GMWatch News Review archive

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WEEKLY WATCH number 278
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

There's a very important action coming up that everyone worldwide can take part in to show their solidarity with the people of Mexico, who are calling on their government to get Monsanto and its GMOs out of Mexico (INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ACTION - MEXICAN MAIZE).

It's hard to believe, even of the UK's pro-GM government, that it would be quite so bare-faced as to allow GM firm Syngenta to sponsor research into the mass die-off of bees. Syngenta is one of the manufacturers of neonicotinoid pesticides, the chief suspect in causing the die-off. Expect research results letting neonicotinoids off the hook and blaming some 'natural' cause such as the varroa mite (CORPORATE TAKEOVER).

And watch out for the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack's admission that U.S. regulations on GM crops are 20 years behind the times (THE AMERICAS).

Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
http://www.gmwatch.org
Follow GMWatch on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/GMWatch

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CONTENTS
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GLOBAL CALL FOR ACTION MEXICAN MAIZE
AFRICA
LOBBYWATCH
CONTAMINATION
THE AMERICAS
CORPORATE TAKEOVER
ASIA
EUROPE
COMPANY NEWS

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GLOBAL CALL FOR ACTION MEXICAN MAIZE
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+ SUPPORT TRADITIONAL MEXICAN MAIZE AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
From 11 to 16 October an important series of protests and actions will take place in Mexico to demand that maize and other food is GM-free. The Mexican government signed a presidential decree of March 6 2009, which would allow the planting of GM maize. The Network in Defense of Maize is calling for people and organizations around the world, including international agencies, to condemn the Government of Mexico for violating peasants' ancestral rights, as well as disrespecting biodiversity and food sovereignty, and ignoring the precautionary principle in the centre of origin for maize, an important staple crop worldwide.

Why now? Monsanto is close to achieving experimental maize open-field testing in the northern regions of Mexico. These regions are Monsanto's main target areas as theya re centres of commercial maize farming: most of Mexico's tortillas originate there. Therefore, the risk of having native varieties contaminated is huge and Monsanto is pressing the Government to agree to its requests.

*On or as near as possible to 12 October, everyone is invited to protest at their country's Mexican Embassy against GM maize in Mexico.

*The Defense of Maize Network is promoting a petition against GM maize, which already has about 6500 individual signatures and 1350 signatures from organizations of 74 countries. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION (available in several languages): http://endefensadelmaiz.org/No-to-transgenic-maize.html

*Via Campesina in Mexico has started a campaign against Monsanto and its GM maize. From 11 16 October they will protest in several regions of the country. The Network in Defense of Maize is
supporting Via Campesina and will deliver the collected signatures to the Mexican Government on 16 October.

*Please send all press releases, photos and other materials of every action you do at Mexican Embassies on 12 October, as well as other actions around that date, to the Network in Defense of Maize <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> so they can publicize them in Mexico. We'd love to see a copy too: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> The Network in Defense of Maize says anything you can do to show solidarity will greatly support  Mexico's anti-GMO struggle, and pressure the Mexican Government not to cave in to the demands of Monsanto: "Thank you! Your support is precious!"

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AFRICA
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+ GMOs COULD DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD IN AFRICA HUMANITARIAN
World-renowned humanitarian and one time UN AIDS Envoy to Africa, Stephen Lewis, has said that leaders should proceed cautiously in using GMOs to combat an agricultural crisis in Africa, which has been ravaged by HIV-AIDS. Lewis, the keynote speaker for the National Agriculture Awareness Conference, was critical of Bill Gates' role in developing Africa and his partnership with Monsanto. Lewis believes "caution" is needed when adopting GMOs in agriculture. "I'm not expressing outright condemnation," he said. "I have a natural apprehension about the behaviour of multinational corporations. Nothing that has happened in the last two years makes me confident about corporate social responsibility."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11562:gmos-could-do-more-harm-than-good-in-africa
http://bit.ly/Fmb8l

+ SYNOD ON AFRICA OPENS IN ROME
A Synod on Africa opened on October 5 in Rome. GM lobbyists are pressurising the African bishops to back off their proposed condemnation of GM crops.
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=27067

