from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
From usingenglish.com:
"Perfidious Albion: England is known to some as perfidious Albion, implying that it is not trustworthy in its dealings with foreigners."
Nowhere is this perfidy more evident than in the UK government's dealings with developing countries on GM issues. UK government officials claim to be "neutral" on GM while acting as PR people and enforcers for the US government and the GM industry in vulnerable countries in Africa (LOBBYWATCH).
Don't miss my colleague Jonathan Matthews' analysis of a shockingly shoddy opinion piece on GM crop adoption in Africa which has been published in a supposedly peer reviewed journal (AFRICA).
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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LOBBYWATCH
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
FOOD SAFETY
RESEARCH
CAMPAIGN NEWS
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ UK: GOVT POLICY PUSHES GMOs
Two papers out this week show the direction of UK government policy. One, the DFID Agriculture Policy Paper, outlines the UK government's Dept for International Development's agriculture policy - including commitments to help promote patented new agricultural technologies (i.e. GM seeds).
The other paper - "Science, technology and innovation in Africa - going for growth" - is published by the Smith Institute, a think tank. It's edited by the ardent GM-supporter Calestous Juma and includes a section contributed by Syngenta, as well as a preface written by Gordon Brown, Blair's would-be successor.
There's an interesting indicator in the Syngenta part of the document as to how Syngenta makes use of government access - "Syngenta has been able to work successfully with the authorities in Burkina Faso in supporting their development of regulatory expertise in new technologies".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6021
+ JOUHN VIDAL ON SYNGENTA'S ACCESS TO UK GOVT
The UK Guardian's John Vidal has the following on the new DfID report, pointing out Syngenta's extraordinary access to the government:
[Blair's] Development secretary Hilary Benn today [7 Dec] unveils Britain's long-awaited strategy for agriculture in poor countries, and GM crops, as expected, are to be officially blessed. What happy timing, then, that Michael Pragnell, chief executive of Syngenta, the world's third largest GM company, should be in London last week to give a talk about poverty in Africa at No 11 Downing Street. Listeners included Benn, Treasury and Department for International Development officials, and some of the Commons international select committee. Syngenta's extraordinary access to No 11 came courtesy of the Smith Institute ... which was launching a publication, sponsored by Syngenta and with an essay by Pragnell.
Both organisations were adamant that GM was not on the agenda, even though the government's friendship with the company is clearly blooming. The head of the Syngenta Foundation is former DfID man Andrew Bennett, and DfID's chief scientist is Gordon Conway - who while running the Rockefeller Foundation in the US launched the Nairobi-based group known as the African Agricultural Technology Foundation - with the help of DfID and all major GM companies.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6024
+ BENN DEFENDS AID FOR GM CROPS
The UK Guardian's John Vidal again:
Britain is to direct more foreign aid to develop genetically modified crops in Africa to speed up economic growth on the continent and use modern science and new technologies to tackle hunger. A paper from the Dept for International Development, launched yesterday by international development secretary Hilary Benn, includes commitments to promote patented GM seeds and scientific research by GM firms.
But Mr Benn said that it was up to individual developing countries to decide whether they wanted the controversial technology. "We should work on the basis of good science. I am genuinely neutral about GM," he said. The paper commits the government to channelling much of its new GM research funding through the Africa Agriculture Technology Foundation, based in Kenya, set up in 2003 by the Rockefeller Foundation with American and UK government money and the help of major GM companies.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6029
More on African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF):
AATF's website only lists as donors USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation and the UK Dept for International Development. But oryza.com lists the following biotech corporations as donors to AATF: Monsanto, Dupont, Dow Agro Sciences and Syngenta.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=163
More on DFID:
In 2002, The Independent on Sunday reported that DfID had been running a "GBP13.4m programme to create a new generation of GM animals, crops and drugs throughout the Third World."
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=175
+ STUDY SAYS FARMERS BENEFITING FROM HIGHER YIELDS, LOWER COSTS
An article in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, Monsanto's home town rag, reports, "As the number of commercially available, genetically modified crops grows, so do the benefits reaped by American farmers, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy."
The article goes on to say, "Farmers quickly adopted the technology that allows them to cut down on the use of pesticides and herbicides, boost yield and reduce costs.
"In 2004, biotech crops were planted on 118 million U.S. acres, an increase of 11 percent over the previous year, the study found. Growers using these varieties, as opposed to conventional crops, realized an additional $2.3 billion in income last year - largely due to an increase in yield of 6.6 billion pounds and a reduction in pesticide use of 62 million pounds, the study said."
The claims in the article come from the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy (NCFAP), which the journal Nature describes as "a pro-GM industry group".
