GMWatch News Review archive

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WEEKLY WATCH number 300
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from Claire Robinson, MONTHLY REVIEW editor
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Dear all:

Important new research shows that GM genes can easily escape into other organisms through a bacterium used in GM. Another study shows that contrary to government and industry claims, GM DNA can be detected in food oil derived from GM soy (RESEARCH). And in India, government data shows that Bt cotton has brought secondary pest problems and rising insecticide use (ASIA).

In the UK on November 4, in what's become a sadly predictable pattern, Channel 4 will air another of its anti-environmentalist TV "documentaries". This one makes out that green NGOs in the North are denying beneficial GM crops to the third world and that they're also standing in the way of nuclear energy solving the energy crisis (LOBBYWATCH).

Claire <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.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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RESEARCH
INDIA: MOBILISATION FOR FOOD, FARMERS AND FREEDOM
THE AMERICAS
AFRICA
PATENTS
SUPERWEEDS
EUROPE
LOBBYWATCH

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RESEARCH
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+ GM GENES MAY ESCAPE INTO NATURAL ENVIRONMENT VIA BACTERIUM USED IN GM
A bacterium that's used to modify plants' genes can also change the DNA of completely different lifeforms in the wild, new research shows. If the bacteria come into contact with particular fungi at a wound in a plant's outer skin, the fungi can come away with new genes from the bacterium. If these help it survive, they could become a permanent part of its genetic makeup. This is a way genes could potentially escape GMOs and move into other living things - both easily and frequently.

"This study suggests that the encounter between this bacterium and a fungus on the plant surface may lead to gene flow in a previously overlooked way, potentially leaking GM genes into the natural world," says Prof Gary Foster of the University of Bristol, one of the study's authors.

"Agrobacterium is the industry standard for getting new DNA into plants [GMW comment: including GM soy and oilseed rape]," says Dr Andy Bailey, a plant pathologist at the University of Bristol who took part in the research. "It infects many different plants in the wild and effectively carries out natural genetic engineering. But our work raises the question of whether its host range is wider than we had thought - maybe it's not confined only to plants after all."

The study concludes, "This work raises interesting questions about whether A. tumefaciens may be able to transform organisms other than plants in nature, or indeed should be considered during GM risk assessments, with further investigations required to determine whether this phenomenon has already occurred in nature."
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12605
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12604
The full text of this important new paper is available at:
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013684

+ COMMENT BY IGNACIO CHAPELA ON GM GENES STUDY
Ignacio Chapela, UC Berkeley/Tromso:
"The careful and understated presentation ... belies research results that I think should be considered a major landmark in the growing evidence demonstrating how little we know about the ecological consequences of transgenesis, in particular the potential for horizontal gene transfer in real field situations. It also shows a definite and probably very important source of concern, the real possibility that DNA vectored into plants could move out, with full reproductive capacity, via a microbial route into the genomic environment far and beyond the immediate space and phylogeny of the host plant. Any environmental evaluation of field releases should now be required to seriously consider this possibility."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12615

+ NEW FREEDOM TO RESEARCH GM SEEDS?
According to this month's issue of Nature Biotechnology, agronomic research scientists are now free to study Monsanto's commercial seeds for the first time, after the company finally relaxed restrictions on sharing seeds for research. This follows the complaint last year from public sector scientists that seed companies were curbing their rights to study commercial GM crops.

In August, the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), an agency within the US Dept of Agriculture, finalized an umbrella license with Monsanto that gives ARS scientists the freedom to study Monsanto's commercial seeds without asking the company for permission on each project.

It's extraordinary that it's taken 14 years since the commercialisation of GM seeds to reach this point. As Clive Cookson, the science correspondent of the Financial Times, has commented, "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."

Even after the new agreement, the question remains of just how free scientists will be, given the massive commercial pressures now influencing public science.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12608

+ GM DNA DETECTED IN REFINED SOY OIL - STUDY
GM DNA has been detected in refined soy oil, according to a new study. This contradicts the official line from government and other bodies that all GM DNA is removed from food oil during refining and that therefore no GM labelling of oil is required.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12611

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INDIA: MOBILISATION FOR FOOD, FARMERS AND FREEDOM
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+ BT COTTON HAS NOT LIVED UP TO ITS PROMISE - GOVT DATA
Bangalore: The pan-Indian bus tour called Kisan Swaraj Yatra, for the cause of "Food, Farmers and Freedom", reached Bangalore on October 24. Presenting data from official records on the past several years of Bt cotton cultivation in the state of Karnataka, Kavitha Kuruganti of Kheti Virasat Mission pointed out that it is clear that Bt cotton has not lived up to claims made for it. She said, "Data obtained from the Directorate of Agriculture's records show... pesticide usage, including specifically insecticide usage in cotton, has actually been going up in the recent past even though Bt cotton has spread rapidly in the state... official records [also] acknowledge the surfacing of newer pests like mirid bug in Bt cotton which is causing economic losses too in districts like Haveri. Further, cost of production per quintal of cotton has been showing an erratic trend too, which clearly demonstrates that the costs for farmers have not come down. This should be a good lesson to the
government and farmers not to believe in the hype around GM technology."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12595

