from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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The biotech industry has been indulging in its usual shadow-play, issuing plugs for GM for India that appear to emanate from India itself, but which on closer examination turn out to come from everywhere but! (FOCUS ON ASIA)
It's also invented yet another "grassroots" front group, this time in France (LOBBYWATCH).
Don't miss an important counter-event to the big biotech bash coming up in September in Cologne, Germany (EURO-NEWS).
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.lobbywatch.org / www.gmwatch.org
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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
FOCUS ON ASIA
FOCUS ON AFRICA
EURO-NEWS
AUSTRALIA
THE AMERICAS
CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK - UK
DONATIONS
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ BIOTECH'S "RADICAL RURAL CAMPAIGNERS"
An article in The Independent (UK) refers to "the surprise emergence in France of a group of radical rural campaigners claiming to be in favour of open-field [GM] experiments".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4239
They recently turned up ready for a fist fight at Loiret in France when about 160 anti-GM activists took part in decontaminating a field of GM maize. (see EURO-NEWS below)
So who are these "radical rural campaigners" with a taste for genetic contamination?
According to the article, they're led by Pierre Pagesse, "a farmer and the managing director of the French biotechnology firm Biogemma". Pagesse is also described as "president of Limagrain, a leading European seed company of which Biogemma is the research arm."
In terms of sales, Limagrain ranks as the 4th biggest seed company in the world, with only DuPont (Pioneer), Monsanto and Syngenta outselling it. Like those agrochemical giants, Limagrain has invested heavily in GM crop R&D and has undertaken GM field trials.
In 1994 Limagrain took over the seed production assets of the French agrochemical giant Rhone-Poulenc, through an exchange of shares, which led to the creation of Limagrain Genetics International - 83% owned by Limagrain and 17% by Rhone-Poulenc. The two companies also developed common research programmes for developing GM crops within a joint venture.
The biotech firm Biogemma was created by Limagrain in July 1997. In April 1998 RhoBio, a subsidiary common to Biogemma and Rhone-Poulenc was formed. RhoBio went on to become a joint venture with Aventis Crop Science and then Bayer Crop Science.
According to a report on Limagrain's innovation strategy, "At the same time that it created Biogemma, Limagrain also made the strategic decision to concentrate on biotechnology and agro-industrial activities, and to dedicate *all its resources* towards this goal." (emphasis added)
In other words Limagrain bet its shirt on biotech. As the report notes: "biotechnology is one of the central themes for the company; and mastering biotechnology is seen as necessary if the group is to keep its identity and independence... resources, such as the company's capacity for research and development, are [therefore] earmarked for biotechnology."
The report identifies as a key challenge to this strategy: "the acceptability of GMOs". It also notes that, "ironically", investment in genomics "may provide a way to avoid transgenic methods altogether delivering it from the current controversy".
http://www.agbioforum.org/v4n1/v4n1a09-joly.htm
Under the leadership of Pierre Pagesse, however, controversy, rather than being sidestepped, is being embraced!
As Limagrain has farmers as shareholders and stakeholders, they may wish to consider the quality of Pagesse's strategic thinking and whether it isn't time for more intelligent leadership.
Limagrain also owns the US-based company Biotechnica Agriculture. Limagrain Canada is owned by Monsanto.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4239
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FOCUS ON ASIA
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+ ISAAA CHIEF BACKS TERMINATOR IN INDIA!
When confronted with the problem of cross-pollination of non-GM plants, the only solution Clive James, chairman of the industry-backed GM crop promotion body ISAAA, can offer is the Terminator! This, he complains, had had to be shelved at the behest of "the Greens".
James was speaking at the recent big pro-GM "International Conference on Agricultural Biotechnology: Ushering in the Second Green Revolution" conference in New Delhi.
In fact, MS Swaminathan, a co-host with James of the conference, is among those who has denounced the technology: "In India where there are nearly 100 million operational holdings, denial of plant-back rights or the use of the terminator mechanism will be disastrous from the socio-economic and biodiversity points of view, since over 80 percent of farmers plant their own farm-saved seeds."
Swaminathan is just one among many who have queued up to condemn Terminator genes. They included the FAO Director-General, Dr Jacques Diouf; Dr Gordon Conway, President of the Rockefeller Foundation; and The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Not exactly a bunch of greens!
