Science proves the worth of GM crops to Scotland

Science proves the worth of GM crops to Scotland

The spotlight has returned to the issue of genetically modified (GM) crops over the past weeks – this he weekend was no exception, with MidScotland and Fife MSP Murdo Fraser calling on GM crops to be used to feed people in Scotland.

GM crops still have to deal with the Frankenstein food label and protests, despite research proving their usefulness. Picture: PA

Mr Fraser pointed to wet summers in 2011 and 2012, with resulting damage to crops, as a sign of things to come and warned that farmers needed all available tools to deal with an unpredictable situation. In some instances this will mean using GM crops, he said.

This brought an immediate response from Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, who claimed introducing GM crops would destroy Scotland’s reputation as a quality food producer.

This is a view shared by the Scottish Government, which sees GM as a threat to Scotland’s rich environment and a risk to its reputation for producing high quality natural foods. Scotland’s image as a land of food and drink could be jeopardised.

The image of GM crops as “Frankenstein foods”, graphically promoted in the 1990s, continue to haunt the debate.

Recently, the UK Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, called on the European Union to relax strict restrictions on growing GM crops for consumption, and openly challenged some of the imagery of the past. And while his intervention put him at odds with the Scottish and Welsh governments, others were quick to support the call for a fresh debate on the issue.

It was welcomed by the NFU of England, and Dr Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, who said it was “extremely encouraging” to again hear the government’s commitment to unlocking the potential of British agricultural science, and pushing the rest of Europe to follow a science-based approach to policy-making.

Scottish farming leaders have repeatedly supported the need for greater debate, highlighting the fact that, for instance, GM blight-resistant potatoes offer the chance to avoid 16 different spray applications, and that Scottish scientists should be allowed to develop GM crops.

The issue is clear: There is a role for scientists to help agriculture develop to meet the awesome challenges of the future, not least to feed a projected nine billion people worldwide by 2050, against a backdrop of pressure on natural resources, unpredictable weather patterns and the need to manage chemical inputs more carefully.

This challenge will require an imaginative and science-based assessment of whatever resources the industry can muster, as it will necessitate an unambiguous demarcation between non-GM and GM production systems to allow them to operate successfully together.

Much has happened since the 1990s. The world has changed and is changing. Fundamental shifts in diet, particularly in red meat consumption, are creating new pressures on historical production methods to such a degree that only radical thinking will help meet that challenge.

There is a strong case for a greater emphasis on explaining the environmental and consumer benefits. This point was made eloquently last year by scientists from Rothamsted Research in England, the longest-running agricultural research station in the world, when they came under fire from anti-GM protesters.

Future research should focus on optimising inputs – water, nutrients and pesticides – and delaying the effects of disease on crops. Ways have also to be found of enabling plants to make better use of sunlight.

Historically, agriculturalists have shown a proven capacity to adapt. The challenge is to ask what new technologies can do for Scotland.

Working in tandem, the farming industry and the scientific community have been able to deal with some daunting scenarios. Feeding the world is one of the great tasks for the future. It goes right to the core purpose of agriculture, and has a clear moral imperative. SCOTSMAN

INDIA: Supreme Court -appointed panel take on GM crops evokes mixed reactions

INDIA

Supreme Court -appointed panel take on GM crops evokes mixed reactions

With the recent observation and recommendations made by a Supreme Court-appointed Technical Experts’ Committee on GM crops that there should be moratorium on field trials of genetically-modified crops, Coalition for GM Free India hailed the decision and vowed to intensify the fight against GM crops.

"Based on the examination of the safety dossiers, it is apparent that there are major gaps in the regulatory system. These need to be addressed before issues related to tests can be meaningfully considered. Till such time it would not be advisable to conduct more field trials," the committee said.

Rajesh Krishnan of the coalition said that this recommendation proved that the scientific community was against GM crops.  

