GMWatch News Review archive

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WEEKLY WATCH number 255
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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

Look out for some great QUOTES OF THE WEEK, including the frank admission by Prof Denis Murphy, the pro-GM head of biotechnology at the University of Glamorgan, that the claims about GM crops solving the problem of drought and feeding the world are "bullshit". This follows on from the equally frank admission by the head of biotech giant Syngenta that GM won't solve the current food crisis.

This, of course, is completely at odds with the claims of pro-GM politicians, industry bodies and the EU's pro-GM lobby who see the food crisis as a golden opportunity to force the EU to open up to GMOs. They also seem intent on creating even less transparency over GM decision making in the EU (EU's PRO-GM LOBBY).

It seems the only way we get to see the truth these days is when a key document is leaked. Thanks to some public-spirited mole, we now know that even the World Bank knows that the true cause of the food crisis is Bush's disastrous ethanol boom (AGROFUELS).

Finally, if anyone missed the results of GM Watch's recent quiz - 'So who's designing your food?', you can find all the answers here: http://www.madge.org.au/Docs/gmwatchquiz.pdf

Quiz number two coming soon!

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

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CONTENTS
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
EU's PRO-GM LOBBY
FOOD CRISIS
AGROFUELS
RESEARCH
AFRICA
EUROPE
ASIA
rBGH
LOBBYWATCH
COMPANY NEWS
GENETIC CROSSROADS

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK
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+ CLAIMS ABOUT GM "BULLSHIT" -- EXPERT
Prof Denis Murphy, head of biotechnology at the University of Glamorgan in Wales, was among those who, after the British public decisively rejected GM crops in the UK's official public debate, wrote to the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, urging him to push ahead with GM. But it seems the current 'GM can solve the food crisis' hyperbole is just too much to stomach.

Prof Murphy told Rob Lyons of the ferociously pro-GM Spiked-online website: "The cynic in me thinks that they're just using the current food crisis and the fuel crisis as a springboard to push GM crops back on to the public agenda. I understand why they're doing it, but the danger is that if they're making these claims about GM crops solving the problem of drought or feeding the world, that's bullshit."
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5438/

+ EXPLOITING THE FOOD CRISIS: STATE OF EXTORTION
Naomi Klein is the author of the book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she argues that today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interests of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis.

In an excellent article for Rabble, Klein comments on the move by the US to use the food crisis - caused in large measure by the boom in agrofuels blurring the line between food and fuel and encouraging rampant speculation, as an excuse to force other countries to open their markets to its GM crops - in the case of poor countries with the added threat that they'll otherwise risk having their aid cut off. Klein calls the move a "stickup". She adds that despite the attempts to paint GM crops as a solution to the food crisis, there is no evidence that they increase yields, and some evidence they decrease them.

Klein also notes that as the US administration is pushing to open up the Arctic wildlife refuge for oil drilling and "amid all the talk of exciting new genetic and drilling technologies, the Bush Administration announced a moratorium of up to two years on new solar energy projects on federal lands - due, apparently, to environmental concerns. This is the final frontier for disaster capitalism. Our leaders are failing to invest in technology that will actually prevent a future of climate chaos, choosing instead to work hand in hand with those plotting innovative schemes to profit from the mayhem. Privatizing Iraq's oil, ensuring global dominance for genetically modified crops, lowering the last of the trade barriers and opening the last of the wildlife refuges... Not so long ago, those goals were pursued through polite trade agreements, under the benign pseudonym 'globalization.' Now this discredited agenda is forced to ride on the backs of serial crises, selling itself as lifesaving
medicine for a world in pain."
http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=73203

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EU's PRO-GM LOBBY
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GM Watch comment: At the heart of the EU's pro-GM lobby is the Commission President, Jose Manel Barroso, who is behind the high level group on GMOs currently looking at the EU's GMO authorisation process.

Barroso would like to get Member States to agree on GMOs *behind closed doors* so that there are no more unqualified majorities. These are majorities where although most countries oppose the GM approval in question, it is not by sufficient numbers to finally block the approval.

Instead, the decision on approval ends up coming back to the Commission, which can then adopt its own decision and authorise the new GMO even though a majority of countries were against approval!