For more on ISAAA: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=66&page=I
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4237
+ MORE WIT AND WISDOM OF CLIVE JAMES
At the New Delhi conference (see above), James supported the proposed "single window" for GM regulation in India. But he was forced to concede that even under the avidly pro-GM US regulatory system, no single window exists for GM regulation.
James also said, Wambugu-style, that he's not saying GM crops are a silver bullet, it's just they're "essential"!
Next, when cornered over the fact that poverty not production is the real problem underlying hunger in India - a country which regularly produces large surpluses of grain that go to rot because the poor can't afford them - James was left blithely claiming, "the transgenic technology can also solve the problem [ie poverty] by raising the income of the people".
How to support such a claim? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, James claims that GM cotton has been a success in India - this off the back of a discredited one-off survey carried out for Monsanto by the Nielson marketing agency!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3405
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4237
+ VANDANA SHIVA SAYS INDIA NEEDS STRONGER REGULATORY SYSTEM, NOT DEREGULATION
Excerpt from an article in the Financial Express by Dr Vandana Shiva (GEAC is India's statutory body for GM crop assessment and approvals), in which she criticizes attempts to weaken India's GM regulatory system:
Those of us who work for independent science, protection of environment and public health are calling for a "GEAC Plus", aimed at strengthening regulation for biosafety by enhancing the capacities of the environment ministry in collaboration with the health and agriculture ministries. Strengthening regulation for biosafety is also required under the Cartagena Protocol. Industry however wants a "GEAC Minus"; creating a fast track single window clearance to substitute GEAC.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4234
+ GOLDEN RICE A DISTANT DREAM FOR INDIA
An article in Business India says fears of environmental damage and food safety have held up India's plans to develop varieties of GM nutrition-enriched rice.
"Products like salinity- and drought-tolerant rice varieties as well as the vitamin-A enriched Golden Rice have been developed but we are not getting the green signal to go ahead with field-testing," said Swapan K. Datta of the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Fears about food safety of GM agriculture products continue to be a major hurdle to solutions for problems like pests, salinity and drought, he contended. "The different kinds of rice being suggested for field testing are Golden Rice (named after its colour), pest resistant Bt rice, iron enriched rice and varieties of salinity tolerant and drought resistant rice," Datta told IANS.
He said permission for field-testing Golden Rice, which has a high level of vitamin A, has been sought in India, the US and the Philippines. "While the US has granted permission, it is still awaited in India and the Philippines," Datta said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4227
GM WATCH COMMENT: Note that the article describes GM rice as India's "dream" and as part of "India's plans" but most of the comment is derived from Swapan Datta, a plant biotechnologist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.
Datta and the IRRI have been laying the foundations for releasing GM rice across Asia long before most people in India, or anywhere else in the world, had ever dreamt, let alone heard, of GM rice.
The first work on GM rice was undertaken at IRRI as far back as 1990. By 1993 IRRI had begun "rice biotechnology training" courses for Asian scientists. The same year IRRI launched the Asian Rice Biotechnology Network (ARBN) and began its release of GM plants in greenhouses. By 1996 work on the genetic engineering of popular Asian cultivars was under way.
IRRI is also part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies that funds 16 international research centres.
Swapan Datta is rice crop leader of the CGIAR's Challenge Program on Biofortification, which involves GM "nutrition enriched" plants - like Golden Rice.
CGIAR has Syngenta Foundation on its board, while IRRI has over the years benefited from the support of such corporations as Monsanto, Union Carbide Asia, Bayer Philippines, Eli Lily, Occidental Chemical, Ciba Geigy (later part of Novartis Seeds which is now part of Syngenta), Chevron Chemical, Upjohn, Hoechst, and Cyanamid Far East.
Far from being "India's dream", Golden Rice was invented in the Swiss laboratory of Ingo Potrykus, and really gained momentum after Monsanto and Syngenta realised its immense PR potential. Monsanto man Gerard Barry then moved to IRRI to take control of the Golden Rice Network, overseeing the release of Golden Rice in Asia.