+ FARMERS PROTEST AGAINST UNIVERSITY ACTING AS MONSANTO AGENT
Coimbatore: More than 50 farmers, part of the Kisan Swaraj Yatra, swarmed into Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) on October 29 to protest against its conducting Bt crop trials. The protesters demanded that the university stop acting as "the agent of multinational corporation Monsanto" and halt trials of Bt cotton, brinjal and corn, which they said would seriously affect domestic seeds and farmer income. TNAU is a collaborating institute with Monsanto.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/12618

+ KERALA GOVT WELCOMES KISAN SWARAJ YATRA INTO THE STATE
The Kisan Swaraj Yatra entered Kerala on October 30 to a warm welcome by the Kerala Government. Speaking on behalf of the state government of Kerala, Mr Mullakkara Ratnakaran, Minister for Agriculture, said that all the issues being raised by the Yatra are issues of concern for the state government too and that they are addressing these concerns in the state. The Minister promised to join the Yatra when it ends at Rajghat on December 11, 2010, after covering 20 states.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/12618

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THE AMERICAS
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+ GM SOY INCREASES POVERTY, THREATENS HEALTH IN S. AMERICA - FARMER ADVOCATES
The conversion of South American agriculture to large-scale, industrial farming of GM soy harm the environment, increasing poverty and threatening human health, said two advocates for small farmers' rights during a visit to Sweden. Commenting on claims that GM soy is a solution to world hunger and a path away from dangerous pesticides, Jorge Galeano said: "The multinationals are talking about solving climate problems and food supply through GM, but they are really only interested in making money. Their methods destroy traditional farming that provides food for our population and replaces it with soy, which goes into animal feed to provide meat for the West." Jaime Weber said, "In Brazil the toxic and hazardous pesticides paraquat and endosulfan are still used. It is a myth that these are not used on GM crops. GM soybeans are sprayed just as much with paraquat [as non-GM]."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12598

+ DEMOCRAT MONSANTO LOBBYIST SUPPORTS REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR IOWA SEC OF AG
Monsanto lobbyist Jerry Crawford endorsed the Republican Bill Northey for the position of Iowa secretary of agriculture. Northey is reported to have received donations from Monsanto, Sygenta, Walmart, and DuPont. Northey's opponent, Francis Thicke, in contrast, has said he wants to change "Big Agribusiness As Usual". He's called for antitrust action in agriculture and made it clear he regards Monsanto as the centerpiece of "Big Ag". Francis Thicke was endorsed by the renowned food writer Michael Pollan, 350.org's Bill McKibben, former Texas Ag Commissioner and populist Jim Hightower, Fred Kirschenmann of the Leopold Institute, and Jeffrey Smith, amongst others.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12624

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AFRICA
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+ SOUTH AFRICA: SMALL-SCALE FARMERS MARCH OVER GM MAIZE
South African farmers picketed Parliament in protest against the widespread use of GM maize in South Africa, among other issues such as the eviction of small-scale farmers from government land. The farmers said the use of GM maize threatened food security.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12622

+ GATES-FUNDED LOBBYISTS WANT "LESS TRUTH AND MORE EMOTION" TO GET FARMERS AND CONSUMERS TO ADOPT GM FOODS
On October 12, 2010, representatives from Seattle-based group AGRA Watch joined colleagues from South Africa and Kenya to discuss the dysfunctional philanthropy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and their initiative, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, AGRA. Prof Phil Bereano moderated the event, held at the 5th Meeting of the Parties of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in Nagoya, Japan. The event was sponsored by the Washington Biotechnology Action Council and African Centre for Biosafety. One topic discussed was a conference in Uganda in which presenters urged African governments to harmonize and fast-track biosafety legislation that provides industry with the least amount of barriers, and in the words of Gates-funded Africa Harvest, to use "less truth and more emotion" to get farmers and consumers to adopt GM foods.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12606

+ GM HAS LITTLE TO OFFER IN FEEDING THE WORLD
The IAASTD report on the future of agriculture concluded that GM has little to offer in feeding the world, and that agroecological farming is the key to meeting future food needs, says Nnimmo Bassey in an article for Next.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12609

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PATENTS
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+ U.S. GOVT "BOMBSHELL" AGAINST GENE PATENTS
In an unexpected reversal, the Department of Justice has come out against the US patent office's practice of granting patents on human genes in the form of isolated DNA. The government filed a "friend-of-the-court" brief in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation that challenges patents held by Myriad Genetics on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer. A federal district court issued a strong ruling in March agreeing that those patents are invalid, and Myriad promptly appealed.