Barroso and his supporters in the Commission hate people seeing how undemocratic the EU's decision making process on GMOs is, and that it is the Commission and not the Member States that is ultimately driving approvals.

Barroso therefore wants to bring the Member States into line so that they authorise GMOs without creating any difficulties as soon as the highly pro-GM EFSA -- European Food Safety Authority -- gives a positive opinion on a GMO.

Barroso is strongly supported in this by the Commissioners for trade, agriculture, industry and internal markets in particular, who would like to sideline the environmental Commissioner, Dimas, who takes a precautionary approach on GMOs.

Barroso & co. are lapping up the current hyperbole that the industry's heavily promoting about GM being a solution to the food-feed crisis. This is seen as a great opportunity to force the EU to open up to GMOs.

They are now also pressurising the Commissioner for Health on dropping "zero tolerance". Friends of the Earth Europe have produced a briefing on this issue: http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/zero_tolerance.html

The setting up of the Barroso group could be a way to effectively bypass the health and environment departments and make sure that Barroso controls the GM issue at the Commission.

The impact on all this of the French Presidency of the EU, and its establishing of a "group of friends of the presidency" to bring more transparency to the EU's GMO authorisation process, remains to be seen.

'France to propose solutions to GM muddle'
http://www.euractiv.com/en/environment/france-propose-concrete-solutions-eu-gmo-muddle/article-174002

'EU's legal labyrinth on GMOs'
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idUSL2574645720080708

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FOOD CRISIS
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+ SPECIAL FOOD CRISIS REPORTS
GM Crops Around the World an accurate picture
http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/GM_crops_land_area_final.pdf
Feeding the World with GM Crops: Myth or Reality?
http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/89D_yields_briefing%5B1%5D.pdf

+ EU FOOD, GRAIN INDUSTRIES WANT GM "FLEXIBILITY"
Leading companies in Europe's food industry have joined forces with key players in much of the EU grain sector to demand tolerance for small amounts of GM material not approved for EU markets. Europe's food safety chief has already promised to draft a new proposal that would undermine "zero tolerance".

Doug Gurian-Sherman, PhD, senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, comments: Europeans are right to be skeptical about accepting assurances of the safety of GMOs regulated and approved in the US [but not in the EU]. The US review of the food safety of GMOs is considerably weaker than the EU system (which itself suffers from some considerable weaknesses). Our Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not actually approve GMO foods as safe, but relies on the assurances of the very companies that produce these foods to decide how to test them. Although FDA performs a review during its voluntary safety assessment, it does not conclude by approving the safety of the food, but reminds the company that it is the company's responsibility to assure that the food is safe. ...Instead of cowering in the face of US pressure, why aren't your weak-kneed regulators publicizing the weakness of the US system and demanding more?
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idUSL1226352520080612

+ EUROPE'S STANCE ON GM FEEDS BLAMED FOR RISING COSTS
Zero tolerance of GM varieties is being blamed for restricting the flow of livestock feed and raising prices. The claim is made in a report commissioned by, among others, the European Feed Manufacturers' Federation Fefac and Coceral, which represents European traders in grains and oilseeds. But Gill Rowlands, a farmer and member of GM Free Cymru, said EU policy on GM had nothing to do with the escalating price of livestock feed. She said Brazil and Argentina supply almost all the EU's animal feed supplies.

Rowlands said: "There is no crop grown in Brazil that is not allowed in the EU and because of its huge landmass Brazil is able to grow separate GM and non-GM crops. There are separate roads, ports and ships used to avoid contamination. Argentina's soya crop may be almost entirely GM but the prevalent variety, which is Monsanto's Round Up Ready soya, is approved in the EU. So there is no problem for animal feed supplies there either." She added: "Security and quality of animal feed supply in the EU would be best served by encouraging the southern EU countries to increase their production of maize."
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1459059/eus_stance_on_gm_feeds_blamed_for_raising_costs/
NOTE: FOE Europe has an excellent briefing debunking the claims on this:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/animal%20feed/Briefing_animal_feed_GMOs_May_2008.pdf

+ UK CABINET OFFICE REPORT LACKS BALANCE ON GM
GM Freeze has criticised a new UK Cabinet Office report on food in the 21st century as "seriously lacking in- depth analysis on the need for GM crops and their impacts on people and the planet". GM Freeze says the report "fails to show any understanding of the full implications for food and farming research and development of the recently published IAASTD report" (which did not support GM as a way of feeding the world and which favoured small-scale sustainable agriculture).