Finally, notice the emphasis in the article on speed. Recurrent in the statements of GM promoters in India at the moment, as they strive to fix the regulatory system, is the need to "speed up the clearing process" for GM crops - all, doubtless, in the cause of more readily fulfilling "India's plans" and "India's dream".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4227
+ ICMR PROPOSES GENE TECHNOLOGY REGULATOR
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has proposed setting up of a National Gene Technology Regulator for ensuring safe applications and use of transgenic technology. It has suggested stringent norms for ensuring health safety and has proposed vesting of more powers with the health ministry and the agencies operating under it.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4228
A recent report from ICMR noted, "The safety of these components of the genetic construct is not clearly known as they have the potential to induce toxicity, transfer to gut flora or produce unintended effects leading to changes that are relevant from toxicological/nutritional perspective. Specific safety issues associated with GM foods include direct or indirect consequences of new gene product or altered levels of existing gene product due to GM, possibility of gene transfer from ingested GM food and potential adverse effect like allergenicity and toxic effects."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4177
+ SPOT THE CONNECTION: THE IRRI
***Last week MS Swaminathan was centre stage at a big pro-GM conference in New Delhi, which his Foundation helped organise.
***Also in action last week was Gurdev Khush as the lead signatory on a letter, authored by pro-GM lobbyist CS Prakash, attacking the Indian Council of Medical Research for expressing their concerns over the safety of GMOs.
***Over the weekend an article appeared in the Indian press highlighting the views of Swapan Datta (see above) on how India's "dream" of GM rice was being held up by regulatory hurdles
What's the connection?
***Datta is a leading plant biotechnologist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
***MS Swaminathan is the fomer head of IRRI.
***During his 35 years with IRRI, Gurdev Khush was responsible for monocropping vast swathes of Asia with IRRI rice varieties.
***For more than a decade now IRRI has been laying the foundations for the release of GM rice across Asia.
***Swaminathan and Khush also actively promote GM crops on a global stage. Khush, for instance, is part of the 'scientific network' for 'product and technology innovation' and development at the controversial bio-pharmaceutical firm Ventria Bioscience - currently at the centre of the GM pharma rice controversies in California and elsewhere in the US.
It would be a great mistake to underestimate the influence and reach of the International Rice Research Institute which has been working fior more than a decade to lay the foundations for the release of GM crops right across Asia.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4233
For a profile of IRRI: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=296
+ SECRETIVE DEAL-MAKING DEVASTATES LIVES
Excerpts from an illuminating article by Ashwin Mahesh, co-founder of India Together (http://www.indiatogether.org/agriculture), about how agricultural decisions made in secret are killing Indians:
...we [India's middle class] have become so deluded by our minor privileged sphere that we are unable to comprehend what great numbers of Indians experience.
The inattentiveness to agriculture has made it easier for policy decisions to be made that are catastrophically harmful to the rural poor.
Hundreds of millions who depend on [agriculture] for their livelihood have no way of engaging the secretive deal-making that devastates their lives...
Another example of the under-the-radar developments in agriculture is what's happening with genetically modified (GM) crops. These are plainly risky to public health, and the claims of improved nutrition from them are mostly unproven. Don't take my word for it; that's also what the Indian Council of Medical Research had to say about this recently.
There's something else you should know about GM foods. The 'high-yielding strains' are touted as the answer to the world's problems of starvation and malnutrition. But how true is that? ...What is really being starved is the truth, while GM foods that are banned in many European countries are now being pushed in the Third World under the banner of benevolence.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4229
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FOCUS ON AFRICA
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+ BEWARE OF GM FOODS - TANZANIA VICE-PRESIDENT
Africa should not be forced to accept GM foods, Tanzania's Vice-President Dr Ali Mohamed Shein said. He said African countries must give serious consideration to related consequences before accepting GM foods under the pretext of fighting hunger.
Dr Shein made the remarks in Dar es Salaam when opening the Ninth Session of the Council of Ministers of the African Regional Industrial Property Organisation (Aripo).
"If we want to ensure that our countries are not turned into experimental grounds, we need to develop and have the requisite capacity at both the national and regional levels. This will enable us to assess the safety of the genetically modified foods to the health of our people and to the protection of our environment," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4236
+ TWELVE REASONS FOR AFRICA TO REJECT GM CROPS
Zachary Makanya points out that Africa is in danger of becoming the dumping ground for the struggling GM industry and a laboratory for frustrated scientists. The proponents of GM
technology sell a sweet message of GM crops bringing the second green revolution and the answer to African hunger, but a closer look makes it clear that GM crops have no place in African agriculture. Makanya gives twelve reasons
why... Read on - http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=294
Look out also for 'GM Sweet Potatoes: misspent millions'
http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=294
And see AUSTRALIA (below) for the latest hype and false claims of a leading South African regulator.
