from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
Dear all:This week we have a crop of superb articles from the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, still one of the very few newspapers in the world to carry sensible and informed reports on GM (EUROPE, AFRICA, FEEDING THE WORLD).
We also have reports on the global protests against GMOs held on 8 April and beyond (WORLDWIDE PROTESTS).
Don't miss the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee's thorough and revealing study on the dismal performance of Bt cotton in Maharashtra, India (ASIA), which we have published on our website.
If you need some light relief, then take a look at the activities of the Yes Men (YES MEN TAKE ON NANO, MONSANTO, DOW, ETC.), whose courageous satirical stunts at corporate conferences are as funny as they are educational.
Claire This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
WORLDWIDE PROTESTS
EUROPE
THE AMERICAS
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
AFRICA
FEEDING THE WORLD
YES MEN TAKE ON NANO, MONSANTO, DOW, ETC.
GM MEDICINES
------------------------------------------------------------
WORLDWIDE PROTESTS
------------------------------------------------------------
+ GM FOODS CONDEMNED IN GLOBAL MARCHES
Thousands of protesters in 70 countries demonstrated on 8 April against GMOs. This article notes that demonstrations were held in Australia, Bolivia, India, South Africa, France, and the US, among other countries.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6426
+ 25,000 PROTEST AGAINST GM IN ANDHRA PRADESH
PV Satheesh of the Deccan Development Society (DDS) reports: On April 8, International GM Opposition Day, over 25,000 people, primarily farmers, went on protest marches, conducted public meetings, and held media meets all across the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh under the banner of AP Coalition in Defence of Diversity, of which the DDS is the Convenor. In Sangareddy the headquarters of Medak District, where the DDS is located, about 1000 peasant women marched across the streets of the city, shouting slogans, holding banners and placards. At the end of the protest march, they held a public meeting where they took an oath never to allow GM crops into their farms or GM foods into their homes. They took the oath to protect their farming systems and seed wealth.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6427
+ EVENTS SUMMARY FOR DAY OF OPPOSITION
A summary of events worldwide held for JIGMOD (Joint International GM Opposition Day) on 8 April
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6424
+ MONSANTO SEED FACILITY OCCUPIED
Massive police presence on April 13 as Jose Bove from Faucheurs Volontaires and Confederation Paysanne and Greenpeace occupied Monsanto's seed facility in Trebes, France. Over 75 activists occupied the facility and held a citizens inspection in the search for GM maize seeds. They have demanded that Monsanto and the French authorities stop the import and distribution of GM maize seed into France.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6452
+ COMING SOON - APRIL 17
April 17 is International Day of Peasant Struggle. La Via Campesina is calling on its members around the world, and also on other social movements, to mobilise and take action on the issues of: agrarian reform, the WTO, stopping GMOs and stopping attacks on peasant farmers and their organizations.
Among the events:
- India: KRRS are creating an International Seed Carnival on April 17, which will inaugurate the peasant managed seed bank. While on 18-19 of April there will be an International Symposium on Seeds and Biotechnolgy in Agriculture: "Self-Reliance in Seeds is the Goal" in - Mysore, India (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Ph:0091-80-28604737 and Fax:0091-80-28604640. See also www.amritabhoomi.org)
If you want to receive more information on what's happening on the 17th of April subscribe to Via Campesina's action list by sending a blank message to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. If you need more information for an action in your country you can also write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
------------------------------------------------------------
EUROPE
------------------------------------------------------------
+ EUROPEAN COMMISSION SLAPS ITS OWN FOOD SAFETY BODY AS AUSTRIA CONFIRMS NEW GMO BAN
The European Commission has given its support to an approach proposed by health and consumer protection commissioner Markos Kyprianou and environment commissioner Stavros Dimas on steps to improve the scientific consistency and transparency for decisions on GMOs, with a view to protecting human health and the environment.
Friends of the Earth Europe welcomed the statement by the European Commission, which called for major improvements to the workings of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on GM foods and crops.
