"THE HOPE OF THE INDUSTRY IS THAT OVER TIME THE MARKET IS SO FLOODED (WITH GM) THAT THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT, YOU JUST SORT OF SURRENDER." - Don Westfall, vice-president Promar International, major US food industry consultancy
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As Pants over London give way to reveal Bush in Europe, thanks to Claire Robinson for this, including introductory comment.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

"We are very hopeful that last domino will fall," said Bob Callanan, a  spokesman for the American Soybean Association, a trade group that  supports the use of gene-altered crops. "That's why the environmentalists  are putting up a stink down there in Brazil. They know if that goes, it's  all gone."

That would be a huge victory for biotechnology companies...

Andrew Cash, an analyst who follows the biotechnology industry at UBS  Warburg, says that Europe already has little choice but to accept the  crops, largely because Monsanto's Roundup Ready Soybeans, the primary  biotech variety, are so widespread.

"Europe is learning its first lesson in the `beggars can't be choosers'  world of agricultural reality ”” it's G.M.O. beans or no beans," Mr. Cash  wrote last January.

...the companies are calling on regulators in many countries to relax tolerance standards for crops, to avoid trade, labeling and legal  problems.

..."If your standard is 100 percent pure," she said, "you better stop eating right now." - Jeanne Romero-Severson, professor of agriculture,  Purdue University
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America has managed the brilliant coup of polluting the world's food  supply with foods whose safety for human consumption has not been tested, let alone established.

Depressing if taken at face value, or is this just a planted warning from  Bush and cronies prior to his visit to Europe, that resistance is futile?  

As Biotech Crops Multiply, Consumers Get Little Choice
By DAVID BARBOZA
New York Times
CHICAGO, June 9

Despite persistent concerns about genetically modified crops, they are  spreading so rapidly that it has become almost impossible for consumers  to avoid them, agriculture experts say.

More than 100 million acres of the world's most fertile farmland were  planted with genetically modified crops last year, about 25 times as much  as just four years earlier. Wind-blown pollen, commingled seeds and  black-market plantings have further extended these products of  biotechnology into the far corners of the global food supply ”” perhaps  irreversibly, according to food experts.

"The genie is already out of the bottle," said Neil E. Harl, a professor  of agriculture and economics at Iowa State University, speaking of  genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.'s. "If the policy tomorrow was  that we were going to eradicate G.M.O.'s, this would be a very long  process. It would take years if not decades to do that."

Most of the biotech fields are soybeans and corn planted in North and  South America, the biggest food exporters. But biotech crops ””genetically  altered to do things like release their own insecticide or withstand the  spraying of weed-killing chemicals" are being shipped or experimented  with in many other countries, including China, India, Australia and South Africa.

They are even turning up where people least expect them: in countries  where they are banned but a black market has developed; in food supplies  where they are forbidden or shunned, like organic products; even in  fields that farmers believe are completely free of genetically modified  crops.

The rapid adoption and proliferation means that even as scientists and  others debate the safety of altering foods' genetic codes to produce  cheaper and bigger supplies, a large share of the world's population has little or no choice but to consume  genetically modified crops.

One indication came last year when Starlink, a variety of genetically  modified corn not approved for human consumption, accidentally entered  the global food supply, leading to extensive food recalls in the United States and Japan over fears it could  cause allergic reactions.

Starlink has not been shown to be harmful; indeed, there is little  evidence that biotech foods are dangerous to humans. But the episode  showed that seeds planted on less than 1 percent of America's corn acreage could easily spread from farm to farm,  contaminate the nation's grain handling system and seep into global food  supplies.

Seed companies, farmers, processors and food makers have spent more than  $1 billion in the last six months trying to eradicate Starlink. But most  experts agree that will take years.

In the meantime, experts say the spread of biotech crops creates an  entirely new set of trade, regulatory and legal problems:

* Large countries with policies limiting the use of genetically modified  crops may soon have to change course, because they will not be able to  get enough nonbiotech crops to meet their import needs.

* Regulators are under pressure to develop new standards to determine  what is and is not genetically modified ””a situation complicated, as the  Starlink episode demonstrated, by the commingling and cross- pollination  of different crops.

* Big food and agriculture companies are facing legal and public  relations challenges, because some farmers and consumers believe their  products have been contaminated.

Gene-altered crops are already ubiquitous in the United States, where the  Food and Drug Administration has deemed them "entirely safe." But Europe  and parts of Asia remain wary of the crops, and there have been moves in  those regions to halt or slow their import.

