Quote of the Week: Today's market is "totally manipulated" by the major economic and political powers, "is blind to the poor, who have needs but do not represent demand, blind to the future generations who are not present, and blind to creation, to life" - Jos' Lutzenberger, former environment minister of Brazil
---
Nice to see item 1 in Monsanto's home town rag:
1. USDA needs a new attitude - St Louis Post Dispatch
2. GM lobby takes root in Bush's cabinet - Guardian (London)
3. States want ban on GM wheat
4. Farmers violating biotech rules
5. Bt Cotton May Be Factor in Stinkbug Outbreak - url
---
1. USDA needs a new attitude
February 1, 2001
Editorial
St Louis Post Dispatch
OUTGOING Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has painted a disturbing portrait of his department's boosterish attitude toward genetically modified foods. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one of three agencies charged with overseeing biotech foods, a no-questions-asked attitude prevails, Mr. Glickman said.
If there is one thing that can be unequivocally stated about biotechnology, it is that questions need to be asked. But in a recent interview with the Post-Dispatch, Mr. Glickman said that voicing objections to biotechnology was considered "almost immoral" at the USDA, and that those who do so are branded "Luddites, you're stupid ... You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view of some of the issues being raised."
As Ann Veneman, a strong proponent of biotechnology who served on the board of a Monsanto subsidiary, takes over Mr. Glickman's post as agriculture secretary, it is especially critical that her department address these questions openly. And given the backdrop painted by Mr. Glickman, that will take some doing. Questions about biotechnology were barely mentioned during Ms. Veneman's Senate confirmation hearings -- a baffling oversight, given her ties to the industry.
Unlike the success of biotechnology in the development of new drugs, the great promise of biotechnology in developing new foods has stumbled badly, due precisely to this full-speed-ahead, closed-rank arrogance that took hold in the early 1990's. Even Monsanto president Hendrik Verfaillie recently admitted the company had been "blinded by enthusiasm" and "missed the fact that this technology raises major issues for people -- issues of ethics, of choice, of trust, even of democracy and globalization."
Along with modified corn and soybeans, biotech companies have planted seeds of distrust. On one hand they have talked about eliminating world hunger. But what came to market instead were products consumers were suspicious of -- hormone-laced milk, "Terminator" seed technology and StarLink corn, a type of corn approved for use in animal feed but not yet approved for human consumption. StarLink showed up in taco shells, triggering massive recalls and more consumer distrust.
Biotech companies have created their own uphill battle to demonstrate the technology's safety and value in the food supply. "Food biotech is dead," Henry Miller told The New York Times; Mr. Miller handled biotechnology issues at the Food and Drug Administration from 1979 to 1994. "The potential now is an infinitesimal fraction of what most observers had hoped it would be," he said.
It is not too late to recapture that potential if problems, questions and fears are dealt with openly. Ms. Veneman, a farmer's daughter and free trade advocate, is an eminently qualified agriculture secretary who wins praise from both political parties. Among her toughest challenges will be insisting on a shift in her department's attitude, to encourage rather than stifle questions and public debate on biotech issues. --- 2. GM lobby takes root in Bush's cabinet
FrankenShrub watchers should also see: Bush working to reverse food safety rules Only three days into his new job as President of the United States, George W. Bush is rolling back health and safety initiatives. http://www.meatandpoultryonline.com/read/nl20010126/388835]
...
GM lobby takes root in Bush's cabinet
Biotech firms could have undue influence, say critics
John Vidal
Guardian
Thursday February 1, 2001
When Bill Clinton was president, it was an open secret that his government favoured agricultural biotechnology and actively promoted it as a potential US global money-spinner.
But the strength of the genetically modified food lobby in George Bush's new cabinet, and its links with the GM global leader, Monsanto, are greater than anything that came before, it has emerged.
The secretaries of defence, health and agriculture, the attorney general and the chairman of the House agriculture committee all have links with the firm or the wider industry.