+ KENYA STILL WON'T ACCEPT GM IMPORTS
The Ministry of Agriculture says it is still conducting research on GMOs before they can be allowed into the local market but that resistance to GMOs is creating difficulties with maize imports.
http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/Kenyanews/Kenya-yet-to-accept-GMOs-6036.html
http://bit.ly/3UMBMT

+ DOES AFRICA NEED GM FOR DEVELOPMENT?
Saliem Fakir has reviewed Robert Paarlberg's book "Starved for Science". Paarlberg's an advisor to Monsanto's CEO and to the Gates Foundation, and in his book he claims that Africa is being starved of life-saving GM crops by Northern NGOs. Fakir says Paarlberg's sin is hubris: "The absolute confidence, the over-enthusiasm that alternatives or older agricultural sciences must give way to the power of the new. Paarlberg traps himself in a strange and circular logic... He says others shouldn't speak on behalf of Africans but he nominates himself as a spokesperson for the technology-fix saviours."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11570-does-africa-really-need-gm-for-development
http://bit.ly/KBcIs
For a profile of Paarlberg, see
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Robert_Paarlberg#cite_note-13
http://bit.ly/CiZUA
See also the August 2009 review of "Starved for Science" in the journal Nature, by the development specialists, Ian Scoones and Dominic Glover. They conclude, "In its narrow focus, Starved for Science dismisses a slew of scientifically validated approaches to agriculture, including integrated pest and soil-fertility management, 'low-input' techniques that reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and even other forms of biotechnology. Yet such methods have performed well in African contexts."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11409:fricas-biotechnology-battle
http://bit.ly/1ieYI3

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ GENE MUTATION AND FOOD
Kavitha Kuruganti's brilliant reply to the article by M.S. Swaminathan - the Father of the Green Revolution in India, hyping GM crops and ignoring valid concerns.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11549:gene-mutation-and-food-great-article
http://bit.ly/nYlhA

+ THE BORLAUG I KNEW DEVINDER SHARMA
Devinder Sharma has written a fascinating and carefully considered obituary of the "Father of the Green Revolution", Norman Borlaug, drawing on his own personal experience. Sharma explains how Borlaug:
*showed a blind faith in chemical fertilizers and pesticides
*believed Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, was an evil force
*resisted the evidence that high yields could be obtained using sustainable methods and without chemicals.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11555:the-borlaug-i-knew
http://bit.ly/3eWons

+ BORLAUG'S LEGACY
A perceptive article by Alexis Lathem challenges the claim that Norman Borlaug's innovations in crop breeding "saved millions of lives". The persistence of this belief, says Lathem, is "all the more remarkable given that the scholarship has thoroughly discredited it. What is implied here is that industrial methods produce more food than small farms that integrate a diversity of crops and rely on natural fertilizers and hand labour which has been disproved by innumerable scientific studies."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11564:both-sides-overestimate-borlaugs-contribution
http://bit.ly/fv9u3

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CONTAMINATION
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+ AUSTRALIA: COMMERCIAL BEEHIVES CONTAMINATED WITH GM CANOLA POLLEN
Greenpeace has found GM Roundup Ready canola pollen in honey from commercial beehives in southern Victoria. This means people buying honey from this hive will be eating GM food without knowing it, and before it's been properly assessed as safe to eat. This follows the recent discovery of GM canola growing along roadside verges near Berrigan, New South Wales and Horsham, Victoria.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11558:uproar-as-gm-canola-contaminates-beehives
http://bit.ly/ifLqm

+ ILLEGAL GM FLAX NOW IN 30 COUNTRIES WORLDWIDE UK FOOD SAFETY BODY SILENT
The illegal GM Triffid flax has been found in 30 countries worldwide, including the UK. But the UK's Food Standards Agency has not yet issued an official Food Alert regarding this contamination. GM Freeze says this is surprising given that the FSA initiated an EU Rapid Alert to Member States following the detection of the GM flax in the UK. The UK farm ministry Defra has still not replied to GM Freeze's questions raised on 14 September asking what testing it is doing to detect the illegal flax in food.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11567:gm-flax-in-30-countries-fsa-silent
http://bit.ly/qIU22

