Useful news roundup from Biowatch South Africa.
And don't forget - STOP GM WINE!
'Wines of South Africa' (WOSA), the body that claims to represent exporters of South African wines, inexplicably seems to be backing GM trials - just click the link below to automatically send them an e-mail. It only takes a minute:
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=87&page=1 (please paste the whole link into your browser, if necessary)
WARNING: Don't be fobbed off with assurances about WOSA's opposition to GM yeast; if GM grape trials go ahead then all South African wine could be GM contaminated.
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The Biowatch Bulletin October 2006
In this issue:
*Date set for Biowatch SA's appeal against court costs order *GMO Council to consider GM grapevine application in 2007 *Interest in environmentally friendly farming increasing in Limpopo *New research on Makhathini Flats shows GM cotton no solution *KwaZulu Natal small scale farmers work with national gene bank *Biowatch South Africa outreach facilitator elected onto Organics SA board *Vatican being wooed to support GM crops *Marker assisted selection makes gene splicing obsolete *New Biowatch SA administrator in Limpopo outreach office
*Date set for Biowatch SA's appeal against court costs order
A full bench will hear Biowatch South Africa's appeal against a court order - that it pays Monsanto South Africa legal costs - on 23 April 2007 in the Pretoria High Court. The Legal Resources Centre is acting on Biowatch South Africa's behalf in the appeal.
The costs order being appealed arose out of Biowatch South Africa's successful application to the Pretoria High Court for access to information about how decisions are made in the permitting of genetically modified (GM) crops in South Africa.
In February 2005 acting Judge Eric Dunn ordered that Biowatch South Africa be granted access to almost all the information it had requested. He reaffirmed that Biowatch South Africa had a constitutional right to this information, that access to the information was in the public interest and that Biowatch South Africa had been forced to apply to the court to exercise this right.
Judge Dunn also said that granting access to this information was a necessary part of the proper administration of the Genetically Modified Organisms Act and that the Registrar of Genetic Resources had adopted a passive role in assisting Biowatch with gaining access to the information it had sought.
But instead of applying the general principle that costs should follow the result of litigation, Judge Dunn ordered Biowatch South Africa to pay the legal costs of Monsanto South Africa (Pty) Ltd. His reason: Biowatch had been too general in its request for information and this had forced Monsanto South Africa to come to court to protect its interests. Judge Dunn made no other costs orders.
Monsanto South Africa (Pty) Ltd was the only respondent to insist, right to the end, that Biowatch South Africa should bear its legal costs.
To read more, please go to www.biowatch.org.za and look under CURRENT ISSUE and also DOCUMENTS
*GMO Council to consider GM grapevine application in 2007
The Genetically Modified Organisms Executive Council will only consider the application for field trials with GM grapevines from the University of Stellenbosch's Institute for Wine Biotechnology in 2007. The Executive Council, which is the key decision-making authority on GMOs, is still awaiting a report on the application from its Advisory Committee.
*Interest in environmentally friendly farming increasing in Limpopo
The Limpopo Department of Agriculture has become increasingly interested in supporting environmentally friendly farming methods.
It is already supporting a market oriented organic farming project involving six sites in the province. Biowatch is one of the organisations which is also working on this project about which we wrote in the April 2006 Biowatch Bulletin.
In October the department sent 32 extension officers to the Go Organic conference and exhibition organised by Organics South Africa and Farmer’s Weekly. It also assisted in getting farmers from six market oriented organic pilot projects to the event.
In November, 12 extension officers will attend a two-week course on organic farming. The course will be run at the Madzivhandela Centre of Excellence in Tzaneen and will also involve crop and soil scientists and colleges in the province.
Now, the department has asked Biowatch South Africa to provide training for 14 of its officials on cabbage cultivation. The course, to be run in February 2007, will cover issues such as the nutritional value of cabbages, climatic and soil requirements, fertlization, irrigation, weed and pest control, dealing with diseases and introducing new cabbage cultivars to the province.
*New research on Makhatini Flats shows GM cotton no solution
The adoption of genetically modified cotton in Makhathini Flats in KwaZulu Natal in 1998 was trumpeted as an example of small farmers benefiting from this controversial new technology and one, which the rest of Africa should follow. But a new study of the Makhathini cotton farmers, carried out by Harald Witt, Rajeev Patel and Matthew Schnurr from the University of KwaZulu Natal, found that the situation was rather different now.