GM Freeze says the report's sections on GM focus almost exclusively on the role of the EU's GMO regulations in creating delays for GM feed crop approvals instead of, for instance, on the EU's over-reliance on imported soya and maize to feed its livestock and poultry.

GM Freeze also quotes figures on feed price inflation that again demolish claims that GM animal feed reduces feed prices. These show the exact opposite: feed price inflation is much higher for imported GM soya meal used in animal feed than for other feed crops with non-GM feed showing the least inflation.
http://www.gmfreeze.org/page.asp?id=346&iType=1079
IAASTD briefing
http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/special_IAASTD_brieifing.pdf
The Cabinet Office report: "Food matters Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century"
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/food/food_matters%20pdf.ashx

+ RULES ON GM PRODUCE TO BE REVIEWED
The Food Standards Agency is to review how it regulates the marketing and labelling GM produce, after the UK Cabinet Office report on food policy highlighted the difficulties of sourcing non-GM animal feed. The paper said the UK risked importing feed wrongly labelled as non-GM if prices kept rising.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/648ecc14-4c88-11dd-96bb-000077b07658.html

+ COMMENT FROM THE SOIL ASSOCIATION ABOUT THE UK CABINET OFFICE REPORT
Rather than giving a measured picture of the state of the non-GM feed market, ... [the UK] government food policy paper cites "anecdotal reports" on which to base its claims.

A recent investigation by the Soil Association has shown these anecdotes to be misrepresentative of the true situation. Supplies of non-GM feed are abundant and can expand to fit market demand -- for example there is enough non-GM soya available in Brazil to supply the UK six times over.

Given the growing number of scientific studies that are finding serious health impacts from GMO consumption in animals, it is important that EU regulation on GM feed is not diluted even further at the risk of the consumer.

+ GM CROPS KEY TO SOLVING FOOD CRISIS -- DAVID KING
Sir David King, former UK government chief scientist, has claimed that GM crops hold the key to solving the food price crisis: "There is only one technology likely to deliver [the yield increases needed] and that is GM."

Last year, King claimed that given the world's growing population and climate change, "We're going to need to get even cleverer. More crop per drop. And we need the technology that can deliver that, and in my view we have the technology, it's GM."

Unfortunately, the example that King gave of how GM was transforming agriculture in Africa involved conventional plant breeding and companion planting, and had absolutely nothing to do with GM!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7e088e72-4bc1-11dd-a490-000077b07658.html
http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=1157

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AGROFUELS
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+ SECRET REPORT: "BIOFUELS" CAUSED FOOD CRISIS
Now even the World Bank is confirming what we all knew -- that the Bush-subsidised ethanol boom (with the EU's "biofuel" boom following on in its wake) was by far the single most important factor in creating the food crisis that's driving 100m people worldwide below the poverty line. (And exactly the same people that created this disaster by promoting the rush into "biofuels" are now promoting a rush for biotech as the solution!)

The report, which has not been published but was leaked to the UK Guardian, says biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%. The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George W. Bush.
http://www.guardian.co.uk:80/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy

+ FOOD CRISIS FIGURES OF THE WEEK
*47% of the Mexician' diet is corn
*it takes 2.4 pounds of corn a day to feed a hungry person
*it takes 22 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol
*there are 42 gallons of refined gas in one barrel of oil
To replace one barrel of oil, it takes 42 gallons of ethanol or ... 924 pounds of corn. That is enough corn to feed one hungry person for ... 385 days - a little more than one year. If you fill up with ethanol, every time you pull that SUV into the gas station and pump 22 gallons, you starve a poor person for six months.
-- Kevin Kersten, "World food shortage and the ethanol bubble", InvestorsObserver.com, 7 July 2008
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/07/07/world-food-shortage-and-the-ethanol-bubble/

+ EU VOTE TO REDUCE "BIOFUEL" TARGETS
The tide of opinion in Europe is changing against agrofuels, judging from a European Parliament vote and an independent UK government review, says Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation. The African Biodiversity Network was among the many organisations that lobbied European MEPs to vote against the proposed 10% biofuel target in the EU, in an EU Environment Committee vote. NGOs and civil society organisations called on MEPs to drop targets altogether, pointing out that biofuel targets drive rising food prices, land grabs and deforestation in Africa. While MEPs did not drop targets altogether, they did agree to lower the targets from 10% to 4% -- a victory of sorts.

