from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:
The illegal GM rice contamination scandal rolls on. According to the reports of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post etc., it's creating an unprecedented economic crisis for rice farmers, a major headache for food firms and importers, and lawsuits for the polluter, Bayer. And it's just one example of what the Washington Post headlined as the "GENE-ALTERED PROFIT KILLER" (GM RICE CONTAMINATION SCANDAL).
So it's all the more tragic to see pro-GM lobbyists like the former head of the South Australian Farmers Federation doing their level best to mislead farmers into following the US down the GM toilet with spin about GM saving farmers "millions of dollars". Fortunately, the Australian states are standing firm on their GM moratoriums (AUSTRALASIA).
Look out for our LOBBYWATCH piece on how the Royal Society is blasting lobby groups for their Exxon funded climate change denial while exactly the same groups work hand in glove with the RS on promoting GMOs.
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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GM RICE CONTAMINATION SCANDAL
ASIA
THE AMERICAS
EUROPE
AUSTRALASIA
LOBBYWATCH
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GM RICE CONTAMINATION SCANDAL
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+ "GENE-ALTERED PROFIT KILLER" - WASHINGTON POST
Washington Post (excerpts) - The disclosure last month that American long-grain rice has become widely contaminated with traces of an experimental, gene-altered rice has provoked an economic crisis for farmers and reignited a long-smoldering debate over the adequacy of U.S. oversight of biotech food.
"The damage has been done and it is still being done," said Adam J. Levitt, a partner in the Chicago office of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLC, who led a class action lawsuit that won $110 million for farmers after gene-altered and unapproved StarLink corn appeared in food in 2000. "They've really in a very substantial way poisoned the well."
Even if Bayer succeeds in deregulating LL601, farmers will still face international rejection -- a potentially major hit, since most rice profits are from overseas sales.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7051
+ GM'S ECONOMIC NIGHTMARE
The painful economic impact of the illegal GM rice crisis - described by an attorney acting for rice farmers as "a catastrophe" - is only the latest instance of major economic damage being inflicted by the GM industry.
Thanks to GM, American farmers have already suffered the loss of their corn export market to the EU while US soybean exports to the EU, historically America's most lucrative overseas market, have also now "dropped to almost economically insignificant levels".
The Wall Street Journal reports that the latest GM contamination scandal is not just hitting farmers. It's also proving a major headache for importers and the food industry: "Companies are struggling to find reliable suppliers and to avoid legal suits by testing their product lines." On top of that, "food importers may face costly legal challenges..."
EXCERPTS:
"The rice scare underlines problems facing food companies and biotech firms world-wide... techniques for stopping biotech crops crossing into the food chain by accident are imperfect. Companies are struggling to find reliable suppliers and to avoid legal suits by testing their product lines... Farmers, importers and biotech firms are beginning to feel the sting." - The Wall St Journal
"This is bad news for Arkansas... It is the state's main farm export, adding about $1.55 billion yearly to the economy and generating an estimated 20,000 jobs: quite a few of them at Riceland Rice, the world's largest miller and marketer of the stuff." - The Economist
"This is a catastrophe for Missouri rice farmers." - St Louis attorney Don Downing
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7035
+ THE COVER-UP
Britain's official food safety watchdog has privately told supermarkets that it will not stop them selling an illegal GM rice to the public. Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary, described the agency's conduct as "a massive scandal" and said it "smelt of a cover-up". He said he would be asking for an official investigation into whether the agency had broken the law.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7033
+ FSA BIAS - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
The Independent on Sunday comments as follows on the FSA's pro-GM bias: The Agency has already, in its short life, done much to undermine public confidence in its competence and impartiality, taking a seemingly uncritical approach to GM food despite evidence of cause for concern. It has lost no opportunity to attack organic produce. Even a review of its own performance last year found the "vast majority" of its stakeholders considered it biased.
There were signs that the agency might have begun to change its ways, but today's news shows that it is, in fact, worse than ever.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7033
+ SCIENTIST CRITICISES FSA'S FAILURE
The FSA's failure to order the illegal rice's withdrawal has been strongly criticised by a former GM adviser to the US government's Environmental Protection Agency, Doug Gurian-Sherman. "We should be taking a more cautious approach," he said. "Risks should not be taken with public health for the convenience of companies or of government. It sets a very bad precedent to make safety assessments based on data that is incomplete."