And looking at the biotech industry-supporting claims that invariably emerge out of NCFAP studies, it is difficult to know where its research ends and advocacy begins.
According to the article, "Using biotech crops allows growers to plant without tilling the soil, which reduces costs, soil erosion and dust." And a series of environmental benefits are then attributed to GM crops.
But reduced plowing or improved conservation tillage - low- or no-till agriculture, and the benefits that flow from it, do not require GM crops. In the US Dept of Agriculture's own words, "Using herbicide-tolerant seed did not significantly affect no-till adoption."
Land agent Mark Griffiths points out that no-till was introduced on tractor-mechanised and large farms in Paraguay in 1990, long before GM crops. By 1997 51% of Paraguay's total cultivated area was 'no-tilled' without any GM-acreage at all. By contrast, the figure for the US in 2000/1, i.e. 4 years on and after several years of GM crop cultivation, was just 16%!
As for the NCFAP's claims of higher yields, an annual review of the uptake of GM crops for 1998 reported yield improvements of 12% for farmers in the US growing GM soya, based on their own estimates. But a review of over 8,000 university-based controlled varietal trials involving GM soya in the US for that very same year showed almost exactly the opposite - yield reductions averaging 7%.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6025
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THE AMERICAS
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+ ILLINOIS FARMERS WANT TO BE ABLE TO KEEP PATENTED SEEDS
The Illinois Farm Bureau is urging a fresh look at federal laws that bar farmers from keeping patented plants' seeds from one year to the next. The immediate target appears to be Monsanto's patented Roundup Ready soybeans, which comprise more than 80 percent of US soybean production. The Bureau's position is believed to be the first from a large soybean-producing state that challenges Monsanto's patent rights.
GM WATCH comment: Note this interesting comment which is suggestive as to why so many US farmers are "choosing" GM seed: "We think (the resolution is) fair," said Henry Kallal, a delegate who represents farmers in six counties in or near the Metro East. "The farmers I represent say it's virtually impossible to find non-GMO seeds now." And who's been buying up the seed companies?
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6027
+ BRAZIL ENACTS GM LAW
Brazil has enacted a law allowing GM crops and stem cell research, nearly nine months after it was approved by parliament. "The regulation is very important," says Roberto Rodrigues, minister for agriculture. "Finally, we have a law that will let us progress quickly in the research and production of transgenic organisms."
The Brazilian Institute for Consumer Defence, however, says the law breaches Brazil's constitution by giving powers to CTNBio (a biotech 'regulator' with massive conflicts of interest) that should belong to the ministries of health, agriculture and environment.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6023
+ GM COFFEE IN BRAZIL
Brazil is working on GM coffee in an attempt to increase the plant's yields and hardiness, although a rollout is several years away. Research is also being done at the University of Hawaii.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6023
+ ILLEGAL GM CORN FOUND IN BRAZIL
GM corn is being illegally sold in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, according to an accusation by the state deputy Frei Sergio Antonio Gorgen. Frei Sergio received an anonymous tip-off last month that a company in Barao de Cotegipe (north of Rio Grande do Sul) was selling modified corn smuggled from Argentina.
In a sample bought from the company, the researchers found a GM corn (GA21) produced by Monsanto. Tests showed that more than one quarter (27.5 per cent) of the seeds were GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6015
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ASIA
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+ DOCUMENTARY ON GM COTTON "BUSTS MYTHS"
The success of the GM-critical film, The Future of Food, has galvanised the biotech industry's PR machine into subsequently giving us:
* America's Heartland - the pending PBS TV series funded by the American Farm Bureau and Monsanto
* Voices from Africa - a video supposedly produced by the African-American civil-rights (turned-corporate-rights) group CORE but, in fact, funded by its "corporate partner" - Monsanto - and directed and scripted by a film-maker who has worked on other Monsanto projects
* And now: The Story of Bt Cotton in India.
This new documentary comes courtesy of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). ISAAA's funders include Monsanto and just about every other major GM corporation.
According to the new film, "Rapid strides made by India in cotton production in the last three years are nothing short of a dream run for any agrarian economy". The film implies that this is no accident as this period "also coincides with the adoption of Bt cotton".
Curious then that just last week the Indian government admitted that Bt cotton had failed in parts of India, and asked state governments in all cotton growing regions to institute enquiries.
In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, 3 types of Mahyco-Monsanto Bt cotton seeds have been banned because their performance has been so bad. In Madhya Pradesh, the Governor has asked the state government to look into the causes of the failure of Bt cotton in large parts of the State and has called for compensation for farmers.
Dogged by such adverse publicity, the industry is conducting an info-war against the "misconceptions and disinformation" which "continue to constrict the growth potential of this technology".