An independent UK government review of "biofuels", the Gallagher Report, has found agrofuels drive up food prices and do little to combat climate change. In an echo of the EU vote, instead of calling for biofuel targets to be scrapped, the Gallagher report called for lower and slower introduction of targets, and pinned its hopes on "sustainable" biofuels and second generation biofuels.  

Unfortunately it is clear, says Teresa, that "sustainability" criteria for agrofuels will not work, on the scale required. The land to grow agrofuels must come from somewhere, and Africa's land and resources are most likely to be affected. "Second Generation" agrofuels are an even more serious risk, as they are likely to be GMOs, while also requiring huge amounts of land on which to be grown. 

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RESEARCH
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+ "FARMERS PRAISE GM CROPS IN EU STUDY"
The UK's Independent newspaper recently broke the story about the renewed support for GM crops in Gordon Brown's government. At the same time it published an editorial that made it clear that -- unlike its sister paper The Independent on Sunday -- it was adopting a pro-GM editorial stance. Since then, some of its reporting suggests it may have been overly influenced by its new editorial enthusiasm for GM.

For instance, on 30 June, an article, "Farmers praise GM crops in EU study", was published. The article claims, "European farmers who grow genetically modified crops enjoy higher yields and revenues than conventional growers, according to a new study". But reading further down the article it becomes clear that the study only looked at one GM crop -- a GM maize grown in Spain -- and although the article repeats the claim that farmers "found they produced higher yields and earned up to 122 euros more per hectare (GBP50 per acre) than conventional maize farmers", the study, in fact, found that nearly 90% of farmers growing the GM crop did NOT increase their yield!

Moreover, the gross margin increase being as high as 122 euros per hectare was found in just one region of Spain -- Zaragoza in Aragon. The authors of the study also point out that because no coexistence measures are currently required of GM maize growers in Spain then their impact on profitability is not apparent in the study.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/farmers-praise-gm-crops-in-eu-study-856907.html
http://www.gmo-safety.eu/en/news/630.docu.html
The full paper is available to subscribers at
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v26/n4/full/nbt0408-384.html

+ COEXISTENCE IMPOSSIBLE
The cultivation of GM maize has caused a drastic reduction in organic cultivation of this grain and is making their coexistence practically impossible. This is the main conclusion of the first field study analyzing the reality of GM commercialization in Europe. The study analysed the situation in Catalonia and Aragon, Europe's main producing areas of GM foods.
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/studien/bericht-113314.html

+ STUDY SHOWS HOW BROCCOLI FIGHTS CANCER
Just a few more portions of [non-GM!!] broccoli each week may protect men from prostate cancer, British researchers report. The researchers that the consumption of broccoli sparks hundreds of genetic changes, activating some genes that fight cancer and switching off others that fuel tumors, said Richard Mithen, a biologist at Britain's Institute of Food Research. The broccoli eaters in the study showed about 400 to 500 of the positive genetic changes.
http://in.reuters.com/article/health/idINL0165700420080702
SEE ALSO: Healthy Lifestyle Triggers Genetic Changes: Study Proper Diet, Exercise May Affect Cancer Gene Expression (Reuters, June 16 2008)
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKN1628897920080616
Discovery challenges 'independent, patentable gene' biotech theory (New York Times, July 1 2007)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business/yourmoney/01frame.html

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AFRICA
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+ KENYA IMPORTS NON-GM MAIZE FROM ZAMBIA
Kenya will import one million bags of maize from Zambia to avert a looming shortage in the second half of the year. It has apparently chosen Zambia over South Africa in order to have GM-free maize.
http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8473&Itemid=5813

GM Watch comment: In 2002 Zambia was vilified by the Bush administration -- with the US ambassador to the FAO even calling for Zambia's leaders to be tried in "the highest courts in the world" for "the highest crimes in the world" -- for rejecting US food aid in the form of GM maize. This vilification has continued to the present time, regardless of the fact that alternative supplies were found and that the Zambian Red Cross stated that not a single Zambian died because of the country's non-GM food aid policy.

