GMWatch News Review archive

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Despite the eagerness of much of the world's media and governments to dub the tsunami catastrophe an unfathomable 'act of God' or nature, it may be that much of the responsibility for some of the tragic consequences lies with powerful corporate interests that have devastated natural buffer ecosystems in pursuit of profit (TSUNAMI RESPONSES). Though this is not directly a GM issue, Devinder Sharma's analysis is so important and its message so shockingly under-reported that we have included it here.

Until policy makers take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, we will be hit by not-so-random disasters. At the same time, we shall continue to be fleeced by corporations as they sell us ever-more-expensive ways to 'fix' nature - when the problem was never nature's in the first place.

Speaking of corporate fixes, news continues to emerge of the massive scale of Monsanto's criminal activities in bribing Indonesian officials to accept its GM crops (MONSANTO IN INDONESIA). And ISAAA has produced its annual crop of misleading figures over GM uptake (LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL). Finally, in a desperate attempt to convince us of the benefits of GM, Prakash's AgBioWorld has enlisted the persuasive powers of... a nuke-touting rabbit (LOBBYWATCH REGULAR). I kid you not.

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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MONSANTO IN INDONESIA
LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL - ISAAA's hype-fest
YEARLY REVIEWS: Kenya, Philippines, world (GRAIN)
AFRICA
ASIA
AUSTRALASIA
TSUNAMI RESPONSES
LOBBYWATCH REGULAR

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MONSANTO IN INDONESIA
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+ MONSANTO BRIBED "AT LEAST 140" OFFICIALS AND OTHERS
More details have emerged about the Monsanto bribe scandal, in which the company bribed Indonesian officials and others to smooth the entry into the country of its GM crops. Monsanto gave bribes totaling a minimum of $700,000 to at least 140 current or former Indonesian government officials and their family members. Which leaves one wondering what kind of numbers could have been on the payroll worldwide?

The itchy-fingered ones include a senior official in the environment ministry, a senior official in the agriculture ministry, an official in the National Planning and Development Board (Bappenas), as well as 140 other bureaucrats between 1997 and 2002.

Monsanto agreed to pay USD 1.5 million in penalties to settle US criminal and civil charges.

The largest single set of bribes was for the purchase of land and the design and construction of a house in the name of a wife of a senior Ministry of Agriculture official, which cost Monsanto $373,990.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4776
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4780
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4793

+ MONSANTO BOSS URGED TO QUIT
Environmentalists and Members of the Scottish Parliament are demanding that Monsanto's president and chief executive in Scotland, Hugh Grant, be kicked off the International Advisory Board set up by Scottish Enterprise, which helps Scottish companies develop their businesses abroad. Mark Ruskell MSP, the Green Party's environment spokesman, told the Sunday Herald, "It is plainly ridiculous that a senior figure from Monsanto is at the heart of informing the Executive's strategy for Scotland's economic development."

This was supported by Jonathan Matthews of GM Watch who told the paper, "This man is steeped in a company culture that allowed this to happen." he added, "What has emerged about corrupt practices in Indonesia may just be the tip of the iceberg."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4779

+ INDONESIA'S CORRUPTION COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE MONSANTO
Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has begun to investigate the Monsanto bribery case.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4780
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4793

+ HOW MONSANTO'S GM COTTON WAS BROUGHT TO INDONESIA
It's interesting, in the context of the corruption scandal, to revisit the way in which Monsanto's GM seed was finally brought into Indonesia in March 2001.

According to the Jakarta Post, "A total of 40 tons of genetically modified Bollgard cotton seed arrived at the Makassar airport from South Africa amid strong protests from environmentalists... A number of activists, waving banners reading "Reject Genetically Modified Cotton in South Sulawesi", tried to intercept the convoy of trucks carrying the cotton seeds, which contain Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and block them from leaving the airport. ...

"The authorities had apparently concealed the seed's arrival from the press. The provincial plantation office denied reports of the seed's arrival on Thursday morning, but at approximately 1pm on Thursday The Jakarta Post noticed a Russian Ilyusin transport plane ... unloading the seed in the airport's military area. The wide-bodied plane ... was tightly guarded, and reporters and photographers were barred from approaching the plane. Members of the Indonesian Air Force guarding the area said that reporters must back off for security reasons."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4782

+ DIRTY TRICKS AND BROKEN PROMISES - MONSANTO'S LEGACY IN INDONESIA
The farmers who grew Monsanto's seed did less well out of it than the officials who took the bribes. One Indonesian farmer who grew Monsanto's GM cotton said, "The company didn't give the farmer any choice, they never intended to improve our well being, they just put us in a debt circle, took away our independence and made us their slave forever."

