Items abstracted from AGNET SEPTEMBER 2, 2001
"One of my neighbours had a twister. It picked up seed in his field and my field and took it for four miles," Percy Schmeiser
"This is something the regulators never even thought of. It just goes to show that you can't control something once you get it out into real nature," Brian Ellis, a professor of plant biotechnology
"Whatever the methods of government... we will continue the destruction of fields sown with GM crops until the end of September," Jose Bove
*Concerns raised over unregulated spread of GM crops - twisters etc.
*Rigorous debate needed: re genetically modified foods
*Aucklanders march against genetic engineering
*GM crop protesters stage rally
*GM crop destruction to continue throughout September, says Bove
*African law criminalizes genetic engineering for hostile purposes
*Bayer said to have pact to buy Cropscience for about $5 billion - Starlink will stay with Aventis
*Global public goods for poor farmers: myth or reality?
full bulletin archived at:
http://www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood/archives/agnet-archives.htm
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CONCERNS RAISED OVER UNREGULATED SPREAD OF GM CROPS
September 1, 2010
CBC.ca
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/view?/news/2001/08/31/canola010831
HOMEFIELD, MANITOBA - Manitoba canola farmers say they could use a little rain, and a lot less wind. Last week near Homefield, canola that was raining down after a tornado cut through Vic Martens' fields. "The tornado actually picked up the canola plants and actually wrapped them around these trees," he said.
The canola crop was genetically modified. The seeds from the crop were blown into other canola fields up to eight kilometres away raising concerns among those that worry about the uncontrolled spread of genetically modified seeds.
Brian Ellis, a professor of plant biotechnology, says genetic modification of plants, combined with extreme weather deserves to be studied. "This is something the regulators never even thought of. It just goes to show that you can't control something once you get it out into real nature," said Ellis.
Ellis worries the same will happen with strains of GM wheat currently being tested in secret locations. The Canadian Wheat Board has already said it won't sell GM contaminated wheat because of health concerns in foreign markets.
GM canola hasn't met the same opposition, but it's patented seeds pose legal problems for farmers.
Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto when GM canola showed up in his field near Saskatoon. He has long argued there is no way to control where GM seeds go. "One of my neighbours had a twister. It picked up seed in his field and my field and took it for four miles."
Monsanto also holds the patent on the tornado canola. It says anyone with unwanted or unlicensed canola can ask to have it pulled out in the spring, if it doesn't die this winter.
AUCKLANDERS MARCH AGAINST GENETIC ENGINEERING
September 2, 2001
Agence France Presse English
AUCKLAND - According to this story, Aucklanders braved torrential rain to dress up as butterflies, organic peas, insects and the grim reaper in a colourful rally to say no to genetic engineering.
The story says that in one of the largest marches seen in Auckland in recent years, a crowd estimated at up to 10,000 marched up Queen Street Saturday to send a message that New Zealanders do not want GE.
The government is currently considering its response to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, which called for the country to "proceed with caution", including field trials of modified materials. Annette Cotter, of Greenpeace, was quoted as saying, "We have a window of opportunity to put pressure on the government to take into account public opposition to GE field trials."
Cotter was cited as saying that most protesters believed the potential of genetic engineering could be tested in the laboratory without allowing it to be tested in field trials, where it could enter the food chain and that some, including some Maori groups, believed there should be no tampering with living matter, adding, "People are coming at this from different angles; they have ethical or social or scientific concerns. Some just don't want to eat it."
The rain-drenched marchers included Green MPs Jeanette Fitzsimons and Nandor Tanczos, artist Pat Hanly and former pop singer Alannah Currie of the Thompson Twins, who organised celebrities to pose in specially designed T-shirts.
GM CROP PROTESTERS STAGE RALLY
September 2, 2001
PA News
Russell Fallis
A number of UK protesters tonight, according to this story, held a vigil outside a farm following a rally against genetically modified crop tests at the site. Organisers were cited as saying the rally at Roskill Farm in the Munlochy area of the Black Isle was attended by around between 200 and 300 mainly local people.
The farm has one of the four fields in the north of Scotland that has been given the go-ahead for GM trials by the Scottish Executive.
Today's rally followed the recent arrest of six of protesters who were charged with aggravated trespass. They are due to face trial on November 23.
