GMWatch News Review archive

WEEKLY WATCH number 287
from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor

Dear all:

A fire at a Bayer pesticide plant in India has leaked toxic gases into surrounding communities. One man has been killed (ASIA). Bulgaria has banned GM crops (EUROPE). And US farmers have been speaking out at an antitrust hearing against the takeover of farming by Monsanto and a few other corporations (THE AMERICAS). Finally, don't forget you can follow all the latest news via GMWatch on Twitter.

Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Website: http//www.gmwatch.org
Profiles: http://bit.ly/12UAI2
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook: http://bit.ly/c6OnaX

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CONTENTS
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PETITION
GM LABELLING
EUROPE
LOBBYWATCH
AGROFUELS
GM ANIMALS
THE AMERICAS

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PETITION TO BAN GM CROPS
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+ WE CAN DO IT! ONE MILLION SIGNATURES NEEDED AGAINST GM CROPS
The European Commission has just approved growing GM crops for the first time in 12 years, putting the GM lobby's profits over public concerns - 60% of Europeans feel we need more information before growing foods that could threaten our health and environment. A new initiative allows 1 million EU citizens a unique chance to make official requests of the European Commission. Let's build a million voices for a ban on GM foods until the research is done. Sign the petition and spread the word via colleagues, friends and family.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_health_and_biodiversity/?vl

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TAKE ACTION ON GM LABELLING
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+ TAKE ACTION ON GM LABELLING
March 16 was World Consumer Rights Day, making this the perfect time for consumers in the European Union to demand labelling of all products produced via GM animal feed. And two recent developments have made it vital that we renew the call for supermarkets to ban GM animal feed from their meat, fish, eggs, and dairy product lines.

1. A recent report commissioned by the UK Government's Food Standards Agency (FSA), that explored consumer attitudes to GM foods, found a broad consensus among consumers that labels should flag products produced using animals fed GM animal feed. Currently, such products do not have to be labeled denying consumers' their right to know and make informed choices about the food they buy and eat.

2. The biotech industry has successfully lobbied to avoid such labelling being made mandatory in the past by maintaining that animals fed on GM feed are no different from those reared using non-GM feed. But a comprehensive new review of the scientific literature by Professor Jack Heinemann has undermined this claim. GM-fed animals ARE different from non-GM fed ones.

Please write to the supermarkets to ask them to ban GM animal feed from their meat, fish, eggs, and dairy product lines. The UK supermarkets' addresses and other contact details (including e-mails,where available) are here:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12053:take-action-on-world-consumer-rights-day
http://bit.ly/d99ZXT

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EUROPE    
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+ BULGARIA APPROVES LAW TO BAN GM CROPS
Bulgaria's parliament has voted to tighten a law that effectively bans cultivation of GM crops for scientific and commercial reasons. NGOs, farmers and citizens have rallied for over two months against the government's initial plans to replace a ban with a licensing regime, which they feared would flood the Balkan country with GM crops. Eight Bulgarian cities staged protest rallies against GMOs as the Parliament voted on the final draft of the GMO Act.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12070:bulgaria-approves-law-to-ban-gm-crops
http://bit.ly/d69UbW
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12059:nationwide-protests-in-bulgaria-
http://bit.ly/8XKzFq

+ 97% OF BULGARIANS WANT GM BAN
A national survey has shown that 97% of Bulgarians want a complete ban on growing GMOs in the country.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12059:nationwide-protests-in-bulgaria-
http://bit.ly/8XKzFq

+ GM FOOD BAN SOUGHT IN AZERBAIJAN
A GM-food ban is being sought in Azerbaijan by its National Academy of Sciences.
http://bit.ly/bVoyXq

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ASIA
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+ INDIA: FIRE AT BAYER PLANT
A fire broke out on 11 March at a Bayer CropScience pesticide plant in India. Toxic gases mercaptane and phosphorus tri-chloride leaked from the factory near Ankleshwar. A 27-year-old engineer was killed. The gases escaped the plant and could be smelled in nearby areas. The cause of the fire is unknown.

According to rescue workers the fire occurred in the Ethoprophos plant. The gases leaked for about 90 minutes. Ethoprophos, classified as "extremely toxic" (class 1) by the World Health Organization WHO, is the ingredient of Bayer´s insecticide Mocap. The chemical severely affects the functioning of the nervous system. Ethoprophos causes tremors, nausea and weakness at low exposures, and paralysis and death on exposure to high doses.