In the first year of planting, there were reported failures of Bt cotton - the crop succumbed to drought and hundreds of hectares were attacked by pests. The drought had led to a pest population explosion on Bt cotton, but not on other cotton varieties. As a result, instead of reducing pesticide use, farmers had to use a different mix and larger amounts of pesticides to control the pests. Furthermore, the Bt cotton - engineered to be resistant to a pest that is not a major problem in Sulawesi - was susceptible to other more serious pests.
More at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4783

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LOBBYWATCH SPECIAL - ISAAA's hype-fest
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+ ISAAA'S GM PROPAGANDA MISLEADING
The annual media-hype fest from industry body ISAAA is under way: "Eight million farmers in 17 countries grew engineered crops on 200 million acres last year, a 20 percent increase over the 167 million acres in 2003, according to a report released by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications."
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/science/10627915.htm

Here's an antidote from the Australia-based Network of Concerned Farmers:

"It is not that farmers benefit from GM technology, farmers are not being offered anything that can not be achieved with non-GM biotechnology," said Julie Newman of the NCF.

"Figures show the area of GM has increased in certain countries but this is because most of these farmers have relied on heavy subsidies from governments or from the GM companies themselves."

Mrs Newman explained that US and China rely mostly on government subsidies to compensate for increasing costs and decreasing commodity prices caused by overproduction. Five years ago, International Cotton Advisory Committee reported that both Chinese and US cotton farmers relied on government subsidies for up to half of their income in order to counter falling cotton prices and the prices have continued to decline.

Developing countries, such as Argentina, have been supplied free seed, chemical, machinery and expertise from the GM companies which has transformed primitive but sustainable farming practices into what has been reported as a soybean monoculture causing massive exodus of traditional farmers and crops.

Mrs Newman said, "Australian farmers will need a market edge to sell our products with premiums in order to maintain viability. Farmers will have difficulty competing with heavily subsidised countries as the commodity price continues to fall but differentiating our product to cater to consumer non-GM demands will allow greater market access and possibly premium prices. GM crops are not the success claimed, it is exploitation of agricultural resources and it is not sustainable for farmers."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4791

"The GM Bubble": Claire Robinson questions ISAAA's inflated figures of GM crop uptake and planting
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=3639

+ GM DECEPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES
ISAAA-inspired media reports are claiming that developing world farmers can't get enough GM seed. ISAAA has focused particularly on the Philippines and has had the much-used Philippines farmer, Edwin Paraluman, join ISAAA's founder and chairman, Clive James on a conference call with reporters to tell the media about the benefits to the small farmer of growing GM.

The report claims that a massive expansion in acreage for Monsanto's Bt corn has occurred in the country, but Roberto Verzola in the Philippines explains how that expansion has been achieved:

"The Mon810 Bt corn is distributed in the Philippines without proper labels, under the brand name DK818YG. Farmers are seldom informed that the seeds they are getting are genetically-engineered, or that these are the controversial Bt corn which had been the subject of controversies in the media and public debates. Often, it is the government which buys from Monsanto or its distributors the Bt corn seeds, which are then given for free or at subsidized prices to unsuspecting farmers. Thus, it is only through stealth, deception and the complicity of government technicians, agriculturists and policy-makers that Monsanto has managed to increase the hectarage of Bt corn in the Philippines, at the expense of the Filipino tax payer at that."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4795

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YEARLY REVIEWS 2004 (EXCERPTS ONLY)
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+ KENYA
In 2004, suspicions that the GM industry is targeting Kenya as the doorway to East Africa were confirmed beyond doubt. Several pro-GM lobby groups based in Nairobi have been attempting to influence policy in favour of GMOs. In response, a coalition of NGOs has emerged, calling itself Kenya GMO Concern (KEGCO) to open the dialogue and raise awareness about the risks of GMOs.
Read on and see the remarkable list of Kenya's bumper crop of GM lobbyists at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4787

+ PHILIPPINES
The creeping contamination of local corn varieties is of serious concern because of at least two reports of immunological reactions among farmers in southern Philippines living beside Bt corn fields, possibly due to exposure to the Bt corn pollen. We are awaiting the final results of the scientific study by Dr Terje Traavik of the Institute of Gene Ecology of Norway regarding this matter.

The next GE crops in the pipeline for commercialization are rice and papaya. The government has been conducting field trials of BB-resistant rice and Golden Rice. Government researchers have likewise publicly expressed their commitment to release a commercial ring spot virus-resistant GE papaya "within three years".