This documentary, which "clearly captures the way in which adoption of technology has transformed the outlook for growers", will be "translated into seven Indian languages for the benefit of those interested and shown widely in the cotton-growing belt across the country."
It thus forms part of an aggressive and deceptive promotion campaign for Bt cotton which has included everything from Bollywood stars to dancing girls, and which has even attracted the critical notice of India's National Commission on Farmers (NCF), which is headed by a long-time GM promoter - MS Swaminathan.
For the details of this PR campaign see the report, "The marketing of Bt cotton in India: Aggressive, unscrupulous and false" http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5741
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6017
+ PAKISTAN GOVT TO ALLOW BT COTTON FARMING
Pakistan's prime minister Shaukat Aziz has said the government will allow farmers to grow Bt cotton from next year.
GMWATCH comment:
The Indian prime minister this summer spoke of how he and President Bush were going to launch a second green revolution involving biotech. Almost simultaneously, there was announced an "India - Pakistan - US science academies collaborative research programme on agricultural biotechnology".
Clearly, the subcontinent's political leadership has succumbed to the bad idea virus - the dream that biotech is going to be an economic saviour, or as an article from Pakistan put it, "Biotechnology... is expected to surpass Information Technology as the new engine of the global economy; it is expected to alter healthcare, agriculture, commercial and industrial products." The reality, of course, is that biotech has proven a massive money-losing niche industry with, in the case of GMOs, low-to-no consumer acceptance!
Pakistan now appears to be launching itself lemming-like down the same disastrous Bt cotton path that India has already taken - despite the recent admission from the Indian government of the failure of Bt cotton in some parts of the country.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6028
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ WARNING ON BITTER GM HARVEST
GM crops have failed to deliver the economic benefits promised to US farmers and could pose similar problems if adopted in Australia, a former US government bureaucrat has warned.
Australia could lose agricultural export dollars, and farmers could find themselves using more herbicides to control weeds and being sued by other farmers for crop contamination if they chose to grow GM crops, said Charles Benbrook, who worked as an agricultural adviser to the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations.
Dr Benbrook is touring Australia to warn government ministers and farmers about what he believes are the problems with the first decade of GM crops in the US.
But Dr Ian Edwards, a spokesman for the biotech industry body AusBiotech, accused Dr Benbrook of "cherry picking" his statistics to suit his argument. "To blame GM crops for weed resistance has no basis in science."
Weed resistance to herbicides had developed because farmers misused or over-used the chemicals, he said. He said farmers could always change the type of herbicide they used to avoid problems, although he conceded there was a chance weeds would eventually become resistant to the new herbicide.
GMWATCH comment:
Dr Ian Edwards should try telling Stephen Powles, a world expert on weed resistance who directs the Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (WAHRI) at the University of Western Australia,that there's no connection between GM crops and weed resistance. Powles has been warning for years that "Farmers are planting too many Roundup Ready crops".
Powles was recently quoted as saying, "The massive adoption of Roundup Ready across vast slices of the United States - along with the persistent usage of glyphosate [the active ingredient in Roundup] - is a very strong selection pressure. Increasingly, US weeds are surviving glyphosate. And a weed that can survive glyphosate is in herbicide heaven. Its competitors are killed while it can grow and reproduce. This is slowly but surely, and inexorably, occurring."
Edwards also tries to blame farmers for weed resistance, saying it emerged because farmers misused or over-used the chemicals. But these problems have been arising even where farmers have carefully followed the instructions they have been given, as Larry Steckel, a Tennessee Extension weed scientist, has noted.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6019
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EUROPE
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+ MONSANTO SEIZES TRADE UNION'S BANK ACCOUNTS
Monsanto has seized the bank accounts of France's second largest agriculture trade union, Confederation Paysanne. Monsanto's action follows a court judgment after the trashing, in 1998, of GM maize and soya. Confederation Paysanne is calling for increased resistance and support.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6013
+ EU EYES WTO CASE TO DRIVE FORWARD POLICY ON GMOs
Senior EU policymakers are unclear where they stand on GMO foods even after years of debate and are looking to a world trade ruling that may dictate where to move next, diplomats say.
Since 1998, EU member states have not found enough of a voting majority to agree any new GMO approvals. And since the moratorium ended, the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, has rubberstamped five new authorisations on their behalf.
The limbo is reflected at the Commission itself, which says it is following EU law by issuing new approvals - but where nobody seems to be driving policy forward.