Skeptics say that tampering with nature could inadvertently alter  species, harm wildlife and give rise to new problems, like  herbicide-resistant "superweeds." They also worry about the long-term  health consequences of eating foods that are armed with insecticides and  foreign genes. And the critics suspect that the industry has  intentionally flooded the world market with genetically altered seeds to  pre-emptively settle the question of whether or not to adopt  biotechnology.

Opponents expected Starlink to be a turning point in the fight against  genetically altered crops. But while the episode helped stall the advance  of genetically modified wheat, potatoes and sugar, it seems to have  served as proof, over all, of biotech's inexorable spread. Most food  makers in the United States continue to use biotech crops, insisting they  are safe and far too pervasive to avoid; meanwhile, relatively few  American consumers seem to care.

Perhaps more important, the bulk of American grain sold for domestic and  international use goes into animal feed, and thus far few farmers or big  companies have opposed feeding biotech grain to livestock.

Indeed, biotech industry officials believe the game is nearly won. The  United States, Brazil and Argentina account for about 90 percent of the  world's corn and soybean exports. Bulk shipments from the United States  and Argentina are predominantly biotech. And Brazil is widely believed to  have a black market in biotech soybeans.

If Brazil legalizes biotech production, Europe and Asia ””the world's two  biggest purchasers of soy”” would have almost nowhere to turn for adequate  supplies of nonbiotech soybeans. Environmentalists in Brazil have  protested biotechnology, and though the government there is split,  industry officials in the United States say that Brazil is leaning toward  allowing the use of genetically modified seeds.

"We are very hopeful that last domino will fall," said Bob Callanan, a  spokesman for the American Soybean Association, a trade group that  supports the use of gene-altered crops. "That's why the environmentalists  are putting up a stink down there in Brazil. They know if that goes, it's  all gone."

That would be a huge victory for biotechnology companies. Monsanto,  Aventis, Syngenta and others have spent billions of dollars to create the  crops, and some independent groups, including the United Nations, promote  them as one answer to world health and hunger problems.

Andrew Cash, an analyst who follows the biotechnology industry at UBS  Warburg, says that Europe already has little choice but to accept the  crops, largely because Monsanto's Roundup Ready Soybeans, the primary  biotech variety, are so widespread.

"Europe is learning its first lesson in the `beggars can't be choosers'  world of agricultural reality ”” it's G.M.O. beans or no beans," Mr. Cash  wrote last January.

Food companies are already having a hard time obtaining nongenetically  modified crops. Grain handlers like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill  are charging extra to segregate and test crops to certify that they are  nonbiotech.

And that is becoming harder to do. Some agriculture experts say that  cross-pollination of biotech corn and seed corn, as well as poor and  imperfect grain-handling practices, have thoroughly scrambled crops in a  global food chain that for decades shipped bulk supplies of largely  undifferentiated products.

Food makers around the world are finding traces of gene-altered crops in  foods that were not supposed to be made with them; Midwestern farmers are  complaining that wind is blowing pollen from gene-altered crops into  neighboring fields planted with conventional corn.

Even organic crops labeled "G.M. Free" are testing positive for genetic  modification. Organic growers are now considering a class-action lawsuit  against the biotech industry that would seek damages for the  contamination.

"We have found traces in corn that has been grown organically for 10 to  15 years," said Arran Stephens, president of Nature's Path Foods, an  organic producer of breads and cereals based in Delta, British Columbia. "There's no wall high enough to keep  that stuff contained."

Some critics of biotechnology see a sinister plot at work, with the  industry ignoring the implications of widespread pollen flow and perhaps  even encouraging a black market in biotech crops.

"They're hoping there's enough contamination so that it's a fait  accompli," said Jeremy Rifkin, a longtime critic of biotechnology.  "But the liability will kill them," he said. "We're going to see lawsuits  across the Farm Belt as conventional farmers and organic farmers find  their product is contaminated."

The world's biggest biotech seed companies acknowledge that some pollen  may go astray. And they acknowledge that they cannot guarantee that even  the conventional seed they sell is 100 percent free of genetic  modification.

Agriculture, they say, is prone to mishaps.

"By and large, where there are crops grown, and where G.M. materials are  approved, the issue is with us," said Dean Oestreich, a vice president at  Pioneer Hi-Bred, the world's largest seed company. "Our basic seed stocks  are pure. But there's always adventitious presence, which means small  amounts of unintentional presence through pollen flow and physical  mixing."

Because of all this commingling, the companies are calling on regulators  in many countries to relax tolerance standards for crops, to avoid trade,  labeling and legal problems.

Zero tolerance, said Jeanne Romero-Severson, a professor of agriculture  at Purdue University, is simply not realistic.  "If your standard is 100 percent pure," she said, "you better stop eating  right now."