Agriculture workers in Argentina protest Monsanto pesticides

Residents in Argentina, along with workers who regularly come into contact with Monsanto's products, are calling for the suspension of the use of the company's pesticides, claiming they cause adverse health effects. They seek to promote local food and agriculture and "educate about the dangers of GMOs and Monsanto's products". They say GMOs pose serious health dangers.

Monsanto, a biotech company based in St. Louis, works to provide farmers with genetically modified seed that will allow them to produce more from their land "while conserving more of our world's natural resources such as water and energy".

The collection of groups protest against construction of the new plant in Argentina’s province of Cordoba have halted progress for months now, while they seek a permanent injunction based on health and environmental concerns.

There are growing concern among doctors, who warn that Monsanto chemicals may be the cause of rising cancer rates, birth defects and respiratory illness. Monsanto, however, does not acknowledge a relationship between the way chemicals are used in the fields and the illnesses reported in nearby communities.

Beyond halting work on the new plant, activists hope to gain support from the local and national government to eject Monsanto out of Argentina. That goal seems remote, though, considering the proliferation of Monsanto pesticides along with the company’s genetically modified crops.

Within the last few decades, Argentina has transformed itself into the world’s third-largest soy producer, almost all of which is genetically-modified seed. The crop is now the country’s most important export.

In the mid-1990s, Monsanto introduced soybean seeds engineered to resist herbicide. Argentine farmers were quick to start using it in their fields, which improved productivity and eventually turned the country into the urned the country into the world's third largest soy producing nation. Despite the growing anti-pesticide and anti-GMO movements, many farmers remain convinced that Argentina’s economic stability and future food security depends on the continued use of Monsanto’s products. voiceofrussia
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_15/Agriculture-workers-in-Argentina-protest-Monsanto-pesticides-6915/

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Is US 'chlorinated chicken' and GM food headed to the EU?

Chicken washed in chlorine, meat treated with artificial beef hormones and a host of genetically modified crops – all of these could be making their way into European supermarkets under a free trade agreement being negotiated between the US and EU.

That is at least according to critics of the deal, known as both TAFTA (Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement) and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), particularly in France, where concerns over agriculture and food safety have topped a long list of objections to the agreement.

This week, a video appeared online showing people dressed as chickens taking a dip in public swimming pools. Put together by France’s Front de Gauche, a far-left political coalition, it was intended to show how chickens in the US are “washed in chlorinated water”.

The free trade agreement will “soon allow chicken washed in bleach to appear on our plates”, said the video.

'Unknown dangers'

The deal seeks to create a vast free trade zone that would account for around a third of world trade.

It would see the lowering of trade barriers to make it easier and cheaper for US and EU businesses to sell goods in each others’ territories.

To do this the two sides will need to agree on a common set of regulations on issues such as product safety and quality standards – essentially meaning that goods declared fit for sale in the US can be sold in the EU without further scrutiny and vice versa.

The EU currently has much more stringent rules on food safety than the US, where practices such as using a chlorine wash to kill pathogens on chicken carcasses and feeding cattle with beef hormones are common place.

The US also allows a far greater range of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be used in food production.

If the trade agreement goes ahead, these products could all be legally sold in EU member states, say critics.

The EU has sought to reassure its citizens that this will not be the case, saying that “basic laws, like those relating to GMOs or which are there to protect human life and health, animal health and welfare, or environment and consumer interests will not be part of the negotiations”.

But many, including campaign groups and political parties, are not convinced.

Earlier this month, French MEPs Yannick Jadot and Michèle Rivasi of the EELV green party published a stinging attack on the free trade deal.

“The US agenda in the negotiations is very clear,” they said. “Our plates are to be filled with GMOs, chlorinated poultry or meat from cloned animals, beef injected with hormones, while our shelves are to be filled with products containing chemical molecules with unknown effects on health.

“This opens the door to products with unknown dangers, and consumers will be the guinea pigs.”

American corporations have made their annoyance at EU food regulations well known in the past and have suggested they see their removal under TTIP as something of a formality.

“The EU has many unwarranted non-tariff trade barriers that severely limit or prohibit the export of certain US agricultural products to the EU,” said a collection of US poultry and egg associations in a statement last year.

“When TTIP negotiations are successfully concluded, US poultry producers look forward to marketing over $500 million of products to the EU on an annual basis.”

