FOR A GM-FREE WORLD!
A Global Fight 

Genetically Modified Morals: 
The dispute over whether countries may decline imports of genetically engineered seeds and foods, long a point of contention between the United States and developing countries, is straining relations between America and Europe as well. 
The battle reflects an intensifying struggle between government-backed U.S. agribusiness and farmers worldwide. It is often portrayed as a debate about science, but also at stake are issues of environmental risk and economic and cultural sovereignty. Will countries and farmers in a globalized economy retain any choice over what they eat, what they produce and what kind of agriculture systems they employ? 
Present European Union policies restrict imports of genetically modified food and the release of genetically engineered living organisms into the environment. Revisions would allow modified imports, but require that they be labeled as such. 
In Europe, where agricultural landscapes and local products are highly valued, experience with mad cow disease has heightened distrust of large-scale, industrialized farming. U.S. officials contend that such attitudes are irrational and that EU regulations are not based on scientific evidence. 
On May 13 2004, to the dismay of diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, the United States announced that it will file a complaint against the EU moratorium that has kept genetically modified food off store shelves in Europe. A week later, President George W. Bush accused the EU of contributing to hunger in Africa by blocking imports from the United States of “high-yield bio-crops,” which he called “more productive.” The U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has called the EU policies “Luddite,” “immoral,” and an unfair trade practice harmful to America. 
U.S. officials charge that current European attitudes force developing countries that want to export to Europe to adopt policies that are against the interests of their own peoples, as when southern African governments rejected famine relief in the form of American genetically modified corn late last year. 
Actually, few African exports to Europe would be affected by current EU rules. When they declined U.S. genetically modified food aid, southern African governments had other concerns. One was the possible health risk of consuming unprocessed modified corn, which is not a major part of U.S. diets. The other was the unknown consequences of releasing modified corn into ecosystems in southern Africa, where corn is the main staple grain. 
Until these concerns could be addressed, African governments asked the United States to follow World Food Program guidelines by providing funds to purchase locally preferred and appropriate foods, as other donor countries did. 
The U.S. argument that such policies are “immoral” takes as a given that modified crops have been proven to be free of health or environmental hazards. It also presumes that modified crops would reduce African hunger because they yield more than conventional varieties. 
In fact, average yields from currently available modified food-crop seeds are slightly lower than yields of comparable non-modified varieties. This is not surprising, because modified crops have been designed mainly to deal with pest problems, not to produce more food. Crop genetic engineering is a long way from developing varieties that could produce more food under African conditions. 
Meanwhile, transnational companies that have patented much of the current genetic-engineering technology — as well as genes — have little incentive to invest in developing crops for countries where farmers are too poor to buy premium seeds and agrochemicals. 
In any case, lack of quality crop varieties is not the major obstacle to African food production; the bigger problems in Africa are poor roads and storage facilities, lack of credit and fertilizer, degraded soils, labor shortages and farm prices depressed by imports of cheap food from the United States and Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized. 
In addition, the question of environmental risk is proving more vexing than enthusiasts of genetic modification first thought. Some scientists worry that synthetic genes and their products may contribute to the loss of vital maize genetic diversity, or that they may damage soil microbes and other organisms that keep agro-ecosystems productive. 
Until such ecological problems have been solved, countries may reasonably prefer not to accept genetically modified seeds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the trade representative's office have nonetheless made the promotion of genetically modified crops a policy priority. The United States has fought hard against the Cartagena Protocol on Bio-safety, a global treaty that will give countries the option to decline genetically modified seed imports if they are shown to pose ecological or socioeconomic risks. 
Promoters of U.S. farm exports argue that low-income countries that are losing their food self-sufficiency as markets become global are actually better off because their farming systems are inefficient. 
But flooding world markets with the products of U.S. agriculture creates dangerous patterns of dependence, puts farmers in developing countries out of business, undermines rural communities and rarely helps the hungry. Until the United States is prepared to offer Africa what it really needs to overcome famine — support for infrastructure, inputs, marketing, fair pricing, and farmer-centered research on sustainable farm management and local crop improvement — it should stop lecturing anyone about morality. 

