GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Last week we reported our new Pants on Fire award for the incendiary Sense About Science.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p2temp2.asp?aid=60&page=1&op=2

This week we're focusing on their report on peer review which comes complete with the usual lies and distortions. There is obviously a lot wrong with science these days, shackled as it so often is to the kind of corporate interests to which Sense About Science connect, but peer review is not at the heart of that problem.

But let's humour Sense About Science for a moment and suppose that the science issue that must be tackled *is* one of media "scares" about non-peer reviewed science of dubious origin. In that case, why isn't SAS hammering the countless examples of opinion pieces, "reviews" based on no data, and even internal company memos which are so frequently cited by the GM industry as "proof" of its products' safety?

The hypocrisy of this lobby group is almost beyond belief. Indeed, one of the contributors to this report - Sir Peter Lachmann - even stands accused of trying to suppress an important piece of peer reviewed research. See our LOBBYWATCH section for the whole story.

Look out too for our FOCUS ON AFRICA section and how you can support the campaign there over Nestle's double-standards. For UK readers, please don't miss our CAMPAIGN-UK section focussing on getting Sainsbury's to remove GM feed from its meat/dairy production line.

Sainsbury's do not seem to know about the latest research findings that GM DNA has been found in milk; I hope a number of you will enlighten them!

Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.lobbywatch.org / www.gmwatch.org

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CONTENTS
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FOCUS ON AFRICA
LOBBYWATCH
CORPORATE CRIMES
US
OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
CAMPAIGN-UK: SAINSBURY'S LATEST
GLOBAL ACTIONS
GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
DONATIONS
ARCHIVE

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FOCUS ON AFRICA
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=37&page=1
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+ GRAIN SA AGAINST IMPORT PERMIT FOR UNTESTED GM MAIZE
South Africa's leading grain farmers' organisation, Grain SA, has opposed in writing the application for an import permit by Monsanto to import genetically modified maize for human and animal consumption. Concern centres around the fact that the imported maize could also be used for domestic production purposes, considering that the importers cannot guarantee that the prospective maize will be immediately milled.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4073

+ NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT URGED TO CANCEL GM AGREEMENT WITH UNITED STATES
Nigeria's Federal Government has been urged to cancel the newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US and Nigeria on promotion of Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Products in the country. Describing the memorandum as ill-advised, the secretary of the All-Nigerian Consumer Movement Union (Ancomu), Lanre Oginni called on government to adopt a precautionary attitude towards GM products, which it said are not safe for human consumption.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4066

+ AFRICABIO EXPOSED AS INDUSTRY LOBBY GROUP
Until now AfricaBio, which presents itself as a civil society organisation - "The NGO taking biotechnology to the people of Africa" - has remained vague about who it represents and who funds it. It describes itself as "a non-political, non-profit biotechnology association" and claims a "wide spectrum" of support.

Some, however, have questioned its claims to be a disinterested part of civil society. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in late August 2002, AfricaBio unsuccessfully sought to gain formal access to civil society sessions at the Summit.

AfricaBio complained that "despite repeated requests" to be included in the programme, its "participation was refused" on the grounds that it was an industry body seeking to dilute the impact of genuine NGOs. Despite the refusal, AfricaBio's supporters did attend the Civil Society Forum and worked with others to try and undermine it, by first expressing dissent from the floor and then staging a walkout. AfricaBio was also respresented at a carefully staged pro-GM protest rally at the Summit.

But disputing AfricaBio's claim to a broad-based civil-society style membership has been difficult in the absence of precise details about that membership - details AfricaBio has consistently refused to furnish. However, Mariam Mayet, a lawyer with the African Centre for Biosafety, was present at AfricaBio's launch on 27 October 1999. At that launch a list of "founding members" of AfricaBio was on a sheet in the folder given out to participants.

