Il Papa: counterweight to the Owen Paterson-fronted GM onslaught

As Monsanto (renamed in Windscale damage limitation mode) plans a British HQ for its new company – if it can acquire Syngenta – former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Owen Paterson [below right] once again trots out tired myths about the virtues of genetic modification of crops.

He is said to be assisted by his brother-in-law, Viscount Matt Ridley, a genetic scientist who is a visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in New York which has received funding from Monsanto and Novartis. His long-term support for the technology, first highlighted in a ‘civilian’ September 2012 speech at the Rothamsted Research facility, inviting GMO innovators to take root in the UK, was followed by his DEFRA appointment.

Minister Paterson, in partnership with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, financed by GM companies Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer CropScience, frequently lobbied the EU on the desirability of GM crops. Last April he refused a Freedom of Information Act request to supply details about meetings between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the GM industry trade body. He had to leave DEFRA, having extolled Britain’s shale gas reserves, ‘an unexpected and potentially huge windfall’, and mishandled the summer floods and badger culls.

He then set up a think tank UK2020. Millionaire-founded, it steers clear of direct funding from GM industries but vigorously promotes the technology at events such as last year’s South African agricultural biotechnology media conference, hosted by ISAAA which receives donations from both Monsanto and Bayer CropScience.

Murdoch’s Fox News: “the most anticipated and feared papal document in recent times”

Reports are coming in about the leaked papal encyclical on dangers to the environment but many failed to mention the references to genetically modified crops. It adds to the call for dialogue on this and other environmental issues voiced by the Vatican in 2013.

Farming Weekly Online does report the thoughts of Pope Francis on GMOs and pesticides, voiced in the draft of this major environmental document. He has called for a “scientific and social debate” on genetically modified foods that considers all the information available: “[I]t is necessary to ensure scientific and social debate that is responsible and large, able to consider all the information and to call things by their names. GMOs is an issue which is complex; it must be approached with a sympathetic look at all its aspects and this requires at least one effort to finance several lines of independent and interdisciplinary research.”

FW reports that he highlighted “significant problems” with the technology that should not be minimised, such as the “development of oligopolies in the production of seeds” and a “concentration of productive land in the hands of the few” that leads to the “disappearance of small producers”. Did it refer to GM herbicide resistant weeds and GM insecticide resistant insects?

The pontiff said the spread of GM crops “destroys the complex web of ecosystems, decreases diversity in production and affects the present and future of regional economies”. On the use of pesticides in agriculture – and GM cultivation – he warned that many birds and insects useful to agriculture are dying out as a result of pesticides created by technology.

We end with comments from a Nebraskan:

 

I see the landscape in farming country in Iowa & Nebraska – not a tree or bush in sight. Not one weed. The pesticides & weed killers spayed on the crops have killed off everything except the GMO crops! There go the butterflies, the bees & all other beneficial insects that pollinate our crops. It’s a sickening thing to see & it spells total disaster. I applaud the Pope for taking a world view of our problems. No other Pope has ever bothered with anything other than spiritual problems.

And from Brian John – on our mailing list:

Good for Pope Francis! The religious leaders — of all faiths — have been very slow to enter this debate, partly because they have been put under intense diplomatic pressure by the GMO/agrichemical industries and by the US and other governments. But the Christian understanding of the word “stewardship” is a very important part of the faith, and it’s great that Pope Francis is now prepared to explain it in terms of a global responsibility to look after the poor, to look after the environment and to maintain the purity of food and water. The GMO industry, and its acolytes, bang on all the time, quite cynically, about GMOs being needed to “feed the world” in a future full of uncertainties. It’s nonsense. of course, and the Pope’s intervention at this stage is of vast significance.

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You can find the full draft encyclical here (in Italian): speciali.espresso.repubblica.it/pdf/laudato_si.pdf and comments on a translation.

Biotechnology (& by implication GM technology) has NOT been with us since agriculture began

This canard, repeated yet again by Kenneth Quin, president of the World Food Prize, is being challenged, because if an untruth is repeated often enough it is believed. In some cases this has happened.

We set aside the questionable practice of awarding a prize to employees of the sponsors (below) – a practice usually outlawed – and all the other untruths vested interests voice about GM technology, which are ably exposed elsewhere.

GM technology is radically different

GM technology is often used to introduce into plants an exogenous or ‘outside’ gene from bacteria, viruses or even an animal species (e.g. DNA Plant Technology’s fish genes spliced into tomatoes) – transgenesis.

The age-old bio-engineering practice manually transfers genes between closely related organisms which could interbreed naturally.

