*Terminator vista
*No to GMOs and to the privatization of seeds in Canada
*Administration kept mum about rogue corn
*GM - just not on the American public's radar
*Monsanto completes purchase of Seminis
*Find us a place to test GMOs or risk losing billions!

all items from 'agnet' 23 March 2005 - some radically shortened.

one of the items is based on a Rutgers Food Policy Institute survey showing that a majority of Americans are completely clueless about GMOs and the fact they're in about 75% of the processed foods they buy even though Americans have been eating GM foods -- unlabelled -- for nearly a decade.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/11869.html

on that note here are some quotes from a recent interview with the American novelist and commentator Gore Vidal:

"...let us say that the old American republic is well and truly dead. The institutions that we thought were eternal proved not to be.... So we're in uncharted territory. We're governed by public relations. Very little information gets to the people, thanks to the corruption and/or ineptitude of the media...

...we are totally censored, and the press just follows this. It observes what those in power want it to observe, and turns the other way when things get dark.

...the Republican Party as it now is funded, is the party of corporate America, which is no friend to the people of America.

......What is the Republican Party? Well, it used to be the party of the small-town businessman, generally in the Middle West, generally sort of out of the mainstream. Very conservative. It now
represents nothing but the gas and oil business. They own it. And the people who go to Congress are simply bought. They are lawyers who are paid to represent Halliburton, big oil, big banking.

So the very rich corporate America has a party for itself, the Republican Party. The Democrats don't have much of anything but a kind of wistful style.

... [citizens] have been transformed, by design, by corporate America, aided by the media, which belongs to corporate America. They are no longer citizens. They are hardly voters. They are consumers...

from The Undoing of America
Gore Vidal on war for oil, politics-free elections, and the late, great U.S. Constitution
http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1268/article13085.asp
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Terminator vista
New Scientist Issue 2492, Page 30
March 26, 2005

Jack Heinemann University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology, writes that Michael Le Page argues that well-meaning environmentalists overlook the value of seed-sterilising "Terminator" technology in containing genetically modified organisms (26 February, p 23). What he in turn overlooks is the possibility that the rates of mutation and recombination may be high enough to compromise Terminator as a containment strategy if it was used on the scale of commercial agriculture.

Terminator is effective enough, however, to prevent farmers growing crops from saved seed, and potentially to jeopardise the seed-saving efforts of neighbouring farmers. Poor farmers who use seeds developed to meet their particular needs should not be forced to use seed made sterile by Terminator, which would deprive them of the ability to collect and share seed and to breed for local conditions.

Instead of depending on the private sector and its intellectual property for crop improvement, a better alternative is to provide appropriate funding for public research that works with farmers' own expertise. This would maintain farmers' independence and prevent any movement toward bioserfdom.
***

Greenpeace opposes Monsanto's Bill C-27 no to GMOs and to the privatization of seeds
March 23, 2005
From a press release

MONTREAL - Greenpeace is outraged at Paul Martin's government's proposed Bill C-27 which will take Canadian agriculture further away from farmers and put it firmly in the control of large scale economic interests of multinationals like Monsanto.

"Under the guise of an official adoption of "an intelligent ruling" and the elimination "obstacles to innovation" the federal government is handing the agricultural sector over to agro-chemical and biotechnology companies such as Monsanto. Farmers now face the very real threat of losing a vital part of their economic heritage, one that has allowed humanity to survive up till now, that being the right to collect and reuse there seeds", said Eric Darier, Greenpeace Canada GE campaigner.

Monsanto give away Bill, Bill C-27 will give even more power to the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), in particular when it comes to the introduction of new GMOs. "Monsanto's Bill will give the CFIA the power to align our agricultural policies and procedures with those of the United States, and in so doing will avoid any necessary and essential debate on the issue," added Darier.

Greenpeace calls on all Canadians to ensure that Monsanto's Bill C-27 goes no further. Greenpeace calls on Canadians to make their views on this Bill known to their federal MPs by going to: http://www.beyondfactoryfarming.org (click on the picture of the cow at the top right of the page).
***

Administration kept mum about unapproved modified corn sold
Knight Ridder Newspapers/Reuters

WASHINGTON - The U.S. federal government kept it secret for three months that genetically modified corn seed was sold accidentally to some U.S. farms for four years and may have gotten into the American food supply.

Sheldon Krimsky, a Tufts University environmental-policy professor who's a longtime foe of genetically modified crops, was cited as saying that's not acceptable, adding, "They have both a moral and legal obligation to reveal violations. This is a government that's operating in a stealth manner that wants to keep bad news from the public."

The European Union on Wednesday played down fears about the impact of an unauthorised strain of U.S. genetically modified maize, saying it was similar to a type already approved.
***

Genetic foods [in US: "It's just not on the radar screen."]
March 23, 2005
Associated Press
Linda A. Johnson

TRENTON, N.J. -- William Hallman, associate director of the Food Biotechnology Program at the Rutgers Food Policy Institute, which conducted a recent survey of Americans regarding genetically engineered foods was quoted as saying, "It's just not on the radar screen."
***

Monsanto completes purchase of Seminis
March 23, 2005
Associated Press
Jim Suhr

ST. LOUIS -- Agribusiness Monsanto Co. was cited as saying Wednesday it has completed its billion-dollar cash purchase of Seminis Inc., the world's largest developer, grower and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds.
***

Find us a place to test GM crops or risk losing £16bn
March 23, 2005
Daily Post
David Jones

Institute of Directors head of policy Richard Wilson was cited as saying the UK government must create a safe environment for scientists conducting genetically modified crop and other experiments or risk seeing billions of pounds worth of research and development work switched to other countries.

Wilson was further cited as saying that 22% of R&D work carried out in the UK was funded by overseas companies and that some research work was threatened by potentially violent demonstrations by animal rights activists and anti-GM protestors, adding, "We have to create a safe environment that will be conducive to that work or about £16bn of investment by pharmaceutical companies could be at risk."