GM CROP DESTRUCTION TO CONTINUE THROUGHOUT MONTH, SAYS BOVE
September 2, 2001
Agence France Presse English
PARIS - Peasants Confederation leader Jose Bove was cited as warning Sunday that his group's destruction of genetically-modified (GM) crops would continue until the end of the month, despite the use of police to deter demonstrators. Bove was quoted as telling the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche that, "Whatever the methods of government and what might displease (French premier) Lionel Jospin and the minister of agriculture, we will continue the destruction of fields sown with GM crops until the end of September."
Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany had successfully deployed police Saturday in Gironde and Vienne to protect GM crops.
Bove, who is in Cuba for a conference on the sovereignty of food production, said he had warned the government in July of his intentions and defended the destruction as a "citizen's act".
RIGOROUS DEBATE NEEDED: RE GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS: CONTRADICTORY REPORTS BAFFLE PUBLIC
August 29, 2001
Toronto Star
Anne Mitchell, Executive Director, The Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, writes in this letter that as a member of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee, she agrees with Ann Clark that we need a rigorous and impartial reconsideration of the place of GM technology in society today. During the course of her two years of the biotechnology committee's existence Mitchell says she has always tried to bring that view to the table. "The public has a fundamental right to know about what is happening to our food."
At the last committee meeting held in June in Ottawa, where the draft paper on GM foods was discussed, Mitchell says she continued to argue against voluntary labelling - and that she supported mandatory labelling. How can we do the long-term monitoring we say we will do, if we do not have any way of tracking the use on GM foods? Mitchell says she hope the public continues to demand that the Canadian government listens to their concerns.
A CONTINENTAL STEP FORWARD FOR BIOSECURITY: AFRICAN LAW CRIMINALIZES GENETIC ENGINEERING FOR HOSTILE PURPOSES
August 30, 2001
The Sunshine Project
http://www.sunshine-project.org
Austin and Hamburg - The legal penalties for using genetic engineering to cause harm are on the rise in Africa. African leaders made the move in July at their Lusaka, Zambia summit, where they endorsed the African Model Law on Biosafety. At the same meeting, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) began its transformation into the African Union (AU).
The new Model Law specifically criminalizes use of genetic engineering for hostile purposes with penalties including incarceration and fines. These apply to persons, organizations, and corporations. If a corporation is responsible, its chief executive officer may be held accountable. In addition, African courts may prohibit anyone convicted of violating the law from conducting future biotechnology research.
The Model Law is designed to implement provisions of the UN's Biosafety Protocol and is a fully-developed legislative "template" that the AU recommends its members adapt and enact into national law. Penalty specifics, such as the size of fines and length of jail sentences, are determined according to national standards by the former OAU's fifty three member countries.
The Sunshine Project and other non-profits have congratulated the African Union on its decision, citing it as exemplary of the robust and comprehensive law needed internationally to avert the hostile use of biotechnology. Africa led the world in the successful negotiation of the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol and is doing so again in criminalizing hostile use of genetic engineering. Because of the immense dangers posed by abuse of biotechnology, AU member states should implement stiff criminal penalties and continue their innovative work to make biosafety laws and biological weapons control mutually supportive.
The criminal sanctions in the Model Law are applicable to persons who create or use GMOs that damage "human health, biological diversity, the environment, or property". This means that protection is provided for people, plants, crops, soils, and the natural and built environment, including items such as foodstuffs, vehicles, shelter, buildings, and other property and infrastructure.
The latter items, some not traditionally considered biological weapons targets, have emerged as an area of increased concern. Earlier this year, US military officers called for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to be changed to permit GMO microbes that destroy inanimate property. In recent years, government funded biodefense researchers in at least 4 countries have used genetic engineering to create biological agents that are more pathogenic or difficult to stop. The US has gone a step further: US Navy researchers have developed GMO bacteria that destroy plastics. As a former senior US Marine Corps scientist told US defense researchers last year, "There is almost nothing that some bug won't eat."
Africa's Model Law is proactive and does not only apply after damage is done. It covers multiple phases of biological weapons research and use by prohibiting "development, acquisition, application, or deliberate release" of a GMO - or a product thereof - with the intention of causing harm. Coupled with the import regulations of the Model Law, enacting the provisions on hostile use will also give African countries an important tool to detect, prevent, and punish the entry of biological weapons.
In the area of genetic engineering, the African Model Law echoes the broader prohibitions of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, which covers not only genetically modified biological weapons; but development of all biological agents and toxins for hostile purposes. More than 140 countries are parties to the BTWC and many have enacted national implementing legislation that laws such as the Model Law complement. The Cartagena Biosafety Protocol was adopted in January 2000 and opened for signing in May of last year.