According to Gurian-Sherman, now with the Centre for Food Safety in Washington DC, there simply was not enough evidence to judge whether the contaminated rice was safe or not. "I wouldn't eat it myself," he said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7041
+ LEGAL ACTION LAUNCHED AGAINST FSA
The response of the Food Standards Agency to the crisis is so inadequate that Friends of the Earth in the UK is mounting a legal challenge against it.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7042
+ ILLEGAL GM RICE FOUND IN UK SUPERMARKET
GM material has been found in two samples of rice from the store Morrisons - the fourth largest supermarket chain in the UK, with nine million customers a week.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7042
+ ILLEGAL RICE MAY REMAIN ON SALE IN NEW ZEALAND
It is possible that contaminated long-grain rice remains on sale in New Zealand despite the contaminating variant being untested and unapproved by any authority in any country.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7047
+ GM WATCH SPECIALS ON THE GM RICE SCANDAL
User-friendly summaries of the latest news:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7044
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7046
+ EURO SCIENTISTS REFUSE SAFETY CLEARANCE FOR GM RICE
The GMO Panel of the European Food Safety Authority has refused to give a safety clearance for the unauthorised GM rice variety LL601, which has contaminated Southern US rice products on a substantial scale.
EFSA said in its statement: "According to the Statement of the Panel issued today there is insufficient data to provide a full risk assessment in accordance with EFSA's GM guidance."
The statement then goes on to explain that the Panel examined the "data available" and data on a "very similar GMO rice strain" before coming to the provisional view that "the consumption of imported long grain rice containing trace levels of LLRICE601 is not likely to pose an imminent safety concern to humans or animals."
Dr Brian John of GM Free Cymru says: "We do not agree with the provisional finding that contaminated rice is unlikely to cause a safety concern, since that finding is based upon assumptions, extrapolations and an admitted shortage of hard data about LL601. But for the first time we see a commendable caution in what EFSA is saying... The significant thing here is that this is NOT an endorsement for LL601 rice."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7038
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ASIA
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+ THAI COURT CLEARS ACTIVISTS OF THEFT AND TRESPASS
The Khon Kaen provincial court has acquitted two Greenpeace activists, who raided the Department of Agriculture's GM papaya plantation two years ago, of theft and trespass charges. The court ruled the evidence presented was too weak to prove that former Greenpeace executive director Jiragorn Gajaseni and campaigner Patwajee Srisuwan had trespassed on the department's research station and destroyed state property.
''We feel that this decision gives us and other civil society groups the mandate to protect our environment against the onslaught of transgenic crops,'' said Ms Patwajee after hearing the verdict.
The GM papaya, however, continued to spread and immediate action needed to be taken to stop it, she said. ''We must also ensure that those responsible for the widespread transgenic papaya contamination in our country are brought to justice,'' she said.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7036
+ INDIA'S COTTON PRODUCTION PROJECTED TO FALL
An article for India's cotton industry - "Cotton production estimates paint rosy picture" - uses the farmer suicide epidemic as a peg on which to hang the rosiest of projections - an expected rise of 40% in cotton production with Bt cotton producing 25 to 30% more, with a bit of luck, than "the local no-hybrid variety".
All of which seems nothing but miraculous. Last year, for instance, a study of cotton growing in Maharashtra showed Bt cotton farmers getting 68% lower incomes than non-Bt farmers.
So are things likely to be that much better this year? Not according to Indian government advance estimates of national crop production. As Ashok B Sharma reports in the Financial Express, "The cotton output... is slated to drop to 18 million bales of 170 kg each from 19.5 million bales in the previous year. This is despite a reported increase in land area being brought under Bt cotton cultivation."
But perhaps Vidarbha is somehow bucking the national trend? GM Watch asked P Sainath, who has written extensively on the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha, if he'd seen any evidence to support the rosy picture being painted in the article.
He says, "... there's been a lot of this stuff. The government of the state is totally plugged into Bt cotton. Some farmers have got a good yield from Bt first harvest, then it begins to slide, then it plummets. The government's own report on that to the National Commission on Farmers shows us that.
"Bt is a very high water intensive strain. Using it in a region that has little or no irrigation is insane. The effects are already showing up (quite a few of the suicides were of farmers who had experimented with Bt and paid the price).
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7034
+ NEW YORK TIMES ON FARMER SUICIDES
An interesting article in the New York Times on the Indian farmer suicides discusses the massive debts incurred by Bt cotton farmers, but misses the widespread crop failures.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7037
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THE AMERICAS
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+ "SINISTER SPINACH" - GOLDEN BULL AWARD
There's been a nasty E. coli outbreak in the US linked to fresh spinach, and the usual suspects have gone into immediate overdrive in an attempt to blame it onto organic farming.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7049
+ DAIRY PROCESSORS MAKE HORMONE-FREE SWITCH
America's dairy processors are increasingly seeking rBST-free dairy supplies, as the demand for additive-free foods begins to exert its influence on the market. rBST is Monsanto's GM growth hormone that is injected into a cow to increase milk production.
Last month Dean Foods, the largest processor and distributor of milk and dairy products in the country, became the latest company to offer rBST-free milk products. The company will launch the products in New England.
