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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
There's excellent news this week from Australia, where the state government of South Australia has voted to keep its GM ban. And articles have been appearing in the Australian media giving powerful arguments why New South Wales and Victoria, which lifted their bans recently, should continue them. (AUSTRALASIA)
Another mainstream publication, Times Higher Education, has picked up on the Shane Morris/Doug Powell wormy-corn-gate scandal (PROPAGANDA LAB LATEST). The latest article comes in the wake of 40 scientists from both sides of the Atlantic demanding the withdrawal of the paper from the scientific record.
2008 sees the 10th anniversary of the founding of GM Watch, so over the next few weeks we'll be putting out some articles and material to mark our 10th birthday. An interview with GM Watch's founder, Jonathan Matthews, tells how it all began and explores how this technology's being promoted worldwide: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8717
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
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CONTENTS
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GM CROPS HAVE FAILED
EUROPE
PROPAGANDA LAB LATEST
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
GM ANIMALS
MARKER ASSISTED BREEDING
GENETIC CROSSROADS
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GM CROPS HAVE FAILED
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+ PESTS EVOLVE RESISTANCE TO GM CROPS
The bollworm - the insect pest that's supposed to be killed by genetically modified Bt cotton - has developed Bt resistance and is beginning to spread in parts of the US, a scientific study has found. The study is claimed by the researchers from the University of Arizona to be the first documented example in the wild of an insect pest becoming resistant to Bt crops. In fact, reports of Bt resistance are years-old, though this study may be the first to make the findings 'official'. The resistant form of the moth's caterpillar was found in surveys of fields in the southern states of Mississippi and Arkansas between 2003 and 2006. This study is just the latest in a whole series that point up the problems and failings of Bt cotton.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8736
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8737
+ GM CROPS HAVE FAILED
As part of our celebrations of 10 years of GM Watch, we've republished the article with this title by Lim Li Ching and Jonathan Matthews documenting the failure of GM crops to increase yield, improve agronomic performance, reduce agrochemicals, and increase farmer income. It's accompanied by telling examples taken from a subsequent US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report that bear out all of the article's conclusions about the failure of GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8728
+ EUROPABIO ADMITS INCREASED CHEMICAL USE
An excellent article by Rikki Stancich in the magazine Ethical Corporation walks a clear path through current biotech industry hype. It also includes a frank admission from the biotech industry-lobby group EuropaBio that Roundup Ready (GM) crops have led to 'the weeds themselves' now being 'Roundup resistant, which has resulted in much higher applications of Roundup along with a host of other chemicals'.
EXTRACTS: [on drought resistance] Neither Monsanto nor Bayer LifeSciences was willing to provide any documentation to support their claims to drought-resistant crop strains. Nor were BIO and EuropaBio forthcoming with any evidence substantiating drought resistance in crops.
[on biofuels] The market for biofuels could unlock the global market for the green biotech industry. But current research has thrown up a raft of reasons as to why the biofuel model is inherently at odds with its goal of providing sustainable renewables. Competition for land resources, deforestation, diversion of food crops into fuel crops, to name a few. Hence the promise of significant gains for the biotech industry on the back of biofuels may yet prove tenuous.
[on yields and inputs] The assertion that GM crops in general yield higher productivity has been challenged by several studies, including one carried out by the US Department of Agriculture. This particular study suggests that yields of GM crops are lower than traditional crops and that the use of inputs (herbicides and pesticides) has, in fact, increased.
[on chemical use] EuropaBio's Nathalie Moll also admitted that greater applications of Roundup herbicide were being applied. She says that is because 'farmers have rotated RR crops, usually soya and maize, to the point that the weeds themselves are now Roundup resistant, which has resulted in much higher applications of Roundup along with a host of other chemicals'.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8739
+ UK CHIEF SCIENTIST GETS GM FACTS WRONG
GM Freeze have provided a detailed analysis of David King's various failed attempts to promote GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8721
+ MONSANTO'S FRALEY GETS AWARD
According to a Monsanto press release, the National Academy of Sciences has given Monsanto's chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, an award because, '[Monsanto's GM] plants have increased productivity, reduced chemical use and profoundly changed global agriculture.'
*Increased productivity? Monsanto has failed to introduce a single GM crop with increased yield potential. Even USDA data shows GM crops do not increase yield potential and may reduce yields.
*Reduced chemical use? Over 80% of the GMOs grown worldwide have been engineered for herbicide tolerance, encouraging the indiscriminate use of chemicals. USDA and other data shows this has led to an increase in chemical use, particularly following the dramatic rise in Roundup-resistant weeds.
*Profoundly changed global agriculture? That's certainly the case. Monsanto's GMOs have:
-created novel risks for consumers
-increased corporate control over the food chain -further intensified farming, undermining small producers while accelerating agriculture's negative impact on the environment -diverted attention and resources from proven means of helping poor farmers.