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EURO-NEWS
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+ GM LOBBY MEETS IN COLOGNE
From September 12-15 the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC 2004) will meet at Cologne's trade fair center. According to its own publicity, the ABIC is one of the "internationally most important conferences on biological and genetic technology" for "scientists, industry representatives, investors and politicians." On the program: Philippe Busquien (EU Commissioner for Research), North Rhine-Westphalian Premier Steinbryck, Robert Zoellik (US trade representative - invited), and the 20 biggest agribusiness and food multinationals of the world: Monsanto, Nestle, Bayer, CropScience, Pioneer Europe, Syngenta and BASF.
http://www.abic2004.org/index.html
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4231
+ PROTESTS AND COUNTER-CONFERENCE
The better alternative: social justice and ecologically sound agriculture:
On September 12-13 the lobbyists from industry, science and politics will have to reckon with those who are not impressed by their PR events and myths of progress. They are the countless critics of GE in farmer's organizations of the South and Europe, in consumer, environmental and church groups, and initiatives against the neoliberal world economic order.
Protest Action: Monday, September 13, 2004, from 10:30 a.m. at the Cologne Fair: Critical organizations and initatives will make it clear that the high-tech solutions from the laboratories and corporate meetings are not wanted.
Coordination: Regina Schwarz, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Tel. 0221-37 31 02
Alternative Conference 12 Sept. Maternushaus (Kardinal-Frings Str. 1-3) 15:00 - 20:00
Speaking on global trade, genetically manipulated food and patents:
Vandana Shiva (India, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology)
Other speakers: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4231
For more information: BioSkop e.V., Erika Feyerabend This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tel. 0201-53 66 706; Misereor, Bernd Nilles This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel. 0241 - 442515
Directions: www.maternushaus.de/wegbeschreibung.html
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4231
+ VOLUNTARY REAPERS TEAR UP GM FIELD IN THE LOIRET, FRANCE [see LOBBYWATCH above for more on this story]
About 160 anti-GM activists took part on Saturday afternoon in the tearing up of a field of GM maize near Pithiviers (department of Loiret). The activists, supported by the Confederation Paysanne and the Greens, gathered following a request from the "Voluntary GM Reapers Collective" on a field at Greneville-en-Beauce, a few kilometres from Pithiviers.
Notably, amongst these were the green representatives Verts Yves Contassot, assistant to the mayor of Paris, with responsibility for the environment, and Francine Bavay, Vice President of the regional council for the d'Ile-de-France region.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4231
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AUSTRALIA
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+ LOBBYIST/REGULATOR TELLS AUSTRALIAN FARMERS GM FOODS ARE SAFE
Prof Jennifer Thompson has been telling Australian farmers and others that GM crops are stringently tested for health risks. "These GM crops have been tested rigorously, almost as if they were toxins, and no conventional food has ever been tested like that," Thompson is quoted as saying.
Yet a study by Professor Ian Pryme and Rolf Lembcke, published in 2003 in the journal Nutrition and Health, found there were just ten published studies on the health effects of GM food or feed and that the quality of some of these was inadequate. The researchers also noted that several of the independent studies provided evidence of potential harm.
Prof Thompson, on the other hand, says she is so certain that those GM crops that have been approved for commercial release are as safe or are even "far safer" than non-GM food, that she would be willing to put her "head on a block" over the issue.
A leading expert in the field of GM food testing told us, "I don't think that her head on the block would be worth having as there is nothing in it."
What is so shocking about Jennifer Thompson's detachment from scientific reality is that we are not dealing with just some biotech lobbyist. Thompson has been a key figure - probably, the key figure - in shaping South Africa's regulation of GM crops since its first regulatory body SAGENE, which Thompson chaired, was established under South Africa's apartheid regime.
