1. Funding for organic sector under attack
2. transgenic contamination of indigenous corn
3. FARMERS' RIGHTS THREATENED BY BIOTECH INDUSTRY
4. OWNING AGBIOTECH
5. Taverne on Organic
6. Doomsday is not nigh, according to... Lewis Wolpert
---
1. Funding for organic sector under attack
VIC ROBERTSON, The Herald, 21 September 2001
[shortened - rest of article on unrelated issues]
AN influential opposition MP has called for cuts to the amount of taxpayers' money given to organic farming.
David Curry, who chairs the Commons rural affairs committee, said it was clear organic farming was becoming a mainstream activity and creating its own market demand.
"When a sector of the market is expanding and there is a demand, there must be a question mark over the idea of the government putting more money into the sector."
---
2. Farm News from Cropchoice
An alternative news service for American farmers
http://www.cropchoice.com
9/20/01
Mexican government announces transgenic contamination found in corn
(Sept. 20, 2001 ? CropChoice news) - The Mexican government announced earlier this week the transgenic contamination of indigenous corn varieties from the state of Qaxaca.
Though the government had allowed for the importation of genetically modified corn from the United States for grain and industrial uses over the past few years, apparently seed also made it into the country.
The indigenous communities of Mexico have domesticated a diverse range of corn varieties over thousands of years. The grain symbolizes deep cultural, nutritional and economic meaning for them.
---
3. FARMERS' RIGHTS THREATENED BY BIOTECH INDUSTRY
By Juan Lopez Villar, for Third World Network
Although the Food and Agriculture Organisation adopted a resolution in 1989 introducing the concept of farmers' rights, the implementation of these rights over the past decade has been very slow. The recent case of Percy Schmeiser, the Canadian farmer, shows that farmers' rights are being threatened by the biotech industry.
At the end of March, a Canadian judge ordered farmer Percy Schmeiser to pay Monsanto thousands of dollars because a genetically modified (GM) canola variety patented by Monsanto was found growing on his field. This decision was reached even though Schmeiser consistently stated that he did not grow these seeds voluntarily, but that his crops were cross-pollinated by modified plants from another farm. Although several similar lawsuits have been filed against farmers in North America, this is the first case that ended up in a trial.
The customary right of farmers to save, use and exchange their seeds and other planting material is one of the cornerstones of agriculture. Traditionally, farmers have saved their best seeds and used them again the next year.
Now, however, companies sell GM seeds under the agreement that they be used in a single season, forcing farmers to buy the new seed each year. For the first time in history, farmers risk losing the right to save their seeds, and along with that, their autonomy.
Percy Schmeiser's case underlines the increasing tension between farmers and large biotech companies, which with their introduction of patented genes intend to change traditional agricultural patterns forever. The impact of these changes on farming communities worldwide could be tremendous.
In the South, where people will likely not be able to afford high-tech seeds and the associated chemical inputs year after year, the introduction of GM seed varieties presents a particularly grave threat to the food security and food sovereignty of thousands of local and indigenous farming communities.
Seed diversity disappearing: Over 90% of the earth's remaining biodiversity is in Southern countries. Local farming communities have preserved and reused their diverse indigenous seed varieties over generations. Women have been the primary contributors to this form of biodiversity management,identifying and storing seeds each year.
The industrialisation of agriculture, initiated with the Green Revolution, has pushed women aside and undermined genetic resources and the knowledge associated with them through the promotion of a handful of cash crops. Traditional seed varieties suffered another big blow during this process, which also promoted the intensive use of agrochemicals in the environment.
Instead of learning from the mistakes of the past, we have now been thrust into the Gene Revolution. This streamlined form of agriculture promotes the planting of millions of hectares of land with just a few crops, such as Monsanto's Round-up Ready soya, genetically engineered to resist the company's own chemical pesticide. The rapid introduction of just a few GM crops since 1996 is threatening to displace traditional varieties even more aggressively than did the Green Revolution.
Seed security is food security: Plant genetic resources, like maize taken from the heart of Mexico, constitute the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world today. Local and indigenous communities and farmers from all regions of the world have made an enormous contribution to the spread of agriculture.
The customary practice in indigenous and local communities of saving seeds is a key component of their food security, guaranteeing access to the food they need at all times. Shifting seed control into the hands of multinationals would undermine the household food security of these communities.
Strengthening farmers' rights: In 1989, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) adopted a resolution that introduced the concept of farmers' rights. The resolution recognised that farmers have conserved and improved plant genetic resources, the majority of which came from developing countries, over millennia.
It further noted that the importance of these farmers' contributions has not been sufficiently recognised or rewarded. The resolution describes farmers' rights as 'vested in the International Community, as trustee for present and future generations of farmers, for the purpose of ensuring full benefits to farmers, and supporting the continuation of their contributions'.
However, the implementation of these rights over the past decade has been very slow, and the revision of the international undertaking on plant genetic resources in food and agriculture under the FAO has not provided strong provisions to protect farmers' rights.
