From time to time we get feedback here at GM WATCH - some of it by no means favourable!

Some of the least favourable has come from supporters of CS Prakash, President of the AgBioWorld campaign, a speaker at the Vatican-US GM conference last Friday.

Here's the latest, below which is the bulletin that gave offence.
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Subject: Hi
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Hi,

This is rohan. I know you have been writing about
my dad in gm watch. I saw your article about me and
that was just plain mean. If you want to insult me i'm going to insult you fucking dick ass bith whor. Ya you can never talk about me like that cuz 12 year old rohan that's me and say sorry because universal records gave me a record contract and i can make a rap to get you out of business bitch. DO NOT TALK ABOUT MY DAD BECAUSE BIOTECHNOLOGY IS TIGHT AND YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH ME EITHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANswer me back you idiots

,YOur worst enemy
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From the archive:

http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3079
Big Po (Son of Prak) struts his stuff for Big Norm (24/3/2004)

Prakash, Avery & co. are busy milking Norman Borlaug's 90th birthday - and how!

1.Rohan Prakash - Big Po, 11-year-old rapper
2.The Norman Borlaug Rap (Thank You, Norman)
3.GM WATCH Profiles: Norman Borlaug
4.GM WATCH Profiles: Big Po's dad - CS Prakash
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1.Rohan Prakash - Big Po, 11-year-old rapper
http://rohanraps.bravehost.com/

My name is Rohan Prakash. I am 11 eleven years old, and live in Auburn, Alabama, USA. I have been rapping since about a year now.

I am a hip-hop artist and very much committed to being a rap singer. I have made several demo songs of my rap music and hope to post them soon on this website. Right now, I am proud of making 'The Norman Borlaug Rap" as a tribute to this great scientist, whom my dad admires very much.
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/topics/borlaug/borlaug-rap.html

My music producer is DJ Redd of Tuskegee, AL. Many of my songs are written by Rick Sanders, my daycare instructor although I write my own songs and also collaborate with Rick on many. Both have inspired very much and I am really thankful that I have such good mentors who help and encourage me.
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2.EXCERPT from The Norman Borlaug Rap (Thank You, Norman)

[To listen to the song (MP3):
http://www.agbioworld.org/biotech_info/Borlaug_Rap160.mp3
For a picture of the artist:
http://rohanraps.bravehost.com/]

Norman Borlaug, you may be
the greatest man in history.
Using science and your brain
to stamp out hunger, woe and pain.

Creating new varieties
of plants with new technologies.
You're the man we look up to.
That is why we're thanking you.

But then some people started to panic,
telling the farmers to go organic.
Technophobes started making a mess
of Norman Borlaug's great success.

Green groups thought they found the cure
in stinky piles of cow manure
etc.
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3.GM WATCH Profiles: Norman Borlaug
[for all the links: http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=24&page=B]

Norman Borlaug still teaches at Texas A&M university where he is Distinguished Professor in the Soil and Crop Sciences Department. Through his work on breeding a high-yielding dwarf wheat, Borlaug became a key player in the Green Revolution, for which he was awarded a Nobel prize in 1970. Plants bred to increase yields when used in combination with chemical fertilizers proved highly effective in increasing food production. Borlaug has always been an aggressive defender of
intensive agriculture, describing Rachel Carsen, the scientist whose book Silent Spring gave birth to the environmental movement, as 'a force for
evil'.
[continued at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3079 ]
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4.EXCERPT from a profile of CS Prakash
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=106&page=P

Prakash is reported as having told a Tanzanian audience that GM 'doubles production' (The Express, Tanzania, Aug 21, 2002). In fact, as University of Minnesota economist Vernon W. Ruttan has noted: 'Thus far, biotechnology has not raised the yield potential of crops'. There is also some evidence for yield losses rather than gains, particularly with the main GM crop in global production.

Aaron deGrassi at the Institute of Development Studies, at the University of Sussex, provides another striking example of the unscientific nature of some Prakash claims. In his report Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa deGrassi notes, 'Another surprising example of advocacy trumping facts is C.S. Prakash, the influential biotechnology advocate who has advised the US Trade Representative. Prakash has repeatedly cited [GM] sweet potatoes [in] Kenya] as a positive example of the benefits of GM for African countries,] but has confessed to having no knowledge of the results of scientific] trials in Kenya.