The government brief echoes the lawsuit's and district court's main argument against gene patents - that genes are products of nature, and therefore not patentable. But it differs on how broadly this argument should apply. It says that DNA that has been "isolated" and/or "purified" is not eligible to be patented, but that DNA that has been subject to "human manipulation" is.

FierceBiotech, a blog that describes itself as the "biotech industry's daily monitor," said the government's assertion that unmodified DNA should not be patentable "dropped a bombshell on the biotech industry."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12625

+ SURGE IN PATENTS THREATENS BIODIVERSITY
Under the guise of developing "climate-ready" crops, the world's largest seed and agrochemical corporations are filing hundreds of sweeping, multi-genome patents in a bid to control the world's plant biomass, according to a report by ETC Group. A handful of multinational corporations are pressuring governments to allow what could become the broadest and most dangerous patent claims in history, warned the group at the United Nations”šÄô Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan (18-29 October 2010). DuPont, Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and their biotech partners account for three-quarters (77%) of the patent families identified. Just three companies ”šÄì DuPont, BASF, Monsanto ”šÄì account for over two-thirds of the total. Public sector researchers hold only 10%.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12597

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SUPERWEEDS
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+ MONSANTO'S SUPERWEEDS COME HOME TO ROOST
In the wake of recent news about Monsanto paying farmers to use its competitors' herbicides in what many see as a last-ditch effort to address the spread of superweeds created by the company's Roundup Ready GM crops, here's a good article summarising the state of the superweeds problem:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12603

+ BASF, MONSANTO BRINGING OUT DICAMBA-RESISTANT GM CROPS
BASF and Monsanto have announced "significant progress" toward launching dicamba-resistant GM soybeans and cotton. The herbicide dicamba is a developmental toxin. The new dicamba-resistant GM technology is clearly aimed at trying to overcome the problem of glyphosate-resistant weeds arising from the widespread use of GM glyphosate-resistant crops. Funny thing is, dicamba-resistant weeds already exist (Rahman, A., James, T.K., Trolove, M.R. 2008. Chemical control options for the dicamba resistant biotype of fathen (Chenopodium album). New Zealand Plant Protection 61, 287”šÄì291; see also http://www.weedscience.org/In.asp). So it's only a few short years before BASF/Monsanto will have to come up with another "new generation" of GM crops resistant to yet another herbicide. But here's a BASF guy claiming that such methods are a "cornerstone of sustainable agriculture"!
http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=897
http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC32871

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EUROPE
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+ SCIENTISTS CRITICIZE EFSA ASSESSMENTS ON GMO TOXICOLOGICAL TESTS
A new critical review has been published about the scientific shortcomings of regulatory committees, such as EFSA, in relation to the health risk assessment of GM foods. The critical review was published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences and was signed by a CRIIGEN group coordinated by Prof. Seralini.

It is an answer to Monsanto, and to a number of website comments from various national committees which have approved Monsanto GMOs, in relation to a previous CRIIGEN study highlighting kidney and liver toxicity signs after the consumption of commercialized GMOs. All these GMOs involve new pesticide residues in food at higher than usual levels.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12621
Read the study: http://www.biolsci.org/v06p0590.htm

+ FRANCE: CARREFOUR LAUNCHES NON-GM LABELS
French grocery retailer Carrefour, the largest supermarket chain in world, is launching a label to tell its customers that its animals have not been raised on GM feed. The "Nourri sans OGM" - or "free from GM feed" - labelling, supported by WWF France, has been added to over 300 products in Carrefour's French stores. The company said studies found 63% of customers would stop consuming food products if they knew the products came from animals fed with GMOs.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12601

+ EU COMMISSION'S ZERO TOLERANCE PROPOSALS "UNACCEPTABLE"
The European Commission's proposal to allow up to 0.1% GM content in animal feed from unapproved traits has been described by GM Freeze as "completely unacceptable" and not based on evidence. Very few animal feed imports have been rejected because of contamination with unapproved GM traits since 2009. Soy imports from Argentina and Brazil, the EU's main suppliers of soymeal for animal feed, have not had any contamination incidents with unauthorised GM traits because they have systems in place to maintain quality. Contamination problems come mainly in US imports because systems for segregation there are not as reliable.