The main reason for small scale farmers in Makhathini adopting GM cotton was because their farming choices were severely limited and GM cotton offered relatively easy opportunities for getting access to loans.
Although the farmers interviewed indicated that they would have preferred to grow sugar cane, growing difficulties, distant processing opportunities and restricted marketing made sugar cane a non-starter.
But cotton had its own problems, the researchers found. South Africa is a nett importer of cotton and growers here have always been at the mercy of the ups and downs of the international cotton market. Persistent high subsidies in the USA and the entry of low-cost cotton producing countries in Asia have made the situation even more uncertain.
Cotton yields in the area have been more or less the same before and after the adoption of GM cotton, the researchers found. Based on their discussions with those familiar with pesticide application in the area, the KwaZulu Natal researchers suggested that pesticide application to control bollworm had decreased since the introduction of Bt cotton. But pesticide application to control secondary pests had increased because the appearance of these had increased substantially.
The study has been published in the September issue of the Review of African Political Economy.
[The full paper: http://www.grain.org/research_files/Witt_Patel_Schnurr.pdf ]
*KwaZulu Natal small scale farmers work with national gene bank
KwaNgwanase Farmers Organisation, that has established a community seed bank, is working closely with officials from the Department of Agriculture's national gene bank. The KFO is planting and harvesting traditional seeds â€" cowpeas and bambara. The gene bank undertakes to return some of the seeds to the farmers for their own use and has proposed holding fairs where traditional seeds can be showcased.
*Biowatch outreach facilitator elected onto Organics SA board
Peter Komane, Biowatch South Africa's outreach facilitator in Limpopo has been elected for a second term onto the board of Organics South Africa.
*Vatican being wooed to support GM crops
The USA embassy to the Holy See in October invited three American professors to present the merits of genetically modified crops â€" substantial economic benefits for farmers, reduced pesticide use and reduced toxins related to cancer and miscarriages. The three are all former Peace Corps volunteers â€" Professor Lawrence Kent, director of International Programs at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Centre in St Louis, Professor Greg Taxler, agricultural and rural sociology lecturer at Auburn University in Alabama, and Professor Carl Pray, professor of agricultural food and resource economics at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Pope Benedict XIV has not spoken on the issue and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences have advised scientists to proceed with caution.
(National Catholic Register, October 29 â€" November 4 issue)
*Marker assisted selection makes gene splicing obsolete
Writing in The Guardian, Jeremy Rifkin argues that marker assisted selection has made gene splicing and transgenic crops obsolete and a serious impediment to scientific progress.
"The new frontier is called genomics and the new agricultural technology is called marker-assisted selection. The new technology offers a sophisticated method to greatly accelerate classical breeding," Rifkin says.
"Instead of using molecular splicing techniques to transfer a gene from an unrelated species into the genome of a food crop to increase yield, resist pests or improve nutrition, scientists are now using marker-assisted selection to locate desired traits in other varieties or wild relatives of a particular food crop, then crossbreeding those plants with existing commercial varieties to improve the crop. This greatly reduces the risk of environmental harm and potential adverse health effects associated with GM crops."
Rifkin says that researchers in the Netherlands, using marker-assisted selection, have developed a new lettuce variety resistant to an aphid that causes reduced and abnormal growth. In the United Kingdom and India marker-assisted selection has been used to develop pearl millet, which is drought-tolerant and resistant to mildew. The crop was introduced in India in 2005.
Plant breeders using marker-assisted selection are also talking about open-source genomics -- in contrast to the patent rights with which gene splicing is associated.
However, a problem is that the continued introduction of genetically modified crops could contaminate existing plant varieties, making marker-assisted selection more difficult to apply. A 2004 survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that non-GM seeds from three of the USA’s major agricultural crops (maize, soya beans and oil-seed rape) were pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences originating in genetically modified varieties of these crops.
(The Guardian, October 26, 2006)
*New Biowatch SA administrator in Limpopo outreach office
A warm welcome to Maria Mphahlele, Biowatch South Africa's new administrator in the Limpopo outreach office.
For more information or suggestions, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or on 021-447 5939