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THE AMERICAS
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+ U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PROBES SEED INDUSTRY
The US Dept of Justice and the US Dept of Agriculture are going ahead with plans to investigate the seed industry regarding antitrust concerns. One of the first companies in its sights is expected to be Monsanto. Steve Hixon, of Steve's Seed Conditioning in Illinois, said he has long been frustrated by what he calls "anti-competitive" behavior in the seed industry and sees the agencies’ move as a positive step. He said that Monsanto's exclusionary behavior "could only be accomplished using their various forms of influence like a well-oiled machine"...[including] large financial contributions to elected officials, consuming state and federal bureaucracies, and "covertly pointing" former employees into judicial positions, interfering with policy in organizations and associations "that claim to represent us."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11566:feds-probing-seed-industry
http://bit.ly/Zvc18

+ COURT FORCES U.S.RECKONING ON GM CROPS
An interesting New York Times article examines how regulators have paid little attention to the potential economic impact of GM crops on organic and other farmers and the very divisive impact this is having. The article contains the following telling admission from the Obama Administration's Tom Vilsack, a long-time Monsanto ally: "You know, I think [GM regulations are] an evolving process, which is why we're doing this and probably should have done it more than 20 years ago. We waited 20 years to do it." Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety, comments, "Every farmer should have the right to grow non-GMO [genetically modified organism] crops and not fear contamination. Farmers shouldn't be out there in constant fear that they're going to be contaminated."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11569-courts-force-us-reckoning-on-gm-crops
http://bit.ly/HMnSi

+ U.S.: KILLER PIGWEED THREATENS CROPS IN THE SOUTH
Glyphosate (Roundup)-resistant pigweed is choking more than a million acres of cotton and soybeans in America's South, according to a report by ABC News. In the last three months, Jim Hubbard of Double H Farms has spent more than $500,000 fighting the pigweeds, and they still won't die. "Technology is great, but it can only go so far," said Hubbard. "As technology goes forward, so does mother-nature. As far as the weeds and everything, they adapt and overcome." Monsanto says it's the farmers' fault for overusing its glyphosate herbicide! For more, and comment from the Rodale Institute:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11561:killer-pig-weeds-threaten-crops-in-the-south
http://bit.ly/kiGsL

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CORPORATE TAKEOVER
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+ LET SCIENCE DO ITS JOB
Two interesting pieces on the corporate limitations that the biotech industry places on researchers, published in Ag Professional magazine, a trade publication for agricultural retailers.

EXTRACTS: [N]ot even the companies and the industry involved can offer examples of similar research restrictions with any other commercial product. Public researchers suggest they may simply be a way to control what research is carried out.

"I like to be able to respond to the farmers of Indiana when they have questions," said Larry Bledsoe, Extension entomologist, Purdue University. "When I am asked my opinion and I have to say that I can't answer because of a confidentiality agreement with a company, there is silence and blinks from the farmer audience. They feel uncomfortable and so do I."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11556:letting-science-do-its-job
http://bit.ly/nyjiQ
See also Scientific American's condemnation of the restrictions
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-seed-companies-control-gm-crop-research
And the science correspondent of the Financial Times, Clive Cookson's "A seedy restriction on research". Cookson writes, "Imagine pharmaceutical companies trying to prevent medical researchers comparing patented drugs or investigating their side-effects - it is unthinkable. Yet scientists cannot independently examine raw materials in the food supply or investigate plants that cover a lot of rural America."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11406-seedy-research-restriction--global-food-security
http://bit.ly/HzxZ7

+ WOLF PUT IN CHARGE OF THE HEN HOUSE
One of the world's biggest pesticide companies, Syngenta, has been accused of a "howling conflict of interest" for funding research into the disappearance of honeybees a problem which some people claim it may have helped cause. Among the products it markets to farmers are insecticides which have been blamed for harming honeybees. It now also co-funds a gbp1m project in the UK, announced last week, to research the decline of the bees. But the company has dismissed criticisms of its role in the project as "perverse".

