The inconvenient truth about GM
Saturday, 18 May 2013 22:29
NOTE: More on the non-GM breakthroughs that are massively outpacing GM:
http://www.gmwatch.org/component/content/article/31-need-gm/12348
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The inconvenient truth about GM
Geoffrey Lean
Telegraph, 17 May 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/10064255/The-inconvenient-truth-about-GM.html
*Genetic modification has so far mainly been confined to developing crops that tolerate herbicides and resist pests. It has done little to increase yields
Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Middle East’s fertile crescent, happenstance sowed the seeds of much of modern agriculture. Pollen from a wild goat grass landed on primitive wheat, creating a natural – but stronger and more productive – hybrid. Alert early farmers saved its seeds for growing their next harvests, starting a long process of development that has led to all the modern varieties of wheat that feed a third of the world’s people.
Now scientists at Britain’s National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) have deliberately duplicated that ancient accident, with a different goat grass, in an attempt to restart – and enormously accelerate – the process with new genes. Early indications are that this could increase wheat yields by a dramatic 30 per cent.
The National Farmers’ Union president, Peter Kendall, describes the potential as “just enormous”. And it is indeed the sort of breakthrough we desperately need, since – in little more than 35 years – the world will have to increase food production by a challenging 70 per cent if it is to feed its growing population. In the next half century, adds the NIAB, we will have to grow as much wheat as has been harvested since that original hybridisation occurred at the dawn of agriculture.
Hunger is rapidly rising up the agenda. David Cameron missed this week’s crucial vote on the Europe referendum because he was in New York to co-chair a UN panel setting new targets for tackling it, and will host a special hunger summit next month. And two important new books outlining solutions will feature at a session on “feeding the world” at the Telegraph Hay Festival, opening next week.
One is by Prof Sir Gordon Conway, formerly both President of the Rockefeller Foundation and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for International Development, who is one of the most thoughtful supporters of genetic modification. But what emerges from his book, "One Billion Hungry", from this week’s breakthrough, and from a host of other evidence, is how little – so far, at least – GM technology is contributing to beating hunger.
It was not involved in the NIAB’s quantum leap, which was due to conventional breeding techniques. Nor was it involved, to give an example from Prof Conway’s book, in developing new varieties of African rice, called Nerica, which are up to four times as productive as traditional varieties, contain more protein, need a much shorter growing season, resist pests and diseases, thrive on poor soils and withstand drought.
The same is true of another of his superstars, Scuba Rice, which beats flooding by surviving 17 days underwater and still achieving enhanced yields – and, within three years, had been taken up by 3.5 million Asian farmers.
CGIAR – the international consortium of research centres that developed this miracle rice (and kicked off the Green Revolution more than half a century ago) – has also used non-GM techniques to produce more than 30 varieties of drought-tolerant maize, which have increased farmers’ yields by 20 to 30 per cent across 13 African countries; climbing beans that have trebled production in Central Africa; and wheats that thrive on salty soils. A host of other successes include blight-resistant potatoes and crops enriched with vitamin A, iron and other essential nutrients.
Genetic modification, by contrast, has so far mainly been confined to developing crops that tolerate herbicides (often manufactured by the same company, thus encouraging their use) and resist pests. They have done little to increase yields per se – though they have helped by controlling weeds and insects – while varieties designed to withstand drought and floods, and improve nutrition, are only now beginning to emerge.
GM may be able to do jobs that more conventional techniques cannot manage: conferring heat resistance to cope with global warming is one candidate. But the impression often given by its proponents that it is the main source of new crops, and thus essential to feed the world, could hardly be further from the truth.
Nor is biotechnology all GM. The Nerica rices, for example, owe their existence to cell tissue culture. Scuba rice was produced through the technique of marker-assisted selection, which identifies and enables the use of a whole sequence of genes.
But in the end new crops can only do so much. Most of the hungry, in a bitter irony, are themselves farmers who cannot produce, or afford, enough of it – and the new seeds are often beyond their reach. Prof Conway stresses the importance of helping such small, subsistence farmers grow more but it is the second book "The Last Hunger Season" – whose author, Roger Thurow, will be at Hay – that goes into detail on how to get them the help they need. Just as 10,000 years ago, the future rests on them.