They include AgrEvo South Africa; Carnia Seed [Note: this has been bought by Monsanto]; Delta and Pine Lands SA. Inc; Monsanto SA Ltd (Monsanto has voting rights in AfricaBio); Novartis South Africa Ltd; Pioneer Hi-Bred RSA Ltd; Sensako [note: this is a seed company and has been bought by Monsanto]; Innovation Biotechnology [Note: company owned by Muffy Koch who is on a sub-committee of the Advisory Committee which provides expert technical advice on South Africa's regulatory decisions on GM]; University of Cape Town, Dept of Microbiology [Note: the Dept is headed by Jennifer Thompson, see below].

Note that under AfricaBio's membership and voting rights , business members have 5 votes, while research organisations and non-business members have, respectively, 2 votes and 1 vote.

See the full list at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4031

+ HOW THEY FIXED SOUTH AFRICA
The above item shows the stranglehold of corporate interests that shaped AfricaBio -- interests which the lobby group has done its very best to conceal.
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=41&page=1

Leading members of AfricaBio have been at the heart of South Africa's regulatory system from the beginning, helping to shape a biosafety regime that is now promoted as a model for the rest of Africa.

For instance, a leading member of AfricaBio's board is Jennifer Thompson, a Professor at the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Cape Town. Thompson is also an advisor to the biotech-industry funded Council for Biotechnology Information in the US, a Board Member of the biotech-industry backed ISAAA,as well as Chair of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, which receives backing from the industry, the US and USAID to introduce GM crops into Africa.

Thompson was involved in the drafting of the South African Biotechnology Strategy and was a Chair of SAGENE, South Africa's original regulatory body for GM crops. She is also a member of South Africa's current Advisory Committee, which provides expert technical advice on regulatory decisions.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4064

A profile of SAGENE, the key body in shaping a regulatory regime that has made possible one of the most rapid introductions of GM crops anywhere in the world, is at
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=282&page=S

+ CHALLENGING NESTLE SOUTH AFRICA
The South African Freeze Alliance on Genetic
Engineering (SAFeAGE) which networks the interests of over 130 organisations and millions of South African consumers, is calling for a powerful response to the behavious of Nestle South Africa (SA).

Nestle has removed all GM ingredients from their products in Europe, Australasia and in the Far East according to their corporate press releases, yet appear happy to justify the inclusion of GM ingredients in South Africa.

Nestle's Corporate Affairs Manager in South Africa, Heather Robinson, does this by referring to AfricaBio as some sort of objective arbiter on the safety of GM, and to South Africa's regulatory system as providing "stringent biosafety risk assessments and tests".

Please write to Nestle (in a polite way!) -- This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. -- setting out your concerns (Please copy your mails to Nestle to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

You may wish to mention that you are planning a boycott of Nestle's products by you and yours if
Nestle does not take immediate action to treat its South African consumers with the same respect it does those in Europe and elsewhere (see above).

For a brilliant response to Nestle from Glenn Ashton of SAFeAGE see: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4078

Keep an eye on the SAFeAGE website: www.safeage.org

+ SENDING GMOS TO STARVING PEOPLE IS 'INHUMAN AID'
Vandana Shiva tells how food aid is increasingly being used as a weapon to create markets for the biotechnology industry and GM foods.

Excerpt:
"More than 300,000 people now face starvation and the policy of sending them food aid containing GMOs is now a major issue. In the closing plenary of the 2002 Johannesburg Earth Summit, for instance, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was heckled by both NGOs and governments when he insisted that African countries import GM food from the US. Hundreds of African farmers and government representatives also condemned the US pressure to distribute GM contaminated food aid. Instead, they proposed small scale, indigenous solutions based on farmers rights to land, water and seed."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4065

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ NEW SENSE ABOUT SCIENCE REPORT MAKES BOGUS CLAIMS
At the end of June the lobby group Sense About Science issued the report of its Working Party on peer review. The report and a press release can be found here: http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/peerreview/index.htm

An article about the report from the Education Guardian states, "The public and the media could expose wild and bogus scientific claims if they asked tougher questions about the status of research, a working party of leading scientists said today."

