FOCUS ON ASIA
http://www.gmwatch.org/asia.asp

from Zakir Kibria of BanglaPraxis

Dear all, you are probably aware that USAID has recently started a project to introduce GM crops in Bangladesh. Citizens have been writting letters to newspapers to voice their concerns about GM crops. Surprisingly Professor V. Moses Chairman, CropGen panel, London has responded to one of those letters ! (the letter is pasted at the end of this mail) CropGen is a biotech industry-funded lobby group led by a scientific panel whose aim is to 'make a case for GM crops' worldwide. Cropgen describes itself as, 'An education and information initiative for consumers and the media on the subject of crop biotechnology'. Until the end of 2003 CropGen was run by PR company Countrywide Porter Novelli. Since then it has been run by Lexington Communications which also represents the UK biotechnology industry funded lobby group the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC), as well as Monsanto, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Syngenta, and the Crop Protection Association.

Given the fact that this is the first GM crops initiative in Bangladesh, the letter from Professor V. Moses Chairman, CropGen panel, London shows that GM industry and pro-GM lobby and PR groups very organized and promoting GM vigorously. We activists fighting GM have a tough task ahead of us.

Best, zakir kibria
BanglaPraxis
Dhaka, Bangladesh
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Letters to Editor
GM foods
Professor V. Moses Chairman, CropGen panel, London
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/10/20/d41020111084.htm

It was sad to read in The Daily Star that anti-GM hysteria is being stirred up in Bangladesh.

In his first paragraph, Mr. Abdali Dhaka ("Like to eat GM food?" Letters to Editor, October 9th) tried to paint a scene like that with allusion to killer tomatoes and "...sinister coinage, Frankenfood to remind us of it." "A major war is being fought over the issue in Europe", he wrote. It is not quite a major war but rather a series of skirmishes. On the one side, he lists the "global giants" (the first one of which is actually seven times smaller than the UK's major supermarket chain) and "the governments they control". Government leaders will be interested to know that they are controlled by seed producers because more commonly it is the oil companies who are said to hold the reins of influence.

On the other side.....but he neglects to mention the other side. It is certainly not the people of Europe. In Britain, for instance, serious in-depth studies have shown major consumer indifference to the whole issue (in one UK study last year some 75% of people said they did not even bother to read labels for GM content) as well as a clear influence of price; consumers often say they will buy if GM good are significantly cheaper. The lower the price, the more people would be willing to purchase.

In Germany earlier this year the effect of price advantage was put to the test. Customers who were offered loaves of bread and portions of French fries labelled "GM" at reduced prices bought them five and twenty times, respectively, more frequently than the supposed "non-GM" options (which were actually identical).

That other side ignored by Mr. Dhaka comprises chiefly the so-called "environmental" groups, those self-styled guardians of the public interest whose main concern appears to be their own aggrandisement through membership, money and influence. They claim to speak for the public but never seek their mandate. They are accompanied in their opposition by parts of the organic food-producing sector, concerned at losing some of their market share when better quality and cheaper GM foods reach the shelves.

With labelling legislation in place, the expectation in Europe is that GM food products will increasingly appear on the shelves in the coming months.