“The committee has raised four points. Firstly the regulatory system of the country with respect to use of GM crops is inadequate. Secondly, there are enough studies which show that there would be cumulative impact on social, economic conditions of the farmers and unless there is complete assurance they shouldn’t be allowed. Thirdly, these crops would have impact on employment as well and finally India is centre of diversity and it’s a common rule that GM shouldn’t be allowed which would hamper its diversity,” he stated while talking to FnB News. 

He added that a vast majority of the farmers and their associations are against GM crops that include Bhartiya Kisan Sangh, Kisan Union and Kisan Sabha and some 20 farmers’ associations have written to the SC in this regard.

He alleged that the support for GM crops was driven by the fact that they would prove profitable to the industries not farmers. He informed that the coalition would further intensify its agitation against the GM crops and on August 8 they would be staging a protest against GM crops, Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India and Monsanto.

Bhartiya Kisan Sangh also observed similar sentiments. Prabhakar Kelkar, general secretary of the Sangh, while talking to FnB News said, “Unless the country’s scientific community approves it unanimously, there should be moratorium on trials.” 

The Sangh was one of the respondents in SC on the issue. Kelkar said, “We were asked to respond in SC and we opposed the GM crops. India is a biodiverse country. The autonomy of farmers with respect to the seeds is a major contention while we have seen sharp increase in seed prices for some crops of tomato and chilli in recent times.”

He questioned the introduction of BT Brinjal citing numerous varieties and its high production in India. His association is planning to stage a protest in Delhi in the first half of August. 

Meanwhile, the supporters of GM crops have termed this recommendation by the committee as uncalled for. Chengal Reddy of the Consortium of Indian Farmers’ Associations has termed the recommendation as ‘totally uncalled for.’ “We want these recommendations to be rejected outright,” he said. 

He stated that India had 55% of its agriculture under rainfed area while the loss due to pests and diseases was estimated around Rs 60,000 crore. 

“There is no conventional solution to this problem. The only way the situation could be improved is genetically, which has been successful in cotton crops,” he stated. He added, there have been imports of soybean from Brazil, which is a GM crop. There are countries like Australia, some Latin American countries and even the US from where India imports a variety of agri products. 

Reddy pointed out that interestingly Indians and Europeans were already eating food, which was produced out of GM seeds. He supported the BRAI and wanted the government to introduce it soon. FNBnews

INDIA: Nip this in the bud

INDIA

Nip this in the bud

ARUNA RODRIGUES

The author is the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court for a moratorium on GMOs and in which case the TEC was formed.

Genetically modified crops, whose ecological effects are irreversible, could become a mainstay of Indian agriculture thanks to collusion between the government and the biotech industry

The final report of the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) on field trials of genetically modified crops is packed with revelations on what is wrong with institutional governance and regulation in India when it comes to GMOs (genetically-modified organisms). The report’s release late last month came days before biotech giant Monsanto decided not to submit any further applications for GMOs to the European Union; a decision forced by non-acceptance on scientific grounds and rejection by civil society.

Remarkable consensus

The TEC Final Report (FR) is the fourth official report which exposes the lack of integrity, independence and scientific expertise in assessing GMO risk. It is the third official report barring GM crops or their field trials singularly or collectively. This consensus is remarkable, given the regulatory oversight and fraud that otherwise dog our agri-institutions. The pervasive conflict of interest embedded in those bodies makes sound and rigorous regulation of GMOs all but impossible.

The four reports are: The ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’ of February 2010, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal, overturning the apex Regulator’s approval to commercialise it; the Sopory Committee Report (August 2012); the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) Report on GM crops (August 2012) and now the TEC Final Report (June-July 2013). The TEC recommends that in general, there should be an indefinite stoppage of all open field trials (environmental release) of GM crops, conditional on systemic corrections, including comprehensive and rigorous risk assessment protocols. The report includes a specific focus on Bt food crops.