In a separate move, Austria has confirmed a new ban on the import of Monsanto's GM oilseed rape, a product that was passed as safe by the EFSA. The Austrian government has banned the GM seeds on the basis that no long term safety tests have been done and that imports would likely lead to the accidental spillage of the seeds into the environment.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6441
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6437
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6436
+ WTO PANEL TO RULE ON GMO DISPUTE IN MAY
A WTO panel is due to issue a final ruling in early May in the dispute over the European Union's alleged moratorium on the market authorization of products containing GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6436
+ BT10 CONTAMINATION WENT UNCHECKED BY FSA
GM Freeze has published internal documents, obtained from the UK's Food Standards Agency under the Environmental Information Regulations, relating to the illegal importation of unapproved Bt10 GM maize from the USA between 2000 and 2004.
The documents reveal significant delays before sampling of maize gluten and brewer's grains imports by the FSA commenced. The EC was first informed of the illegal import on 22 March 2005. Analytical methods for Bt10 were not available at the time that the US authorities revealed the longstanding contamination.
Key reference material was finally available to UK laboratories in early May 2005. However, correspondence from the FSA to GM Freeze revealed that monitoring of imported maize did not commence until 20 September 2005.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6440
+ BIOTECHS SPONSOR GENE BANK IN ARCTIC
An article in French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique reports that "the Norwegian government has revived plans to build an artificial cave inside a frozen mountain on the island of Svalbard on the edge of the Arctic Circle. The idea is that the genetic diversity currently found in the crops we grow can be preserved by freezing their seeds in the cave. Two million sets of seeds representing all currently known varieties of crop would be put inside this end-of-the-world safe. According to Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is promoting the idea: 'Should the worst happen, this will allow the world to restart agriculture on this planet.' The project's donors include Dupont and Syngenta, two multinational agrochemicals companies which own a significant share of the world's biotechnology patents, and produce large numbers of genetically modified crops.
"So the companies that promote GM crops are among the keenest advocates of the need to safeguard the world's plant life. This should provoke concern, since it reflects compelling evidence that conventional plants are being contaminated by transgenic ones."
Another reason for the companies' sponsorship of the gene bank, not mentioned in the article, is that it is an unspoken corporate policy to take over (privatize) gene banked material which has been collected largely at the public's expense. They then own the plants' genetic material and all their offspring. Governments around the world have colluded in this process. If the aforementioned catastrophe should happen, world agriculture can indeed be restarted - on terms set down by the biotech companies.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6432
------------------------------------------------------------
THE AMERICAS
------------------------------------------------------------
+ U.S. INTERIOR DEPT SUED OVER GM PLANTINGS
A coalition concerned about the cultivation of GM crops in wildlife refuge areas has filed suit against the US Interior Dept, saying government workers illegally approved the planting. The lawsuit seeks to block further cultivation of the crops at the Prime Hook wildlife refuge outside Dover, Delaware.
It named as defendants the US Fish & Wildlife Service and its parent agency, the Interior Department. The plaintiffs are the Delaware Audubon Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Center for Food Safety.
The plaintiffs said they discovered "a top Bush administration political appointee" overruled the wildlife refuge manager in allowing the GM crops to be planted on land designated as a national wildlife refuge in violation of department policy.
"These refuges are supposed to be for wildlife, not chemical companies or agribusiness," Gene Hocutt, a spokesman for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6451
+ FLY IN THE OINTMENT AT BIO 200
The BIO 2006 conference in Chicago is attracting a wide variety of protest groups, says an article in Australian newspaper The Age. These include Bioethics, which the paper describes as an "American Mid-West umbrella organization" and "a serious and effective movement of concerned citizens, mums and dads, scientists, legislators, lawyers and doctors".
Journalist and former Bioethics worker Charles Shaw is quoted as saying, "We are not saying it [biotech] is all bad. But when you muck around with food and you don't tell people about it, it is dangerous."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6433
http://www.bioethics2006.org/
+ CLINTON'S GM RECIPE TO FEED THE HUNGRY
Former US president, Bill Clinton, has been hyping GM at the BIO conference in Chicago. Clinton painted a bleak picture of a world where fertile land became dust bowls, the Maldives ceased to exist and millions of "food refugees" roamed the planet.