Early press comment suggested that this report and a parallel report expected from the Royal Society would be aimed at issues like GM and the work of researchers like Dr Arpard Pusztai. The report does not disappoint in this respect, containing multiple general references to GM along with MMR, mobile phone radiation, BSE and other "scares", as examples of concerns supposedly not based on rigorous peer reviewed research.

The report also contains a specific, though indirect, reference to Stanley Ewen and Arpad Pusztai's research on feeding GM potatoes to rats. It claims that at the time of submission to The Lancet, the paper already "had been turned down by another leading journal." The report also gives the impression that because Ewen and Pusztai's research had been rejected by this other "leading journal", Lancet editor Richard Horton was forced to defend his own publication of the research by attacking the value of peer review and suggesting publication was in the interest of public debate, i.e. the issue of scientific merit had been set aside.

The clear inference of this is that the Lancet's publication of Ewen and Pusztai's research wasn't based on normal peer review criteria. This, however, is a pack of lies:

1. Far from being rejected by "another leading journal", the Pusztai research was only submitted to The Lancet.

2. The editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, not only subjected the research to peer review, he subjected it to an especially stringent version, sending it to double the normal number of referees.

3. In an article by Horton to which the Working Party's report specifically refers, Horton explicitly states that, "five out of six of The Lancet's reviewers judged that Ewen and Pusztai's work should be published".

4. Although Horton has spoken of the importance of the Pusztai paper's publication in relation to open public debate, he has also made it clear that, "Stanley Ewen and Arpad Pusztai's research letter was published on grounds of scientific merit, as well as public interest".

(For more about the three ideologically extreme Living Marxism-derived members of Sense About Science's Working Party on peer review: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4074 )

+ For GM WATCH editor Jonathan Matthews's response to a Danish scientist who sees merit in the report, see:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4077
For Arpad Pusztai's comments on the report:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4079

+ ROYAL SOCIETY LIES ABOUT ITS INVOLVEMENT IN SAS PEER REVIEW REPORT
The Royal Society has been keen to insist it is not involved in the Sense About Science report nor in any "sort of shenanigans going on within the scientific community", as the following letter to The Guardian from Stephen Cox of the Society put it:

"Contrary to George Monbiot's claims, the Royal Society is not chairing or hosting the working party on peer review set up by Sense About Science."

However, the agenda and other details of a meeting of the Sense about Science Working Party were leaked to us. This shows that the SAS meeting in question was hosted by the Royal Society in its Council Room, and gives the impression this location was a permanent fixture.

Also in the leaked details of the meeting, beneath the list of members of the Working Party meeting under the chairmanship of the Royal Society's former Vice President, it states: "The Royal Society - Patrick Bateson/Bob Ward liaison with internal committee".

Yet in the final report where input from people additional to the Working Party is listed, there is no mention of Patrick Bateson, the Society's Biological Secretary, involvement. Bateson has also made misleading public statements about Pusztai and peer review.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=1880

+ WHY THE WELLCOME TRUST REFUSED TO SUPPORT THE SAS PEER REVIEW REPORT
The full text of a letter (leaked to GM WATCH) sent to Tracey Brown, the Director of Sense About Science (SAS), from Clare Matterson of the Wellcome Trust, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4072
It concerns the Sense About Science Working Party on peer review, which has just published its report, and explains why the Wellcome Trust refused either to participate in the Working Party or to support it financially.

Note, in particular, this telling point: "The key issue being addressed by the [Sense About Science] study is the erosion of trust by the public in authority. The peer review process is only a part of this problem - much of the confusion is about risk and probability, compounded by Government using scientific information as if it were a definitive truth (for example in the case of BSE) to make policy;"

This raises very different issues to the complacent picture painted by Sense About Science of everything in the garden being lovely if only an ignorant public weren't being misled by the media's credulous promotion of the bogus claims of maverick scientists.