But what's most revealing about this award is what it says about increasing corporate control over science, when the US's National Academy of Sciences justifies its decision not on the basis of objective science but industry hyperbole.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8726
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EUROPE
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+ FRENCH BAN ON GM CORN BECOMES OFFICIAL
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8740
+ CONSUMERS IN FRANCE REJECTS GMOs AHEAD OF PARLIAMENT VOTE
According to two surveys, two thirds of people in France do not want GM foods on their plates, and 77 % approve the decision of the government to suspend the marketing of MON810, the only GM corn cultivated in France. On 6 February, the bill concerning France's policy on GM crops arrived for debate in the Senate. France is the sixth government in Europe to ban GM crops. (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Poland are the other five). The only GM crop currently grown in France is Monsanto's corn MON810.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8723
+ EU 'MUST LISTEN TO NATIONAL ADVICE ON GM CROPS'
The EU must take greater account of evidence submitted by member states on applications for cultivation of GM crops, the French and German environment ministers said. France is waiting for EU approval of its national ban on GM maize.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8727
+ PROTESTS IN GREECE
On February 2-3 the annual International Greek Biotech Conference took place in Athens. The conference was organized by Bionova Ltd, the representative of EuropaBio (European biotech industry lobby) in Greece. Since the very first conference, counter-action has been generated in Greece from several groups from all over the country, including mass demonstrations. Actions this year took place within and outside the conference.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8727
+ THE NORDIC REGION: GM-FREE ZONE?
'The Nordic Region should be declared free of GMOs and the Nordic countries should join other European states like Austria, Greece and Poland, which have already declared themselves GMO-free zones,' according to a proposal by the Left-Socialist Green Group (VSG) on the Nordic Council.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8727
+ EU COMMISSIONER BLAMES LACK OF GMOs FOR RISING PRICES
EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel is blaming the EU's slow regulatory system for the approval of GMOs for a perceived shortage of animal feed and rising prices. However, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' reasons behind shortages of commodity crops are very different. Their analysis suggests that the rising demand for biofuels, plus increased demand for feed from the Far East (China in particular) and the drought in Australia, are causing shortages.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8721
+ POLAND FORCED TO LIFT BAN BUT WILL HAMPER GMO PLANTING
Poland will seek to make planting of any genetically modified seeds nearly impossible even though it plans to lift an official ban to comply with EU law, the agriculture minister told Reuters on Friday. European Union regulators launched legal action against Poland last month over plans that amounted to a national GMO ban.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8740
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PROPAGANDA LAB LATEST
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+ RESEARCHERS CALL ON JOURNAL TO RETRACT PAPER ON GM FOOD
Times Higher Education (THE) has reported on the growing scandal surrrounding the award-winning paper by Doug Powell, Shane Morris and others claiming to show consumers preferred GM sweetcorn over non-GM.
EXTRACT: About 40 academics from both sides of the Atlantic have called for the withdrawal of a research paper that purports to show that consumers prefer genetically modified corn. In a letter to the editor and the editorial board of the British Food Journal, academics including biologists and scientific ethicists claim that the journal failed to act on evidence showing that the research was based on unreported manipulations of shoppers' preferences.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8732
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ASIA
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+ SUPREME COURT'S GUIDELINES IGNORED BY INDIA'S 'REGULATORS'
An article in Tehelka Magazine explains how India's GM regulators have been making GM approvals that do not have the Supreme Court's clearance and hence are in contempt of court.It also looks at the extraordinary conflicts of interest that mark GM crop regulation in India.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8738
+ INDIA: REGULATORS' HALF-TRUTHS MISLEAD RUSSIA OVER GMOs
Russia has sought written assurance from the Indian government that the food crops that Russia imports from India are not GM. India's GM regulator GEAC has replied with a confirmation that 'no GM crops in rice, groundnuts and sesame seeds exist in commercial production in India' - dishonestly omitting mention of the GM open field trials it has approved. Aruna Rodrigues, who is leading the ongoing Supreme Court battle against India's regulators for allowing GM open field trials in spite of a temporary halt imposed by the Court, comments: 'Russia doesn't want GM food crops to be imported from India. She is going to be dangerously misled.'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8729
+ GM CONTAMINATION INEVITABLE IN INDIA
At the release of their report called 'Cotton, Contaminated?', representatives of Centre for Sustainable Agriculture pointed out that contamination from GM crops is inevitable in India, as the case with Bt cotton demonstrates. 'We did a fairly simple thing of investigating cotton seed production in India along the entire supply chain and found that nowhere are standards being maintained to ensure that contamination of non-GM cotton including cotton varieties does not happen from Bt cotton,' said Dr G V Ramanjaneyulu, executive director, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8719
+ U.S. GRAINS COUNCIL LOBBIES FOR GM ACCEPTANCE IN TAIWAN
A revealing article shows the extent of US lobbying activities for GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8735
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ SOUTH AUSTRALIA TO STAY GM-FREE