Since 2002 Zambia has worked hard to build up its own production of non-GM maize, and now its maize exports seem to be preferred to those of its neighbour South Africa (the only African country growing GM maize).

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EUROPE
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+ ACTIVISTS DESTROY THREE GM FIELDS IN FRANCE
Three fields of GM maize were destroyed over the weekend in southwest France. The attacks came only a few days after the promulgation of a new law governing the growth of GM organisms in France, which promises a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine of 150,000 euros when an experimental GM field is destroyed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7622576

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ASIA
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+ U.S. FORCES KOREA'S HAND OVER GMOs
In March 2007, South Korea signed a secret bilateral agreement with the US that weakens its scope to regulate the inflow of GMOs from the US. The deal, reports GRAIN, was welcomed by the Biotechnology Industry Organisation, probably the only group to be consulted. Soon afterwards, says GRAIN, four cornstarch manufacturers began to import GM maize, saying that they had no other option as the price of non-modified maize had risen astronomically on the world market.

Korea is not the first country to cede its sovereign right to set its own policy on biotech foods under bilateral pressure from the US. India and China both backed down from GM import restrictions after bilateral "discussions" with the US. Thailand pulled back from strict GM labelling legislation in 2004 when the US warned that the legislation would affect their Free Trade Agreement negotiations.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18076

+ GAPING HOLES OVER REGULATION OF GM CROPS IN INDIA
In the headlong rush to introduce GM crops, India is ignoring protocols on safety, says an article for Business Standard: "As of now there is no provision for labelling or segregation of such items, just one of the more conspicuous gaps in the monitoring and regulatory set-up in the country. The bigger worry is that even if you are all right with GM foods, there is no guarantee that adequate precautions are being taken to put these food through the proper tests and scientific scrutiny."
http://www.business-standard.com/common/news_article.php?autono=327852&leftnm=4&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

+ PAKISTAN TO INTRODUCE BT COTTON -- BASED ON A MISAPPREHENSION
Pakistan is set to sign an agreement with Monsanto before the advent of the next cotton season to introduce Bt cotton in the country. Abdul Qadir Baloch, federal crop commissioner, seems to be under the misapprehension that Monsanto's Bt cotton includes a gene that is resistant to the cotton leaf curl virus, a big problem in Pakistan. In fact, Bt cotton varieties have proven just as vulnerable to the virus -- indeed, some argue that they are more vulnerable than local varieties that have resistance.
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?202545
http://www.countercurrents.org/en-sharma28403.htm

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rBGH
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+ NEW FILM SEEKS TO END USE OF rBGH IN U.S.
A documentary exposing the health dangers of dairy products from cows treated with Monsanto's bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST), and the FDA conflicts of interest surrounding its approval, may finally close the book on America's use of this internationally unpopular drug. Already banned in most other industrialized nations due to its health risks to humans and harm to cows, escalating consumer concern in the US has prompted Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Kroger, and more than 40 of the top 100 dairies, to stop using it.

The new film, Your Milk on Drugs -- Just Say No, by Jeffrey M. Smith, packs years of the drug's controversy into 18.5 minutes, beginning with its approval. "There was a corporate takeover at the FDA," says Jeffrey M. Smith, who wrote and directed the film. "Monsanto's former attorney was in charge of FDA policy, Monsanto's former researcher ran the FDA department that evaluated her rBGH research, and Monsanto's former subcontractor became chief review officer for rBGH." Smith says, "Independent science didn't stand a chance."
http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Newsletter/June2008-NewrBGHFilm-PressReleas/index.cfm

+ BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE "COULD CUT CO2 EMISSIONS"!
An article by The (UK) Independent's pro-GM science editor Steve Connor trumpets a study claiming that use of Monsanto's rBGH "could cut emissions of greenhouses gases substantially".