GM Freeze says the solution to this small contamination problem is to maintain the zero tolerance approach to unapproved traits in animal feed and to insist on better segregation of crops in the US, backed by rigorous testing at ports of entry to the EU to prevent contaminated cargoes entering the food and feed chains.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12612

+ FRANCE - RESEARCH INSTITUTE HALTS GM CROP RESEARCH
INRA - the French National Institute for Agricultural Research ("the leading European agricultural research institute and one of the foremost institutes in the world for agriculture, food and the environment") is stopping all development of GM crops. INRA president, Marion Gillou, says INRA's "work on new varieties now involves only conventional crops". Gillou blames the change of direction on the supposed demonisation of GM crops, but in reality it's more than time to stop wasting public monies on developing crops that have neither a public mandate nor a market.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12614

+ TOXIC SOY ROW IN SWEDEN
A row is ongoing in Sweden about its continuing imports of South American soy which has been sprayed with the deadly herbicide paraquat. Paraquat is banned in Sweden but is still used by Brazilian soy growers. The Round Table on Responsible Soy, a forum that purports to encourage sustainability in soy production, continues to permit use of the notorious pesticides paraquat, endosulfan and carbofuran in its standard. Lars Hellander, chairman of the Swedish biodynamic association, argues that the worst poisons are often used on GM soy: "As the weeds in GM fields become resistant to glyphosate [soybeans are modified to tolerate it], it has been turned completely upside down. The conventional crops are sprayed with glyphosate, which is cheaper, while the GM crop growers are instead having to use paraquat and the like."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12613

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ CHANNEL 4 ACCUSED OF MISLEADING CONTRIBUTORS
A "documentary" due to be broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 on Thursday 4 November has come under attack from a leading American environmentalist who was interviewed for the programme, as well as a coalition of anti-GM campaigners based in the developing world.

Adam Werbach, former president of the Sierra Club conservation group, said the makers of What the Green Movement Got Wrong did not inform him about the programme's polemical nature when they approached him to contribute. He says that the final version, which he has seen, does not accurately represent his opinions and that he wants his contribution edited out of the programme. He is now considering making a formal complaint to Ofcom, the UK's media regulator, once the programme has aired.

Greenpeace said it also had "major issues" with how the film was explained to potential contributors and considered it was "lied to" about the film's focus when asked by the film-makers to provide archive footage of environmental protests from the 1960s. Channel 4 and the production company, Darlow Smithson, denied they had misled contributors.

The programme is described by Channel 4 as a film in which "life-long diehard greens advocate radical solutions to climate change, which include GM crops and nuclear energy". Contributors such as Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees, and Stewart Brand, author of The Whole Earth Catalog, are, say the channel, now part of a "a group of environmentalists across the world [who] believe that, in order to save the planet, humanity must embrace the very science and technology they once so stridently opposed. They argue that by clinging to an ideology formed more than 40 years ago, the traditional green lobby has failed in its aims and is ultimately harming its own environmental cause."

In a letter to Channel 4's head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, a coalition of over 50 individuals and organisations based in the developing world led by India's Vandana Shiva accused the filmmakers of using only two "southern-based commentators", both of whom are "funded by major GMO [genetically modified organisms] companies". The letter states: "We are tired of the corporate campaigns which claim to speak for the global south."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12627
Read the letter from the global South to Channel 4: http://www.gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/12628

+ EFSA CHIEF RESIGNS INDUSTRY POSITION
Diana Banati, the chair of the management board of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), has resigned from the European board of directors of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI). The International Life Science Institute (ILSI) is backed by the world's largest food, tobacco and GM corporations, including Monsanto. The World Health Organization has harshly criticized ILSI over its lobbying activities and restricted its WHO access. The WHO attacked ILSI's advocacy of "public health policy... counter to accepted nutrition policy" in a wide range of areas, and over its failure to make developing world partners aware of its industry funding base.
GMWATCH COMMENT: Banati should have resigned from EFSA rather than ILSI. She no longer has any credibility.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12602

+ ECONOMIST DEBATE ON GM AND SUSTAINABLE AG
The Economist is running an online debate on GM and sustainable agriculture (sponsored by chemical/GM company BASF) but has framed its motion as: "This house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory." This is in line with the current push by GM lobbyists to destroy a major force of opposition to GM crops - the sustainable and organic movement.

Proposing the motion is the GM enthusiast and genetic engineer Pamela Ronald, who's a past mistress at spinning her pro-GM lobbying as pro-sustainable ag. Ronald is married to an organic farmer and has become the poster-woman of the attempted unsavory alliance between GM and organic farming. She has written a book called Tomorrow's Table, in which she calls marker assisted breeding, a largely benign and uncontroversial aspect of biotechnology, genetic modification. This allows her to greenwash GM.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12626
Vote in the poll here: http://preview-debates.economist.com/debate/days/view/606