South Australia will keep its ban on growing GM crops. The announcement ends weeks of speculation about whether the state would follow the lead of Victoria and New South Wales, which have abandoned their moratoria. SA joins Western Australia and Tasmania in keeping the ban. SA agriculture minister, Rory McEwen, says the decision was influenced by the views of major commodity markets for South Australian produce. 'On balance, Cabinet felt that there was no reason to lift it', he says. 'The risks to present markets outweighed the opportunities that might be created'.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8733
+ AUSTRALIAN FARMERS CALL FOR EXTENSION OF GM CROP BANS
At a public meeting in the grain growing region of Corowa, New South Wales, Australian farmers passed a resolution calling for state governments to extend the moratoria on the commercial growing of GM food crops and demanded that the issue be discussed at the Federal Government's 2020 Summit in April 2008.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8724
+ NSW OPPOSITION SAYS MOST GROWERS WILL NOT PLANT GM CANOLA
Member of the New South Wales opposition Rick Colless says most canola producers have told him they will not switch to GM seeds.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8718
+ LEARN LESSONS FROM CANADA - SCIENTIST
Before Australia commits to growing GM herbicide-tolerant canola, it has an opportunity to learn from Canada, where it has been grown commercially for more than a decade, writes Dr Rene Van Acker of the Department of Plant Agriculture at Canada's University of Guelph in the Canberra Times: 'In Canada, we have witnessed the promiscuity of GE canola to the extent that even in our canola seed production systems, where the objective is to keep seed varieties free from foreign genes, more than 90 per cent of certified Canadian canola seed samples contain unintended transgenes. ... In Canada, we no longer export canola to countries that expect it to be GE-free, including many European Union nations, and growing organic canola in western Canada is no longer at all practical.'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8718
+ CANADIAN FARMERS WARN OF DANGERS
Canadian farmers have been visiting Australia to explain the problems they've been facing from GM crop cultivation. Farmers in Canada rejected the proposed commercialisation of GM wheat and GM flax due to the experience of contamination and loss of markets from GM canola.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8724
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8718
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8715
+ GM BANANAS IN FIELD TRIALS
Australia's first GM bananas could be growing in North Queensland by mid-year.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8724
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AFRICA
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+ COURT CASE OVER KENYA'S BIOSAFETY BILL
Kenyan NGO Africa Nature Stream has gone to court to contest the enactment into law of the Biosafety Bill 2007 meant to regulate activities of GMOs in the country.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8730
+ UGANDA APPROVES BT COTTON TRIALS
http://www.scidev.net/gateways/index.cfm?fuseaction=readitem&rgwid=4&item=News&itemid=4226&language=1
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THE AMERICAS
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+ 'MEGA MARCHA' AGAINST DUMPING GM CORN IN MEXICO
Thousands of protesters took part in the January 31 'Mega Marcha' in Mexico City. Estimates of numbers range from 50,000 to 200,000. Campesinos (peasant farmers), and union members, armed with banners, came from all over Mexico. The protesters came by the hundreds in tractors, covered with cartoons protesting dumping of US GM corn and US beans. Almost all participants in the Mega Marcha were opposed to GM corn being introduced in Mexico. There was, however, a small group of farmers from the Chihuhua and Guanajuato provinces, driving a tractor with signs supporting GM corn. Many suspected the group was funded by industry. To dramatize their pro-GM stance, in a march with thousands opposed to GM corn, they set fire to their tractor - something ordinary campesinos could not afford to do.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8734
+ BEN & JERRY'S FIGHTS FOR HORMONE-FREE LABEL
Ben & Jerry's, one of the first companies to label its ice cream as free of Monsanto's GM hormone (rBST), is joining others in a national effort to protest a ban on hormone-free labels. Pennsylvania was recently the site of such a battle, as the state enacted a ban on the labels, only to approve hormone-free labeling later. Indiana recently pulled legislation that would have banned the labels, and lawmakers in Ohio are expected to make a decision on them soon.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8725
+ GM RICE SUIT MOVING FORWARD
Paul Byrd, from the Birmingham-based law firm, Hare, Wynn, Newton and Newell, which is pursuing the lawsuit against Bayer Crop Sciences and Riceland Foods over GM contamination of the US rice supply, explains how Bayer Crop Science pursued their own interests at the expense of rice farmers. They knew the European Union had a 'zero tolerance policy' toward GMO material, but 'they started pushing the limit,' Byrd said. 'They gambled they'd get EU approval for this,' Byrd said. 'They gambled with you [farmers].' (The resulting GM contamination is estimated to have cost the US grains industry over a billion dollars).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8730
+ NEW NYT PUNDIT BRAVELY DEFENDS GMOs, CLONING
Tom Philpott of Gristmill reports that the New York Times' op-ed page appears to be grooming James E. McWilliams, a professor of history at Texas State University, as a rising pundit on food-politics issues. Recently, they had McWilliams wringing his hands about whether cloned meat will get a fair hearing (as the FDA has approved it as safe, the debate has effectively been ended). McWilliams also claims that hysterical opposition to GM foods has cost the world a litany of wonders: 'insect-resistant cassava or drought-tolerant maize [that] could be a boon to subsistence farmers in Africa,' for example. This in spite of the fact that the biotech industry has failed to come up with a single such successful crop for developing countries.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8731
+ OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON
An open letter from a woman who, by polling logic, should be Hillary Clinton's supporter, is a devastating critique of the Clintons' close links to Monsanto.
