1.GMO apologists ignore science - again
2.Global Food and Farming Futures report creates panic to push GM crops

EXTRACT: I asked a few of my colleagues who are listed as among the report's "400 authors and contributors" what happened. They all indicated that they had had no say in the actual writing of this report. As one scientist - whose name is listed in the report - put it:

   "I was invited by email to write a review to be published elsewhere. I didn't participate in any meetings, discussions, findings, or report writing. I hadn't even been alerted to the fact that a report had been issued. It isn't at all clear to me how the listed "stakeholders" actually participated in the process. The issue of GM crops never came up in anything I saw, and it doesn't even seem to feature strongly in the report. [The] conclusion that Beddington is just using the report to promote GM crops seems about right."

That's how they treated eminent scientists. What about farmers, workers and Indigenous communities? They are simply and entirely absent from this report. (item 2)
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1.GMO apologists ignore science - again
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman
La Vida Locavore, January 28 2011
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/4453/gmo-apologists-ignore-science-again

Britain's Chief Scientist has come out trumpeting the need for genetically engineered (GE) crops to feed the world, and the UK media is falling all over itself with blaring headlines that echo this badly misinformed sentiment (see Guardian, Telegraph coverage).

The source of all the hullabaloo is the UK's release this week of its mammoth Foresight report, Global Food and Farming Futures. Using the occasion to espouse what seems to be his personal opinion, Sir John Beddington - the Chief Scientist in question, argues that "It is very hard to see how it would be remotely sensible to justify not using new technologies such as GM. Just look at the problems that the world faces: water shortages and salination of existing water supplies, for example. GM crops should be able to deal with that." "Should?" Is that the best you can do, Sir John?

In reality, after 25 years of research, no drought or salt-tolerant crops have yet been commercially developed, while yield declines, surging herbicide use, resistant superweeds, and a host of environmental-not to mention social-harms have been documented where GE crops have been planted. In contrast, ecologically resilient agroecological farming systems are known to perform well under the stressed conditions increasingly associated with climate change and water scarcity. For a scientist, Beddington does a remarkable job of ignoring the science.

So much hype

In truth, the UK report does not ever claim, as the newspapers and Beddington have, that "genetically modified crops are the key to human survival." All it actually says is that "New technologies (such as the genetic modification of living organisms and the use of cloned livestock and nanotechnology) should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds." But that sort of talk just puts people to sleep; it certainly doesn't sell papers or keep industry happy.

The BBC at least has shown a bit more journalistic integrity, avoiding the GE hype and keeping to the report's main message, namely that "the food production system will need to be radically changed, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably." I couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately, despite the relevance of its main message, there's still much that is missing from the report, as Indian journalist and policy analyst Devinder Sharma and UK organizations GM Freeze and the Soil Association explain. When asked by BBC for his opinion of the report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, politely exposed the flaws in the report and concluded:

   "We should realize that the insistence on producing more food is one that often has not benefited the small farmers, the poor in the rural areas in developing countries.... The problem with GM crops is that the patents on these crops are [held] by a very small handful of corporations, who will capture a larger proportion of the end dollar of the food that the consumer buys. [This] creates a dependency for small farmers that is very problematic in the long term. It may not be sustainable for small-scale farmers to be hooked up to such technologies....  Investing in small-scale farming rather than investing in large-scale heavily mechanized plantations is really the path we should now radically espouse."

Too bad the UK fell short of the mark this time. We usually expect greater vision from across the Atlantic.

Whose report?

I asked a few of my colleagues who are listed as among the report's "400 authors and contributors" what happened. They all indicated that they had had no say in the actual writing of this report. As one scientist-whose name is listed in the report-put it:

   "I was invited by email to write a review to be published elsewhere.  I didn't participate in any meetings, discussions, findings, or report writing.  I hadn't even been alerted to the fact that a report had been issued. It isn't at all clear to me how the listed "stakeholders" actually participated in the process.  The issue of GM crops never came up in anything I saw, and it doesn't even seem to feature strongly in the report.  [The] conclusion that Beddington is just using the report to promote GM crops seems about right."

That's how they treated eminent scientists. What about farmers, workers and Indigenous communities? They are simply and entirely absent from this report. (In contrast, to hear African farmers speak out, see IIED's amazing
Excluded voices report.)

A helping hand for industry

Patrick Mulvany of UK-based Practical Action observes: "The Foresight report delivered by Beddington today provides few surprises and offers no new proposals. It could have been different and saved the taxpayer a lot of money had the scientific establishment not been so 'willfully deaf' about recognising and taking forward the findings of the World Bank and UN sponsored global scientific assessment of the future of agriculture - the IAASTD reports."

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Scientific and Technology for Development (IAASTD) is the most comprehensive, rigorous and credible global assessment of the future of agriculture, authored by 400 scientists and development experts from over 80 countries and approved by 58 governments. It firmly concludes that business as usual is not an option, and reliance on industrial agricultural technologies such as chemical pesticides and GMOs is unlikely to reduce global hunger and poverty. The IAASTD highlighted the urgent need to support small-scale farmers, invest in agroecological farming, undertake radical shifts in governance, trade and development policies to achieve social equity, and control corporate actors.

With the IAASTD already pointing the way forward, why would the UK even bother to come up with a less rigorous, less credible report of its own? Devinder Sharma suggests, "The only objective of the (Foresight] report seems to be to oppose the findings of the IAASTD."