The GE industry lobby group in the Philippines is the Biotech Coalition of the Philippines (BCP), whose work is funded by ISAAA which in turn gets its funds from the industry. BCP includes multi-facial GE lobbyists who sometimes wear government hats, scientist hats, or NGO hats, as the situation demands. It even includes a bishop and a priest among its stable of speakers.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4795

+ WORLDWIDE: GRAIN ON GM CROPS IN 2004
GM contamination was at the centre of the push for and resistance to GM crops last year. There's little doubt that industry is deliberately pursuing contamination to make the global acceptance of GM a fait accompli. It wants people to believe that the only option left is to 'manage' the co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture - turning non-GM agriculture into a tightly regulated system governed by onerous contracts that leaves farmers more vulnerable to the power of agribusiness. But the inevitability of GM contamination is clarifying things for the resistance against GM crops. ...

The very science behind GM is increasingly being questioned for being too simplistic, reductionist and outdated. In direct contradiction of industry propaganda, studies from last year confirmed that 'junk DNA' is essential to biological function, that shooting genes into cells does more harm than good and causes many unintended consequences and that the promised yield increases and pest tolerances from GM crops are empty.
[There are a lot of very useful links available with the online version of this article]
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4784

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AFRICA
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+ KENYA SMALL FARMERS OPPOSE GM BILL
The Kenya Small Scale Farmers' Forum, representing farmers from 10 districts across Kenya, has formally objected to the current draft of the Biosafety Bill on GM crops. The Forum says the draft Bill in its current form does not protect small farmers. The Forum will instead support a Private Members' Motion seeking to outlaw GM crops.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4781

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ASIA
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+ INDIA: FARMERS OPPOSE PATENT ORDINANCE
Farmers' bodies have decided to oppose the recent ordinance which seeks to introduce patent monopolies on seeds. The agitation will be launched on January 30. They have decided to oppose the proposed amendments to the Seeds Act and government policies leading to privatisation of the water sector and market monopolies.

As an alternative, the farmers' bodies will draft a new agriculture policy and submit it to the government.

Spokesperson Dr Vandana Shiva said: "The Patent Ordinance has proposed patent monopolies on seeds, genes and markers. This will lead to farmers' paying royalties to seed companies. Further, the proposed amendments to the Seeds Act, like compulsory registration, will prevent farmers from using farm-saved seeds. We have decided to oppose all these measures and boycott multinational companies producing agro-chemicals and seeds, including the genetically modified ones."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4786

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AUSTRALASIA
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+ NEW ZEALAND: KFC USES GM-FREE SOY CHICKEN FEED
KFC has announced it is "committed" to continue using GE-free soy from Inghams Enterprises LTD "as long as world supply enabled it to".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/waikatotimes/0,2106,3136633a6579,00.html

The move follows pressure and actions from Greenpeace, other campaign groups, and the public. In one action, an anonymous underground group called the 'Finger Stick in Glue Crew' glued shut the locks of 10 KFC outlets, causing thousands of dollars' worth of damage.

KFC did not give in gracefully. Within days of Greenpeace launching a spoof KFC website (www.kfc.org.nz), KFC lawyers made threats against the Scoop news site (www.scoop.co.nz) for posting a Greenpeace advertising banner linking to the spoof KFC web site.

"It is telling that KFC's lawyers have written to Scoop three times but haven't contacted Greenpeace directly at all," says Steve Abel, GM coordinator for Greenpeace NZ. "Rather than get into a public debate with Greenpeace they choose to try and shut down comment. Its a classic example of a SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - in which a corporation threatens to sue a campaigner in order to shut them up]," says Abel.

The site has attracted hundreds of e-mails from the public and generated over one thousand messages to KFC.

A poll commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by research group Colmar Brunton in October showed that 80% of KFC customers wouldn't mind paying an extra 2 cents for chicken fed on non-GM soy.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4794

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TSUNAMI RESPONSES
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+ HELP VIA CAMPESINA'S TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORTS
The agricultural reform NGO, Via Campesina is raising funds for grassroots tsunami relief and rebuilding efforts coordinated directly by its member organizations in Southeastern Asia.
Visit Via Campesina's Online Donation Page
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=4589
Learn More about Via Campesina's Efforts
http://www.foodfirst.org/action/2005/tsunamirelief.html

+ GM LOBBY EXPLOITS TSUNAMI
Predictably, those desperate to push their own self-interested agendas are keen to exploit the tsunami disaster for their own purposes.

The US's inevitable dumping of its GM-contaminated food aid on the area, rather than giving the financial support to allow the purchase of non-GM foods available in the region, is one form of this.