Kathleen McAfee, 
Assistant professor of geography and sustainable development at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. (NEW HAVEN, Connecticut)

Highland GM battle inspires Indians 
One of the world's leading opponents of GM crops has backed the campaign to keep Scotland GM-free. Devinder Sharma, an award-winning journalist, writer and researcher on food and trade policy, said campaigners in other parts of the world had been inspired by protesters in the Highlands who fought GM field trials in the Black Isle. 
He has also revealed that a forthcoming Bollywood film will feature a story of the cloning of humans which could help the fight against GM technology in his native India. Mr. Sharma, who is at the forefront of the campaign against the introduction of GM crops to India, was in the Highlands yesterday, and visited the site at Munlochy where a vigil was set up three years ago to protest at the trial of GM crops. 
He also held a briefing for MPs in the House of Commons. He said it was “very sad” that the Scottish Executive and the UK government had given qualified consent to the GM maize crop. “There is no benefit from GM maize to the UK, but it is an indication that the government gave in to industry pressure.” “There was a time when it was said that the sun would never set on the British Empire ... but the empire crumbled. Today the sun does not set on the multi-national corporations, but I have a feeling that this empire will also crumble.” Mr. Sharma said that news of the Munlochy protest had reached campaigners in Delhi. 
He added: “Scotland particularly needs to keep its pristine beauty for posterity. It would be foolish if Scotland gets into GM crops. You have wonderful landscapes and wonderful nature; why would you want to destroy it? It should be GM-free.” He dismissed claims that GM crops could help the hungry in the Third World: “Today we have 840 million people who go to bed hungry and the [biotech] industry says that number will rise to 1.5 billion by 2015, so therefore you need GM crops. But one third of the world's hungry live in India, and they are not hungry because there is no food, but because they cannot afford food. In 2001-2, India had a recorded surplus of 65 million tons of wheat and rice.” 
Instead of money being spent on subsidizing food for poorer people, some of it had gone on research into GM crops, he said. “When you put that money to GM research you are taking it out of the mouths of people who are hungry, for research that is not wanted.” 
Mr. Sharma went on: “The Indian government has allocated $12 million for research on GM rice. If this money was diverted to feed the poor, they could have fed 12 million people for at least three years.” Mr. Sharma also revealed that he suggested to a leading director a storyline for a forthcoming Bollywood movie in which he will now appear. “It will be a love affair, but the story is that the boy discovers that the girl is a clone. I think it will be a very strong message.” 
Anthony Jackson, one of the Munlochy campaigners, said: “Devinder has a unique perspective on this issue. There has been a lot of moral blackmail that GM will feed the world, but he has presented proof that it will do anything but. To feed the world, we need the political will to lift people out of poverty.” 

Resistance in Canada 
to GM wheat: Monsanto drops program
Canada's resistance to growing GM wheat is intensifying, with the nation's wheat export agency, ecologists and many growers warning of a “terrible disaster” for the nation's agricultural industry. “The greatest threat to wheat farming isn't hail or drought — It's Roundup Ready Wheat” reads an ad run in May 2004 in a number of Canadian newspapers.
The accusation comes from Greenpeace, allied with three agricultural groups. Roundup Ready, a new variety of GM wheat to make it more resistant to herbicides, was developed by the agrochemical giant Monsanto.
Monsanto hoped in the near future to see its modified wheat growing across Canada's vast prairies, but must first, as is the case with all new biotechnology, get the green light from Canadian health authorities. At the end of 2002, Monsanto submitted a request for approval to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and is still awaiting a reply. In the meantime, the company has passed an initial stage of the process, winning approval in 2000 to sow Roundup Ready for trial purposes in fields and confined spaces far from other crops. Risinng public pressure led Monsanto to fully drop its GM wheat program. 