It also calls for a ban on the environmental release of any GMO where India is the centre of origin or diversity. It also says herbicide tolerant (HT) crops, targeted for introduction by the regulator, should not be open field-tested. The TEC “finds them completely unsuitable in the Indian context as HT crops are likely to exert a highly adverse impact over time on sustainable agriculture, rural livelihoods, and environment.”

The PSC report which preceded that of the TEC was no less scathing: it was “ [...] convinced that these developments are not merely slippages due to oversight or human error but indicative of collusion of a worst kind [...] field trials under any garb should be discontinued forthwith”.

Sound science and factual data form the basis of the TEC decisions. There is practical and ethical sense too. The TEC insists that the government bring in independence, scientific expertise, transparency, rigour and participative democracy into GMO regulation and policy. The accent is on bio-safety.

Assessment and performance

GMOs produce “unintended effects” that are not immediately apparent and may take years to detect. This is a laboratory-based, potent technology, described by WHO as “unnatural.” The risk assessment (RA) protocols for GMOs are an evolving process to be performed by qualified and experienced experts who must be responsive to the latest scientific knowledge. The fact is that GMOs involve us in a big experiment in the idea that human agencies can perform adequate risk assessment, which, it is expected, will deliver safety at every level/dimension of their impact on us — the environment, farming systems, preservation of biodiversity, human and animal safety.

After 20 years since the first GM crop was commercialised in the U.S., there is increasing evidence, not less, of the health and environment risks from these crops. Furthermore, we now have 20 years of crop statistics from the U.S., of two kinds of crops that currently make up over 95 per cent of all GM crops cultivated globally, (like Bt cotton) Bt and HT crops. The statistics demonstrate declining yields. GM yields are significantly lower than yields from non-GM crops. Pesticide use, the great “industry” claim on these GM crops, instead of coming down, has gone up exponentially. In India, notwithstanding the hype of the industry, the regulators and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Bt cotton yield is levelling off to levels barely higher than they were before the introduction of Bt.

It takes roughly $150 million to produce a GMO against $1 million through conventional breeding techniques. So where is the advantage and why are we experimenting given all the attendant risks? We have hard evidence from every U.N. study and particularly the World Bank-funded International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge and Science for Development Report, which India signed in 2008. The IAASTD was the work of over 400 scientists and took four years to complete. It was twice peer reviewed. The report states we must look to small-holder, traditional farming to deliver food security in third world countries through agri-ecological systems which are sustainable. Governments must invest in these systems. This is the clear evidence.

Conflict of interest

The response to the TEC Final Report came immediately, with the Ministry of Agriculture strongly opposing the report. The MoA is a vendor of GM crops and has no mandate for regulating GMOs. The same Ministry had lobbied and fought to include an additional member on the TEC after its interim report had been submitted. That ‘new’ member came in with several conflicts of interest, his links to the GM crops lobby being widely known. His entry was in fact a breach of the Supreme Court’s mandate for an independent TEC and provoked me to file an affidavit in the court, drawing attention to this. Oddly enough, he did not sign the final report, or even put up a note of dissent. This allowed the final report, then, to be unanimous; as indeed was the TEC’s Interim Report submitted by the original five members.

The Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) promotes PPPs (Public-Private-Partnerships) with the biotechnology industry. It does this with the active backing of the Ministry of Science and Technology. The MoA has handed Monsanto and the industry access to our agri-research public institutions placing them in a position to seriously influence agri-policy in India. You cannot have a conflict of interest larger or more alarming than this one. Today, Monsanto decides which Bt cotton hybrids are planted — and where. Monsanto owns over 90 per cent of planted cotton seed, all of it Bt cotton.

All the other staggering scams rocking the nation do have the possibility of recovery and reversal. The GM scam will be of a scale hitherto unknown. It will also not be reversible because environmental contamination over time will be indelible. We have had the National Academies of Science give a clean chit of biosafety to GM crops — doing that by using paragraphs lifted wholesale from the industry’s own literature! Likewise, Ministers in the PMO who know nothing about the risks of GMOs have similarly sung the virtues of Bt Brinjal and its safety to an erstwhile Minister of Health. They have used, literally, “cut & paste” evidence from the biotech lobby’s “puff” material. Are these officials then, “un-caged corporate parrots?”