Other criticisms made by the Wellcome Trust were that:

"The proposed make-up of the [Sense About Science] Working Party is extremely narrow. It runs the risk of being seen as a closed and defensive strategy without opening the debate to a wider group of parties that may have differing definitions and views."

and

"Concerns were expressed that the background commentary was based on many assumptions about behaviours rather than direct evidence."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4072

+ ROYAL SOCIETY COUP AT DFID
The Royal Society is celebrating the appointment of a chief scientific advisor in the Department for International Development (DfID). The Society has lobbied strongly for this increased input of "science" into UK international development policy. Lord May, President of the Royal Society, says science's "massive contribution" will include developing "drought resistant crops", confirming that the aim is one of further mining overseas development in the interests of publicly subsidising UK researchers, ie more expensive top-down development generated out of British labs. DfiD has already funded a 13 million pound plus programme to create a new generation of GM animals, crops and drugs throughout the Third World. http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=175
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4073

+ LOBBY ASSAULT ON UK PARLIAMENT - LATEST
Details have been released on the pro-GM briefing in the House of Commons on the evening of 13 July, organised by Dr Ian Gibson MP with Sense about Science and the Scientific Alliance, which may be open to the public. Should you like to attend, please email the Scientific Alliance at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (put "GM Question Time" in the subject line), or call 020 7484 5355.

Anyone in the UK may like to alert their Member of Parliament to the dubious character of the Scientific Alliance - see the LOBBYWATCH profile at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=136&page=S

For more info on the "leading scientists and respected experts" on the panel: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4004

Note that: "GM Question Time will also include the launch of the Scientific Alliance's expert report on the various strands of the Government's GM Review." Presumably, this will be another attempt to make out that the Women's Institute was behind all the public hostility!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4029

+ GIBSON ADMITS COLLUSION WITH BURKE
Dr Ian Gibson MP's local paper has picked up on his exposure in a GM WATCH bulletin as "a parrot in the House of Commons" [http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3822 ] and has wrung an admission out of him about his speech's extraordinary similarity to a paper written by his former employer, Derek Burke - a paper which the MP was presumably provided with in advance as it wasn't published until the day of Gibson's speech.

According to journalist Alex Gore, 'When pressed Dr Gibson admitted: "We [ie Gibson and Burke] are working together to try and erode the anti-GM debate."'

This admission is revealing. In May 1999, beginning the day after the British Medical Association called for a GM moratorium, no less than four apparently independent reports on GM were published in the space of just two days. All asserted the safety of GM foods and crops, and all criticised the research of Dr Arpad Pusztai, which showed GM food damaged rats.

The reports appeared to come from four separate sources. One was the May/Donaldson report - co-author, Robert May was then the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor; one was from Royal Society, which Robert May now heads and of which he was at the time a leading Fellow; one was from the Nuffield Council, amongst whose leading lights were Derek Burke and Brian Heap, then Vice President of the Royal Society; and one was from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which Ian Gibson now heads.

The whole point of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee is that it should provide scrutiny of scientific issues independent of government and of vested interests. Gibson's collusion with Burke, who in turn has worked hand in glove with leading Fellows of the Royal Society, makes a complete nonsense of this.

Recently, the Gibson-led Science and Technology Committee issued a report on the UK's public funding body for the bio-sciences, the BBSRC. The only serious criticism it made of this highly-industrially aligned body was that it was not being pro-active enough in promoting communication with the public on issues like GM crops where public trust needed to be built.

The conclusions of this "independent" report take on an entirely different character with the Select Committee chairman's admission that he is working hand in glove with Britain's leading pro-GM campaigner "to try and erode the anti-GM debate."