GM sprouts, flatulence, and hot air
Saturday, 22 December 2012 11:53
1. GM sprouts "could blow away flatulence"
2. Letter from Dr Brian John, GM Free Cymru to Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society
NOTE: In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Prof John Pickett, who's in charge of the GM wheat trial at Rothamsted, claimed that genetic engineering can produce flatulence-free sprouts (item 1). He stated that some of the flavour of the sprouts would be lost, but the sprouts would be smell-free.
http://www.dbtechno.com/curiosity/2012/12/21/brussel-sprouts-flatulence-free-finally/
Pickett was talking about reducing the sulphur-containing compounds in Brussels sprouts.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9760180/Could-Brussels-sprouts-become-flatulence-free-vegetable.html
However, the sulphur compounds in cruciferous veg like sprouts have anti-cancer properties.
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=45
Did Pickett stop to think that tinkering with the levels of sulphur compounds in sprouts might change their anti-cancer properties? Apparently not.
Everyone who owns a television in the UK has to pay a yearly licence fee to the BBC for the privilege of inhaling this pro-GMO hot air.
We weren't the only ones to feel shocked at what the BBC considers "science". Dr Brian John was prompted to write to Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, who will likely be pumping out more foul-smelling GMO propaganda in his role as guest editor of the Today programme just after Christmas (item 2).
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1. GM sprouts "could blow away flatulence"
BBC Radio 4
21 December 2012
Radio broadcast available here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9780000/9780430.stm
Brussels sprouts are often associated with digestive problems and flatulence.
The Nobel Prize winning biologist and President of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse will be guest editing the Today programme on 27 December and is keen to look into how the world is going to have to overcome public hostility to genetically modified (GM) crops if a growing global population is to be fed.
The Today programme's science correspondent Tom Feilden examines whether it could be that by solving the flatulence associated with the sprout - researchers could blow away the clouds of mistrust hovering over other GM food.
"We could have a more, what shall we say, inert Brussels sprout," said Professor John Pickett, the leader of a GM wheat trial at the Rothamsted research institute.
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2. Letter from Dr Brian John, GM Free Cymru
to Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society
21 December 2012
Dear Sir Paul
I have just heard the piece from the Today programme in which John Pickett waxes lyrical about GM brussels sprouts without the side effects. I thought for a moment that it was April 1st… but then I thought that if this is the sort of thing that GM scientists are thinking about, God help us all.
I understand that you will be "promoting the science agenda" as guest editor of the Today programme on 27th December. Well, I wish you luck in that, since the public needs to be assured that scientists are both competent and honest.
However, it appears that one of your objectives is to examine how public hostility towards GMOs might be overcome, so that GM scientists can help in the noble task of feeding the world.
Why do you see it as part of your job to promote the interests of the GM industry? That industry, whose sole interest in feeding the world is linked to its own desire for total control of both the seed supply and the agrichemical supply, needs no help from anybody - and anybody who has eyes to see must realise that corporations like Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta fully deserve their black reputations. Do you really think that these corporations are good at science? They are indubitably good at technology, but they have absolutely no understanding of scientific ethics and they have long histories of involvement in scientific fraud, bribery, the vilification of independent scientists, and other deeply unpleasant activities. They have not the slightest idea what the Precautionary Principle is, and they are actively seeking to dismantle the regulatory system that (whatever its shortcomings may be) does try to protect public safety. You may not count these corporations among your friends, but if you are promoting GMOs you are also promoting their interests - and it would be disingenuous of you to pretend otherwise.
And why should you consider it as part of your brief as President of the Royal Society to seek to overcome public hostility to GMOs? Is it because you think that such hostility arises from scientific ignorance and from a resistance to change? Please think again. Public resistance to GMOs is a great deal more sophisticated than you pretend. People are not stupid. They actually do remember that the Government's own farm-scale trials showed that GM crops are bad for the environment. They know that GM foods bring NO consumer advantages in terms of product taste, nutritional value, shelf life, cost or anything else.