Just as predictably, the pro-GM AgBioView list has already run a malicious article headlined, "Enviro Wackos Rejoice over Tsunami Devastation". The article claims, "some environmentalists are actually celebrating the tidal wave that killed nearly 200,000 people, saying it rid the coastal area of development and other forms of human contamination."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/7/223750.shtml

On reading on, however, one discovers that these "Enviro Whackos" are people like the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra - the massively rich Thai businessman who recently proposed ending Thailand's GM moratorium! The Thai PM is a "Whacko", it seems, because he said the tsunami had "swept away unplanned and possible illegal building, creating an opportunity to regulate growth" during redevelopment.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/1/7/223750.shtml

We've also had the likes of Lord May, President of the UK's Royal Society trying to bump up the research budgets by calling for development assistance to be controlled by experts in "science, technology and innovation". Such spending, says May with timely spin, "is an investment against disasters".

But while we're being offered images of hi-tech driven innovation and development as the only security in the face of dangerous "nature", there are other conclusions that could be drawn from the tsunami.

Devinder Sharma pointed to this in his piece (excerpt below) on the contribution to the disaster of the profit-driven destruction of natural eco-systems.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4785

More food for thought on the lessons of the tsunami comes courtesy of the indigenous people of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, who are thought to have escaped the tsunami thanks to traditional warning systems that interpret bird and marine animal behaviour.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4789

The Sentinelese tribe, who live a paleolithic lifestyle on an island between India and Burma, seem to have emerged unscathed from the tsunami and have refused food aid. Hours before the tsunami struck, tribespeople saw streams of ants and other insects pouring out of the ground and heading uphill. The people followed, and were safe.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1431442_4,00.html

And wildlife officials in Sri Lanka report that despite the tragically large loss of human life, there are few reported animal deaths.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4789

+ TSUNAMI, MANGROVES AND MARKET ECONOMY by Devinder Sharma [shortened]
As the first news reports of the devastation caused by the tsunami killer waves began to pour in, a newsreader asked his correspondent reporting from the scene of destruction in the south of India: "Any idea about how much is the loss to business? Can you find that out because that would be more important for our business leaders?"

Little did the newscaster realise that the tsunami disaster was more or less the outcome of faulty business and economics ... It was the outcome of an insane economic system - led by the World Bank and IMF - that believes in usurping environment, nature and human lives for the sake of unsustainable economic growth for a few.

Since the 1980s, the Asian sea-coast region has been plundered by the large industrialised shrimp firms that brought environmentally-unfriendly aquaculture to its sea shores. Shrimp cultivation, rising to over 8 billion tonnes a year in the year 2000, had already played havoc with the fragile eco-systems. The 'rape-and-run' industry, as the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) once termed it, was largely funded by the World Bank. Nearly 72 per cent of the shrimp farming is confined to Asia.

The expansion of shrimp farming was at the cost of tropical mangroves - amongst the world's most important ecosystems. Each acre of mangrove forest destroyed results in an estimated 676 pounds loss in marine harvest. Mangrove swamps have been nature's protection for the coastal regions from the large waves, weathering the impact of cyclones, and serving as a nursery for three-fourth of the commercial fish species that spend part of their life cycle in the mangrove swamps. Mangroves in any case were one of the world's most threatened habitats but instead of replanting the mangrove swamps, faulty economic policies only hastened its disappearance. Despite warning by ecologists and environmentalists, the World Bank turned a deaf ear.

Shrimp farming continued its destructive spree, eating away more than half of the world's mangroves. Since the 1960's, for instance, aquaculture and other industrial activities in Thailand resulted in a loss of over 65,000 hectares of mangroves. In Indonesia, Java lost 70 per cent of its mangroves, Sulawesi 49 per cent and Sumatra 36 per cent. So much so that at the time the tsunami struck in all its fury, logging companies were busy axing mangroves in the Aceh province of Indonesia for exports to Malaysia and Singapore.

In India, mangrove cover has been reduced to less than a third of its original in the past three decades. Between 1963 and 1977 India destroyed nearly 50 per cent of its mangroves. Local communities were forcibly evicted to make way for the shrimp farms. In Andhra Pradesh, more than 50,000 people were forcibly removed and millions displaced throughout the coastal belt to make room for the aquaculture farms. Whatever remained of the mangroves was cut down by the hotel industry. Aided and abetted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Industries, builders moved in to ravage the coastline.