Replacement for GM crop tech 
It's a revolt against the establishment, by the establishment. India’s apex regulatory body on the controversial transgenic technology could be headed for the dustbin if recommendations now being tweaked into final shape are acted on by the government. The very first task force set up to systematize the national approach to genetically-modified crops wants the genetic engineering approval committee out of the hands of environment ministry bureaucrats — and eventually, replaced by an autonomous Indian Bio-technology Regulatory Authority patterned on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. Casting aside the present system of ''avoidable delays'', ''lengthy'' and ''cumbersome'' procedures. The task force — for the first time, it will list no-GM zones and crops even as it recommends putting transgenic research on a faster track and monitoring crops once they are permitted to be grown commercially. No immediate tinkering with transgenic crops which are geographically identified or important in the export market, such as basmati rice, Darjeeling tea and soybean. No foreclosing alternatives to transgenic, even an insurance scheme for costlier crops. 

Chandrika Mago, Times News Network

Seeds of Freedom 

Navdanya is a programme initiated by the Foundation to conserve agricultural diversity. It places the farmer at the center of conservation and empowers him to take control over the political, ecological and economic aspects of agriculture. 
Navdanya means nine seeds and these represent India's collective source of food security. It connotes a diverse ecological balance at every level, from the ecology of the earth to the ecology of our body. Navdanya is a national network of grassroots conservation efforts to protect the rich biodiversity which is the basis of cultural and material sustenance of our people. We believe that biological diversity cannot be conserved on the basis of centralised, globalised and hierarchical programs. Diversity and decentralisation go hand in hand.

Western Australia bans all GM crops 

Australia's largest state, Western Australia is a major producer of wheat, barley, canola and pulses. Australia so far produces only cotton and carnations as GM crops, but last year the federal Gene Technology Regulator approved the growing of genetically modified canola, used for cooking oil. State governments, however, have the power to ban GM crops for marketing purposes. All Australian state governments where canola is grown have moratoriums on GM crops, although New South Wales will soon consider an undisclosed decision by an advisory council on whether a large-scale commercial trial crop may be planted this season. Western Australian Premier Geoff Gallop said March 23, 2004 that GM crops would be banned so the state's farmers could continue to market GM-free produce and to seek out new markets with confidence. This also reflected overwhelming public opinion in Western Australia and consumer sentiment around the world, he said. “During the last three years public opinion in Western Australia has further strengthened against the intrusion of GM technology into the food chain,” Gallop said. 
Western Australia's agricultural food sector contributes $9.2 billion ($10.5 billion) to the state's economy and employs 10 per cent of its workforce. 
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Abare) is forecasting that in the 2003-04 year Western Australia will produce 610,000 tonnes of canola in a national crop of 1.6 million tonnes. New South Wales is forecast to produce 282,000 tonnes. 
Australia is the second-largest canola exporter in the world, after Canada, whose crop is mainly genetically modified. However, Australia exports only small amounts of canola to Europe, which does not import GM product. 
Western Australia is also forecast to produce 10.7 million tons of wheat this year in a national crop of 24.9 million tons, and 3 million tons of barley in a national crop of 8.5 million tons. GM wheat is generally not seen as being produced in the near-term because of complex science and its status as a staple food. Anti-GM campaigner GeneEthics Network called on other Australian states to follow Western Australia in banning GM crops. 
A group opposed to the production of GM food crops says the fight is far from over, despite a decision to declare Western Australia a GM-free zone. It became the first state to enact legislation to protect its “clean-green” image and ensure farmers can continue to market GM-free produce. The Network for Concerned Farmers' spokeswoman, Julie Newman, says the market is being misled about GM crops, and independent trials for GM cotton and canola in Western Australia will prove it.
“The trials to date have shown that GM is definitely not what it's promised for. They're no better than conventional varieties,” she said. One of the state's peak farming groups says it is not surprised by the Government's decision to ban the introduction of GM crops. However, there are concerns that the decision may force local biotechnology researchers to leave the state and WA will have to buy back the real benefits of biotechnology. 