Right and left united in opposition

Fears over food safety, as well as myriad other issues including more competition for local producers, plans to allow businesses to be involved in the regulatory process and concerns over national sovereignty have led to stern opposition from numerous quarters.

Anger at the proposed deal has even succeeded in uniting parties on both the left and right, who normally find little to agree on.

In France, the far-right National Front has joined the far-left and green parties in opposing the deal.

Its leader, Marine Le Pen, has said she will seek to form an alliance with parties on the left to block the trade deal in the European Parliament, where populist parties are expected to make significant gains in this month’s elections.

"Take the transatlantic trade deal: parts of the left are against it, the Eurosceptics are against it - it will be very tight," she told Reuters this week. "Will (the European Commission) risk seeing a project as important as that being rejected, or will they put it on the back-burner?"

However, the EU argues the trade deal would be of huge economic benefit to member states and consumers.

“Getting rid of tariffs and other barriers to trade will enable European producers to sell more to the Americans: that is good for business and good for jobs,” it says.

“Removing EU barriers to US products and investment will mean more choice and lower prices for people here in Europe.”

The EU says the 28-member bloc’s economy could benefit by €119 billion a year, while the US could gain €95 billion.

Europe’s leaders seem determined to make the deal happen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called the agreement “simply necessary”, while French President François Hollande has called for the negotiations to be concluded as quickly as possible.

"We have everything to gain from moving ahead quickly. Otherwise, we know there would be a pileup of fears, of threats, of anxiety," he said in February. "So, if we act in good faith, if we are all respectful of the other party's position, if we want growth, we can move quickly." france24

'Russia puts GMO genie back in the bottle'

Russia has some of the most precious uncontaminated top soil on the planet and if it is rigorously controlled to stay GMO-free and free from chemicals its productivity would increase as Europe declines, geopolitical analyst William Engdahl told RT.

Russian PMs have pondered a draft bill outlawing GMOs. A draft bill submitted to the Russian parliament likens GMO production and distribution to terrorism. After entering the World Trade Organization, Russia was expected to allow GM food production and distribution within its market. However, in March Russia’s President Putin said the country would stay GM-free without violating its obligations to the WTO.

RT: What do you think about this latest bill in Russia's parliament, which equates GM producers who flout the rules with terrorists. Is that a bit over the top?

William Engdahl: The language on Russian media blogs is [that] punishment for knowingly introducing GMO crops into Russia illegally should have a punishment comparable to that given to terrorists for knowingly hurting people. The direction of this is anything that stops, and puts the genie back in the bottle called genetic manipulation of plants and organisms is to the good for the future of the mankind. The comment about 20 percent of harvest increase in some GMOs is absolute rubbish. There is no long-term harvest gain that has been proven for GMO crops anywhere in the world because they are not modified to get harvest increases. So this is just soap bubbles that Monsanto, Syngenta and GMO giants are putting out to loll the public into thinking it is something good.

RT: Will this measure, if adopted, reduce the number of GM products on the market?

WE: I hope it does. I haven’t got access to the paragraphs of legislation but I think the direction that Prime Minister Medvedev indicated two-three months ago in terms of making this U-turn against GMO that seemed to have a green light after WTO. A year ago it was looking like GMO was a common thing in Russia which would be a catastrophe. I think the point is Russia has some of the most precious non-destroyed top soil on this planet and the richness of this top soil, if it is rigorously controlled to be GMO-free, to be free from chemicals, from Roundup or Atrazyne which is Syngenta's favorite poison, and is marketed on the world markets as certified organic. Russia has a huge export market in Germany, in Western Europe, the European Union and elsewhere because there is a tremendous lack of it. So anything that Russia does to block GMO, keep in mind, the EU has not certified for commercial planting any GMO for years. There is such a great popular opposition in the EU that Monsanto, despite all the proclivities of the corrupt European Commission in Brussels to go with it, or even some people in the German government. The population is absolutely adamant here, they do not want this in their food.

RT: How can consumers be better protected from inadvertently buying genetically modified food?

