. There is already widespread support for labelling [2] and this is another example of how EC is ignoring public opinion and denying choice.
Several non-GM starch altered potatoes are already on the market demonstrating that there is no need for GM varieties. The most recent being the Emsland Group's announcement in September 2009 that it planned to start processing high amylopectin potatoes (starch altered) developed using classical breeding in their production plants in Kyritz and Cloppenburg last autumn [3].
The EC decision in controversial because it is based on advice from the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) regarding the use of antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes [4] which has been challenged by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). GM Freeze is also concerned about the overall testing of feed safety for instance the lack of attention to the presence of novel chemicals arising from genetic engineering events.
The EU policy is to avoid using ARMs for antibiotics which are used in human or veterinary medicine.
The ARM gene in these potatoes confers resistance to kanamycin. Although this is from a group of antibiotic resistant genes approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for use as markers in GM crops, the EMA has challenged EFSA's opinion based on the potential importance of this group of antibiotics in medicine [5]. The concern is that the ARMs genes could horizontally transfer to pathogenic bacterium in the guts of humans or animals this worsening the problem of antibiotic resistance in treating a range of infections.
Previously the application to grow the starch altered GM potatoes failed to reach the required qualified majority vote in the EU's Council of Ministers because of the concerns about the ARMs. This led the EC to seek further advice from EFSA and the EMA. EMA told the EC [5]:
"Not withstanding the EFSA opinion, aminoglycosides is a class of antibiotics that has become increasingly important in the prevention and treatment of serious invasive bacterial infections in humans. This is because gram-negative bacteria (and tuberculosis bacteria) are becoming resistant to other classes of antibiotics."
And
"That situation may change as new chemical entities similar to kanamycin and neomycin could be developed. New chemical entities similar to kanamycin and neomycin could have other properties in relation to, for example, absorption from the gastrointestinal tract and with regard to side-effects. They thus have the potential to become extremely important to treat otherwise multi-resistant gram-negative infections and Tuberculosis."
Potatoes for the production of industrial starch are grown on a quota system in the EU and the UK does not have any quota at the present time.
GE food: Coming soon!?!?! - to a supermarket new you?
UPDATE: March 4th, The shocking approval of the GE potato by Barroso's Commission has been met with a wave of strong reactions among the EU member-states. The governments of Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Hungary and France have publicly announced that they will not allow the cultivation of the GE potato in their countries. And various ministers have expressed their frustration with the decision of Barroso -- who is neglecting the unanimous call from the EU Environment Ministers Council to repair the system of authorisations of GE crops. Germany company Emsland, the second biggest starch producer worldwide, has also announced that they will not use the GE potato because of the strong opposition against it.
What's the big deal?
GE crops cause many environmental problems. Most of them are created to resist high does of herbicides (developed and sold by the same companies that market the GE crop). As a consequence weed populations become resistant to herbicides and farmers need to increase the amount of chemicals spread on fields. Apart from hitting farmers economically the chemicals could affect their health. And the increased usage of agro-chemicals has serious effect on insects that are naturally part of the eco system and are an essential part of it. Throwing the insect population out of balance could result in need of heavy use of insecticides to control them, adding to the chemical cocktail on our food, soils and water. On top of that GE crops could sporadically spread and interbreed with non GE environments, contaminating and taking over farmer's crops. This sometimes creates 'monster plants' and gives farmers no other choice but to purchase GE seeds and the chemicals to grow them, from agro-chemical giants like Monsanto or BASF.
A-maize-ing in Mexico
2010: Jan • Feb
Controversially, the EC also forced through three consents to import GM maize for use in food and feed which had also failed to reach a qualified majority in the Council of Ministers. These GM maize varieties involved stacked genes (combining genes from two different GMOs in the same plant) and there is disagreement on how the safety of these should be assessed [6].
Commenting Pete Riley of GM freeze said:
"The approval of the GM potatoes is a bad and ill informed decision by the EC and shows that their interpretation of the precautionary principle is very far from what it should be. It flies in the face of sound advice on the risks of the particular anti-biotic resistant marker genes used by BASF. This gene could have been removed long ago but BASF decided not to do so. As a consequence, the gene will be entering the animal feed chain in Europe. If the gene transfers to harmful bacteria take place we will know who to blame. Gaps in the GM labelling regulations mean that EU consumers will not be able to tell if their meat or milk comes from stock fed on GM potato pulp when they make their purchases."
Calls to Pete Riley + 44 (0)845 217 8992 or + 44 (0)7903 341065
Notes
1. See http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/222&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
2. A Gkf/NOP poll in 1986 for GM Freeze and Friends of the Earth found 86% of people in the Uk wanted animal products from GM feed animals labelled
3. See Emsland Group Press Release http://web47.freisign.your-host.de/content.php?item=635&action=details&id=28&page=1&&NXTSTPID2=cc541efcd66f3a856496f512ba0a05e3&NXTSTPID2=1ec42f8e250fa4d87af028dcaac64aea
4. ARMs are not required in the commercial crop and are used by genetic engineers to make it easy to identify which plants have been successfully genetically modified during the very early development stages of the GM potatoes.