At the time of the Pusztai report, the specialist adviser to the Select Committee on Science and Technology was Derek Burke, although he stood down for that report to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest. Burke has written of his time with the Committee, "Everyone knows what goes on in the chamber. ... But the real work of the House of Commons is done, I think, elsewhere - in Committee Rooms... or in the Select Committees. And, at a time when people are becoming increasingly disillusioned about the effectiveness of an individual MP, it's been splendid to see how much influence an individual can have in a Select Committee."  [ http://www.iob.org/downloads/In%20my%20view.pdf ]
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4068

+ GM RESEARCH COLLAPSES IN UK - OR DOES IT?
According to an article in the Independent on Sunday, in view of the biotech industry's pull -out from the UK, there is doubt that "the [British] Government would continue to plough public money into research that had no application in Britain".

However enjoyable the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the GM propagandists quoted in the article (Prof Anthony Trewavas and Prof Mike Wilson) may be, don't be fooled. The UK's GM lobby have been working flat-out for some time on increasing public investment in GM research. They aim to achieve this by making sure that Third World countries continue to be targeted with the crops that nobody else wants.

And this strategy has a strong track record of success. Don't forget that the British government has already quietly sunk over GBP13m of public money into such projects via DfID during the period of public disquiet over GM. It has also sunk further money, along with USAID, into The Nairobi-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) project to push GM crops into Africa.
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=204&page=D
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=163&page=A

The recent update of the Nuffield Council's report on GM crops, courtesy of the UK's GM godfather Derek Burke, the John Innes Centre's Mike Gale etc. - was in part designed to establish a "moral imperative" in the mind of the British government and public institutions for *far greater* public investment in this area. http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=98&page=N

And since early 2003 the pro-GM lobby group Sense About Science, seeing which way the wind is blowing, has been running a campaign called "Public-Good Plant Breeding: what are the international priorities?".

Nobody should be in any doubt that the GM lobby's real aim has precious little to do with feeding the hungry. It is to shore up GM research in the UK in the face of industry's current retreat, to associate the technology in the official mind with the public interest, and to give GM a charitable face via targeting it at developing countries. This also has the effect of providing industry with a highly desirable PR lever for the technology.
More at: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4030

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CORPORATE CRIMES
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+ CHILD LABOUR AND CORPORATE SEED FARM SCANDAL CONTINUES
Multinational companies like Unilever, Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta are perpetuating the terrible problem of child labour on cottonseed farms in India. These children get no education, earn less than 40 Cents a day and are exposed to poisonous pesticides during their work. Please read the articles published in the Indian daily "The Hindu" on the issue:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4027

Excerpt:
A 13-year-old Dalit child labourer, Mallesh, of Dudekonda in Pathikonda mandal in Kurnool district, lost his life while spraying pesticide in a cotton farm on Tuesday. The death comes at a time when the district is preparing for the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh's visit. ... Mallesh's death from exposure to pesticide is not the first of its kind; scores have fallen victim in the past few years.

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US
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+ STARLINK SAGA CONTINUES
Corn farmers who filed claims last year as part of the class action lawsuit against StarLink corn (which was never approved for human consumption but got into corn supplies) may soon receive compensation for their losses, according to the National Corn Growers Association.

Thousands of growers who grew corn between 1998 and 2002 were eligible to receive a recovery from the "Non-StarLink Farmer Actions" settlement. After repeated inquiries by the Nebraska Corn Board, the Garden City Group, a New York-based law firm, revealed that more than 150,000 claims were filed and just 6% of those claims were deficient, NCGA reported, adding that growers who filed deficient claims should have received a letter explaining how to correct the claim.

"The StarLink dilemma was an unfortunate situation for all corn growers, not just those who used the StarLink product," NCGA said. "Corn prices dropped significantly as a result of the situation and that impacted the entire industry. We're glad to see that qualified corn growers will finally be recouped for some of the lost market opportunities they experienced."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4016

"In Iowa, StarLink corn represented 1 percent of the total crop, only 1 percent. It has tainted 50 percent of the harvest." ABC NEWS, November 28, 2000

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OTHER GLOBAL NEWS
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+ AGRO-IMPERIALISM: GREEN REVOLUTION TO BIOTECH
The Green Revolution, which exported "high-yield" hybrid seeds to the third world and converted farms to monocultured cash crops, is being hyped in the UK as a great boon to the poor - witness the eulogies in the media of 'father of the Green Revolution' Norman Borlaug.