EU biotech label laws to come into force 
All food products and animal feed containing more than 0.9 per cent of GMOs are subject to labeling from April 18, as part of the efforts by the European Commission to provide consumers with choice and reassurance as it seeks to end a ban on new biotech products launched by a group of EU states five years ago. The Commission is acting amid lobbying from the biotech and food industry as well as under the pressure of a suit brought to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by the United States, whose farmers say they are losing money due to the EU's GM ban. But many consumers, environmental groups and several governments of the EU remain resistant to biotech foods. Another innovation in the law is that all GMOs will have be traced through the food processing chain, a key food safety demand of GM-sceptic states at the origin of the moratorium. EC has prepared a guide for food and drink companies on how to label products under the new rules, for example a biscuit containing soya flour derived from GM-soya must be labelled “contains soya flour from genetically modified soya”. However, food containing GMOs produced before the April 18 deadline will not have to be labeled and nobody is expecting a flood of new GM products on shop shelves when 70.9 per cent of European shoppers are hostile to biotech food, according to a Commission survey.

UN-Backed Treaty Banning Most Dangerous Pesticides To Come Into Force In May
An international treaty banning the world's most dangerous pesticides, industrial chemicals and hazardous by-products of combustion will enter into force on 17 May now that 50 countries have ratified the pact. The 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) bans a dozen potentially lethal and deforming toxic substances, which travel through the environment far beyond their original source and endure for years or even decades. 
The 90-day countdown to the convention's entry into force was triggered with France's ratification in February 17, 2004. Canada was the first country to ratify, on 23 May 2001. The 12 POPs are aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene, dioxins and furans.
Most will be banned at once, but use of DDT for disease vector control under UN World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines is considered acceptable because it is still essential in many countries to control malaria transmission by mosquitoes. A Review Committee will regularly consider additional substances to be added to the list of those banned. The Convention sets out control measures covering production, import, export, disposal, and use. It requires governments to promote the best available technologies and practices for replacing existing POPs while preventing development of new ones. 
Every human carries traces of POPs, which circulate globally through a process known as the “grasshopper effect.” POPs released in one part of the world can, through a repeated process of evaporation and deposit, be transported through the atmosphere to regions far away from the original source. Though not soluble in water, they are readily absorbed in fatty tissue, where concentrations can become magnified by up to 70,000 times the background levels. Fish, predatory birds, mammals and humans high up the food chain absorb the greatest concentrations. When they travel, POPs go with them.

UN Announces New Measures to Boost Safety In Trade of Genetically Modified Organisms
Efforts to promote the safety of international trade in genetically modified organisms received a new boost with the adoption of labelling and documentation requirements. Under the new system adopted by the 87 member States of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety at a weeklong meeting in Malaysia in February 2004, attended by more than 1,000 delegates and observers, all bulk shipments of living or genetically modified organisms (known as LMOs, or GMOs) intended for food, feed or processing (such as soybeans and maize) are to be identified as “may contain LMOs.” The accompanying documentation should also indicate the contact details of the importer, exporter or other appropriate authority. Although the new system is binding on countries that are party to the Protocol, many key agricultural producers, such as the United States, have not endorsed that pact. 
The Cartagena Protocol, which entered into force September 2003, is designed to ensure the safe transfer, handling and use of GMOs that may adversely effect the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health. It forms part of the Convention on Biological Diversity negotiated under the auspices of the UNEP and signed by over 150 Governments at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. 
Over the next year an expert group will further elaborate the documentation and handling requirements for bulk agricultural shipments. Key issues still to be resolved include the percentage of modified material that these shipments may contain and still be considered GMO-free and the inclusion of any additional detailed information. A decision on these matters will be considered at the next meeting of the treaty's Parties, to be held in 2005.  