A dairy cow given bovine growth hormone produces between 10 and 16 per cent higher milk yields over a given lactation cycle, the study said. This would reduce "inputs" in the form of feedstuffs, fertilisers and fuels as well as waste "outputs" such as methane and carbon dioxide.

But Connor's article fails to make clear the conflicts of interest in relation to the study. The paper's authors are Judith L. Capper, Euridice Castaneda-Gutierrez, Roger A. Cady, and Dale E. Bauman. Roger Cady, is an employee of Monsanto, holding the position of technical project manager for POSILAC rbST (aka rBGH) "with the primary responsibility of ensuring the scientific integrity of Monsanto publications about POSILAC". The conflicts of interest statement accompanying the paper also notes that Cady owns Monsanto stock. It notes too that a second author, Dale Bauman, consults for Monsanto.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bovine-growth-hormone-could-cut-co2-emissions-857645.html

+ CRITICISMS OF THE STUDY
Scientific American, unlike The Independent (see above), DID mention the conflicts of interest in its coverage of this study. Biologist Michael Hansen of the Consumers Union also says of the study, "It all hinges on one notion: that there is an increase in feed efficiency." In other words, the study assumes that POSILAC increases the ability of individual cows to produce more milk from the same amount of feed, despite an FDA ruling to the contrary. "If the basic assumption is wrong," Hansen says, "then everything that flows from it is of questionable status."

He notes that the FDA analyzed the environmental impact of POSILAC some 15 years ago and concluded that it might actually increase greenhouse emissions slightly because of, among other factors, the diesel expended to transport it to farms.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-bovine-growth-hormone-slow-global-warming

The "Orange Clouds" blogger calls the study "a Load of Bull": "Their entire argument assumes that you need to feed cows corn. You don't. You actually shouldn't. Cows evolved to eat GRASS. They evolved to graze. Grazing requires very little resources and energy." First, because grass is a perennial that you don't need to plant every year. Second, corn needs harvesting, which takes energy. But cows harvest their own grass.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/2/0345/06730/965/545166

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ BIO's SLEIGHT-OF-HAND
A USDA report says American farmers have adopted GM crops widely since their introduction in 1996, especially corn, cotton and soybean varieties.

In a press release on the report, the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO) employs a typical sleight-of-hand. It seamlessly moves from the new figures on the adoption of GM crops in the US to claims that, "The USDA survey data further illustrates what we have known all along, that biotechnology is providing solutions for today's farmers in the form of plants that yield more per acre and reduce farmers' production costs while being resistant to disease and insect pests."

In fact, the new USDA survey of adoption has nothing to say about any of that and when in the past USDA reports have looked at the issue of benefits, they have ended up posing questions like, "Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of [GM] crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative?"
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer810/

And here's another piece of BIO sleight-of-hand: "With the help of plant biotechnology, corn productivity has increased more than 33.1 percent and soybean productivity has increased 17 percent."

In fact, as another recent report notes, "traditional plant breeding has produced a sustained rise in yields in the USA since the 1930s. There has been no additional increase in the annual rise since GM crops were introduced in 1996." Indeed, the evidence suggests that yield gains in soy and cotton have actually flattened off since widescale GM crop adoption.
http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/89D_yields_briefing%5B1%5D.pdf
http://www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2008-07/artikel-11206430.asp

+ THE EU'S INVISIBLE LOBBYISTS
Monica Frassoni, a Member of the European Parliament from Italy and the Greens Party, said at least 30 staff members at the European Commission are getting paid by big companies to do their bidding and be their moles. The EU has set up a registration system for lobbyists, but because it is voluntary, it is dismissed in a report for New Europe as "spineless".

The US, in contrast, has a mandatory registration system for lobbyists. Frassoni said, "We said this is one of the very few things in which we can imitate the Americans, but the Commission didn't want to do it." Speaking of the EU Commission, headed by President Jose Manuel Barroso, Frassoni said, "The Barroso Commission is permeable to lobbyists."
http://www.neurope.eu:80/articles/88486.php

NOTE: In a UK context see also:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exposed-the-arms-lobbyist-in-parliament-854313.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/oct/26/lords.immigrationpolicy
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=137

+ OLD TECHNO-HYPE RECYCLED
"Scientists have genetically engineered fruit and vegetables capable of providing most of a day's nutrients in a single meal," according to a breathless report in the UK's Sunday Times. In fact, some of the projects mentioned in the article have been knocking around for a long time, with an unimpressive record.