Farmers' rights must be strengthened, and they must retain their rights to save seeds. Farmers who choose not to grow GM crops should not be punished by corporations seeking to control traditional resources, and cases like that of Percy Schmeiser should not be repeated.
Juan Lopez Villar is with FoE (Friends of the Earth) Europe, and the FoEI GMO Programme. The above article first appeared in the magazine LINK (April/June 2001). When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings. Third World Network Features is a unique, reliable, independent features service, monitoring the world through Third World Eyes, rather than blindly reproducing the self-serving assertions of the Western media. The feature service is available by email. We have special low rates for medium and small newspapers.
Postal address: Third World Network Features, Above Mapusa Clinic, Mapusa 403 507 Goa, India Our phone numbers: 91-832-263305; 256479 Fax: 91-832-263305 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
---
4. OWNING AGBIOTECH
17 September by Ann M. Thayer, Chemical & Engineering News, Volume 79, Number 38. CENEAR 79 38 pp. 25-32, ISSN 0009-2347
Consolidation, significant investments in R&D, and savvy market development have created just a few major forces in agbiotech as a handful of companies have spent billions of dollars over the past decade to buy most of the first generation of small agricultural biotechnology companies, major seed producers, and others' agrochemical operations. Driven by the need to consolidate in a dismal agrochemical market, these developers of agbiotech products also were trying to build technology bases and market access. They've succeeded and while antitrust authorities watched the combinations closely, the result is that Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow Chemical, and Aventis CropScience dominate agbiotech today.
Consolidation can combine complementary resources, result in lower cost production, and create needed economies of scale but opponents of agribusiness consolidation, if not of agbiotech itself are alarmed by what they see as unprecedented control over markets, technology, and, some say, the very processes of life.
Many groups now questioning the scope and use of agbiotech Intellectual Property fundamentally oppose genetic transformations and the patenting of living things. Others are concerned that genetic resources are being removed from the public domain and claimed as private property.
Public-sector research institutions, such as USDA's Agricultural Research Service, have increasingly shifted their plant-breeding research toward conservation and characterization of plant genetics resources relatively neglected by the private sector while industry, on the other hand, has focused largely on input traits and major crops where large markets offer opportunities for a return on investment. Many involved in agricultural research say that this division between public and private efforts--and the diversity it brings to research””is both positive and needed. Others, however, believe industry's alignment of R&D and profit incentives has led to a neglect of large segments of agriculture.
Whereas developing countries may not face patent obstacles today, the complex and contentious area of global intellectual property law is shifting. The implementation of new international agreements--now being finalized under the auspices of the World Trade Organization and United Nations--is likely to alter how intellectual property is protected and enforced. The new rules will bring about even more changes in agricultural practices; use of genetic resources; and agbiotech research, investment, and commercialization.
Full article:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/7938/7938agbiotech.html
---
5. Taverne on Organic
[for Taverne's close connection to Krebs and other organic attackers/GM proponents see: ttp://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scisale.htm]
excerpt: What can the organic movement contribute to the vital next step? It cannot help the development of drought- resistant crops that can grow in arid or semi-arid land. Its productivity cannot compare with the immense possibilities presented by GM technology. Yields from organic crops do not even approximate to those from conventional farming. The simple fact is that organic farming requires more land. The world need is for farming that uses less land. The promotion of organic farming is at best irrelevant to world needs and at worst a major obstacle. Last, but not least, the fashion for organic farming is one of many manifestations of the spread of a mood of anti-science.
from long article in Prospect, September 20, 2001
---
6. : Doomsday is not nigh, according to the data
Lewis Wolpert [for Wolpert's close connection to Taverne/Krebs and other organic attackers/GM proponents see: http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/scisale.htm]
The Independent 20/09/2001,
excerpt: I have some suspicions about the environmental movement. This was increased when I recently reviewed Playing Safe: Science and the Environment by Jonathan Porritt. He claims that modern science is not in a fit state, either philosophically or methodologically, to meet the challenge of sustainability. I concluded that he is a fundamentalist, in the environmental sense; what understanding does he have of science? So when Cambridge University Press sent me the proofs of The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg I was impressed by his emphasis on a scientific approach to environmental problems, and gave the book a positive puff for the back cover. A few weeks ago Lomborg was in London and to have a debate on his views with the editor of The Ecologist magazine, Edward Goldsmith. The theatre at the Royal Institution was full, but no Goldsmith or any other environmental fundamentalists, like Greenpeace, came to have a formal debate. So instead Lomborg gave us a lecture followed by a vigorous response from the audience. His key message is that doomsday is not nigh, and as a statistician he uses data and science to justify his claims. He is fully aware that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. But his data show that worldwide, almost everything has got better. For example, the average number of calories per individual consumed each day has increased significantly in both the developed and developing world. (This is not to say that there are not people who are short of food.)