Angola bans GM food aid 
Almost 2 million Angolans could go hungry because their government has banned genetically modified food aid. A shipment of 19,000 tons of maize from the US may have to turn back because the southern African state has become concerned about the environmental risks of biotechnology. Rations for some 1.9 million people dependent on food aid are likely to be cut in the short term while the UN world food program adjusts to the new policy. Angola's council of ministers decided this month to follow five other southern African countries in rejecting unmilled GM seeds which could be planted and cross-pollinate local maize crops. Most of the 400,000 tons of food aid the WFP planned to distribute in Angola over the next two years was to come from US farms which produce big surpluses of GM maize. Angola has joined Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Lesotho, which decided last year to ban unmilled seeds. Zambia went further and banned even milled seeds, citing concerns that they could be harmful to human health. Zambia was vilified for doing so near the peak of a food shortage but warnings that millions might starve proved unfounded and it ended up producing a 120,000-tonne surplus. Likewise, they maintain that no Angolan is expected to starve because of the ban but it nevertheless revived a controversy over poor countries' food shortages and GM technology, which has divided the US and Europe. The US has accused African leaders of irresponsibility in disrupting food aid but European environmentalists have lauded the bans as prudent and urged reform of the UN's system of food aid. 
The civil war has ended but hundreds of thousands of displaced families face poverty as they return to towns and villages in ruins. There is no famine but in places food is scarce and expensive. The rulers of what is in effect a one-party state did not elaborate when announcing the ban. It has not yet been formally implemented and it was not clear what would happen to the 19,000-tonne shipment due to unload today. The agriculture ministry in Luanda, which is believed to have pushed for the ban, was unavailable. WFP's response was that the suddenness of the decision was unfortunate but that the WFP accepted it. “We respect the sovereign right of a government to decide what goes into the country,” said its spokesperson. There was no immediate public response to Angola's decision from the US but the White House will be dismayed at another setback for what President George Bush has touted as a tool to end hunger in Africa. The US Senate and House of Representatives wants overseas funds to fight HIV/AIDS and malaria conditional on the acceptance of GM crops and food. “There is a constant drip of pressure from the US government and biotech industry to make sure Africa is softened up for GM,” said Charlie Kronick, of the environmental group Greenpeace. “Europe is closed to them and they need a market for it.” The EU has imposed a moratorium on growing or importing GM food because of fears about environmental and heath risks. 

(The Guardian)

As Cereal Stocks Fall, World Production to Rise Next Year — UN Food Agency
Driven mostly by wheat and rice, global cereal production is forecast to increase next year to deal with falling stocks and rising export prices, states a report “Food Outlook” prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). According to the report, cereal production in 2004 is expected to rise to 2,130 million tonnes — or 2% more than last year and 3% up on the average of the past five years. Most of the increase will come from wheat, although the FAO forecasts that rice production will also jump substantially. Production of coarse grains may fall slightly, as per tentative estimates assuming normal weather conditions. The FAO expects export prices for wheat could start to fall in the coming months with the approach of the harvest in the northern hemisphere. It does not anticipate, however, an immediate slide in prices for rice or coarse grains. The FAO described the overall increase in production as “a very welcome development for global food supply.” Since the 1999-2000 season, cereal stocks have diminished every year, forcing up the prices of such grains as wheat, maize and rice. 
This year, global stocks are tipped to drop by 18%, or 89 million tonnes, led by substantial reductions in China, India, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the European Union. 
Strong demand for cereal grains for feed and industrial use, particularly in the US, has been helping to push demand ahead of existing production. The FAO said this has occurred despite sharply rising cereal prices and major outbreaks of animal disease in the latter half of the 2003-2004 season.  

Obesity study targets corn syrup
Analyzing consumption records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1967-2000, researchers found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s. The data showed an increase in the use of high-fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s "coincidental with the epidemic of obesity,” said one of the researchers, Dr. George A. Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System's Pennington Biomedical Research Center. “Body weights rose slowly for most of the 20th century until the late 1980s,” Bray said. “At that time, many countries showed a sudden increase in the rate at which obesity has been galloping forward.” The study is being published in the April issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. But both spokesmen of the food and beverage industry and critics of fast food said that, weight gain would be a problem even if the sweetener didn't exist. The problem is how many calories were consumed against how many calories were burnt. Obesity among American adults climbed from 23 percent in the early 1990s to 30 percent today, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And two-thirds of Americans are overweight. That means increased risks for heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers. 

(Associated Press)