The Indian GM "protato", for instance, which heads the list of wonder projects supposedly just around the corner, last enjoyed a wave of media hype back in 2003! It was then said to be about to be even pro-GM scientists expressed dismay at the hype around it with Prof C. Kameswara Rao calling it a "dismal product" and pointing out that, far from being approved within months, the protato is "unlikely to see the light of the day in this decade."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4276255.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4276255.ece

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COMPANY NEWS
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+ THE WORM TURNS ... MONSANTO STOCKS SUFFER
Shares of chemical companies faltered in July. Monsanto stocks lost nearly all their second-quarter gains in a matter of days. Investment specialists blamed "bubblelike conditions" and "pent-up speculation" in some of the stocks.
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/07/08/the-worm-turns-and-fertilizer-stocks-suffer/trackback/

+ UK: DOW'S HERBICIDE POISONS UK GARDENS AND ALLOTMENTS
Gardeners have been warned not to eat home-grown vegetables contaminated by a powerful new herbicide that is destroying gardens and allotments across the UK. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has been inundated with calls from concerned gardeners who have seen potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables wither or become grossly deformed. The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid, manufactured by GM and chemical company Dow, has been sprayed on fields.

Shirley Murray, a retired management consultant with an allotment in south-west London, said several of her allotment neighbours had used the same manure bought from a stables and all were affected. "I am absolutely incensed at what has happened and find it scandalous that a weedkiller sprayed more than one year ago, that has passed through an animal's gut, was kicked around on a stable floor, stored in a muck heap in a field, then on an allotment site and was finally dug into or mulched on to beds last winter is still killing 'sensitive' crops and will continue to do so for the next year," she said.

GM Watch comment: It is outrageous that many of those affected are people who are growing their own food to avoid chemicals and GMOs: horse manure is often a fertilizer of choice for gardeners who wish to be organic but don't have enough home-made compost.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/29/food.agriculture
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/2008/06/mutant_vegetables_whos_to_blam.html

+ THE GLOBAL SEED POLICE
Monsanto's seed police continue to employ bribery, threats and biopiracy to preserve their agribusiness fiefdom, all with "your best interests at heart", says a review of Marie-Monique Robin's expose film, The World According to Monsanto.
http://www.counterpunch.org/kampmark07012008.html

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GENETIC CROSSROADS
News and Views from the Center for Genetics and Society
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+ US CONGRESSIONAL SUBCOMMITTEE HOLDS HEARINGS ON REGULATION OF HUMAN BIOTECHNOLOGIES
Testimony by Richard Hayes, Center for Genetics and Society
While countries differ widely in the policies they have adopted, in regard to the most consequential of these technologies, the answer is "Yes."
http://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article.php?id=4142

+ PUTTING MAKEUP ON A PIG
by Jesse Reynolds, Biopolitical Times
It seems that advocates of using emerging technologies to create a new type of human have realized that "transhuman" doesn't go over well.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4157

+ SPERM ON THE HIGH SEAS
by Marcy Darnovsky, Biopolitical Times
A discussion of regulating medical tourism in "The challenge of 'sperm ships': The need for the global regulation of medical technology."
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4153

+ PAP SMEARS OR BOTOX? COSMETIC MAKEOVERS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
by Marcy Darnovsky, Biopolitical Times
Gynecologists and general practitioners are padding their pay by selling cosmetic procedures to their female patients.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4151

+ THE NEW PUSH FOR EGGS FOR STEM CELL RESEARCH IN CALIFORNIA
by Jesse Reynolds, Biopolitical Times
Leaders of California's stem cell program are proposing to toss aside a critical rule to protect women's health simply because it is interfering with the aims of a handful of researchers and biotech companies.
http://www.biopoliticaltimes.org/article.php?id=4149