The most active GM advocate is expected to be John Ashcroft, the proposed attorney general, who received $10,000 (£6,800) from Monsanto in the recent elections, the most the company gave to any congressional candidate. Mr Ashcroft led calls to the Clinton administration to promote GM crops in developing countries and to persuade Europe to accept them.
If the appointment of Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin, as secretary of health and human services is confirmed, he will be given overall responsibility for food safety, pharmaceuticals and the Food and Drug Administration, which licenses biotechnology in the US.
Mr Thompson is a GM supporter and has accepted money for his campaigns from Monsanto. He used state funds to set up a £200m biotech zone and was one of 13 state governors to launch a campaign, partly funded by Monsanto, to persuade Americans of the benefits of GM crops.
Ann Veneman, the new agriculture secretary, was a director of the GM company Calgene, now owned by Monsanto, and has been active in world trade talks which would favour US companies exporting GM crops to developing countries.
Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, was president of Searle Pharmaceuticals when it was bought by Monsanto.
Larry Combest, a Texas Republican who will chair the powerful House of Representatives agriculture committee, received $2,000 from Monsanto in last year's elections. He is known as a strong supporter of GM food.
Clarence Thomas, the judge whose vote for Mr Bush in the supreme court helped decide the election, was a Monsanto lawyer from 1977 to 1979. His views on GM are not known.
Charles Lewis, director of the Centre for Public Integrity, said: "It looks like Monsanto and the biotechnology industry has the potential to bring undue influence on the new government."
A spokesman for the charity Christian Aid said: "This does not bode well. We should be proceeding cautiously with GM. We fear even greater pressure on poor countries to introduce the technology, to the detriment of poor farmers and consumers who may further lose control of their food security."
Loren Wassel, Monsanto's director of public relations, declined to commentyesterday.
---
3. Farmers, foreign markets send negative signals about Roundup Ready wheat
(February 2, 2001 -- Cropchoice news)
The concerns are sprouting before Monsanto even introduces its newest batch of biotech -- Roundup Ready wheat. They range from outright rejection by foreign markets that don't want it, to contamination of conventional varieties. The Montana and North Dakota legislatures have responded with bills that, if passed, would place a moratorium on the sale and planting of genetically engineered wheat.
"As time goes on we will not necessarily be able to guarantee that conventional varieties can remain free of genetically modified material," said Todd Leake, who grows wheat on 1,300 acres in North Dakota. This could hurt farmers trying to grow conventional wheat for overseas markets that demand a product free of genetic modification.
"A lot of farmers would like to use Roundup Ready wheat because it would cut herbicide costs and be more convenient to spray on our crops and clean up fields," Leake said. "But with the increased technology fees for the seed, losing the right to propagate our own seed and having to purchase every bushel we plant, and especially losing our export markets, the tradeoffs are not in the favor of Roundup Ready wheat with a lot of growers."
However, Roundup Ready wheat won't appear on the market until sometime between 2003 and 2005, said Monsanto spokesman Mark Buckingham. The company hasn't applied yet to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval of the product.
Still, export markets are already sending negative signals.
Tsutomu Shigota, senior managing director of the Japan Flour Millers Association, earlier this month told Dow Jones: "Under the circumstances, I strongly doubt that any bakery and noodle products made from genetically modified wheat or even conventional wheat that may contain modified wheat will be accepted in the Japanese market. World wheat supply has been abundant in recent years, and I don't see why we have to deal with modified wheat...I believe the production of modified wheat at this time will be a very risky challenge for U.S. producers."
On Jan. 5, Algeria, which imports large amounts of durum wheat from the United States, announced that it would not import any genetically modified wheat. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are taking a similar tack with respect to wheat.
Italians don't want genetically modified wheat, either. The website, www.infoexport.gc.ca, recently reported that "given the situation in Italy, with (leading farmers' group) Confagricoltura promising consumers to use only GM-free wheat, attention and effort should be directed to this subject."