Clinton said the solution to feeding the poor lay in GM food. He told the BIO 2006 conference that the industry had a crucial role to play in saving the world from the effects of global warming and in helping remedy the inequality that left billions of people destitute and without basic food, health and education!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6447
READ CLINTON'S FORMER AG SECRETARY ON THIS TYPE OF HYPE: Dan Glickman gave this insight after leaving office into the closed mindset of the Clinton administration on GM: "What I saw generically on the pro-biotech side was the attitude that the technology was good, and that it was almost immoral to say that it wasn't good, because it was going to solve the problems of the human race and feed the hungry and clothe the naked. . . . And there was a lot of money that had been invested in this, and if you're against it, you're Luddites, you're stupid. That, frankly, was the side our government was on. . . . You felt like you were almost an alien, disloyal, by trying to present an open-minded view."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6447
+ MONSANTO UNDER FIRE IN MEXICO
The Mexican branch of Monsanto planted GM cotton on several plots of land in northern Mexico without authorization, the Environment Secretariat has announced. The Environment Secretariat said the company could face fines for realizing "activities with genetically modified organisms without getting permits and the respective authorizations."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6450
+ BRAZIL: ANOTHER GM SOY YIELD FAILURE
Monsanto's GM soybeans have shown hidden defects during climatic stress. Producers from the Northeast states of Maranhao and Piaui who had followed Monsanto's recommendation to plant its GM soy variety 8787, supposedly adapted to the region's climatic conditions, have suffered major losses after a January drought.
According to Monsanto, the production potential of this variety was fifty bags per hectare, but producers report yields of as low as thirty bags per hectare and even less in some cases, while conventional soy produced sixty bags per hectare in bordering land parcels.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6430
------------------------------------------------------------
ASIA
------------------------------------------------------------
+ INDIA'S AG MINISTER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR FARMER SUICIDES
India's agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is responsible for the ongoing farmer suicides in the cotton-growing belt of Vidarbha, says farm group Vidarbha Janadolan Samiti (VJS). Pawar played a key role in granting permission for Monsanto's Bt cotton to be planted in the region and in lowering the prices paid to farmers for their cotton crops. When the crop failed, many farmers committed suicide.
VJS reported on 13 April that more than 76 farmers had committed suicide in the last 30 days, taking the total to 438 since June 2005, the majority Bt cotton farmers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6448
+ 68% LOWER INCOMES FOR BT COTTON FARMERS IN MAHARASHTRA: MEC REPORT
The report of the Monitoring & Evaluation Committee [MEC] which established that Bt cotton farmers had 68% lower incomes than non-Bt cotton farmers, has been published on the GM WATCH website in three parts, at:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6444
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6445
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6446
EXCERPT from the report's conclusion:
The study clearly points out that the cultivation of Bt cotton has not benefited the farmers in terms of the economics. It has not brought down the use of pesticides as promised, nor has it yielded the promised results. Further, new diseases like lalya were found to be higher on Bt cotton. Farmers also consistently reported the stress intolerance of Bt cotton.
Farmers had also reported human health problems like skin allergies and had alluded to negative impacts of Bt cotton on soil. What is worth noting is that the incidence of pests and diseases was higher on Bt cotton than on Bt cotton.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6446
+ BOLLYWOOD STAR BACKS AWAY FROM MONSANTO
Among the many revealing aspects of the MEC report on Bt cotton is news of how Bollywood star Nana Patekar has apparently apologized for his role in promoting Monsanto's Bollgard GM cotton in Maharashtra, because of the large-scale losses reported from across the state.
The report notes, "Given that Bt cotton has become responsible for farmers' suicides, Nana Patekar announced that he will not support Monsanto anymore and that he will not promote their product, Bollgard Bt cotton, anymore."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6449
+ INDIA: GM IMPORTS TO BE LABELLED
India's new Foreign Trade Policy has called for labeling of GM food. If implemented, the move will require testing facilities for presence of GM traces at points of entry, which the country lacks at the moment.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6428
India's new import norms seen hitting soy oil imports: http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=287103&ssid=50&sid=BUS
+ INDIA: MONSANTO INDICTED FOR MONOPOLY PRACTICES
A statutory body investigating charges of monopoly practices filed against Mahyco-Monsanto has found the company guilty of illegal practices and found that the monopolistic and exorbitant rates charged by the company for their Bt cotton varieties was a significant factor in farmer distress.