Thompson is still an official advisor on regulatory decisions today. At one and the same time she's a leading figure in a whole series of biotech-industry backed lobby groups, eg AfricaBio, ISAAA, the Council for Biotechnology Information and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=170
No wonder South Africa has had such a rapid uptake of GM crops when the line between lobbyist and regulator is non-existent.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4238
+ PROTESTS AT BIOFESTIVAL 04
Lorraine Ford reports how protesters were active at the BioFestival 04 conference in Melbourne. Two protesters were taken away by police, and a one-sided public "GE Debate" featured security checks at the entrance door, and much audience unrest.
Protesters also destroyed four large vases of GM flowers displayed at the entrance to an exhibition of biotech wares at the BioFestival 04 conference. Two protesters were taken away by police.
Earlier, protesters wearing black gags and holding aloft banners and placards had demonstrated their objections to GM foods, crops and animals outside the conference.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/08/76292.php
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THE AMERICAS
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+ GM CORN PLANTING PLATEAUS, BRINGS LOWER INCOME FOR FARMERS
In March a much-hyped USDA survey of corn farmers, done before corn planting was underway, projected that 46 percent of corn acres would be planted to GMO varieties in 2004. After planting was completed and the seed was in the ground an American Corn Growers Foundation (ACGF) survey found only 34.4 percent - almost the same as last year.
According to Dan McGuire, CEO of the ACGF, "This survey suggests that US corn farmers may well be taking the concerns and demands of foreign consumers and importers into account in their planting decisions by holding their GMO corn acres to only about a third of the total acres they planted to corn this year."
McGuire added, "Even with the projected record yield for 2004, farmers will average $5.51 less gross corn income per acre than in 2003 because of lower prices. The 142 bushel per acre yield in 2003, at the average price of $2.40, would have provided gross per acre income of $340.80, while the projected 149 bushel, record average per acre yield for 2004, at the average price of $2.25, will generate only $335.29 per acre, and of course many farmers will get less than that average price and have lower than average yields.
"Low corn prices have not delivered increased corn exports as promoted by advocates of current farm and trade policy. Plus, attempts by the US government and agribusiness to force foreign markets to accept biotech corn varieties has not been a customer-oriented strategy to say the least. It appears that the majority of US corn farmers are putting the customer first and factoring that into their seed choices."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4232
US corn exports to Europe dropped by 96% in 1999 because the US could not provide non-GM corn. In 2000 US corn was hit by the GM Starlink fiasco. And quite apart from the export problems, for all the hype about GM corn, it has had a negative economic impact on US farms, as another USDA report revealed.
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/usdagmeconomics.htm
+ SIERRA CLUB OBJECTION TO PHARMA CORN
Prodigene wants to grow 725 acres of pharma corn in Texas. A detailed letter from the Sierra Club, the US's biggest wilderness conservation group, to US Ag Sec Ann Veneman, objecting to this cretinous plan is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4232
+ FOOD INDUSTRY ALARMED ABOUT PHARMA CROPS
The Grocery Manufacturers of America, one of the biggest food industry trade groups, is speaking out against a plan by ProdiGene to cultivate genetically engineered pharmaceutical corn in Frio County, Texas. Texas-based ProdiGene gave the biotech industry a black eye two years ago when the company’s pharmaceutical corn crops were mismanaged in Iowa and Nebraska. In a letter to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, GMA said the government is not doing enough to regulate crops engineered for pharmaceutical and industrial purposes.
Spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said that if any of the plant-made pharmaceuticals made it into the food supply, "It’s our brands that get damaged."
For more info visit: www.pharmcrops.com
+ US CONSUMERS HAPPY WITH GM FOOD?
Despite the hype that US Consumers are happy with their food system , trust the FDA and contentedly consume GM food, the exponential growth of the $5.3 billion US organic industry tells another story. The U.S. market for organic foods and beverages increased 81% from 2001 to 2004
According to Mintel, consumers are opting for organic foods and beverages on the belief that organic farming practices - which exclude fertilizers, pesticides, genetically modified products and hormones - can help produce a safe final product. In 2004 about 44% of Americans purchased organic foods at least occasionally.
http://217.204.41.132/cgi/NGoto/2/67387549?435
+ ARGENTINA: FARMLAND FIGHT MOVES TO WOODS
General Pizarro, a one-telephone town in the northern province of Salta, gained notoriety last month when environmentalists chained up bulldozers to protest the sale of a nearby nature reserve. Plans to raze forests have sparked wider fears that a push north by Argentina's farming frontier could sacrifice the environment at the altar of growth [GM WATCH COMMENT: There is no evidence that GM soy has provided growth for Argentina and plenty of evidence that it has devastated the economy and plunged people into poverty].