An interesting article from Bangladesh looks at the Green Revolution from another perspective, asking whether it is a blessing or a curse.

Excerpt:
The hybrid seeds, which were termed as High Yielding Variety or HYV, are in the real sense not high yielding. We could, more accurately, call them 'High Responsive Variety' as these seeds have the capacity to withstand high doses of chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and water. Not only do they withstand high doses, without application of high doses of inputs, not a single grain will come from hybrid seeds. On the other hand, the traditional seeds cannot withstand high doses of these inputs. As a result, the western countries arranged all means to give with one hand and take away with other. They sold fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation appliances, etc. We had to set up fertilizer factories, but the machinery, technology, and technologists were theirs. That's not the end, fuel being used in irrigation is imported from foreign countries. We have to use our precious natural gas for producing fertilizer and electricity. A sizable quantity of electricity is being used for irrigation!
purpose. The power plant machinery was also imported from their countries. If you calculate the multiplier effects of all these inputs being used in cultivating HYV, you would find that the benefit is zero.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4028

+ GREEN REVOLUTION BLAMED FOR FARMER SUICIDES IN INDIA
An article by Devinder Sharma reveals the ongoing horror of farmer suicides in India and places the responsibility firmly on 'Green Revolution' high-input farming systems:

"No one has the political courage to point a finger at the clear verdict against the industrial farming model being forced down the throat of small and marginal farmers... With the high-chemical input based technology that mined the soils and ultimately led to the lands gasping for breath, with the water-guzzling crops (hybrids and Bt cotton) sucking the groundwater acquifer dry, and with the failure of the markets to rescue the farmers from a collapse of the farming systems, the tragedy is that the human cost is entirely being borne by the farmers. The fundamental issue of destruction of sustainable livelihoods is not at all being addressed."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4070

+ CATHOLIC BODY REFUTES CLAIMS THAT GM CROPS COULD REDUCE WORLD HUNGER
The Catholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR) has co-signed a letter criticising a recent report from the Food and Agricultural Association of the UN (FAO) for promoting genetic engineering of seeds as the answer to world hunger and poverty.

Christine Allen, CIIR executive director, said, "It is incredibly worrying that an organisation with such authority as FAO is espousing an argument that is, in essence, legitimising the agenda of transnational corporations. Our partners tell us that the introduction of GM crops in these countries will endanger small farmers' livelihoods, undermine poor people's ability to feed themselves and increase the pressures on already damaged and vulnerable environments."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4033

+ PHILIPPINES: RESISTANCE TO GM GROWS
Resistance to GM among Filipino farmers and NGOs is growing, according to Elizabeth Cruzada, the national coordinator for MASIPAG, a Filipino NGO that works with small farmers and that was part of the group that wrote the report on golden rice. This year's MASIPAG general assembly will include a mock trial of Monsanto, seen as a key player in the GM battle in the Philippines.

As explained in a book on MASIPAG published in 2003 by the Catholic Institute for International Relations, "Regaining the Land: lessons from small farmers in the Philippines", MASIPAG's work is based on farmer-to-farmer training, recognising that the real farming experts are the farmers themselves, not the NGOs or scientists.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4033

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UK: SAINSBURY'S CAMPAIGN LATEST
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+ SAINSBURY'S BLOCKADED NATIONALLY
Sainsbury's five biggest distribution centres were blockaded and shut down on 2 July in protest against GM feed being fed to dairy cows. Environmentalists and consumers simultaneously blockaded the supermarket chain's chilled-goods depots in London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Sheffield.