The Director General of Investigation and Registration (DGIR) report was welcomed by civil society groups that have been demanding action against Mahyco-Monsanto because its exorbitantly priced cotton failed.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6435
+ INDIA: U.S. AMBASSADOR'S "LETTER BOMB" TO CHIEF MINISTER
The US Ambassador to India, David Mulford, has written to the chief minister of the state of Gujarat in India to convey the concerns of the "biotechnology industry" about illegal Bt cotton seeds. He's threatened to reduce foreign investment in the state if the CM does not act.
Former state finance minister Sanat Mehta says the letter is intended to protect the interests of US-based Monsanto. Mehta questioned the ambassador's intrusion in a matter which he said is solely domestic.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6422
+ THE U.S. BATTLES FOR HEARTS AND MOUTHS IN ASIA
According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, the US is seeking to influence the Asian biotech debate through conferences, sponsored trips for farmers and journalists, and trade negotiations.
US officials from several agencies meet monthly in Washington to coordinate programs promoting biotech, a campaign intended to open markets for large companies like Monsanto that sell GM seeds and related products.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6438
+ THAILAND: GM BODY STEALS 'GREEN' TERMINOLOGY TO PUSH GM ACCEPTANCE
In an attempt to get the Thai public to accept GM crops, the Biotechnology Alliance Association (BAA) has ceased calling them GM. Instead, the BAA call them "phuet cheewaphap" or biotech crops. Sutat Sriwatanapongse, current president of the Biotechnology Alliance Association (BAA), said, "The new coinage will make it sound a little like 'pui cheewaphap' [a term usually applied to nonchemical fertilisers]."
Thailand continues to ban all field tests of GM crops, following a Cabinet resolution issued in April 2001.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6438
------------------------------------------------------------
AUSTRALASIA
------------------------------------------------------------
+ WATCHDOG FAILS ON GM FOOD - AUSTRALIAN AG MINISTER
Agriculture Minister Kim Chance has attacked the national food safety watchdog, claiming it does not adequately assess health impacts of GM crops. He said more information was needed about the effects of GM food for public health and to inform WA government policy, which currently includes a moratorium on commercial GM crops.
Mr Chance opened fire in defence of the government's move to fund a trial on the effect of feeding animals GM crops. The plan has attracted criticism from pro-GM scientists and Food Standards Australia New Zealand because the work will be conducted by a research group which is opposed to GM products.
The trial, due to start mid-year, will see laboratory rats or mice fed GM and non-GM crops over a six-month period. Their blood and organs will then be analysed to see if there is any significant difference between those fed different crops.
The government has given the Institute of Health and Environmental Research $92,000 to conduct the trial. Institute director Judy Carman said previous trials, generally focussing on one function such as reproductivity, had shown rodents fed GM crops were significantly less healthy, with greater infant mortality, slower growth rates and lower immunity.
Mr Chance said, "[Testing by FSANZ] is not rigorous at all. What they do is review information sent to them by the GM companies and the review is fairly superficial and they don't look at the raw data."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6425
+ RESEARCH RAISING SERIOUS CONCERNS ABOUT GMOs
The Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics have written a letter to New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark calling her attention to the dangers of GM foods as revealed in research. The letter provides an excellent, referenced summary of food safety studies on GMOs to date.
The letter notes, "Of particular concern to us are decisions of FSANZ [Australia and New Zealand's food safety authority] and other regulatory bodies; the decision not to adopt country of origin labelling; the inadequacy of current GEO labelling requirements; the use of genetic engineering technology to produce pharmaceutical and industrial materials; and potential applications to release GEOs into the New Zealand environment."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6423
------------------------------------------------------------
AFRICA
------------------------------------------------------------
+ MALI: NOT ON MY FARM
An excellent story from French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique on the recent citizens' jury in Mali, in which the jury decided against adopting GM cotton, is at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6431
EXCERPT:
The Sikasso farmers unanimously rejected the introduction of GMOs to Mali, their primary concern being to prevent dependence upon multinationals by preserving local varieties and traditional know-how. As Brahim Sidebe put it: "We want to be the masters of our own fields, not slaves."