WE: They can quite easily. First of all, they can do what the State of California tried, and Monsanto spent millions of dollars to block it and will try again. The State of Washington tried it and the same thing with Monsanto spending millions of dollars to create false lobbying campaigns [ensued]. The State of Vermont tried and succeeded in getting labeling on products that contain above 0.9 percent of GMO, which is similar to the EU. That is labeled on the shelves, when you buy this box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes you make sure to look and see if this is not GMO corn in my Cornflakes that my child is going to eat or is it this GMO garbage that Kellogg’s would so lovingly like to get rid of. That is one step. The other thing is for people to become informed about what we eat. Support local farmers, it is not against technology. I have seen it directly in Germany and elsewhere in Europe that properly done organic farming creates greater harvest yields than industrialized agriculture. The productivity is better, the quality is finer. The animals that are range fed, grass fed cows, chickens, they are real cows and chickens, they are not these synthetic pseudo-meat that we buy on the supermarket shelves in the big chains in Europe and in the US. So that is something that Russia has a great positive contribution to make.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

GM Crops And Future Of Agriculture

GM Crops And Future Of Agriculture

There are 61 percent more people on the planet today than were here in 1980.  The United Nations predicts another 35 percent growth in population between now and 2050.

Experts in the agricultural sector have made a forecast that in 2050, the world will require as much food as has been consumed since the beginning of civilisation.

According to them, the world must confront the single greatest challenge in all human history: whether the world can sustainably feed the more than 9 billion people who will be on our planet by the year 2050.

They clearly pointed out that the world cannot depend on yesterday’s technology to feed tomorrows population.

The underlines the urgency to produce more food in a safe and sustainable manner starts with a rapidly growing global population.

Experts have further maintained that Genetically Modified (GM) crops, also called biotech crops, are the future and the answer to sustainable agriculture which will in turn feed the growing population.

Genetically Modified crops are plants to which one or more genes coding for desirable traits have been added through genetic engineering. This is achieved through Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) which can be defined as organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “genetic engineering” because it allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another.

A recent document on the global status of commercialized biotech/genetically modified crops:2013, the founder of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), Clive James, he said that biotech crops can guarantee food security for the growing world population, as well as, combat climate change.

The document read in part, “biotech crops can increase productivity and income significantly, and hence, can serve as an engine of rural economic growth that can contribute to the alleviation of poverty for the world’s small and resource-poor farmers.

“from 1996 to 2012, biotech crops contributed to food security, sustainability and the environment/climate change by increasing food production valued at US$116.9bn; providing a better environment by saving 497million kg of pesticides; in 2012 alone reducing CO2 emissions by 26.7billion kg, equivalent to taking 11.8 million cars off the road for one year.

“Conserving biodiversity by saving 123 million hectares of land from 1996-2012 and helped alleviate poverty for over 16.5 million small farmers and their families totaling over 65 million people, who are some of the poorest people in the world.”

Speaking to stakeholders in the biotechnology sector convened by the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) in Abuja, the president of an American multinational chemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, Monsanto, Mr Jose Madero Garza, harped on the need for sustainable agriculture which allows farmers to utilize less hectares of land for increased productivity through the effective application of GM seeds.

He said, “Monsanto actively advocates farm management practices that allow sustainable intensification of agricultural production. GM seeds results in reduced pesticide use and facilitates the adoption of low-till or no-till agriculture that increases biodiversity and soil-health.

In a paper presented by a breeder and geneticist in NABDA, Dr. Olalekan Akinbo, he maintained that biotechnology tools are the best and safest way to ensure food sufficiency and development for all.

Reeling out the benefits of GM crops, he said farmers stand to gain improved yield and farm income, improved quality of crop produce, reduced pesticide use, and positive environmental and health benefits, reduced pest population in other host plants and flexibility in weed management.

He, however, lamented that Nigeria is being left behind in the adoption and application of modern biotechnology for increased agricultural benefits, noting that 19 out of 54 African countries have completed or are working to complete the process of biotechnology acquisition.

In her remarks, the director-general of NABDA, Prof. Lucy Ogbadu, stressed the need for the speedy passage of the biosafety bill that has been resubmitted to the National Assembly, saying a biosafety law is crucial in the management of biotechnology in the country.

She said the biosafety law recognized the complex issues to be addressed by central authorities in the judicious application of modern biotechnology based on the deliberate release of GMO on Advance Informed Agreement (AIA).