Along with the GM-vendor Ministries of Agriculture and Science & Technology, these are the expert inputs that the Prime Minister relies on when he pleads for “structured debate, analysis and enlightenment.” The worrying truth is that these values are absent in what emanates from either the PMO or the President.

Ministries, least of all “promoting” Ministries, should not have the authority to allow the novel technology of GMOs into Indian agriculture bypassing authentic democratic processes. Those processes require the widest possible — and transparent — consultation across India. With GMOs we must proceed carefully, always anchored in the principle of bio-safety. Science and technology may be mere informants into this process. After all, it is every woman, man and child, and our animals, an entire nation that will quite literally have to eat the outcome of a GM policy that delivers up our agriculture to it: if a GMO is unsafe, it will remain irreversibly unsafe. And it will remain in the environment and that is another dimension of impact. The Hindu

GMO imposition on Ghanaians, lessons from Argentina

GMO imposition on Ghanaians, lessons from Argentina

Since the issue of the brazen attempts by a handful of so-called "experts" in our scientific community and Ghana's political class - the opposition and the ruling parties included - to impose genetically modified foods into Ghana without the consent of the people of Ghana came up, I have come across blatant lies justifying the horror. One such lie that is being regularly peddled is the so-called "Argentinian success story".

A comment under a resent statement by the Food Sovereignty Ghana, published in Ghanaweb, US Embassy Must Be Open On GMO Debate, is a case in point.

I intend to simply quote the comment and to reproduce a letter written from GRR Grupo de Reflexión Rural to Br. David Andrews, CSC, Senior Representative, Food & Water Watch, Focal Point, North America Civil Society Committee on World Food Security, in support of a letter the later had written to the Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who will speak at the World Food Prize 2013 Borlaug Dialogue (Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 16-18. The occasion will include an award ceremony honuoring three scientists (among them a Monsanto executive and the founder of Syngenta Biotechnology) for GMO, or genetically modified organism, discoveries. and Br. David Andrews's letter is an appeal to Cardinal Turkson to say "no" to GMOs at the ceremony.

First of all here is the offending comment:

"GM technology I think is a divine solution to save a hungry world as a result of global climate change. We should take our time and study the subject very well rather than making hasty conclusions. I will suggest that we will take our time and study the subject of gene transfer, its merits and demerits, and educate the general public which will definitely help our policy makers as well. You will agree with me that every technology has its setbacks and it's time for us to look at these holistically and recommend measures to streamline its implementation and adoption. Moreover,GM foods have been consumed in countries like Argentina etc. for over 15 years and yet we haven't heard of any "serious" treats its poses to its people. Even though we have to tread consciously in adopting technologies like this, we should also beware not to mislead the public about it just by expressing personal sentiments like "failed technology". In conclusion I would like to ask this question:should we watch our people dye today of hunger while we can provide food for them with a "failed technology" in other for them to live and dye tomorrow? thank you." -

Author: rem, Date: 2013-07-10 08:42:54, Comment to: Re: US Embassy Must Be Open On GMO Debate

Now, here is a letter from the horse's own mouth:

Argentina's GM Tragedy

Dear David Andrews,

Following your open letter to Cardinal Peter Turkson, we want to share with you the open letter that some members of Grupo de Reflexion Rural Argentina sent to Pope Francisco a few months ago. We know that the letter was received by his office, but do not know if Francisco read it. Please feel free to circulate our letter and contact us if you think that will be useful for the purpose of stopping the endorsement by the Vatican of Genetically Modified seeds.