5. See http://www.emea.europa.eu/pdfs/human/opiniongen/5693707en.pdf
6. Bundesminiterium Fur Gesundheit Familie und Jugend, 2007. Risk Assessment of "stacked events". See http://www.bmgfj.gv.at/cms/site/attachments/7/7/0/CH0810/CMS1180523433481/cms1200659635294_internetversion_2_07stacked_events.pdf
Greenpeace International, 2 March 2010:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/ge-food-EU020310
[Note: the original text on the Greenpeace website features numerous informative hyperlinks not included here]
International - Just when we thought the threat to our environment couldn't get any worse after world leaders failed to secure a deal to save the climate in Copenhagen - we're now stunned to discover that the EU Commission is exploiting a 'backdoor' loophole to get genetically manipulated crops onto the supermarket shelves in the EU - and into our mouths.
The European Commission has just authorised the cultivation of a genetically engineered crop for the first time since 1998. Health Commissioner John Dalli, in agreement with EU President Barroso, used a procedural move -- the so-called 'written procedure' -- to authorise a genetically engineered potato and thereby avoided a debate in the College of Commissioners. The genetically engineered potato (known as Amflora) has been developed by German agro-chemical company BASF.
It is widely accepted that GE crops pose an unacceptable risk to the environment, as well as to human and animal health. However, the Health Commissioner has literally forced the authorisation of this crop without even holding a debate with his fellow Commissioners. By hiding behind bureaucratic formalities the EU Commission is essentially force-feeding Europeans with products that they don't want. Such a decision is shocking and sets a dangerous precedent that the profit-driven agro-chemical companies will undoubtedly take advantage of.
The BASF GE potato contains a gene resistant to certain antibiotics. Releasing it into the environment could raise bacterial resistance to life-saving medicines, including drugs used for the treatment of tuberculosis. The World Health Organization and the European Medicines Agency have warned about the critical importance of the antibiotics affected by the gene inserted into the Amflora potato. In this respect, the authorisation of BASF's GE potato breaches EU law. Since December 2004, it is forbidden to market crops with antibiotic resistant genes that could pose a threat to human health or the environment.
Barroso has been trying to force GE food onto the European market against the wishes of many member states and public opinion. He has allowed thousands of agro-chemicals to the markets without health or environmental safety tests.
It's not just about potatoes...
We have urgent concerns about the intention of President Barroso and Health Commissioner Dalli to authorise the cultivation of genetically engineered crops in Europe. Hot on the trails of the GE potato are three pesticide-producing maize varieties produced by Monsanto (MON810), Pioneer (Bt11) and Syngenta (1507) all awaiting authorisation. All of these crops have proven adverse environmental impacts.
In Mexico - our activists scaled a national monument and unfolded a massive banner in Guadalajara (see image above) - where an international conference started this week on agricultural biotechnologies in developing countries. The banner called on the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to stop GE crops and protect maize.
We expect this conference to heavily promote the propaganda that GE is one of the tools needed to help developing countries out of hunger and poverty. This conference is taking place just as Mexico is about to unleash GE maize in experimental field trials. Mexico is the centre of origin and diversity for this staple crop. Cultivating GE maize here will irreversibly contaminate a centre of biodiversity.
Our office in Mexico is also contributing to the organisation of a parallel forum that is going to run during the FAO conference, with round tables on risks and alternatives to GE, movie showings, a demonstration and meetings with media and local celebrities who support ecological farming.
GE-free Germany
On Monday, over 500 of our activists from all over Germany ate a GE-free lunch at the Brandenburg Gate to protest the GE-friendly policies of the government. Even though most Germans object to genetically manipulated food, the government wants to promote GE agriculture, especially -- yes you've guessed it! -- the GE 'Amflora potato' from BASF. The banquet was set up so that the tables spelled out 'NEIN' (NO) when seen from above. According to a public poll in January, 79 percent of Germans oppose GE crops for cultivation because of the ecological risks. And they don't want to be 'guinea-pigs' for the GE industry.
Flogging a dead horse
In April 2008, the World Bank and several UN bodies concluded the Global Agricultural Assessment Report, the first-ever scientific assessment of global agriculture. It was compiled over four years by more than 400 scientists from around the world and signed by 58 governments. Contrary to the GE industry propaganda, this assessment sees no role for GE crops in eradicating hunger and ensuring food security. The future of agriculture lies in agroecological systems that create jobs and stimulate rural development, defend nature and people by protecting soil, water and climate, and promote biodiversity. Such farming systems ensure healthy farming and healthy food for today and tomorrow, and do not contaminate the environment with chemicals or genetic engineering.
European citizens mostly reject GE food and have done so consistently for almost 15 years. About 60 percent of the EU population oppose the use of GE crops in agriculture. In 2009 European farmers planted 11 percent fewer GE crops compared to the previous year, due to higher prices and the low appeal of GE crops. Given the overwhelming and diverse outcries against GE crops from countries around the world we find it especially disturbing that the EU Comission is now by-passing proper procedures for GE authorisation.
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