To assuage these fears, which Buckingham believes are due in large part to the StarLink corn contamination incident, Monsanto is working with the wheat industry to ensure that its new product doesn't disrupt the market.
"We will not launch Roundup Ready wheat until it has full regulatory approval for food and feed use in the United States and in Japan," he said.
Contamination?
Some farmers are concerned that genetically modified wheat will too easily cross-pollinate with conventional varieties.
"Once the seed stocks are grown out, this accelerates the process of GM crops ending up everywhere," said Leake, who also works with the Farmers Union and the Dakota Resource Council on wheat issues.
However, setting a 4.5 to 5-foot buffer (typical for wheat) between conventional and genetically altered varieties will greatly reduce, but not eliminate, cross pollination, said Norman Ellstrand, a professor of genetics at the University of California at Riverside. Purity, he noted, in this case equals 1 percent contamination.
Most contamination happens during seed processing, planting, harvesting and distribution of the crop, said Jane Rissler, a plant pathologist on staff at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C.
At the seed processing facility, employees might accidentally mix genetically modified and conventional seeds, or incorrectly label bags.
All harvesting equipment, trucks, and silos must be kept clean when trying to segregate genetically modified and conventional wheat. This, of course, is labor and time intensive.
"A farmer to the west of me didn't clean out his planting drill between planting of Roundup Ready soybeans and conventional soy," Leake said. "In the end, the entire crop was GM (genetically modified). This was enough to qualify him for a GM discount." In this case, discount is not a plus. It means that the elevator paid the farmer less for his soybeans because they were genetically engineered.
Ground contamination also plays a role, he said. Farmers who grow a genetically modified crop one season and a conventional variety the next would have a tough time guaranteeing that no remnants of the transgenic crop remain. This phenomenon is better known as volunteer seed. It lies dormant in the soil and then sprouts the next spring.
Canada's experience with canola further illustrates the nightmare of biotech crop contamination. Farmers first planted Roundup Ready canola in western Canada in 1995. Five years later, more than half of the crop was considered genetically modified because of cross pollination and segregation problems. Farmers lost money when they couldn't export their canola to many parts of the world.
In an interview last summer, an Aventis official said, "the entire Canadian canola crop has to be considered genetically modified for export purposes." Aventis held the license to market Roundup Ready canola in Canada.
In response to concerns that genetically modified wheat will contaminate conventional varieties, Buckingham said that Monsanto is committed to working with the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S. Wheat Associates to develop a grain handling system that will reliably deliver what customers want. They haven't yet begun working on this system, though.
Based on his conversations with farmers, elevator managers and grain company executives, Leake doubts they'll be able to address the segregation technology and infrastructure requirements necessary to handle Roundup Ready wheat.
Just in case Monsanto's system isn't working, legislation is pending in the Montana and North Dakota legislatures.
A bill in the Montana State House of Representatives would place a moratorium on the production of genetically modified wheat. HB 211 reads as follows:
"1. Moratorium on production of genetically modified wheat.
(1) Genetically modified organisms may pose risks of unknown dimensions to Montana's economy, native environment, and agricultural industry. The planting of genetically modified crops over the past several years has outpaced our understanding of the immediate and long-term economic and environmental effects of genetically modified organisms. Because of these concerns, the legislature finds it appropriate to impose a moratorium on the production of genetically modified wheat.
(2) A person may not plant genetically modified wheat in Montana.
2. Termination. [This act] terminates October 1, 2003."
Meanwhile, in North Dakota, legislators are considering a prohibition on the sale of genetically modified wheat seed until Aug. 1, 2003.
Leake thinks these measures are the least that government can do to help resolve the liability, segregation, technology agreement and market acceptance issues that likely will happen with biotech wheat just as they did with corn, soy and canola.
"As far as the chances for passage," Leake said, "we have a lot of support in North Dakota and Montana for this, but moratoriums are notoriously difficult to get enacted, and legislators are sometimes hesitant."