Five-star hotels, golf courses, industries, and mansions sprung up all along disregarding the concern being expressed by environmentalists. These two ministries worked overtime to dilute the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms thereby allowing the hotels to even take over the 500 meter buffer that was supposed to be maintained along the beach. In an era of market economy ... the bureaucrats are in league with the industrialists and big business interests. Much of the responsibility for the huge death toll therefore rests with the government and the free market apologists.
Read on at http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4785

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LOBBYWATCH REGULAR
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+ SCIENCE HACKS WANT SYNGENTA'S DOUGH
Every June, half a dozen science writers get a GBP 2,500 science writers' gong from pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline at a major awards bash. But alas, no more. Glaxo has slashed funding for the scheme, forcing the poor scribblers to take their begging bowls elsewhere.

Led by the science writers' chairman, Pallab Ghosh of the BBC, they have now turned to GM food manufacturer Syngenta. And should that fail, the resourceful lads and lasses have already targeted British Nuclear Fuels. And after that? Well, there is always British American Tobacco or Monsanto...
Source: Private Eye http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4777

Pallab Ghosh - a GM WATCH profile
http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=203

+ SCIENCE LOBBY (AGAIN) BLAMES MEDIA FOR PUBLIC HOSTILITY TO GM
In a letter soon to be published (in edited form!) in the science journal Nature, Peter Melchett takes issue with a Nature editorial which claimed, "British scientists have seen the public swayed by misleading media coverage of genetically modified (GM) food and vaccines."

Peter Melchett writes, "I do not imagine you had in mind the constant stream of pro-genetic engineering articles in the national press through most of the 1990s, nor the endless, uncritical reporting of miracle crops that would cut pesticide use, end blindness and feed the world, still less your own shameful record in withdrawing the paper by Chapela et al on GM contamination in Mexico. What evidence do you have for suggesting that media coverage was biased one way or another - or is this an area where you feel scientists should be content to rely on mere assertion and personal prejudice?

"Whatever reporting you had in mind your comment is ill-informed and inaccurate. The evidence in the scientific literature on the impact of media coverage on public attitudes to GM food suggests that public attitudes to GM food in a number of European countries were formed independently of the scale and nature of the coverage of GM issues in the media."
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4788

+ EMBRACING THE BIONUCLEAR BUNNY!
CS Prakash's pro-GM AgBioView list this week brought subscribers news of the "incredible potential of pharming" and how it is being obstructed by "baseless accusations and fearmongering by special-interest food-nanny groups." The pharma eulogy comes courtesy of the bionuclearbunny.blogspot.

BioNuclear proclaims, "Our future is Biotech and Nuclear. Embrace the change. Embrace the Bunny." The site has links to Prakash's "AgBioWorld" and a site promoting Paul Driessen's book, "Eco-imperialism, Green Power, Black Death".
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/

AgBioView also has a brief excerpt from an article in Britain's Daily Telegraph, "Organic Ketchups Boost Fight Against Cancers". The excerpt is immediately trumped on AgBioView by a piece from Tom DeGregori, assuring the faithful that anything organic can do, "Biotech Can Do Better!"

DeGregori is a board member of the American Council on Science and Health - an organisation described by PR Watch's John Stauber as an "industry front group that produces PR ammunition for the food processing and chemical industries."

He's also a fierce Prakash loyalist who famously once used AgBioView to laud the "fake persuader" Andura Smetacek, later shown to be an e-mail front used by Monsanto to post poison-pen attacks on its critics.

Next up after DeGregori is more tsunami exploitation (see TSUNAMI RESPONSES below). An article headed, "Agricultural Reforms Best Help for Tsunami-Hit Countries" refers us to a report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that "calls on all countries... to provide more resources for agricultural research in poor countries, particularly in the development of genetically modified (GM) crops" which "are key to reducing poverty".

AgBioView quotes the BioNuclear Bunny again: "the rich, fat busy-bodies of the developed world" are poking their noses in other peoples' business and trying to tell them how to run their lives, "because they just know better than everyone else". These are the "professional busy-bodies and worriers of the filthy-rich environmental and anti-globalization organizations" who "have convinced many countries to raise the bar so high that it is making it difficult for those nations on a budget (a real budget) to get any of that great [GM] research out the door where it can do some good".

The result, according to the Bunny - "every year, thousands upon thousands of desperate women and children die of malnutrion, hunger, and the endemic diseases of the under-nourished". All of which, it is implied, would be cured by GM crops.

Of course, anyone who's looked at some of these cure-all crops in detail - like the GM sweet potato that was touted to fight hunger and poverty but turns out to have been little more than a PR hoax - might have reason for scepticism.

And, funnily enough, it just so happens that the man behind the IFPRI report, about which the BioNuclear Bunny waxes so lyrical, is none other than Joel Cohen - one of the originators of the sweet potato project!
More: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4792