The New York Times
Suzanne Kapner
LONDON
People close to discussions were cited as saying in this story that Bayer A.G., the German chemical and pharmaceutical company, has reached a tentative agreement to buy Crop- Science, an agricultural chemicals business, from Aventis for roughly $5 billion and that Bayer would also assume some $1.7 billion in debt.
All that stands in the way of a final deal I an approval by the Aventis trade union, a process that could take two weeks, these people said. Bloomberg News was cited as reporting, citing a union official, that StarLink, the genetically modified corn that found its way into food products last year even though it is not approved for human consumption, would remain with Aventis.
Aventis and Bayer said in July that they were in exclusive talks, after Bayer edged out two other bidders, BASF of Germany and Dow Chemical (news/quote) of the United States.
GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS FOR POOR FARMERS: MYTH OR REALITY?
September 2001
CIMMYT
Timothy G. Reeves and Kelly A. Cassaday
http://www.cimmyt.org/whatiscimmyt/GlobPublGoods/Global_Public.htm#Are
Are Global Public Goods a Vanishing Commodity? At the start of a new century, the international agricultural research and development community is undergoing a transformation. Powerful forces are acting to expand research opportunities as never before, but at the same time they seem to have raised barriers to research that are greater than any that have been seen in the past. For many years, international agricultural research organizations have worked very effectively to improve the lives of poor people in developing countries. As research funding diminishes, and as quiet scientific controversies become incendiary public debates over patenting life forms and rights to genetic resources, many are questioning how much longer international agricultural research can continue to help poor people. International agricultural research has provided improved seed, better agricultural practices, and information that have helped poor people immeasurably, but the rules of research are changing. Will the new rules transform these so-called "global public goods" into vanishing commodities, or into commodities that poor people cannot hope to access? That is the central question explored in this paper.
The vast majority of the world's poorest farmers still produce crops using farm-saved seed and traditional crop management practices that have been passed down from generation to generation. These can be regarded as a form of "global public goods." Before we discuss why global public goods are important for the world's poor people, and whether developing countries will have access to them ten or twenty years from now, it is useful to explain what we mean by "public goods" and describe some of the problems associated with providing them.
The Potential and Problems of Public Goods: Economists have strict definitions of public goods, but for our purposes it is probably sufficient to describe a public good as a product or service that is easily accessible to all people (it is difficult to exclude anyone from using it) and that can be used by many people at the same time (its use by one person does not preclude its use by any other person). Because the degree of accessibility and the degree of nonrivalry can vary, some public goods are more "pure" than others, but for simplicity we will ignore this distinction. In agriculture, examples of public goods include a high-yielding wheat variety, a labor-saving conservation tillage practice, a market information program broadcast over the radio, and public research in general (Winkelmann 1994) in fact any nonproprietary technology that is freely available to large numbers of people at little or no cost.
Although they may be highly desirable, public goods are not readily produced by profit-oriented private firms, because it is difficult for the producer of a public good to capture enough benefits to compensate the cost of production. To avert so-called "market failure," governments usually provide public goods because it is agreed to be in the interest of society. The Government of India has invested heavily in agricultural research and extension, for example, to improve agricultural production and eliminate the famines that once ravaged the subcontinent. The government stepped in for a number of reasons, including the fact that private companies lack incentives to invest in a large research and development system to produce improved crop varieties that many farmers are too poor to buy. Even if most Indian farmers could afford to buy improved seed, many may choose not to, since they can easily acquire a small supply from a friend or neighbor and multiply it up on their own. Private firms are understandably reluctant to invest in the provision of products or services from which many individuals can be expected to benefit without helping to pay for the cost (a problem that economists term "free riding").
In summary, public goods are goods from which the supplier has difficulty in directly recovering investment costs and earning profits. Difficulty in recovering investment costs and earning profits does not mean that the benefits generated by investing in public goods are small, however. On the contrary, the benefits of public goods may be enormous, even though this may not be readily apparent when they are spread across a large number of beneficiaries. In India, for example, hundreds of millions of people now have access to more food at lower prices, and a major famine has not occurred in many years.
See http://www.cimmyt.org/whatiscimmyt/GlobPublGoods/Global_Public.htm#Are
for the full text.