The WTO is due to issue its ruling, already delayed several times, in early January.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6014
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AFRICA
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+ SUFFOCATING THE TRUTH OVER GM IN AFRICA
Analysis by Jonathan Matthews, GM Watch (shortened)
There's something about the GM food aid issue that seems to bring out the worst in biotech proponents. The most recent example crops up in Functional Plant Biology, described by its publisher as a "highly cited international journal" which "publishes research of international importance and relevance".
In December, Functional Plant Biology published a piece entitled "Is the European Attitude to GM Products Suffocating African Development?" This article and its abstract have been widely circulated via pro-GM lists and industry websites.
The article claims to examine "the background and reasons behind the condemnation of GM crops by southern African nations", and to consider whether "the lack of support of agricultural biotechnology by European nations has contributed to this situation".
Its author, Greg Bodulovic, concludes that it has. He argues that the rejection of GM crops by countries like Zambia stemmed essentially from, on the one hand, disinformation put into circulation by European NGOs and, on the other, from concerns about loss of access to European markets. Bodulovic also blames disinformation for the fact that European markets became closed to GM foods in the first place.
It is, therefore, ironic that this article, which identifies disinformation as a key driving force behind GM rejection in both Africa and Europe, is itself a good example of what he complains about! For instance, Bodulovic traces opposition to GMOs within the EU back to European media coverage of the research findings of Pusztai and Ewen, which showed that rats suffered adverse effects from consuming GM potatoes. According to Bodulovic, "These adverse effects were unable to be repeated, despite numerous attempts (Appell 2003)". When, however, one follows up Bodulovic's source for this (Appell 2003), it turns out to be a Wired News article!
Still more bizarrely, the Wired News piece has not a word to say about Pusztai and Ewen's research, let alone about the claimed multiple attempts at replication that failed. Bodulovic appears to have cited a source that simply bears no reference to his claim. ...
When it comes to considering why the Zambians rejected GM food aid, this cavalier approach to the facts seems less incidental than wilful. While Bodulovic acknowledges that the decision not to accept GM food aid was made only after a delegation of Zambian scientists had obtained information and advice from various experts in Europe and the United States, he only lists "Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and several other groups fundamentally opposed to agricultural biology (Wilson 2002)"...
[Bodulovic argues that in the light of the 'unsubstantiated and clearly misleading information' presented to the delegation, 'it is unsurprising that the delegation's report took a negative view of agricultural biotechnology'.]
There are a number of problems with this. The first and most obvious is that the Zambian delegation took advice from a range of interested parties, including pro-GM scientists, regulators and other experts. So just why does Bodulovic only list "groups fundamentally opposed to agricultural biology (Wilson 2002)"?
Bodulovic's source (Wilson 2002) is this time a piece in the Daily Telegraph, a right-wing British newspaper with a strongly pro-GM editorial outlook that is clearly reflected in the article. Interestingly, though, even this press piece turns out to be less cavalier with the facts than Bodulovic. The article mentions, for instance, that the Zambian delegation took advice from Prof David KIng, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the British government, as well as from the government's pro-GM Department for International Development (DfID)...
The Telegraph piece also notes that the leader of the Zambian delegation - Dr Mwananyanda Lewanika, a biochemist at Zambia's National Institute for Science and Technology - had 2 science degrees from American universites and had spent five years specialising in biosafety. Given this, it is reasonable to ask why Bodulovic assumes that it is 'unsurprising' that the conclusions of this delegation of Zambian experts would be determined by 'unsubstantiated and clearly misleading information'.
Bodulovic's attitude is something more than just patronising. The sub-text here is straightforward racism: it would be unsurprising if a delegation of African scientists were to be taken in by unsubstantiated and misleading information...
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the publication of Bodulovic's piece in Functional Plant Biology is to be found in the acknowledgements. Here Bodulovic thanks Professor Barry Rolfe, Professor John Gibson, Dr Michael Djordjevic, Dr Jeremy Weinman and Dr Charles Hocart for "their critical readings of the manuscript". He also expresses thanks for his PhD scholarship.
Are we really to believe that this article, apparently connected to a doctoral thesis, and submitted to Functional Plant Biology in early March and only accepted five months later in August 2005, was really subjected to months of critical scrutiny by a series of fellow academics? And is it reasonable to assume that none of them spotted any of Bodulovic's factual inaccuracies or his cherry-picking of questionable source material, let alone that his sources might not actually support claims made in the article?
While the disinformation at the heart of Bodulovic's thesis on Zambian and European decision-making turns out to be his own, the uncritical platform provided for it by a "highly cited international journal" is truly depressing.
Read complete article: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6031
+ MALI'S DAVID VS GOLIATH GM STRUGGLE - BBC REPORT
An excellent report from the BBC says a debate over Bt cotton has erupted in Mali.