EXTRACT: You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related roles. Your Orwellian-named 'Rural Americans for Hillary' was planned with Troutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists. Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Walmart). ... So, who are you with, hapless black consumers and black farmers, or Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto? Women exposed to 7 times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto? Desperate farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed fields there, or Monsanto?
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8720
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GM ANIMALS
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+ HOMOGENEOUS HORROR
An informative article in the UK Guardian says a handful of companies now dominate world farming, with profound implications for genetic diversity - and now they're moving into livestock.
EXCERPT: Monsanto ... has moved into swine genetics. Within a few years, a tiny group of huge companies will almost certainly control the genetics of all commercial farming... With the support of a rigid system of patenting, these gene giants will be the new lords of global farming. Other more significant processes are gaining momentum. The agro-giants that have emerged are confident that, despite current consumer resistance, gene technology will dominate global livestock farming in the near future. A transgenic salmon that takes half the normal time to grow will probably be launched on the US market next year. Avigenics, a US pharmaceutical company, has been producing genetically engineered chickens for more than four years, though none has yet been marketed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8725
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MARKER ASSISTED BREEDING
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+ MARKER ASSISTED BREEDING: PLANT BREEDING WITHOUT THE MADNESS?
An article for Outlook India heralds marker assisted breeding (MAB) as an alternative to GM technology. MAB involves crossbreeding with genes from related species. Unlike GM crops, says the article, MAB varieties do not raise health concerns as they don't involve introduction of foreign genes. MAB varieties in the market now include corn and pearl millet. Varieties of rice, wheat and mustard are in the pipeline.
EXCERPT: In Almora, scientists crossbred a high-protein gene from the QPM corn variety with the indigenous Vivek 9. The resultant, improved variety now has a protein content that approaches milk in terms of quality. 'MAB can to a good extent supplement transgenic technology. For instance, bacterial blight in rice can also be fought with MAB,' says P.K. Agarwal, principal scientist at VPKAS (Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8716
+ CAUTIONS ON MARKER ASSISTED BREEDING
Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman writes that although progress with MAB is encouraging, there are important cautions that need to be recognized:
*In some countries, patents may be given for MAB, giving companies undue control over the seed supply
*As with GM, this technology takes some sophisticated (and expensive) equipment and training to carry out, so it cannot be done by low-tech breeders or farmer-breeders
*MAB does have risks for food safety. Breeding crops with wild relatives has led to instances of introducing toxic substances into crops
*MAB is subject to the inherent limitations of genetics. Many features of agriculture, including crop quality, may be determined only to a limited degree by genes, and will always primarily depend on other environmental factors, such as cultivation practices, Doug notes: 'Of the substantial advances in crop yields over the past 100 years or so, half or more have been due to factors other than breeding.'
Doug concludes that although MAB can be useful, and can be held up as an alternative to GM in many cases, 'we should be aware of its limitations as well, and not push it as a panacea.'
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8722
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GENETIC CROSSROADS
Center for Genetics and society
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+ WHAT TO EXPECT IN '08: THE BUSINESS OF BABYMAKING
Marcy Darnovsky, Biopolitical Times
What next for the notoriously under-regulated and highly lucrative assisted reproduction industry?
http://biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/s154e13VpVR
+ WHAT TO EXPECT IN '08: STEM CELL RESEARCH
Jesse Reynolds, Biopolitical Times
A few general predictions about the world of stem cell research.
http://biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/s194203VpVS
+ TRANSHUMANISTS AS NIHILISTS
Jesse Reynolds, Biopolitical Times
The surprsing findings of the World Transhumanist Association's third survey.
http://biopoliticaltimes.rsvp1.com/s156613VpVT