Philipp Mimkes of the Coalition against Bayer dangers says: "Bayer is the world market leader for pesticides, many of which account for pollution and poisonings all over the world. Only a few weeks ago we demanded a withdrawal of all WHO class 1 pesticides, among them Ethoprophos". In its 1995 Annual Report Bayer promised to "replace products with the Classification 1 of the World Health Organisation with products of lower toxicity". Thus far the company has failed to keep its promise.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12067:fire-at-a-bayer-cropscience-plant-in-india
http://bit.ly/aTn9ps
For more on Bayer's terrible history: http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/11153-bayer-a-history

+ INDIA UP FOR SALE TO MNCs
Biotech corporations operating in India "have strong links with the government of the United States of America US, and their sole objectives are (a) to make as much money as possible by any means, and (b) to eventually have total control over Indian agriculture, using every ruse known to the world of conmen," says Dr Pushpa M. Bhargava, the father of molecular biology in India and one of two scientists who jointly coined the term "genetic engineering", in a powerful article for the Indian Express.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12048:india-up-for-sale-to-mncs
http://bit.ly/clG9ek

+ MINISTER ACTED RESPONSIBLY
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh's decision to announce a moratorium on Bt brinjal (aubergine) was responsible and courageous and provides a model for other ministers, says Jane O'Meara in an article for the Western Gazette.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12062:ministers-are-standing-up-over-gm
http://bit.ly/cWa61V

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ SIR PETER LACHMANN'S GM FOOD FIGHT
Remember the BBC Horizon programme that used the pin-up pig farmer Jimmy Doherty to front Jimmy's GM Food Fight? While supposedly investigating the science of GM foods, the TV programme had Jimmy - once a purveyor of all things natural, telling the audience how "simple" and "natural" genetic modification was. And by the end of the programme, Jimmy was enthusing that it would be "madness to turn away from this technology. The science is absolutely amazing. It offers hope."

The producer and director of this prime time soft-sell advertisement was Michael Lachmann. After viewer complaints, the BBC investigated whether the programme was biased. For a long time, the BBC refused to answer one viewer's persistent query as to whether the programme's director was in any way related to Sir Peter Lachmann, a notoriously aggressive pro-GM scientist. Eventually, persistence paid off, however, when the BBC finally admitted during the appeal process that: "Sir Peter Lachmann is indeed the father of Michael."

The information provided by the BBC to its Editorial Standards Committee only identifies Sir Peter as "a Cambridge Professor of Immunology of great eminence", who "chaired the Royal Society expert group which produced the Society's first report on GM crops" which concluded it was a potentially beneficial technology. "Since then," it goes on, "Sir Peter has been involved in several heated debates over GM."

This seriously underplays the controversial nature of Sir Peter Lachmann's involvement. A leading GM proponent, Lachmann was at the forefront of the campaign by the Royal Society to discredit the scientist Arpad Pusztai, after he warned that his research had found GM potatoes harmed rats. In an astonishing revelation at the time, a Guardian front-page article reported the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, as saying he had been threatened by Lachmann over the Lancet's planned publication of Pusztai's research. Towards the end of what was described as a highly aggressive phone call, Lachmann apparently told Horton that if he published Pusztai's paper, this would "have implications for his personal position" as editor.  
http://www.bangmfood.org/mediawatch/25-mediawatch/40-sir-peters-gm-food-fight

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AGROFUELS
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+ THE TROUBLE WITH AGROFUELS
Despite strong evidence that growing food crops to produce agrofuels/biofuels is seriously harming both the environment and the world's poor, the Obama administration is backing big subsidies and programmes that are boosting their use. The decision by the European Union to obtain 10% of all transport fuels from agrofuels by 2020 is proving equally disastrous for poor countries. But while agrofuels are a disaster for the environment and the world's poor, they are a massive shot in the arm for the biotech industry and big agribiz, says Eli Witek in a good article, “The Trouble with Biofuel”.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12055:the-case-against-biofuels
http://bit.ly/aDnzop

+ AGROFUELS MADNESS
The Environmental Protection Agency has produced an analysis which claims the reduction in food consumption which is associated with using foodstuffs for fuel as a greenhouse gas benefit. Rupert Read of ActionAid comments, “Quick translation: Starving people is supposed to be good for the planet! That moment of madness tells you a lot about the rise of agrofuels, which is all about profit, and none about reducing GHG emissions, let along about being good for people.”
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12068:agrofuels-madness-and-threat-they-pose
http://bit.ly/bsmDjE

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GM ANIMALS
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+ WHY THE ENVIROPIG IS FULL OF SH*T
The so-called Enviropig is a GM pig that a Canadian team has been trying to develop for more than a decade, in response to the pork industry's need to evade environmental regulations. Pigs crammed onto factory farms produce massive amounts of pig manure, which contains high levels of phosphorous. The phosphorous-heavy poop inevitably leaks out and contaminates water supplies around the farms. So regulators limit hog farms' capacity by limiting the amount of phosphorous pollution they are permitted to release. When the first Enviropigs were created in 1999, project leader John Phillips told Reuters that with their reduced phosphorous manure, hog farms could raise 50% more animals and still meet environmental rules.

