GMWatch News Review archive

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WEEKLY WATCH number 301
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from Claire Robinson, editor
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Dear all:

Most of this week's LOBBYWATCH is devoted to an appalling piece of pro-corporate colonialism from the British TV station, Channel 4. "What the Greens Got Wrong", fronted in part by corporate lobbyists posing as environmentalists, made out that environmental groups in the affluent North are denying the global South the GM technology it desperately needs. Channel 4 and the programme makers appear to have gone out of their way to avoid featuring any voices on GM from the South -- apart, that is, from a couple of lobbyists for GM interests, Florence Wambugu and Shanthu Shantaram.

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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LOBBYWATCH - CHANNEL 4 TV'S "WHAT THE GREEN MOVEMENT GOT WRONG"
LOBBYWATCH - OTHER NEWS
ASIA
CORPORATE CRIMES
THE AMERICAS
GM INSECTS
EUROPE

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LOBBYWATCH - CHANNEL 4 TV'S "WHAT THE GREEN MOVEMENT GOT WRONG"
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+ GLOBAL SOUTH PROTEST AGAINST CHANNEL 4 DOCUMENTARY
There has been massive protest against the bias of Channel 4 TV's latest anti-environmentalist polemic, What the Green Movement Got Wrong, which aired in the UK on November 4. Presented by two people who still consider themselves greens, Stewart Brand and Mark Lynas, and with support from Patrick Moore, the programme aired blatant falsehoods about environmentalists that fit snugly into the corporate agenda. Chief among these was the charge that greens are obstructing environmental and social progress by obstructing nuclear power and GM crops. In particular, the programme made out that but for Northern NGOs, GM crops could help solve hunger in the developing world. The journalist George Monbiot commented that Brand's "account is infused with magical thinking, in which technology is expected to solve all political and economic problems."

A coalition of over 50 organisations and individuals based in the developing world wrote a letter of complaint to Channel 4's head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne. The coalition accused the filmmakers of using only two Southern-based commentators, Florence Wambugu and Shanthu Shantharam, both of whom are funded by major GMO companies. The letter said: "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=12628

+ AFRICAN BIODIVERSITY NETWORK CONDEMNS CHANNEL 4 PROGRAMME
One of the signatory organisations of the above letter to Channel 4, the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), issued a strong statement condemning the programme's claims on GM. It quoted Dr Tewolde Berhan Egzhiaber, Head of the Dept of the Environment in Ethiopia and a co-founder of ABN, as saying, "Once a GM crop is grown, it will inevitably cross-pollinate with neighbouring related crops and wild plants. Africa’s vast genepool of indigenous seed varieties is far too precious to contemplate losing to careless contamination. Researchers have barely bothered to investigate the real potential of these indigenous and locally-adapted varieties to meet diverse nutritional and climate needs. There is no evidence, especially in small-holder farmer conditions, that GM crops increase production."

To the claim that GM can improve the nutrient content of African crops, Anne Maina of the ABN responded: "Genetically modifying crops for increased nutrition is just an insidious way of saying that Africa should be kept on the most basic starvation diet. We do not need GM technology, when we know it would be cheaper and more effective for African farmers to grow and eat a healthy diversity of crops... The idea that GM will offer any nutritional benefits to Africans is ridiculous."
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12649

+ FRIENDS OF THE EARTH RESPONDS TO CHANNEL 4
In What the Green Movement Got Wrong, Mark Lynas said FoE and Greenpeace are "clinging" to outdated ideological opposition to solutions like nuclear power. But Friends of the Earth said its opposition to nuclear and GM is not ideological but practical. "The technology has been around for five decades now and billions of pounds of public subsidies have gone into the industry yet the problem [of radioactive waste] remains unresolved," said director of policy and campaigns Craig Bennett, who added the British taxpayer alone already faced £80 billion in liability for nuclear waste. On GM, Bennett said, "In order to help the poorest farmers you must empower them to achieve food sovereignty - they are not going to get that by relying on foreign-owned seeds from foreign-owned corporations."
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12629
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12632

+ MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC RESPONDS TO MARK LYNAS
Comment on Lynas's stance on The Telegraph website: "Come on Mark... the [green] movement has moved on since your days. It now espouses positive solutions, mostly those promoted by peoples and movements in global South especially farmers e.g. Via Campesina the international farmers' movement that represents hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers across the world... The 'false solutions' peddled by those who hold economic and political power will do what they intend: they reinforce the status quo and dupe people into believing that there is no alternative but to sup the spoon of technologies which have origins in proprietary science, not those that develop in the living laboratories of farmers' fields."
http://bit.ly/bmWSZQ

+ ENVIRONMENTALISTS RESPOND TO CHANNEL 4
Andrew Simms, founder of the New Economics Foundation, commented on the Channel 4 programme: "If you suggest that it is better to mend a bicycle with a spanner than a fish, does that make you anti fish? Brand and Lynas try to label environmentalists as anti-science and anti-progress. But both they, and the corporate lobbies promoting GM food and nuclear power, fail to acknowledge that the green movement is merely in favour of different applications of science, ones they conclude are more likely to deliver better progress. The question should be, which tool is best for the job? Who holds the fish, and who the spanner? Brand and Lynas are waving fish. A wide range of agro-ecological farming methods coupled with land reform and economic support to small farmers are more proven, more productive and more likely to reliably feed the poor than GM."
More excellent comments:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12636

+ CHANNEL 4'S LIES OVER ZAMBIA AND DDT
ZAMBIA: What the Green Movement Got Wrong regurgitated a discredited lie that hundreds Northern NGOs like Greenpeace persuaded the Zambian government not to accept US GM food aid, thus inflicting harm on hungry Zambians in 2002. In fact, Zambia made its own decision about the GM food aid, based on its own scientific investigation. And Greenpeace even advised Zambia to accept the GM food aid if there was no alternative. Happily, there was. Alternative non-GM food aid was available in the area and was provided. And no Zambians died from hunger, let alone from lack of GM food. "We didn't record a single death arising out of hunger," said Charles Mushitu of the Zambian Red Cross.

DDT: The programme also wrongly claimed that environmental organizations like Greenpeace got the insecticide DDT banned internationally, leading to millions of third world deaths from malaria. It took this lie from Stewart Brand's book, Whole Earth Discipline. In fact, there has never been a global ban on DDT for disease control purposes. But some governments did stop using DDT because mosquitoes became resistant. The programme makers claimed to have meticulously researched the programme over six months. But as science blogger Tim Lambert pointed out, it doesn't take six months of research to find that this is wrong, but six seconds. In the programme, Brand challenged the environmental movement as follows: "I would like to see an environmental movement that's comfortable noticing when it's wrong and announcing when it's wrong." Journalist George Monbiot challenged Brand to notice and announce that he's wrong about DDT. So far that hasn't happened.
http://gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12646
Read Monbiot's incisive commentary on the programme, and follow links to his correspondence with Stewart Brand:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12638
Read the letter of condemnation of the programme from NGOs working on the ground in the global South, including representatives of War on Want, the World Development Movement, Practical Action and the UK Food Group - the leading UK network for working on global food and agriculture issues.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12647

+ CONTRIBUTOR TO PROGRAMME TAKES ACTION AGAINST CHANNEL 4
Adam Werbach, one of the environmentalist contributors to the Channel 4 programme, is taking action against Channel 4 and the producers of the programme for misleading him about its content.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12635

+ OTHER CONTRIBUTORS
PATRICK MOORE was presented in the programme as a leading environmentalist. But despite having a prominent early role in Greenpeace, Moore is a paid spokesperson for the nuclear and logging industries in Canada and the United States and has been described as "a spin doctor for corporations engaged in environmental destruction". Moore has been touting nuclear energy at the behest of the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) front group, and the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. The NEI is bankrolled by the nuclear industry. The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition was part of a $8 million public relations contract with PR giant Hill & Knowlton. Hill & Knowlton are better known for their work defending the tobacco industry. From 1991 Moore was paid to represent the British Columbia Forest Alliance - a logging industry-front group set up by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Burson-Marsteller is the same PR firm that represented Exxon after the Valdez oil spill and Union Carbide after the Bhopal chemical disaster. Moore has promoted clear-cutting of native forests. Although he uses the issue of man-made global warming to promote nuclear power, he has promoted scepticism over climate change in defending Exxon.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12635
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Patrick_Moore
http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5641