They know about super-weeds and super-bugs, and they are aware that GM monocultures are associated with massive socio-economic disruption. They know that there is accumulating evidence of harm to mammals which have consumed GMOs and residues of herbicides - and they are more than a little upset when the independent scientists who seek to draw this research to the attention of the public and the media are systematically vilified by the very scientific establishment which you are a part of. Nor do they forget the despicable role played by the Royal Society in the vilification and dismissal of Arpad Pusztai back in 1999.
Please get real here. The public is deeply suspicious about GMOs, with good reason. The only way in which that suspicion can be overcome by the science community is for that community to become more competent, to be less susceptible to vested interests, to show greater respect to scientists who discover "uncomfortable" things about GMOs, and to accept that matters like global food security, food sovereignty and long-term sustainability require social and political solutions, and not techno-fixes.
I will appreciate the courtesy of a reply.
With best wishes for a very happy Christmas.
Sincerely,
Dr Brian John
Canada first to approve Dow's 2,4-D crops
Friday, 17 May 2013 20:51
EXTRACT: Dow said the new crops and herbicide are safe and effective. But critics contend that Dow's plans will only add to weed resistance problems, and the 2,4-D chemical component in the Enlist herbicide is unsafe for humans and animals as well as the environment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised Dow AgroSciences on Friday when it said it wanted to further scrutinize Dow's proposed new Enlist crops, a move that delays Dow's commercialization plans in the United States.
Canadian regulators have already approved Enlist corn and soybeans and Dow said it will speed up seed production for a commercial launch.
NOTE: This needs to be seen in the light of Canada's muzzling of scientists to help suppress environmental and health concerns, the makeover of the country’s flagship research labs so that industry sets their agenda, and of course its environmentally catastrophic exploitation of dirty tar sands oil.
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Canada approves Dow's new Enlist Duo herbicide
Carey Gillam
Reuters, May 16 2013
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/16/dowagrosciences-herbicide-idUSL2N0DX0OL20130516
Canadian regulators have given a green light to Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical Co, to introduce a controversial new herbicide meant to control spreading weed resistance, Dow said on Thursday.
Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) approved "Enlist Duo" herbicide for use in Canada, making it the first country to authorize the new herbicide.
U.S.-based Dow AgroSciences' Enlist herbicide is designed to be used alongside new biotech crops for which Dow is seeking approval. These biotech crops are able to tolerate Enlist herbicide, which helps farmers more easily treat fields for problem weeds.
Millions of acres of weeds throughout North America have become resistant to the popular Roundup herbicide, which is used in conjunction with "Roundup Ready" herbicide-tolerant crops. Dow sees its Enlist system as an alterative.
"Managing hard-to-control and resistant weeds is one of the biggest problems farmers are facing, and Enlist is a solution they need to continue moving farming forward," Stan Howell, vice president, North America, Dow AgroSciences, said in a statement.
Dow said the new crops and herbicide are safe and effective. But critics contend that Dow's plans will only add to weed resistance problems, and the 2,4-D chemical component in the Enlist herbicide is unsafe for humans and animals as well as the environment.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised Dow AgroSciences on Friday when it said it wanted to further scrutinize Dow's proposed new Enlist crops, a move that delays Dow's commercialization plans in the United States.
Canadian regulators have already approved Enlist corn and soybeans and Dow said it will speed up seed production for a commercial launch.
Illegal imports of GM maize into the EU?
Thursday, 20 December 2012 21:55
1.Illegal imports of genetically engineered maize into the EU?
2.Germany's Agriculture Minister must not allow undermining of zero tolerance through the back door!
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1.Illegal imports of genetically engineered maize into the EU?
Testbiotech, 20 December 2012
http://testbiotech.org/en/node/753
*SmartStax produces six different insecticides
Munich/Brussels - Testbiotech has informed the new Commissioner Tonio Borg about its suspicions that the genetically engineered maize, SmartStax, has been imported into the EU for years without legal authorisation. It is a joint Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences product, which produces six insecticidal proteins and is tolerant to two herbicides. SmartStax was assessed by the European Food Safety Authority EFSA in 2010, but the results of the assessment were controversial and the maize was not authorised.