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The World Food Prize was first funded by General Foods. 1990-2010, the prize was sponsored by the late John Ruan. It is now sponsored by food and agriculture companies, as well as other donors and grant-awarding institutions. Donors include Nestlé, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, Monsanto, Bayer CropScience, DuPont Pioneer. In 2008, Monsanto gave five millions of dollars to the World Food Prize for the renovation of the organization’s headquarters.The prize is also sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Monsanto set to halt GMO push in Europe

In line with Prem Sikka’s experience that in the digital era it may well be possible to mobilise alternative citizen centres of power . . .

As thousands in Mexico protested against Monsanto by throwing a carnival of corn, and an estimated two million people across 50 countries participated last week in the global March Against Monsanto , Reuters reports that European officials for the St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto told the German daily “Taz” that they were no longer doing any lobby work for cultivation in Europe and not seeking any new approvals for genetically modified plants.

“We’ve come to the conclusion that this has no broad acceptance at the moment,” Monsanto Germany spokeswoman, Ursula Lüttmer-Ouazane, told Taz. Monsanto corporate spokesman Thomas Helscher said on Friday that the company is making it clear that it will only pursue market penetration of biotech crops in areas that provide broad support.

“We’re going to sell the GM seeds only where they enjoy broad farmer support, broad political support and a functioning regulatory system,” Helscher told Reuters. “As far as we’re convinced this only applies to a few countries in Europe today, primarily Spain and Portugal.” German protest actions have been well attended- see below:

Russia Today adds:

“A spokeswoman for Monsanto Germany, Ursula Luttmer-Ouazane, admitted that Monsanto recognizes that GMO crops were currently not embraced on the European market. “We’ve understood that such plants don’t have any broad acceptance in European societies,“ Luttmer-Ouazane said. “It is counterproductive to fight against windmills,” she added.

”A spokesperson for the German Ministry of Economy and Technologies described the move as an “entrepreneurial decision” which needed no further comment. The ministry added, however, it has long made its opposition to gene modification technologies known.

“The promises of the GM industry have not come true for European agriculture, nor have they for the agriculture in developing and emerging economies,” the ministry said in a statement.

Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and most recently Poland & Italy are among other EU member states enforcing the ban on Monsanto’s MON810 maize and other forms of GMO cultivation in their countries under an environmental protection provision known as the ‘Safeguard Clause’.

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Monsanto’s rivals, such as Bayer CropScience, BASF and Syngenta, had already largely pulled out of the German market because of large-scale public opposition, the German daily reported.

ISAAA ‘spin’ – proclaiming the success of GM crops – is discredited

Dr Brian John (GM-free Cymru) comments on an emailed reference to a Financial Times report of what some commentators call the ‘annual ISAAA spinfest’: “never take anything from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) seriously”.

As another had commented: “I don’t think we can even accept the figures — ISAAA has this intriguing habit of adding up “trait acres” — which means that for a quadruple-stacked variety the acres are counted four times……….. “  Dr John continued:

“Naturally, some of the media who are inclined to support GMOs will make the most of whatever is fed to them by Clive James founder and chair”.

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India and China: 2006-2013

A report in China’s People’s Daily recorded that China had ‘brought in’ some 5 million farmers to cultivate Bt cotton. The genetically modified cotton was projected as a ‘silver bullet’ for the Chinese small cotton producers.

The public had been “repeatedly bombarded by industry drones of how successful the introduction has been for the farmers” and by now, considering all the promises of increasing ‘productivity’, this success should have led to reports of China’s emergence as the foremost global supplier of cotton.

mirid bug

However, there were reports of a study conducted by Cornell University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences which showed that after seven years of introduction Chinese farmers lost money as they had to use 20 times more pesticides sprays to control pests:

“The study — the first to look at the longer-term economic impact of Bt cotton — found that by year three, farmers in the survey who had planted Bt cotton cut pesticide use by more than 70 percent and had earnings 36 percent higher than farmers planting conventional cotton. By 2004, however, they had to spray just as much as conventional farmers, which resulted in a net average income of 8 percent less than conventional cotton farmers because Bt seed is triple the cost of conventional seed.”

Four years later the Guardian reported: “Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech giant, Monsanto.

Agricultural economist Devinder Sharma comments : “The magic bullet had bitten the dust in China”

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Sharma continues: “In India, the corporate media kept the story alive. Every now and then I find articles detailing the promises of GM crops. More often than not these are based on wrong facts.

“As if this is not enough, GM industry ensures that it packs a few ‘participants’ in every conference/seminar organised by the civil society or farmer organisations. Recently while I was speaking at the Indian Merchant’s Chambers in Mumbai, two farmers — one from Rajasthan, and another from Warangal in Andhra Pradesh — got up to say how successful the technology has been for the farmers. Incidentally, both farmers happened to be passing through the city when they heard of the conference!”