STEWART BRAND: George Monbiot wrote to Brand: "Like Patrick Moore, you trade on your credentials as a founder of the early environment movement. Like Patrick Moore, you now work as a corporate consultant. By the way, who does your company now represent? The list of corporations Sourcewatch gives as its clients - including ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Cargill, Dow Chemical, Shell and BP - makes my hair stand on end. But is it correct? And why have you ceased to carry this list on your website? Like Patrick Moore, you attack the environment movement in ways that suit corporate interests: calling us, in effect, to drop our campaigns for regulation and democratic control in favour of technofixes. When I first came across your work, I took it at face value. As I read more, I began to wonder if you are not, as you claim, pioneering a new form of environmentalism, but a new form of corporate consultancy. You seem to be seeking to shape the environmental debate to suit the businesses you work for”¦ You are more dangerous than the other corporate-sponsored adversaries of the green movement. You dont deny that climate change is happening. You don't get abusive, you remain polite and charming, you sound reasonable at all times. You are, as a result, a more effective operator than them: you have persuaded a lot of influential people that you are working for the good of the planet. I fear that the campaign you are running is the most insidious and subtle exercise in corporate propaganda I have yet encountered. As a result, no one, until now, has called you out on it. With this response, that changes."
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/11/10/a-charming-falsehood/
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12635
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11843
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-13-stewart-brands-nuclear-enthusiasm-falls- short-on-facts-and-logic/
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12665
Profile of Brand: http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Stewart_Brand

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LOBBYWATCH - OTHER NEWS
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+ ECONOMIST DEBATE - IS GM COMPATIBLE WITH SUSTAINABLE AG?
The Economist has run a debate on whether "biotechnology" is compatible with sustainable agriculture. The wording of the motion seemed to be an attempt to sneak GM into public acceptance via the soft term "biotechnology", which in fact does not mean GM but refers to a range of technologies, including marker assisted breeding, that are supported by the public and most environmental groups. Speaking for the motion was genetic engineer Pamela Ronald, whose marriage to an organic farmer has made her the poster woman of the GM industry in its campaign to marry GM crops with organic and sustainable farming. Speaking against the motion was Chuck Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center. Readers were invited to vote for Ronald (marriage of GM with sustainable ag) or Benbrook (in support of the non-compatibility of GM and sustainable ag).

Odd things happened with The Economist's web pages carrying the debate and vote, as many of you noticed, but finally, GM opponents carried the day with 62% of the votes, against 38% voting for GM and Ronald. The Economist's report of the vote and its "technical problem" is here: http://econ.st/b0V5lc
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12626
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12655
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12656

+ BOOK REVIEW: STARVED FOR SCIENCE
Here's Jill Richardson's incisive review of the book, Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out of Africa, by Robert Paarlberg, an advisor to Monsanto's CEO:
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12652
More on Paarlberg:
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Robert_Paarlberg

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ASIA
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+ INDIA: FARM WIDOWS BURN U.S. PRESIDENT'S EFFIGY
A group of farm widows burnt an effigy of US President Barack Obama to protest against America's agriculture policies and GM seed promotion in India. The protest took place at a time when the US President was in Delhi on the last leg of his three-day India visit. The farm widows claimed the US attempt to globalise India's agriculture sector was aimed at benefiting American multinational companies (MNCs). American MNCs have been instrumental in the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha, where thousands of debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide over the last few years. The protesters demanded a ban on Bt cottonseed and the withdrawal of huge subsidies to American cotton farmers.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12650

+ PHILIPPINES TO TEST GM "GOLDEN RICE"
The Philippines government plans to start field testing its own type of GM beta carotene-enhanced "Golden Rice" rice in December this year.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12659
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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ OPEN LETTER TO MONSANTO EMPLOYEES
2011 will mark the 50th anniversary of the spraying of the toxic and lethal herbicide Agent Orange on Vietnam. Monsanto was a leading manufacturer of Agent Orange. Len Aldis, secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society, has written an open letter to all employees of Monsanto, asking them why they continue to work for a company with such a terrible history.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12657

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THE AMERICAS
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+ APPEAL FROM GMWATCH - NEWS NEEDED FROM SOUTH AMERICA
South America is home to a rising resistance movement against agribusiness power, GM soy expansion, and glyphosate/agrochemicals spraying. Much of what goes on there passes unreported and unnoticed in Europe and the English-speaking world. We at GMWatch want to report the major items of GM and glyphosate/agrochemicals news from S America but are hampered by the language barrier. If any Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking GMWatch subscribers can forward any short summaries (in English) of important news stories, including a weblink to the original article/other documented evidence, we will report them. If you can help, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Many thanks.

