1.Leading Catholic hospital group bans food from GMOs and animal clones
2.Hungary to defy European Commission call to scrap ban on GMO crops
3.Italy, no quality brand for products employing GMOs
4.Japan laps up non-GM soyameal
5.Lobby Groups Welcome Abandonment of GM Trials in New Zealand
6.Join a large European march against GMOs
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1.Leading Catholic Hospital System Takes Action for Sustainable Food Production

Catholic Healthcare West presses suppliers to prohibit animal cloning and genetically engineered foods.
San Francisco, CA, January 5 2009
http://tiny.cc/xQTF4 [pdf]

[extract only]

Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) [includes 41 hospitals and medical centers in California, Arizona and Nevada] announced today that its food purchasing dollars will be focused on promoting sustainable food production practices, in part by seeking alternatives to foods produced with genetically engineered sugar, as well as meat and dairy produced with animal clones.

The CHW position was developed in recognition of the serious health and environmental concerns these technologies raise and the threat they pose to healthier and more sustainable food production options.

Among the concerns CHW is raising about genetically engineered and cloned foods are genetic contamination, increased pesticide use, animal cruelty, and the deep ethical and moral issues associated with these untested new technologies.
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2.Hungary to defy European Commission call to scrap ban on GMO crops
Hungary Around the Clock, 30 Jan 2009
http://tiny.cc/0oAC7

[extract only]

Hungary will keep its ban on GMO (genetically modified organisms) maize imports and the planting of GMO seeds, Agriculture Ministry undersecretary Zoltán Gőgös announced. The European Commission recently called on Hungary to entirely lift its GMO ban. Last week the EU’s executive arm backed proposals that would grant standard ten-year licences for the two GMO maize types. Hungary, one of the region’s biggest grain producers, became the first country in eastern Europe to ban GMO crops and foods in 2005
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3.Italy, no quality brand for products employing GMOs
Green Planet (Italy), 11 February 2009
http://tiny.cc/nZiVk
 
[edited]
 
A bill recently filed in the Italian Senates Standing Commitee on Agriculture and Agro-Food Production provides for a stricter regulation on the GMOs employed in Italy.

According to the bill, no quality brand can be assigned to products employing GMOs, in order to protect the country's genetic resources and agriculture and husbandry from the risk of an unrestrained spread of GMOs and their by-products.

Therefore, it is forbidden for all national quality certified agro-food products to employ raw materials, cattle feed and additives containing GMOs. If a company does not abide by the regulation, it is not allowed to use a quality brand.

Moreover, the bill forbids the cultivation in open fields of GMOs and the breeding of genetically modified cattle, as well as the sale of any kind of genetically modified seeds in the national territory.

The measure is now to complete its passage through Parliament before the final approval.
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4.Japan laps up non-GM soyameal

Extract from "Oilmeal exports drop in Jan on poor demand" (Sify, India, 6 Feb 2009)
http://sify.com/finance/commodities/fullstory.php?id=14852358
 
Oilmeal exports from the country dropped in January on poor demand and emergence of South America as a serious competitor in the global market. [...] A heartening feature of the exports is shipments to South-East Asian and Far-East countries, barring Vietnam increased. Japan, in particular, has been lapping up Indian soyameal as it is seen as non-genetically modified organism.
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5.Lobby Groups Welcome Abandonment of GE Trials
Press Release: Soil and Health Association, GE Free NZ, 10 February 2009
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0902/S00019.htm

Soil & Health and GE Free NZ are celebrating the commitment by Crown Research Institute (CRI) Plant & Food Research to discontinue the genetically engineered (GE) brassica field trial at Lincoln in Canterbury less than 2 years into its 10 year consent, but say the CRI’s GE alliums (onion family) field trial approval must also be revoked.
 
GE Free NZ President Claire Bleakley and the Soil and Health Association of NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning met with Plant & Food(1) staff yesterday, to discuss the CRI’s internal report of its biosecurity breach(2) at its genetically engineered (GE) brassica trial site.  The report recommends that the GE brassica trial should be closed down immediately and a new team of personnel monitor the site over one year for regrowth GE plants.

In December a serious biosecurity breach of a flowering brassica was discovered at the secret GE field trial site by Soil and Health spokesperson Steffan Browning. Initially the breach was dismissed and denied by regulator Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry - Biosecurity New Zealand (MAF-BNZ) and Plant & Food. However presented with photographic evidence, they were forced to admit the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) controls had not been followed and at least one GE plant had been left to flower, thereby breaching their permit to conduct field trials.

“The report vindicates the very real concerns of more than 900 submitters who opposed the original application with pollen escape a major concern. Plant & Food have acknowledged a likely breach as early as February 2008. This was of an early flower, just as my fellow Soil & Health Co-chair Dr Elvira Dommisse warned was a significant risk in brassica, when she submitted to the ERMA consent hearing,” said Mr Browning.