"SmartStax is grown in the US on millions of hectares of farmland. In the last few years, around one million tonnes of maize have been imported from the US into the EU. It is highly likely that large amounts of SmartStax were among these imports,” says Christoph Then for Testbiotech. “If US maize importers cannot show that their shipments are free of SmartStax, the shipments must be stopped.”
SmartStax was introduced into the US market in 2009. Since then imports of maize into the EU have been increasing. These imports are mainly used for animal feed. 800.000 tonnes of maize were imported into the EU in 2011. In 2012, the US has so far exported large quantities of its maize harvest despite a reduced yield in many regions due to a severe drought. The harvest from fields with SmartStax should be separated in the US to prevent it being exported to EU markets. However, there are no efficient controls in place since it is difficult to identify. SmartStax consists of several genetically engineered maize events, which are already authorised as single plants and can therefore be easily mistaken.
Seemingly, industry is relying upon the fact that illegal imports will escape the notice of the authorities. It is highly likely that large quantities of SmartStax have already entered the EU. This is because although the EU Commission did not authorise the plants, it equally took no measures to prevent it from being imported. There are thus sufficient grounds for suspecting that large amounts of the US maize imports violate current EU legislation.
SmartStax combines various insecticidal toxins that were originally produced only in soil bacteria. It is grown in the US because pest insects there have increasingly adapted to genetically engineered plants that produce just one single toxin. One of the six toxins in SmartStax (Cry1A105) is artificially synthesized from several bacterial proteins and does not have a true homology in nature. The EU requires that so-called stacked events produced by crossing genetically engineered plants can only be marketed if they have been authorised. They must be checked for risks arising from the interactivity of the various inserted DNA constructs in the plant cells.
SmartStax, however, was never fully investigated. For example, poultry was fed with the kernels for just 42 days to observe weight gain, and no results from feeding trials with kernels or plants to investigate health effects were forwarded to the authorities for the market application in EU. Testbiotech is demanding a new and comprehensive risk assessment of SmartStax and efficient measures to stop its import into the EU.
Contact:
Christoph Then, Testbiotech, Tel +4915154638040,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Further information:
Backgrounder on the maize imports
http://www.testbiotech.de/node/751
More background on risk assessment of SmartStax
http://www.testbiotech.de/en/node/517
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2.Aigner [Germany's Agriculture Minister] must not allow the undermining of zero tolerance through the back door!
Press release: Harald Ebner MP (Alliance 90/The Greens), 20 December 2012
GMWatch rough translation
According to a report from Testbiotech, GM maize is being imported into the EU, although it is not approved in the EU, says Harald Ebner, the spokesman on agro-biotechnology:
The import of the non-EU approved GM corn SmartStax is completely unacceptable.
The report from Testbiotech proves once more how biotech corporations with proactive support from the European Commission and the European Food Safety Authority - EFSA - ignore the critical attitude of European consumers towards genetically modified food and feed. This preference for the biotech industry means attacking the interests of consumers, the GMO-free food industry, and the environment.
The import of GM crops for which there is no detection method in place violates applicable European law. Federal Minister Aigner must demand from the European Commission that an immediate ban on imports of GMO maize from the United States be imposed. The ban must remain in force until the SmartStax corn can be identified clearly and at a reasonable cost for government and industry. If the Commission does not act immediately, Aigner [Germany's Agriculture Minister] must impose an import ban at the national level.
Green Party urges moratorium on GM foods
Friday, 17 May 2013 09:31
Green Party calls Monsanto a top risk to public health and the environment, urges a moratorium on genetically modified food crops
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
Release online at http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=618
For Immediate Release:
Thursday, May 16 2013
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614,
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Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805,
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March Against Monsanto planned for May 25 in cities throughout the world
Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on ecological sustainability: http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-ecological.php
Green Shadow Cabinet: http://greenshadowcabinet.us
WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders said today that biotech giant Monsanto and other powerful biotech companies and agribusinesses are wreaking havoc with the environment, exploiting farmers, and endangering the health of plants, animals, and humans throughout the world.