+ BIRTH DEFECTS, SUPERWEEDS AND INTIMIDATION: GM SOY IN ARGENTINA
A superb article about the research of Prof Andres Carrasco, which found that glyphosate causes birth defects in very low doses, has been published by Truthout. Carrasco's research provided scientific confirmation of reports that glyphosate sprayed on GM soy in Argentina is causing high rates of birth defects, cancers, and other problems. The article describes the intimidation that Carrasco has faced, other important research on the hazards of glyphosate, and the social and environmental devastation caused by the expansion of GM soy.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12653
Much of the research referred to in the article is available at
http://www.gmwatch.org/component/content/article/12479-reports-reports

+ ARGENTINA: A LAW TO MAINTAIN RURAL LIFE
Stopping the evictions of farmers and declaring the social function of land are the two main pillars of a bill being promoted by Argentina's farmers' associations. This would be the first important legislative barrier to the expansion of the agricultural frontier by agribusiness (in particular involving GM soy), which has led to the eviction of over 300,000 farmer and native families. The bill is reportedly viewed favorably by Argentina's Ministry of Agriculture. "The initiative comes from different organisations that suffer from the agribusiness model. It will be a legal obstacle to the bulldozers and we are going to fight for the land that was stolen from us," said Miriam Bruno, of the Foro de la Agricultura Familiar (Fonaf, Forum of Family Agriculture).
Article in Spanish:
http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3-156535-2010-11-09.html

+ ARGENTINA: HUNGER STRIKE TO STOP AGROCHEMICALS SPRAYING ON GM SOY
Argentine forest engineer Claudio Lowy began a hunger strike on November 9 in the entrance of the Ombudsman's office, Buenos Aires, in protest against official inaction over the spraying of agrochemicals on GM soy in the country. A press release said 12 million people will be affected by the spraying during this growing season, which is about to begin. A petition signed by 2,700 people was submitted to the Ombudsman's office nearly a year ago, asking him to intervene in requesting a change in the way that the toxicity of agrochemicals is assessed. The petition asks for assessments to take account of the whole range of health effects of agrochemicals, including chronic and sublethal effects - not just acute and lethal toxic effects, as is currently the case. When Lowy began his hunger strike, the Ombudsman had failed to reply to the petition.
Update 14 November: Lowy has ended his hunger strike as the Ombudsman has agreed to ask the ministry of agriculture to re-classify certain chemicals. This is a great victory for Lowy and the many activists fighting this issue in South America.
Article in Spanish:
http://www.prensadefrente.org/pdfb2/index.php/anuncios/2010/11/09/p6099?printme= 1&skin=print

+ ROUNDUP READY BENTGRASS FOUND IN OREGON
Roundup Ready creeping bentgrass has been found in Eastern Oregon's Malheur County. Oregon State University weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith said the GM bentgrass is growing in several miles of irrigation canals and on field borders between Ontario and Nyssa.
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12664

+ PROTESTERS RALLY AGAINST GM FOODS IN CANADA
Protesters gathered in Kelowna, British Columbia in support of a bill that calls for greater regulation of GM foods through labelling and independent testing.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12651

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GM INSECTS
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+ EXPERTS CONCERNED BY GM MOSQUITO RELEASE
Experts in the safety of GM organisms have expressed concern over the release of GM mosquitoes into the wild on the Cayman Islands, which was publicised internationally only last month ”” a year after their initial release. The trial of the GM strain of the dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito, developed by UK biotech company Oxitec, was carried out on Grand Cayman island by the Cayman Islands' Mosquito Research and Control Unit (MRCU) in 2009, followed by a bigger release between May and October this year. Together they represent the first known release of GM mosquitoes anywhere in the world. Ricarda Steinbrecher, a geneticist and co-director of EcoNexus ”” a UK-based non-profit ”” described the lack of publicity surrounding the trials as "worrying, both from the scientific perspective as well as public participation perspective".
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12661