With best wishes,

Stella Semino

Buenos Aires, Rep. Argentina, April 2013

Your Holiness,

Firstly, we offer our affectionate greetings and congratulations on your election as Bishop of Rome by the College of Cardinals. We believe that you will lead God's people charitably, and hope that your term of office is a rewarding one. As always, we pray that you will be able to carry out the enormous task that you have ahead of you.

We would like to remind you of a meeting we had with you at the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, where we were accompanied by Mario Cafiero and his wife Amalia. On that occasion, we presented you with the conclusions of a long-standing campaign we were conducting against the use of agricultural toxins for crop spraying. The campaign was referred to as STOP THE SPRAYING and was being coordinated by the Grupo de Reflexión Rural. During our meeting, we told you about the painful consequences of this spraying. We described what we had recorded throughout several years of information-gathering and campaigning against this monoculture and its chemical agriculture model, the forced expulsion of populations, and environmental contamination. The evidence we have gathered has affected us deeply, as we have uncovered the serious and widespread effects and consequences of chemical spraying on entire populations, particularly on the children.

It was not appropriate to expand upon this issue at our meeting, as we did not wish to overburden you. However, it has now become pertinent to bring this matter to your attention, given the responsibilities you bear at a global level in your new role as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church. At our meeting we spoke of the implementation in Argentina of the production model and way of life introduced during this phase of so-called Economic Globalisation.

We refer to something that, from a rural perspective, is known as Agribusiness, and is part of the extractive model which destroys the livelihoods, peace and the happiness of rural communities. This model was implemented in Argentina during the 1990s on the back of the ruins left by State Terrorism, and it implied the creation of an agro-export economy for commodities and primary goods to satisfy the needs of global markets.

In our country, the model was based on the political decision that Argentina, which had once been the grain basket of the world and a producer of healthy and high-quality foods, would be transformed into a producer of animal forage, firstly, to provide fodder for European livestock, and then for livestock in China. These decisions were taken without the knowledge of the Argentine people. In the same way, similar measures are taken all over the world, behind the back of public opinion, without allowing the population their sovereign right and freedom to choose the methods of production and ways of life that would guarantee them a dignified existence and which respect and care for Creation. It implies subjugation to the multinational corporations, a subjugation which, we have no doubt, will mean new and more terrible forms of colonisation.

In Argentina, monocultures of soya and other genetically-modified seeds have been advancing at a tremendous pace. Although imperceptible to those living in towns, the tragedy is that they have decimated rural populations. The area covered by these monocultures has now reached the terrifying figure of 24 million hectares, and they occupy a large proportion of our agricultural land. What is at risk here is not Food Sovereignty, which was lost years ago, but the food security of the population.

These unfamiliar green deserts are governed by biotechnology and the patenting rights applied to life by the multinational corporations. Nothing is sacred to them, and they have displaced millions of people who are now uprooted and deterritorialised. These rural populations are now crowded together around the urban peripheries of the new super-cities. The consequences of the compulsive urbanisation which confuses urban living with supposed progress is responsible for marginalisation, social fragmentation, extreme insecurity, poor nutrition, rising levels of disease, people trafficking, aid programmes, and narco-power in the shanty towns.

Additionally, recurring environmental disasters attributable to climate change are made worse by the destructive development practices of this new agriculture and the political disinterest of the supposed leaders. These are the natural consequences of compulsive urbanisation which confuses urban living with supposed progress. Millions of human beings have been condemned to a life in which each day is full of adversity.They live within a consumer society that lacks any trace of spiritual direction, and their future prospects seem to consist of successive catastrophes.

On a global level, the imposition of these models driven by the corporations and the global markets has increased the figures for the world's hungry to well over a billion human beings. The great majority of those affected have also suffered from expatriation, the desertification of their land, the pollution of their water.

