No GM crops in Scotland: “Customers don’t want ‘contaminated’ food”

In the Scottish Farmer, Eleanor Mackay reports that South Berwickshire organic farmer Chris Walton has commended Richard Lochhead, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment and the Scottish Government for its stance on GM crops.

Chris farms pigs, cattle and sheep on 750 acres at Peelham Farm in Foulden. His farm has seen a growing demand for its produce, which he believes is down to a growing ‘sense of distrust’ in the food system and a growing desire around the world to source food that is not ‘contaminated’ by genetic modification or pesticides:

“After ten years in business, our number one concern is our customers’ needs – they drive our farm.

“We have seen a rapid increase in demand, particularly this year. I think across the UK there is growth and demand for organic and unadulterated food in various sectors.

“There is growing demand around the world to source food that is not contaminated with GM, which is part of this element of distrust – and there is uncertainty of the food safety of GM crops.

“With GM crops there is no going back,” he said. “As a business we take risky decisions in terms of how we develop, but if you make a system where GM crops are the norm when worldwide demand is not for GM food, then there will be no marketplace for our produce.

“Scottish farmers, as food producers, enjoy a reputation for quality. If we start to compromise on that brand, then we will lose our customers and business would disappear.”

Chris said in that order to produce disease resistant crops, more attention must be paid to soil quality: “The whole health system of a plant depends on its soil – if the soil is not healthy, the plant won’t be healthy and won’t have good disease resistance.

“GM technology can perhaps offer added nutritional quality, but if the minerals are not in the soil in the first place, the technology will never get it into the plant. Organic, unadulterated soil is the best opportunity to provide what that plant requires.”

Chris added that GM crops represented a worrying trend of corporation-led farming across the world and said: “As farmers we must take control of our market place. Once you open the door to something it becomes very hard to close and the consequential introduction of further GM crops becomes easier.”

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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.

Genetic engineers’ verdict on GM food

“10 reasons we don’t need GM foods”, a new short report from genetic engineers Dr Michael Antoniou and Dr John Fagan, the authors of “GMO Myths and Truths”, is published today as a free download by the sustainability and science policy platform Earth Open Source.

Download short report: http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/10-reasons-we-don-t-need-gm-foods

Claire Robinson, third co-author of the new report, said:

“At just 11 pages plus references, ’10 reasons’ is designed for people who may not have the time to read ‘GMO Myths and Truths’, which extends to 330 pages. ’10 reasons’ is ideal for giving to friends, family, politicians, and journalists, when a longer document is not appropriate.

” ’10 reasons’ explains that GM crops do not increase yield potential or reduce pesticide use. Nor can they help us meet the challenges of climate change any better than existing non-GM crops, or deliver more nutritious foods. GM crops have been shown to have toxic effects on laboratory and farm animals.

“There is only one way in which GM crops outperform non-GM crops: they are easier to patent in a way that guarantees ownership not only of that GM plant variety but also all plants bred from it. This process enables consolidated ownership of the seed and food market by a few large companies on a scale that has never happened before.

“That is a recipe for loss of food sovereignty and security. It is the opposite to feeding the world – the line we are constantly fed to justify the introduction of GM crops.”

“10 reasons” is based on the extensive evidence collected in “GMO Myths and Truths”.

Download full report “GMO Myths and Truths” (2nd edition published 19 May 2014):
http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/gmo-myths-and-truths

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Contact Claire Robinson claire.robinson@earthopensource.org

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Has Bell Pottinger been commissioned to renew the campaign for GM crops to boost Monsanto’s falling profits?

On a sister site in 2010 we quoted Colin Tudge’s description of  New Labour’s agricultural strategy, “if such it can be called”, as “an open invitation to Monsanto, Cargill, and Tesco, to fill their boots.”

A few events were listed:

• The recently exposed Bell Pottinger, the lobbying firm acting for Monsanto, was paying up to £10,000 a year to MP Peter Luff, the Tory chairman of the Agriculture Select Committee which policed Government food policy.
• Monsanto met government minister Jack Cunningham when he was chair of the cabinet committee on GM. His special adviser, Cathy McGlynn, went on to join Bell Pottinger.
• David Hill, Tony Blair’s chief media spokesperson, was a senior executive at Bell-Pottinger and managing director of its subsidiary Good Relations Ltd, where he was public relations advisor to Monsanto.
• During 1997-1999 GM food firms met government officials or ministers 81 times and Monsanto reps visited into the agriculture and environment departments 22 times. (They couldn’t be closer to Blair, Daily Mail, February 13, 1999)

The same tactics are used world-wide: corporate vested interest embedded in government advisory committees influences the decision-making process. Read more here. The post ended:

Short-lived lifting of spirits when news of Monsanto’s dramatically falling profits on Round-Up sales was arrested by the explanation that this was due to China manufacturing a cheaper substitute – as well as problems with weed resistance.

In 2010 we asked. “Will the drive to extend production of GM crops in Europe intensify to recover ground after Monsanto’s quarterly profits fell by 45%?”

 

Two years later we can see that it has.

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