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EUROPE
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+ EUROBAROMETER - MORE EUROPEANS OPPOSED TO GM FOOD
According to the new Eurobarometer on Biotechnology, the percentage of Europeans opposing GM food is increasing. "The survey provides EU decision-makers with an unequivocal answer: the majority of Europeans are opposed to the development of GM food in Europe (61%)," said Marco Contiero of Greenpeace. In the previous Eurobarometer addressing GMOs, the percentage of Europeans opposed to GM food was 58%.

From 1996-2010 the Eurobarometer surveys have found a downward trend in support for GM food in Europe, with strong support now down to just 5%. In some countries the fall in support is dramatic. In Spain, one of the most pro-GM countries in Europe, where GM maize is grown commercially, support for GM food fell by 20% in the last five years.

The other key finding of the survey is that contrary to what proponents of GM crops claim, Europeans know very well the difference between biotechnology and GM and strongly reject only the latter. Modern biotechnologies such as Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS), a non-invasive process that speeds up conventional breeding, do not pose the risks of genetic engineering.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12660

+ UK SUPERMARKETS URGED TO LABEL NON-GM-FED ANIMAL PRODUCTS
British supermarkets are being told to come clean on the fact that at least 70 per cent of their meat and milk comes from animals reared on GM feed. The call comes as French supermarket giant Carrefour launched a new logo system to mark out such products. The chain - the world's second biggest - now labels foods derived from animals fed a non-GM diet using a green logo, reading "Nourri sans OGM" or "Reared without GM". Carrefour took the decision after research revealed that 96 per cent of consumers backed honest labelling and 63 per cent would stop eating products from animals reared on GM feed.

Now the policy director of the Soil Association, Peter Melchett, has written to the chief executives of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, urging them to follow Carrefour's lead. Many of these chains have banned GM ingredients from their own-label foods, but not from feed given to their livestock. Melchett described this as a "gaping hole in the non-GM policies of all UK multiple retailers".
See Peter Melchett's letter at http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12663

+ STUDIES SHOWING GM DNA TURNS UP IN MILK AND MEAT FROM ANIMALS FED GM CROPS
According to a man from the British Retail Consortium, "scientific advice" says there's no need for products from GM-fed animals to carry a GM label because "GM material is not transmitted through animal feed to meat or milk". The BRC's "scientific advice" is years out of date. Studies show that GM DNA in feed is taken up by animals' organs and has been detected in the milk, fish, and meat that people eat:
http://gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/12427

+ EU COMMISSION'S PROPOSED GM NATIONAL BANS MAY BE LEGALLY INVALID
EU Health Commissioner John Dalli has led an EU Commission plan to allow member states to ban the cultivation of GM crops in return for allowing fast-track approval at the central EU level. This proposal is opposed by many environmental and anti-GM groups, which warn that it would open the gates to an even less rigorous GM approvals process than is currently in place. These groups also warn that member states that implement bans at national level would be vulnerable to legal challenges. Now a report by the legal service of the EU Council of Ministers supports the environmental groups' position -- saying that Dalli's proposal may not have a legal leg to stand on.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12658

+ EU SET TO TIGHTEN GM CROP ASSESSMENTS
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued new guidelines for assessing the environmental impacts of GM plants, as part of a shake-up of the bloc's GM crop approval system. The guidelines from EFSA set out new assessment procedures for biotech companies when submitting GM crops for EU approval, including on possible long-term effects of GM crops and their impacts on insects and other plants. The new guidelines follow a request from EU governments in 2008 to strengthen EFSA's GM crop assessment procedures, and criticism from countries including France that EFSA had failed to take full account of environmental concerns when approving new crops. France has refused to discuss European Commission proposals to let member states decide whether to grow or ban GM crops, until the EU's assessment procedures have been strengthened.
http://www.gmwatch.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12662