The action was intended to halt distribution of Sainsbury's dairy products that come from cows fed GM animal feed. The protest follows Sainsbury's failure to provide non-GM fed milk as standard, despite rivals like Marks and Spencer and the Co-op doing so. The action was taken in solidarity with farmers, demanding they get a fair deal of 2p on the pound for non-GM milk. Removing GM animal feed is the last step necessary to make Britain entirely GM-free.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4026

+ CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK: ASK SAINSBURY'S TO TAKE GM OUT OF THEIR ANIMAL FEED
http://www.geneticsaction.org.uk/resources/alliancesainsburys.pdf
Please:
*Boycott Sainsbury's Own Brand Milk,Cheese, Yoghurt,Cream and Ice Cream.
*Complain to the Manager or at the Customer Services Desk.
*Or ring the customer care line on 0800 63 62 62.
*Tell Sainsbury's National Director to pay farmers a fair price for their milk.
*Demand that they give a final phase-out date for all GM feed.
Write to: Justin King, Group Chief Executive,
J Sainsbury plc, 33 Holborn, London EC1N 2HT
Please read the following item before writing and address point no 2 in your letter.

+ SAINSBURY'S MISLEADING THE MEDIA
A statement sent out by Sainsbury's to the media about the protest by Parveen Johal
[This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] (see below) on 5 July is misleading for two reasons.
1. Johal claims this is a Greenpeace campaign, when in fact it is being waged by many other groups, listed at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4071

2. Johal relies on a discredited claim by the Food Standards Agency that "there is no evidence that milk from animals fed on GM crops contains any GM material". In fact, Greenpeace has published results of a study done by the Research Center for Milk and Foodstuffs in Weihenstephan, Bavaria, showing that GM DNA has been detected in milk from cows fed GM feed. The FSA has not investigated these findings.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3878

Parveen Johal's statement for Sainsbury's: We're disappointed that Greenpeace has chosen to target us when this is clearly an industry issue. Overall all of our depots have responded very well in ensuring minimum disruption to service. Our milk does not contain GM ingredients. Milk is highly regulated and like all supermarkets, we are subject to stringent food safety controls. Our milk is sourced from British dairy farms that supply other UK supermarkets, like Tesco and Asda - as well as hotels, schools and hospitals. The Food Standards Agency has categorically stated that there is no evidence that milk from animals fed on GM crops contains any GM material.

To offer choice to our customers, we have launched a new milk from cows fed on non-GM feed which is now in over 100 stores.

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GLOBAL ACTIONS
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+ GM WHEAT DESTROYED IN SPAIN
For pictures and a description in Spanish of an action on 3 July, in which a field of GM wheat was destroyed by La Plataforma Transgenics Fora! see: http://www.biotechimc.org/or/2004/07/3147.shtml

La Plataforma Transgenics Fora! is made up of a large number of groups and people from Catalonia who use direct action in order to stop the imposition of GM technologies. They are calling for: - an end to GM research; - the location of GM fields to be made public; - Catalonia to be declared a GMO-free area.
More info: www.agrariamanresa.org/transgenics or www.barcelonaindymedia.org or www.canmasdeu.net

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GM MELTDOWN CONTINUES
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+ GM CROPS IN GERMANY UNINSURABLE SO NO ONE WILL PLANT THEM
Fearing unpredictable damages resulting from the contamination of conventional or organic crops by gene plants, the Association of the German Insurance Industry has refused coverage for farmers growing GM crops.

As a consequence, the German Farmers' Association has demanded that suppliers of GM seed assume liability for possible damages. Since cross-contamination cannot be avoided, "we will not run a risk", said a spokesman for Germany's largest seed supplier, KWS Saat. In light of the stringent liability regulations in Germany the Farmer's Assoc believes that "nobody will plant genetically modified plants in Germany".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4034

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DONATIONS
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Our thanks to all of you who have donated to GM WATCH. You can donate online in any one of five currencies via PayPal, at http://www.gmwatch.org/donate.asp OR by cheque or postal order payable to 'NGIN', to be sent to: NGIN, 26 Pottergate, Norwich, NR2 1DX, UK. We appreciate your support.