He recommends an excellent (and provocative) analysis by an American anthropologist, Prof Glenn Davis Stone of the University of Washington. In his blog, Stone notes that the Business Standard reports that India’s cotton yields have dropped to a 5-year low, “setting off a fascinating round of finger pointing”. In a blog post entitled: GM cotton failing in India; blame the farmers! he writes:

“If you follow GMO debates you will have heard several years of kennel barking about how these figures show a remarkable success. But as I have pointed out (in my blog and in EPW), most of the rise in productivity had nothing to with Bt cotton; in fact it happened before Bt cotton became popular. . . Check it out:

• the biggest rises were from 2002/3 to 2004/5, when yields rose 56% from 302 to 470 kg;
• by 2004/5, only 5.6% of India’s cotton farmers had adopted Bt.;
• do the math: if those 5.6% of planters were really responsible for a 56% rise in yields, then they must have been harvesting 3,288 kg/hectare.”

Read the rest of the article and see Monsanto – implicitly accepting these figures -‘ducking and weaving’ – and blaming the Indian farmer . . .

Bio Spectrum: “India struggles to keep Bt cotton growth story going”

Since then, the mainstream media report improved figures, but BioSpectrum (India & Asia), a publication by Cybermedia, ‘a torch bearer for technology business, knowledge and information’ reports:

“Maharashtra, a state in western India, has seen a drop in the yield and production of Bt cotton in the past one year, especially in the dry regions of Vidarbha, that receives low rainfall. This is despite the fact that at the time 95% of the total land sown in the state comes under Bt cotton cultivation. Also, cost of cultivation is taking a toll on farmers. Labour is scarce. The cost of cultivation for a farmer ranges between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 per acre. This excludes land rentals. Labour for picking and weeding takes 60% of the cultivation cost”.

Keerthana Nagarajan reported on Radio Netherlands’ website: “An estimated 7300 farmers have killed themselves in drought-stricken Vidarbha since 2004 – the year that the government introduced a policy to grow Bacillus thuringiensis or BT cotton, a genetically modified variety of cotton”.

New Delhi’s NDTV reports that a group of NGOs has claimed that the government’s own data proved that BT cotton has resulted in stagnant yields, pest resistance and evolution of new pest and disease attacks, and quotes allegations that the failure of  BT cotton is the root cause of farmer suicides claiming over 10,000 lives so far in the state.

Two years earlier there were candle-light protests on the eve of US President Barack Obama’s visit, seeking to draw his attention to the plight of agriculture sector in the region. Further evidence that – as Dr John advises – industry figures proclaiming GM successes should not be accepted at face value.

See also cases against Bayer CropScience (substandard GM seeds 2013) and Maharashtra’s 2012 cancellation of Mahyco Monsanto Biotech’s license to sell its genetically modified Bt cotton seeds.

 

Bayer CropScience: champion of sustainable food production ?

At Davos

In January it was reported that Bayer CropScience championed sustainable agriculture at the World Economic Forum in Davos – following their “New Vision for Agriculture”, launched in 2011, led by more than 20 global companies in collaboration with governments and over 350 leaders of business, government, civil society, international organisations and academia. The press release can be read here.

In Berlin

In the Fresh Produce Journal we read that Bayer described its help for fruit growers to achieve a sustainable future, at Fruit Logistica, a fresh produce trade show, held annually in February in Berlin.

Leading British fresh fruit importer and supplier Chingford Fruit is choosing Bayer CropScience as its preferred partner as part of the Food Chain Partnership programme in which Bayer CropScience is deploying “its knowledge of good agricultural practice, food safety legislation and communications connecting the dots and working across the entire food chain from seed to shelf”.

On the other hand:

The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parlia­ment obstructed the final addi­tion of Bayer’s GM maize Chardon LL to the UK National Seed List after it had been given limited UK Government approval in April. (Farmers Guardian 2.4.04

Allegations that Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticide Clothianidin was killing bees peaked in 2008

In 2011 Bayer CropScience agreed to pay up to $750 million to farmers in Missouri and four other states to settle lawsuits over contamination of the U.S. rice supply by its LibertyLink genetically modified rice in 2006. Many of the 400 lawsuits representing 11,000 plaintiffs were eventually consolidated in the federal court.

This news was ‘buried’ late in the afternoon on a holiday weekend. Asked to explain the timing of the settlement, BCS spokesman Levitt declined to comment. St. Louis lawyer Don Downing, who was co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs would only say: “I can’t tell you why it ended up. You can perhaps speculate about that yourself.”

BCS left its sites in Widnes (2007) and Norwich (2011).