"Monsanto has gained enormous political power in the U.S., with its tentacles wrapped around Congress and the Obama Administration," said Nancy Allen, former co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and Maine Green Independent Party, and organic small farmer for 40 years. "The reckless introduction of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] into agriculture is turning small farmers into serfs under Monsanto's control, damaging biodiversity, and yielding crops that pose health risks to consumers, as well as livestock and plant populations."
Greens said that the biotech industry has grown into a monopolistic cartel, with Monsanto and two other corporations controlling more than half of the world's commercial seed market (http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/seed-diversity-in-trouble-zwfz1303zkin.aspx).
Occupy Monsanto has organized a "March Against Monsanto" to take place on May 25 in capitals and other cities in 41 countries (http://occupy-monsanto.com / http://occupymonsanto360.org/2013/05/10/march-against-monsanto-may-25-2013 / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto).
"We must hold Monsanto and its executives accountable for the damage they're causing around the world. We must reform campaign finance laws that have given such companies so much influence over Congress and the White House. We also need further research into the effects of GMOs and a moratorium on their use in food crops until these effects are better known. And we demand that GMO products be labeled accurately so that consumers can make informed decisions about what they buy and eat," said Frank Raymond Cetera, Co-Founder and Vice-President of the Alchemical Nursery (http://www.alchemicalnursery.org) and a New York Green.
The plank on agriculture in the Green Party's national platform reads "Applying the Precautionary Principle to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we support a moratorium until safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate funded), long-term tests for food safety, genetic drift, resistance, soil health, effects on non-target organisms, and cumulative interactions." (http://www.gp.org/index.php/green-party-platform-table-of-contents/17-platform/40-iii-ecological-sustainability.html#ag)
Green Party leaders listed several ways in which Monsanto and other biotech firms are abusing their power and threatening public health:
GMO crop strains designed to resist Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide (glyphosate) and GMO animal feed have led to new and more virulent plant, animal, and human diseases. See "Ten Ways Monsanto and Big Ag Are Trying to Kill You - And the Planet" by Alexis Baden-Mayer & Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association, February 1, 2012 (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24800.cfm).
Monsanto and other companies have benefited from generous government subsidies, promotion by the U.S. State Department, and other political favors. On May 13, the Supreme Court ruled that an Indiana farmer must pay Monsanto $84,000 for using the company's genetically engineered "RoundUp Ready" seeds that were mixed into other seeds he had purchased, even though the GMO seeds were not labeled as such (Bowman v. Monsanto Co.; see http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/13-3). See also "Biotech Ambassadors: How the U.S. State Department Promotes the Seed Industry's Global Agenda," Food & Water Watch (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf).
Monsanto's lobbyists have persuaded President Obama and Congress to pass the "Farmer Assurance Provision" in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act (2013), nicknamed the "Monsanto Protection Act" because it blocks the power of federal courts to halt the sale or planting of GMO seeds, regardless of any harmful health effects caused by the seeds. Greens support the repeal of irrelevant sections of this legislation.
Monsanto's influence has resulted in the appointment of the company's former executives to top positions in the FDA's food safety division, including Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods. Greens called these appointments a blatant conflict of interest that inhibits government-funded research on the effects of GMO products. See also "Will Monsanto Ties Influence Nutritionists' Stance on GMOs? Conflicts of interest at the top dieticians' group could undermine its effort to weigh in on genetically modified food" by Tom Philpott, Mother Jones, April 13, 2013 (http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/04/gmo-dieticians-monsanto-california)
Monsanto has extended its power by making small farmers dependent on GMO seeds, through patents and contracts. "Nowhere has the connection between Monsanto's fortunes and farmers' misfortunes been so clear as in India where 200,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997. For many Indian farmers growing Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt cotton, suicide is their only means of escaping the debt they've accrued to obtain the seeds and pesticides." (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24800.cfm)
Scientists have warned about serious environmental effects of GMO products, including reduced biodiversity, contamination of non-GMO farms and natural areas with GMO seeds and pesticides, loss of diverse "heritage seeds" developed over thousands of years through traditional agriculture, and collapse of bee populations around the world because of neonicotinoids in agricultural insecticides.
See also:
"Who Will Control the Green Economy?"
ETC Group, November 1, 2013
http://www.etcgroup.org/content/who-will-control-green-economy-0
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