Ogbadu elucidated that “the biosafety law defines offences and penalty for violation of the act; contains powers to authorize release of GMOs and practice of modern biotechnology activities; confers the power to carry out risk assessment/management before the release, handling and use of GMOs; covers all genetically modified organisms/Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) and products thereof including food/feed and processing and covers socio-economic consideration in risk assessment”. Leadership

Many still wary of food safety in China: survey

A mother takes her child to a doctor in Shanghai following news of the melamine milk powder scandal in 2008. (File photo/Xinhua)

New research has shown people in China remain concerned about the country's food safety, reports the Beijing-based legal paper Mirror, citing a study conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The survey results released on May 16 showed that only 17.8% of interviewees expressed satisfaction or slight satisfaction with the government's current safety controls, in contrast with 32.9% of those worried about the ongoing issue. Urban inhabitants in 35 cities were asked to take part in the survey and 8,500 valid questionnaires were obtained.

A total 68% of the interviewees consider food processing stage the most worrisome problem, and 32% have experienced issues relating to food safety. Meanwhile, the survey showed a consensus that dairy, agricultural products, manufactured meat, seafood, alcohol and edible oil are all regarded as more prone to severe food safety incidents.

The survey also showed that up to 39% of the interviewees have no understanding of genetically modified food, 32.7% are unwilling to eat GM foods, and 35.8% are concerned about the issue. Male respondents were more open to GM food than women, while the younger the interviewee, the more likely he or she was to accept GM food.

The State Council recently passed its latest amendment of the country's Food Safety Law. However, the issue remains a major concern for people in China following a string of high profile cases, including KFC China being found using chicken tainted with high levels of antibiotics and hormones in 2012, and most notably the melamine milk powder scandal in 2008 that caused hundreds of thousands of infants to develop kidney stones, resulting in six deaths.wantchinatimes

Germany's GMO policy vacuum stretches on

German coalition still making decisions on GMO crop policy

* Minister wants opt-out clause on GMO crop cultivation

HAMBURG May 9 (Reuters) - Germany's policy silence on GMO crops still hangs over its near six-month old coalition, with few signs of common ground between the ruling parties.

Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks told German radio on Friday there was no agreement on the issue between her SPD party, which opposes crops with genetically-modified organisms along with the southern conservative party CSU, and Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU, which favours them.

"Up to now we have not had a unified opinion about this in the government," Hendricks told Hamburg-based radio station NDR Info.

"But I believe we will see an opt-out rule which means that each country in the EU can decide whether it wishes to allow use of genetically-modified organisms in its own country which have been approved by the EU," she said.

Germany's indecision is in contrast to France, where parliament on Monday gave final approval to a law prohibiting the cultivation of any variety of GMO maize.

Hendricks told the radio station she personally supports the opt-out concept for GMO crop cultivation and would work with the EU in Brussels to achieve it.

She said she believed the German government would also eventually support an opt-out GMO crop policy.

Longstanding differences between EU countries on GMO policy resurfaced in February when they failed to agree whether to approve a GMO maize variety, Pioneer 1507, developed by DuPont and Dow Chemical, leaving the way open to the EU Commission to approve it for cultivation.

The debate on the future of GMO policy is continuing at EU level, with Greece, which holds the rotating EU presidency, working on a compromise with an opt-out that would allow individual countries to ban such crops. (Reporting by Michael Hogan, editing by William Hardy) Reuters

France Definitively Bans Genetically Modified Corn

Paris:  France definitively banned the growing of genetically modified corn on Monday after its highest court and Senate both confirmed an existing ban. 

A grouping of leftist senators including members of the ruling Socialists, Greens and Communists approved a law banning MON810, a type of GM corn produced by US firm Monsanto, that had already been passed by the lower house of parliament, overcoming opposition from right-wing members. 

At the same time, the Council of State rejected a request from corn producers to overturn the ban on MON810. 

The council said the applicants from the General Association of Corn Producers (AGPM) had failed to make the case that they faced an urgent economic crisis as a result of the ban, pointing to the fact that only a small portion of French corn is grown with GM seeds. 

With Paris having twice put temporary bans on GM crops -- in 2011 and 2013 -- AGPM said Monday's verdicts were "not a surprise".

The agriculture ministry banned MON810 -- the only insect-resistant GM corn allowed to be grown in the European Union -- in March. 

Its authorisation is currently under review by the EU as part of a wider look at the use of GM crops, but member states have the right to ban them regardless of rulings from Brussels.

France is pushing to cut Brussels out of the process entirely, with future GM authorisations taken only at the national level. NDTV