“This begs the question, just how many GE brassicas flowered in the Lincoln environment throughout the last year? Extensive testing for GE contamination must be carried out in the area.”

“We are very pleased that the trial is to be closed down and that the internal report reflects the seriousness of the breach” said Claire Bleakley.

“The report however shows many discrepancies regarding events leading up to the breach. Excuses of over work and under resourcing of the project manager are cited as a main problem in the break down of the controls. Reported inexperience and bad advice on how plants perform in the field show that there was inadequate expertise on the aspects of plant performance in the field and the trial manager admits she did not properly read the decision or controls that ERMA placed on the trial (3).”

“These are all poor excuses and show that the Plant & Food managers and regulatory agencies did not properly oversee the trial.  The whole internal support and team leadership is outrageous and defective, as is the GE technology. The total lack of enforcement and expertise by all people involved has left the trial manager as the scapegoat,” Ms Bleakley said.

“This whole debacle highlights the poor nature of the ERMA and MAF process of setting controls, monitoring and enforcement.  The ERMA decision pointed out that the expertise and training of the GE team made any breach “highly improbable,” and approved the experiment with ambiguous and extremely broad controls open to gross exploitation by Plant & Food managers.  The inspection agency MAF-BNZ overlooked enforcement protocols and allowed the field trial to continue with verbal assurances of site events rather than visual confirmation.”

 “Everyone involved in this trial should be held accountable for the breach and the CRI should loose all its permits to carry out GE trials.  This is not an individual staff fault but shows that the systemic arrogant laissez-faire attitude is rife all the way to the top.  This culture treats anyone who raises concerns about GE technology with derision and this must stop immediately.”

“We hope that the ERMA and MAF reports due out later in the week will treat the breach by MAF-BNZ staff and the CRI as seriously as Plant & Food have done in their internal report and follow through with the appropriate HSNO Act penalties,” said Ms Bleakley.

"GE field trials have no place in the economic survival of New Zealand farmers and growers, and with just one other GE trial approval currently consented (for GE onion family plants yet to be planted), and the flawed Agresearch GE cattle trial on hold, now is a prime opportunity to stop all GE field trials,” said Mr Browning.

"The stopping of these dangerous risks to New Zealand's biosecurity helps maintain and build the clean green image that is more and more important for the sales of New Zealand produce.”

“Producers and consumers share the desire for an economy based on the clean green environment that New Zealand’s discerning markets are looking to. Plant & Food’s research needs to focus on natural breeding techniques and extend its expertise into valuable organic research.”

Soil & Health is committed to GE free food and environment and aspires to an Organic 2020.
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6.COME AND JOIN US IN BERLIN
Genfrei Gehen II from Berlin to Bruxelles [Brussels] starts on June 17 2009
By Joseph Wilhelm, Executive Director, Genfrei Gehen
http://www.opednews.com/articles/We-are-invited-to-join-a-l-by-Joseph-Wilhelm-Ex-090211-986.html

Thanks to the tremendous encouragement from different sides, we decided to continue our Genfrei Gehen initiative with a second tour from Berlin to Bruxelles.

Looking back, we observed that the public perception of our first tour from Lübeck in Northern Germany to Lindau in the South increased more and more after the event. We also noticed that many people in the organic trade still lack awareness for the GMO- menace. GMOs not only threaten the existence of all species and beings on our planet and their diversity, but in a special way also organic agriculture and the organic food industry.

The main goals of the new tour from Berlin across Germany, with a detour through the Netherlands and through Belgium all the way to Bruxelles are to increase the public perception, to raise awareness and to emphasize the importance of taking a stance against genetic engineering in agriculture. The initiative is not a simple protest against this technology, but it uses walking as a way to encourage people to become active and to take the initiative for a future worth living. Consequently, we see the initiative as an “in favour demonstration” for a future without genetic engineering in agriculture and the food industry.

The highly-praised coexistence of conventional, organic and genetically manipulated agriculture does not exist. Genetic engineering creates an irreversible reality with the harvests ultimately ending up on our plates.

"Genfrei Gehen II" will start in Berlin with a big kick-off event on June 17, 2009. We are planning to start the march from the Brandenburg Gate on June 18.

The route itself passes through beautiful landscapes and many historical places and towns such as Wittenberg, the "Town of Luther", Eisenach with its famous Wartburg Castle, and the towns of Marburg or Bonn where many international organizations are located. The anticipated arrival in Bruxelles will be on July 25. The preparations for the tour are underway and it is already foreseeable that we can count on the support of many people, companies and organizations from Germany and the neighboring European countries.

Information about the tour is available on our special website: www.genfrei-gehen.de

We would like to invite you to come to Berlin and participate in this historical event. I am looking forward to seeing you in Berlin.