According to industry analyst Organic Monitor, consumers are buying more and more organic and hormone-free food and drink products as they are seen to be healthier and more natural. This includes a demand from consumers for hormone-free dairy products.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7039
Read about Monsanto's efforts to suppress the facts about its GM hormone:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7039
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EUROPE
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+ EU MEMBER STATES REJECT TWO EUROPEAN COMMISSION GM PROPOSALS
At an Agriculture Council meeting, only a small minority of EU Farm Ministers (including the UK) voted in favour of importing Bayer's GM oilseed rape into the EU.
But under EU decision-making rules, the European Commission makes the final decision whether the GM crop will be authorised. In previous cases, the pro-biotech Commission has systematically authorised GMOs regardless of the general voting pattern by national Ministers.
In a separate GMO meeting, representatives from member states did not support a Commission proposal to force Hungary to lift its ban on Monsanto's MON810 maize.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7043
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7040
+ MONSANTO ON TRIAL IN FRANCE
Monsanto is on trial in Carcassonne, France, for having allegedly illegally imported, in 1999, 100 tonnes of soya seed contaminated with GM varieties. 50 tonnes were sold to 23 farmers by local agriculture suppliers. 50 tonnes were sent back to the USA.
Monsanto previously lost a series of court decisions resulting in US$700 million in damages being awarded to thousands of residents of the town of Anniston, Alabama that had been polluted over a period of years by Monsanto's PCB byproducts.
Though the PCB production was outlawed in 1976 Monsanto dragged the lawsuit out for nearly three decades. It was settled with the following judgement. On February 22, 2002, Monsanto was found guilty of "negligence, wantonness, suppression of truth, nuisance, trespass, and outrage." Under Alabama law the rare claim of outrage requires "conduct so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and intolerable in civilized society".
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7048
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AUSTRALASIA
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+ SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GOVT DEFENDS PLANNED GM CROP BAN EXTENSION
The South Australian government has defended its plan to extend a moratorium on growing GM crops, saying it has benefits in the global market. A ban is in place until 2007, but the government wants to extend it by a year to bring the state in line with the rest of the country.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7045
+ OZ BULLDUST EXTRAVAGANZA
If you find the insane hype of many pro-GM lobbyists hard to credit, you should see what they have to put up with down under.
Take this load of bulldust from just one short article:
The former head of the South Australian Farmers Federation, John Lush: "...drought-resistant GM crops could save farmers millions of dollars" [there are no drought resistant GM crops - they're all still "in development"]
"We have the technology that we could increase the potential of that crop by about three-fold on a year like this and it would be a viable crop and we're not using that technology" [we're not using that technology because it doesn't exist!]
Centre for Plant Functional Genomics plant geneticist, Mark Tester: "The US farmers have no problems exporting their GM crops and I think the Australian farmer is seeing that." [sure, that's why the US went to the WTO complaining about lost markets; and why US rice farmers are burying Bayer in lawsuits to try and recoup their losses; and why US corn farmers have lost their export market to Europe, and why US soybean exports to the EU have "dropped to almost economically insignificant levels"; and why nobody dares to commercialise GM wheat... because there's no problems about exporting GM crops.]
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7045
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LOBBYWATCH
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+ ROYAL SOCIETY BLASTS ITS PALS
The Royal Society has taken issue with Exxon over its funding of lobby groups which engage in climate change denial. Among the groups mentioned in an article in The Guardian are the International Policy Network (IPN) and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).
The article notes that senior figures in the CEI "have described global warming as a myth" while the IPN "jointly published a report with the UK group the Scientific Alliance which claimed that global temperature rises were not related to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere."
The joke is of course that many of those involved in these lobby groups have been among the Royal Society's staunchest allies in the GM debate.
The CEI, for instance, actually co-founded CS Prakash's AgBioWorld campaign, and the CEI's Greg Conko serves as AgBioWorld's Vice-President.
The climate-change denying Scientific Alliance has an Advisory Forum that is dominated by fervent GM supporters, e.g. Anthony Trewavas, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and Vivian Moses, who is the Chair of the biotech industry backed lobby group CropGen, and who like Trewavas is on the Advisory Council of Sense About Science - a lobby group which has worked hand-in-glove with the Royal Society.
Moses and Trewavas also get quoted in Science Media Centre press releases on GM. And the SMC's director, Fiona Fox, connects to the climate change-denying network behind LM, Spiked and the Institute of Ideas. Many of the individuals and organisations listed above also regularly turn up at events run by and at the Royal Institution, which hosts the SMC.
In the Royal Society's letter to Exxon the RS's Bob Ward writes, "I would be grateful if you could let me know which organisations in the UK and other European countries have been receiving funding so that I can work out which of these have been similarly providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public."
Interestingly, the Royal Society itself has had no hesitation in accepting substantial funding from transnational corporations in the biotech and nuclear sectors.
It's also interesting that the RS's approach to the issues of global warming and GMOs coincides so perfectly with Blair government policy. Blair has talked up fighting global warming as one of his policies (even using it - like the RS! - to promote nukes and biotech), despite missing his own reduction targets.
For much more on the RS and the lobbyists:
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7050