EXCERPTS:
In 2004 in Mali, the national agricultural research institute, IER, began a five-year project with the US development agency, USAid, and the transnationals Monsanto and Syngenta to develop and introduce GM crops such as Bt cotton, to the country.
IER scientific coordinator, Siaka Dembele, supports the project. "A lot of Bt cotton is produced in the United States and it seems to be productive there," he says. "And also in developing countries such as China, India and South Africa. We have been given some figures that show that generally Bt cotton is more productive than conventional cotton because of the natural protection of this plant so there is no need for treatments."
Dembele says the use of less pesticide would have both economic and environmental benefits.
"That's an absurd proposition," says Asseto Samake, a professor of genetics and biology at the University of Mali. "The claims they are making for this cotton are absolutely false."
Samake explains that Bt cotton has been modified ... to resist two or three major cotton pests. She says that in Mali there are thousands of cotton pests and that when a few are removed from the natural equation, others will flourish and farmers will still need pesticides.
"If Bt cotton is so profitable," Samake says, "why do they have to subsidise their cotton farmers with billions of dollars in the United States? Our farmers in West Africa achieve record production using just their digging sticks and regular seeds and they have great difficulty selling what they produce, because subsidies in America and Europe have made the world price for cotton fall. So why do they come now with their GMOs and technology to solve a problem that they created? It's a big farce!"
Phone calls to USAid in Mali were not returned.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6026
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FOOD SAFETY
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+ PUSZTAI ON GM PEA STUDY MISINFORMATION
Dr Pusztai has responded to a piece - "Of Mice and GE Peas" - published by AgBioWorld as part of its response to the publication of research showing GM peas caused inflammation in the lung tissues of mice.
The AgBioWorld piece, written by the Australian weed specialist, Dr Christopher Preston of the University of Adelaide, Australia, derides Greenpeace for allegedly failing to get its facts right in a press release about the GM pea study.
Ironically, as Dr Pusztai points out, Preston's own piece is littered with errors - one a schoolboy howler.
Dr Pusztai's response is at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6020
+ NO REGULATORY INVOLVEMENT IN GM PEA STUDY
An article in the Western Mail contains the following piece of pro-GM spin: "Tony Combes is director of corporate affairs with GM company Monsanto UK Ltd. He said... the CSIRO decision to halt research and destroy the GM pea that inflamed lung tissue in laboratory mice showed how the regulatory system was working exactly as intended."
In fact, the regulators never had any involvement in this study by CSIRO or in the decision to halt the research. This was confirmed by the reply to the following Parliamentary question: "what similar independent published scientific research is undertaken by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator and Food Standards Australia New Zealand to assess the health risks to the general public posed by the existing commercialised genetically engineered foods on sale in Australia today?"
The response to the Parliamentary question reads: "FSANZ and the OGTR are regulatory agencies. In common with other such agencies, they do not undertake or conduct research, they evaluate applications... CSIRO's decision to end the research reflects a cautious approach and the ANU [Australian National University, where the research was done] test data were never submitted to regulatory authorities."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6022
+ LATEST PUSZTAI REVIEW PUBLISHED
The latest Pusztai review of GM feeding studies has been published:
A. Pusztai and S. Bardocz: GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks. In "Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals", R. Mosenthin, J. Zentek and T. Zebrowska (Eds.), 2OO5. Elsevier Limited, pp. 513-54O.
Unfortunately, the book is priced at GBP145.00 but libraries may consider taking it.
More info: www.elsevierhealth.com or from Louisa Welch, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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RESEARCH
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+ GM HAS LED TO LOST OPPORTUNITIES IN PLANT SCIENCE
GM has led to a neglect of broader genomics-based approaches for improving crop plants, notably marker-assisted breeding, says Prof Steve Hughes, co-director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society and a historic supporter of GM crops. In an opinion piece in Plant Biotechnology Journal, Hughes responds to several recent reviews of crop plant science in Europe that reveal a picture of resource deficit and missed opportunity: "GM may have swung people's attention away from genomics and crop plant science, but marker-assisted breeding has the potential to be translated into real crop improvement, both for the first and third worlds".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6030
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CAMPAIGN NEWS
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+ CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL INTENSIFIES ANTI-GM CAMPAIGN
Consumers International (CI), the worldwide federation of consumer organisations, together with the Foundation for Consumers, Thailand's leading independent consumer group, has launched a global campaign against GM crops and foods.
A CI release said the "Consumers say NO to GMOs" campaign would press governments and international bodies for a moratorium on GMOs in seeds, crops and foodstuffs, while putting stringent safeguards in place for GM foods already in the market.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6018