Many have been forced to abandon their roots and memories and find work as servants in distant metropolis. This situation is not just appalling, it is also global. The statement made by Monsignor Turkson on 5 January 2011 is evidence of this: */"If African farmers had greater access to fertile arable land, safe from armed conflicts and pollutants, they would not need genetically-modified crops in order to produce food"/*.Forcing farmers to buy patented seeds */"reproduces the classic game of economic dependence"/* which in some way is like */"a new form of slavery". /*Despite this, numerous Third World governments have been won over by the promises of assumed prosperity that this so-called progress will bring.

They are giving away their most fertile lands to agro-industry and to investment funds which guarantee food for the rich and powerful, although this implies social and ecological costs of monstrous proportions. This situation is occuring in our country, as much as in Africa and in Asia. Rural populations seem to be surplus to requirements for this plundering and genocidal model.

The fact that over a billion human beings are suffering from hunger is a shocking statistic. It is understandable that, as an institution acting as a moral compass for justice and social harmony, the Church will be affected by this and, more recently, will have attempted to find solutions to this terrible tragedy through its Pontifical Academies. There is the risk that, instead of addressing these crucial issues and reflecting on the events that have brought us to this dreadful situation, we accept deceptive proposals telling us that we need to continue down the path which will certainly lead us towards the abyss of global catastrophe and the loss of our own humanity.

Unfortunately, we fear that some members of the Church have taken this path. In May 2009, when Your Holiness was in Rome, we sent you a document containing information on this issue. Sadly, we were unable to confirm that you had actually received it. We sent the document with our Ambassador at the Holy See. In it we spoke out against a meeting taking place at that time, the *Study Week on Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development*, which was also sub-titled *Constraints to Biotech Introduction for Poverty Alleviation*. This presumably scientific gathering was taking place at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and included broad representation from the Monsanto Corporation and the biotechnologist Moisés Burachik, who was representing the Argentine Government.

For weeks we attempted, unsuccessfully, to make our disagreement heard, or to be allowed to take part so that other points of view could be heard, but we received no response. The issue in question is not insignificant. We are convinced that certain global corporations need the moral support of religious leaders in order to drive biotech policies which are even more audacious than the policies they have implemented to date. The alleged scientific successes that are promoted through propaganda obscure the devastating consequences of corporate policies.

They also overlook the fact that, each day, there is increasing evidence showing that theories on transgenic modification are not just obsolete but completely mistaken, as they are based on assumptions which have now been proved to be false, for example, the mechanical identification of specific characteristics of a gene. However, the current problem is the immense global power of the biotech industry and its enormous capacity to influence thought and to win contracts.

Aside from potential GMO risks to humanity, we wish to emphasise our conviction regarding the growing problem of *"world hunger"*. The solution will not come from an increasing number of agri-businesses. On the contrary, there is a need to increase the numbers of rural workers and small and medium-sized producers who have long-established links to the land and to growing food. As a community and as a Church, we cannot sidestep this issue. We believe that the strategy of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences within this field should undergo a radical reorganisation. Additionally, it should be re-focused so that it incorporates other scientific points of reference whose priority is a love for life, humanity and for Creation, and who are not motivated by corporate profit, technological efficiency or scientific gain.

This may require some effort from Your Holiness, and we ask that you count on us and keep us in mind to provide any necessary support. In recent years, we have disseminated the concept of Ecotheology through ecumenical meetings and the internet to encourage Catholics to recover their values of caring for Creation and to seek spiritual inspiration in Nature and the environment.We respectfully ask our Holy Father to hear our words and trust that they will be of service. We ask for Your Holiness' blessing.

Very respectfully,

Adolfo Boy

Stella Semino

Lilian Joensen

Fernando Rovelli

Federico Aliaga

Jorge E. Rulli

GRR Grupo de Reflexión Rural

Finally I want you to watch this documentary and find for yourself if the example of GM food technology is something we must emulate here in Ghana.See: People & Power : Argentina: The Bad Seeds

AlJazeeraEnglish•

Published on 13 Mar 2013

The country's soy industry is booming but what is the impact of soy production on Argentineans and the environment?

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!

end, GHANAWEB