High phosphorus levels are a problem created by the high phosphorus grain used in confined factory hog farms. Sustainable, pasture-raised hogs primarily eat non-grain plants, so small family hog farmers avoid the problem naturally.

Geneticist Prof Joe Cummins has pointed out to GM Watch that the enviropig was dreamed up before current worries surfaced about phosphate fertilizer running out and subsequent skyrocketing prices. Unless chemical agriculture can break its addiction to phosphate fertilizer, it is going to need all the phosphorus pollution that intensively reared non-GM pigs can produce.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12052:why-the-enviropig-is-full-of-it
http://bit.ly/dv7Lmx

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THE AMERICAS
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+ ARGENTINA COURT BANS GLYPHOSATE SPRAYING NEAR TOWN
In a ruling bearing potentially far-reaching implications, a court in Argentina's Santa Fe province has upheld a decision blocking farmers from spraying agrochemicals near populated areas.

The ruling blocks the use of chemicals such as the widely used herbicide glyphosate within 800 meters of the town of San Jorge, and aerial spraying within 1,500 meters of the town. While the decision is limited to the area around San Jorge, other courts in the farming province are likely to follow suit if residents seek similar court action.

The court found that farmers "have been indiscriminately using agrochemicals such as glyphosate, applied in open violation of existing laws [causing] severe damage to the environment and to the health and quality of life of the residents."

A backlash is building in the country against the increasing reliance on GM soybeans and the herbicide widely used in their cultivation. Last year, the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a case at the Supreme Court to halt the use of glyphosate, which virtually all of the soybeans grown in Argentina have been genetically modified to resist. Up to 200 million liters of the herbicide are sprayed across the farm belt each season. The court has yet to decide on whether to hear the case.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12069:ban-on-glyphosate-spraying-near-town-in-argentina
http://bit.ly/aUABzB

+ U.S. FARMERS TO DEPT OF JUSTICE: "BREAK UP BIG AG"
Farmers have been testifying against Monsanto and other corporations' control of agriculture at an antitrust hearing in Ankeny, Iowa held by the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Agriculture.

Wisconsin dairy farmer Joel Greeno, said, "My parents' 29th wedding anniversary was a farm foreclosure. Their 30th anniversary was a sheriff's auction on the courthouse steps. My neighbor's farm was stolen from him that was owned since 1942 by his family. He came to ask how to get food stamps because he'd always lived off his farm, no longer had that, and said that his social security of $9,000 a year couldn't feed him. This has got to end. Washington has got to step up. DOJ is our only lifeboat. They have to fix this. They have to correct it. Monsanto does not have the right to dictate the value of my life, my work, and the food I produce. Kraft Food does not have the right to set the price of my milk, which they do without question."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12060:farmers-to-doj-qbreak-up-big-agq
http://bit.ly/a35FHJ

Watch the video of American farmers talking about the terrible impact on their lives of Monsanto and the corporate concentration overtaking US farming:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/regina-weiss/farmers-to-doj---break-up_b_501682.html

+ U.S. COURT RULES IN GM SUGAR BEET CASE
Federal judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California has denied a request by a coalition of organic seed growers, and conservation and food safety groups seeking a temporary ban on GM sugar beets and sugar beet seeds. While Judge White denied the preliminary injunction, he indicated that permanent relief is likely forthcoming: "The parties should not assume that the Court's decision to deny a preliminary injunction is indicative of its views on a permanent injunction pending the full environmental review that APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] is required to do." The court further explained: "While the environmental review is pending, the Court is inclined to order the Intervenor-Defendants to take all efforts ”¦ to use conventional [non-GM] seed."

White said that banning spring planting of the GM sugar beet root crop, which begins in March and April, would lead 14 US sugar beet plants to shut because there's a shortage of conventional seed. A GM Watch subscriber asks, "I wonder who made sure that happened?"
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12063:court-rules-in-gmo-sugar-beet-case
http://bit.ly/du8WUp