Readers may have noted that both of these moratoriums terminate before Monsanto introduces Roundup Ready wheat sometime between 2003 and 2005.
Leake said that the existing legislation, if passed, would cover the 2003 planting season. The incoming legislatures would have to decide whether to reauthorize the moratoriums. Leake thinks they would do so unless a resolution is reached on such issues as foreign market acceptance of Roundup Ready wheat and segregation, among others.
---
4. Farmers unclear about biotech rules
UK readers may note the relevance of this, together with the Starlink debacle, to the UK's farmscale trials and other GM trial research where relatively complex ways of growing GM crops are being tried out in attempt to avoid environmental harm . so which farmers attracted by the 'quick fix' of these crops are going to actually grow the crops that way? As to the, "More than 90 percent of the growers thought they had followed the rules", how many would say otherwise? Comp[are this finding with actually knowledge of what they were requireed to do, "More than 40 percent of the farmers surveyed didn't know the correct size of the conventional corn acreage and 60 percent of the farmers didn't know how close it had to be to the biotech crops." The UK only has voluntary controls on how GM crops are grown by farmers.
...
Farmers unclear about biotech rules
Thursday, February 1, 2001
By Associated Press
Nearly 30 percent of farmers who grew biotech corn last year violated planting restrictions designed to keep insects from becoming resistant to the crop, a survey shows.
The planting rules, which took effect last year, require 20 percent of a farmers' corn acreage to be of conventional varieties, and the conventional corn must be planted within a half mile of the biotech crops.
Some 71 percent of farmers complied with both the size and distance requirements, according to the survey, which was filed Wednesday with the Environmental Protection Agency <http://www.epa.gov/> by the biotech industry. More than 90 percent of the growers thought they had followed the rules, but many couldn't identify the correct restrictions when questioned for the survey.
EPA imposed the restrictions a year ago and required the industry to do annual surveys of compliance.
"The survey shows farmers want to do the right thing and we can help them do that by providing clear and consistent information," said Loren Wassell, a spokesman for Monsanto Co., a leading biotech company.
The crop makes its own pesticide. The corn, known as Bt, contains a gene from a soil bacterium that makes the plant toxic to a moth larva. While the insects naturally develop resistance to the toxin as they are exposed to it, the trait won't be passed onto successive generations if they mate with moths that are susceptible to the poison.
The requirements for farmers to plant conventional corn near Bt fields are designed to ensure that there are plenty of those nonresistant moths around.
Farmers receive brochures explaining the rules when they buy the biotech seed.
"The real test will come this year," now that biotech companies have seen the survey results and are trying to improve their education efforts, said University of Minnesota entomologist David Andow.
Both the size and distance requirements for plantings of conventional corn are equally important to preventing insect resistance, he said. A critic of the biotech industry said the survey results were disappointing.
"It appears to me that if they only got a collective compliance on the order of 71 percent then there is a lot of work that needs to be done. That's not good enough," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists. More than 40 percent of the farmers surveyed didn't know the correct size of the conventional corn acreage and 60 percent of the farmers didn't know how close it had to be to the biotech crops.
Fred Yoder, an Ohio farmer and a leader on biotech issues for the National Corn Growers Association, disagreed with Mellon's assessment. "The survey confirms that farmers are good stewards of technology and, when given appropriate information, they will do the right thing," he said. Some 501 farmers were contacted by telephone for the survey, which was conducted by an independent research firm, Market Horizons of St. Louis. Copyright 2001, Associated Press
---
5. Bt Cotton May Be Factor in Stinkbug Outbreak, Editors, Progressive
Farmer, February 1, 2001
Jack Bacheler, Extension entomologist for North Carolina, "Growers in this state planted 500,000 acres of Bt cotton last season. That may have put us in the stinkbug big leagues.
full article: http://www.biotech-info.net/stinkbug_outbreak.html