A boom in GM soybeans in Argentina, the world's No. 3 soy producer, has brought farming to plots never before seeded. After a surge in prices, soy is now grown on half of all farmlands, and northern provinces represent 16 percent of that acreage, up from 9 percent a decade ago.
Environmental groups say clearing trees for big farms or ranches will bring few jobs and do great ecological harm, undermining long-term growth.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4231
+ MONSANTO STILL CONDUCTING SECRET GM WHEAT TRIALS IN CANADA
Monsanto is breaking a pledge made earlier this year that GM wheat testing would be abandoned.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/08/17/587920-cp.html
Canadian geneticist Prof Joe Cummins comments, "The article [above] exposes the absolute subservience of Canadian regulators to Monsanto. The wretched bureaucrats and submissive politicians earlier squandered millions of taxpayer dollars on the Monsanto project, and the shameless bureaucrats demanded direct and over-the-table payments to themselves from corporations... Corporate control of of news media is such that there is little public knowledge and no publicity on the numerous unsafe field tests of dangerous pharm crops as well as the "food" constructions. The Canadian regulatory machinery is operated in a manner famously sneaky and underhanded. The practice is so successful in Canada that government and academic bureaucrats are beginning to be sought for employment in other countries dominated by corporations. The bottom line is that the promises and pronouncements of the Canadian government are empty and other countries need to test all the food or feed exported from the country broadly to detect fraudulent contamination with transgenes."
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CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF SCIENCE
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+ NON-CONFIRMIST SCIENTISTS "STRUGGLE TO BE HEARD"
Scientists with unorthodox views face an uphill struggle to be heard in Britain, a researcher claimed. The first instinct of Britain's scientific community was to shut out any dissenting voice, said Swedish expert Dr Lena Eriksson. Non-conformist scientists were likely to be driven into exile and find themselves in conflict with the establishment, she said.
The picture was very different in Sweden where controversial scientists were allowed to "have their say" in order not to create adversaries.
Dr Eriksson, from the Cardiff School of Social Sciences, said British scientific intolerance was helping to undermine the public's faith in science. She said: "A good example of this is with new technologies such as genetically modified foods. The media are often blamed for presenting a misleading image of science, but to some extent, public perception of such scientifically and politically charged issues turns on the way scientists present themselves to the outside world.
"The image of a scientific establishment attacking and punishing individual researchers with contentious results - such as the MMR vaccine controversy - has done little to inspire public trust in science."
Dr Eriksson interviewed about 30 scientists in Britain and Sweden working in the field of genetic modification. The results showed that British scientists felt it was crucial to prevent "mavericks" gaining legitimacy, which meant distancing themselves from anyone whose ideas were too controversial. In Sweden the view was that ousting dissenters was likely to backfire.
British scientists were also more accepting of management and employer control over the publication of their material. They saw it as necessary for their own protection in a hostile world, while their Swedish counterparts tended to resent excessive "red tape". Dr Eriksson said in Britain dissenters were driven to find an alternative audience, which put them at odds with the scientific community to which they once belonged.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4230
GM WATCH COMMENT: Judging by the treatment of Drs Chapela and Hayes at Berkeley, Dr Losey at Cornell, and the recently sacked scientists at Health Canada, the heavy-handed suppression of unpalatable judgments or research is not just a British problem.
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CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK - UK
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+ PLEASE WRITE TO ASDA
In a few months' time all milk sold at Asda supermarkets will be from a few selected farms through a dedicated supply chain. The contracts are still being written and it is an opportunity to get "no-GM feed" in there. Recently a campaigner spoke to Chris Brown (the person responsible for milk purchasing at Asda). The campaigner said Brown gave all sorts of reasons why he was not of a mind to do so, e.g. "hard to define in law", "what about genetically modified additives?"
Then, says the campaigner, Brown said his customers are not interested in the issue: "I've not had a letter on GM for the past three years." Maybe it's time he did!
Please write to the manager of your local Asda asking if the milk in store is from cows that have eaten GM feed and send a copy of your letter by email to Chris Brown: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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