A film due to open in cinemas this week highlights the global plight of the honeybee and argues that insecticides are partly to blame. Called Vanishing Of The Bees, it is backed by the Co-operative retail group, which has a strict policy on the use of pesticides on the fruit and vegetables it sells, including a ban on the use of several chemicals. A coalition of environmental groups has launched a campaign for a ban on neonicotinoids in the UK.
http://bit.ly/3bNHih

+ IS ELI LILLY MILKING CANCER BY PROMOTING AND TREATING IT?
Breast Cancer Action and a coalition of consumer and health organizations have launched a campaign called Milking Cancer, where you can demand from Eli Lilly that they withdraw their dangerous (Monsanto-originated) bovine growth hormone (rBGH, rBST) from the market.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/is-eli-lilly-milking-cancer-by-promoting-and-treating-it/
http://bit.ly/amKyM

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ASIA
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+ FARMERS IN BIG PROTEST RALLY IN INDIA
More than 1500 farmers gathered on 1 October in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh for a peaceful demonstration demanding that the state government declare Madhya Pradesh GM-free. The activists pointed out that the state government already took the progressive step of declaring that Madhya Pradesh would be made into an organic state. It follows naturally that there should be no GM crop trials or cultivation in the state, they pointed out. Kavitha Kuruganti commented that the farmers showed "deep understanding of what is good for their farming and what needs to be rejected. Farmer after farmer who addressed the gathering of protestors spoke about what a dark future awaits them if GM seeds are allowed into the country."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11550:farmers-in-big-protest-rally-in-india
http://bit.ly/UgTlx

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EUROPE
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+ WALES: PROBE FAILS TO BACK CLAIM THAT HARRINGTON GREW GM CROP
In Wales, an official investigation failed to find evidence that pro-GM campaigner and member of biotech industry funded lobby group CropGen, Jonathon Harrington, defied the Welsh Assembly Government and grew GM maize in the way he claimed. Earlier this year Harrington claimed he had grown the maize in protest at the Welsh Assembly Government's unanimously supported GM-free policy. But an internal report produced by Powys County Council and now released under the Freedom of Information Act casts doubt on Harrington's claim. The report states: "(Mr Harrington) ”¦ claimed to have supplied the harvested crop to neighbouring farmers for use as animal feed and that seed from the crop had been harvested for use for further cultivation in 2009”¦ Samples of seed supplied to the Trading Standards Service by Harrington were analysed by a Public Analyst and found not to be GM seed."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11554:probe-fails-to-back-up-claim-that-harrington-grew-gm-crop
http://bit.ly/40X9y

+ GM-FREE CYMRU COMMENTS ON HARRINGTON STUNT
GM-free Cymru says Powys Council's findings confirm its view that Harrington's GM maize stunt was "lies, fantasies, and cynical mischief-making."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11560:lies-fantasies-and-cynical-mischief-making
http://bit.ly/16X7jM

+ GM FOOD IN RUSSIA
An inspection carried out by Greenpeace in the Moscow region showed that only 0.4 percent of food products tested positive for GM, with levels varying from 0.1 to 0.5 percent. Growing GM plants is banned in Russia.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/6265301/Genetically-modified-food-in-Russia-something-to-worry-about.html
http://bit.ly/GTt4H

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COMPANY NEWS
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+ MONSANTO POSTS 4TH QUARTER LOSS
Monsanto has posted a larger than expected fourth quarter loss.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091007-705572.html

+ MONSANTO PENETRATES CARBON CREDIT MECHANISM
As the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 (COP15) gets closer, a new agreement has to be signed for the period after 2012. It is becoming clear how agribusiness attempts to gain profits from the massive carbon credits market. Under the term "Conservation Agriculture", Monsanto and other biotech allies have penetrated the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) aiming to get carbon credits for agribusiness. A voluntary 'responsible' label for Roundup Ready soy sponsored by World Wild Life Fund (WWF), and a newly approved Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) methodology are important steps for agribusiness to get access to this three billion dollar business.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11563:monsanto-penetrating-carbon-credit-mechanism
http://bit.ly/WvbMy

+ SIGN PETITION AGAINST GM SOY GREENWASH ATTEMPT
Sign petition demanding Dutch government stop financing the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS). RTRS is trying to greenwash GM soy by allowing it, and intensively farmed non-GM soy, to carry the 'responsible' soy label.
http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/protestaktion.php?id=464