Turns out, the report is actually a project of the British Department for Department for Business Innovation and Skills (aha! what a giveaway!). This project aims "to ensure closer interaction between scientists, industry and government [and] identify future opportunities and threats for science engineering and technology." Thanks, Devinder, for pointing out the man behind the curtain.

No wonder the pesticide industry group, Crop Protection Association, welcomed the report so warmly. There is no need for the rest of us to do likewise.


Listen to the UN Food Rapporteur as he calls for a boost to small farms on BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12267561

This article was originally posted on Pesticide Action Network's blog, Groundtruth: http://www.panna.org/blog/farming-nourish-planet
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2.Global Food and Farming Futures report creates panic to push GM crops
Devinder Sharma
Ground Reality, January 25 2011
http://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com/2011/01/global-food-and-farming-futures-report.html

I sometimes wonder why public money is allowed to be spent on promoting private business interests. Why should the British tax payers be made to pay for a much hyped The Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures report [You can read the full report here: http://bit.ly/fPk9LY]. I am told the report is a culmination of a two year study involving 400 experts from 35 countries.

At the end of it, the report simply says what the GM mafia has been telling us all along. Prof John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government, has been quoted emphasising that GM Crops are 'extremely important' to meet the growing food crisis, and of course he is clever enough to say that it is one of the tools that needs to be advocated.

Well, the fact of the matter is that if Prof Beddington had not come out openly in support of GM Crops he wouldn't have been made the Chief Scientific Advisor in the first instance. I am not being unkind to Prof Beddington, but whether we like it or not this remains a fact. You cannot hope to rise in your career if you do not express faith in the risky, harmful and unwanted regressive GM technology. If you dare to question the technology, you are hounded out. Such is the power and control the GM industry has.

Quoting from an official press release, the report states: "While many reports have expressed concerns about the ability of the food production system to cope with the world’s burgeoning population, the Foresight report is the first detailed study across a range of disciplines to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing.

According to the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.

"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70 percent of the world's population will be living in cities at that time.

I thought the world already knew this. We are aware of the crisis that confronts us. Merely reiterating it again and again is not going to help unless you really want to take some radical steps. The report does say 'that the food production system will need to be radically changed not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably', but when it comes to spelling out the radical changes required, it not only fails but fails miserably to come up with any proposal/recommendation that is not an extension of the industrial farming model that has created the crisis in the first place.

That is why I said over BBC World Service radio yesterday that the report is a very clever cover-up or camouflage to promote GM crops. I said the world "produces food for 11.5bn people... 40% is wasted... we don't have to create a panic like the UK report."

The report has been dressed up in such a way that the policy makers/planners have little option but to pour more public resources into research areas where private biotechnology industry can draw maximum profits. Public-Private Partnership is merely an euphemism for the exploitation of public resources, and I am sure the UK government would now feel pressurized to re-start GM research in the name of helping the poor and hungry in the developing countries.

Please don't be so kind to us. The last time you came to India to help the poor and hungry, we became a colony for 200 years.

Anyway, let us look at the report. The official release says: "The authors call for food and agriculture to move up the political agenda and be coordinated with efforts to tackle the impact of climate change, the supply of water and energy and the loss of farm land". Agreed. And it is here that I was expecting the distinguished team of scientists to come up with some viable solutions. This is where the political agenda has to be tuned to the desperate food security needs of the people, and this is where the report fails.

Farm land grab across the globe, and the land acquisitions that the World Bank has been promoting so as to shift the farming population to labour in the industry, remains the most serious concern in the battle to ensure food for all. Like the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which we all know is a lobbying body for agribusiness, the Foresight project too remains conspicuously silent. IFPRI at least suggested a code of conduct for the companies grabbing land, this report too refrains from make any recommendation that would annoy the powers that be.

While the Global Food and Farming Futures report has talked about the need for radical changes, it calls for "protection of the poorest from sharp price increases through government intervention and greater liberalising of the trade in food to offset market volatility." This suggestion is contradictory to the problem of price volatility that it seems to address. Price volatility can be only effectively controlled if each country was to return to food sovereignty by investing in food self-sufficiency. Let us be very clear, India escaped the 2008 global food crisis because its agriculture was still not fully integrated with the global economy.

Price volatility that the world witnessed in 2008, leading to food riots in 37 countries, was the outcome of commodity trading and speculation. Corporates made tonnes of money when more people were going to bed hungry in 2008. I had expected the 400 distinguished scientists who wrote the report to demonstrate political courage by calling for an end to speculation in food, at least. Such a recommendation could have been called truly radical.

When it comes to production, keeping sustainability and economic viability in consideration, the report gives the impression as if 400 distinguished scientists were  grappling in the dark, and have no idea about the ground realities. Like a frog in the well, they can only see what lies with the walls. So I am not surprised when it fails to come up with any thing meaningful and challenging. The only objective of this report therefore seems to be to oppose the findings of the International Assessment of  Agricultural Knowledge, Scientific and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Don't get lost in the warnings that the report is trying to sound. In reality, the UK report is simply calling for business as usual. "Science-based solution" are nothing but industry prescriptions. If these prescriptions were so good, we wouldn't be faced with the monumental food and sustainability crisis that the world is confronted with.  If the international community accepts this futuristic report, mark my words: Hunger will grow, and the world will become still more unsustainable acerbating the crisis we already have on water availability, shrinking land resources, poisoning soils and the rising temperatures.