Birama Kone emphasised the preservation of a cooperative way of life: "Our farmers are used to helping each other. The danger is that GMOs will destroy that sense of friendship and solidarity. If I have a GM field and my neighbour doesn't, contamination problems are bound to create conflict between us."
For the women, Basri Lidigoita called for research into using traditional agronomic techniques to improve local varieties, and for better training for small farmers, especially in organic farming.
------------------------------------------------------------
FEEDING THE WORLD
------------------------------------------------------------
+ THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GM
Le Monde Diplomatique has published a brilliant article on sustainable, proven, non-GM methods of feeding the world, written by Marc Dufumier, lecturer at the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon. These methods include:
***rebuilding impoverished soils
***fostering growth of soil bacteria to 'fix' nitrogen from the air
***maintaining mixed livestock and arable farming, a system that produces free fertilizer (manure) and utilizes crop residues as feed
***planting 'green manure' crops to prevent soil erosion and retain nutrients.
EXCERPT: There is no evidence to suggest that genetics is the factor limiting agricultural production and incomes, or that GM organisms can be useful to poor farmers. Only a fool could believe that the multinationals, having made massive investments in GM crops, are going to hand over their seeds to the planet's least economically-viable farmers.
The developing world is already growing GM soya beans, maize and cotton on the great landed estates of Brazil, in Argentina and in South Africa. There is no sign that these crops are helping to end the poverty of landless peasants or of the inhabitants of the favelas [Brazilian shantytowns] and Bantustans [tribal homelands of black Africans].
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6434
------------------------------------------------------------
YES MEN TAKE ON NANO, MONSANTO, DOW, ETC.
------------------------------------------------------------
Corporate satirists the Yes Men report the following actions.
+ DOW PROMOTES "POST-CAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE"
Last November at a San Francisco nanotechnology conference, a "Dow representative" urged the scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in the audience to hurry potentially dangerous nanotech products to market before they could be tested.
Citing Dow's record profits despite a history of releasing dangerous and often lethal products, the representative asserted that caution is best deferred until after a product is released, and that testing ought to be performed not by the corporation but by the population at large, to give them the opportunity to participate in corporate progress.
The audience, to their credit, found these ideas disturbing, but many admitted that they had no control over how the products they were developing would be released. Meanwhile, in the exhibits hall, the Yes Men discovered that nanotech products known to be dangerous are available for sale to anyone with the money.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6429
+ INDIAN HIJINKS
In December, the Yes Men visited the largest agricultural fair in India and learned how companies like Monsanto sell their expensive seeds to farmers, who are often ruined when the crop doesn't perform as well as expected... After speaking to Monsanto and other company representatives to learn their sales tricks, the Yes Men successfully sold seeds armed against "amoebas and houseflies"...
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6429
+ COMING SOON, WITH YOUR HELP
In a few weeks, the Yes Men will speak at a major conference as one of the world's biggest, nastiest companies. They say, "We're planning something every bit as bizarre as the WTO's meter-long golden phallus - but we're a bit short on funds to pull it off." If you can help, please visit http://www.theyesmen.org/contactus/#donate or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
------------------------------------------------------------
GM MEDICINES
------------------------------------------------------------
+ CONSENT FORM FOR DRUG TRIAL DISASTER FLAWED, SAY CRITICS
Although British authorities say that a drug trial which made six healthy young men violently ill was conducted properly, critics have savaged their informed consent form.
The drug, TGN1412, was a genetically engineered monoclonal antibody. But bioethicists claim that the document did not sufficiently inform participants of possible dangers and did not depict the treatment as a novel drug that could harm the body's immune system. The 13-page form also appealed to the subjects' need for money and threatened to withhold their GBP2,000 payment if they withdrew early.
The drug company "failed to adequately disclose the degree of uncertainty around a first-in-man trial," said Michael Goodyear, a Canadian cancer physician and research ethicist. "The risks were well known. They're not disclosed in the consent form."
"I think it was misleading not to tell participants that that this drug was genetically engineered from hamster cells and that it was designed to alter their immune system."http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6439