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A step forward for genetic engineering in New Zealand

August 21
New York Times

Auckland -- The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification has recommended that research on genetically modified crops and animals "proceed with caution," elating the nation's biotechnology interests while dismaying opponents of the technology, particularly the nation's influential Green Party.

The commission's report explicitly rejects the idea of a nation free of genetically modified crops and animals, saying it would not be in New Zealand's social, environmental or economic interests. Although it calls for a number of additional restrictions on genetic modifications, the report argues that the technology can be used "in a way that does not threaten New Zealand's `clean green' image."

The recommendations, issued late last month, are not binding, but if accepted by the government, they would ease restrictions on low-risk research done in laboratories and would tighten the regulatory regime around activities like the general release of genetically modified organisms. In particular, the commissioners called for a rule change that would enable the authorities to impose follow-up safety monitoring or to limit the scale of any release of genetically modified organisms.

They also called for more research on the potential for any release to affect soil and ecological systems.

The report, a wide-ranging inquiry into the technology's implications for health, environmental, legal, economic and cultural issues, is the first of its kind from an industrialized nation. It is expected to attract interest from other countries grappling with the controversies arising from biotechnology.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who set up the panel in May 2000, said opponents must accept the fact that the commission "has not embraced their view on field trials and on crops." She said her government would study the report and make a decision in about three months.

Genetic engineering is controversial in New Zealand. No genetically modified crops have yet been approved for release, and even experimental field trials have been delayed since the commission first met.

Critics of the technology predict that it will lead to widespread environmental damage and health problems. Some, including many Maori groups that testified before the commission, oppose it on ethical or spiritual grounds. Others believe that New Zealand farmers can capitalize on the growing world market for organic produce, but only if the nation rejects genetic modifications.

The critics have won wide support. A commission survey showed that most New Zealanders were comfortable with genetic modification for medical purposes but saw "more disadvantages than advantages" in its use on animals or crops.

On the other side of the debate are the biotechnology industry, science organizations and farm groups that view transgenics as an important tool for improving the value and efficiency of New Zealand's agriculture and forestry industries.

The four commissioners — a doctor, a scientist, a bishop and a retired chief justice — held dozens of public meetings, heard expert witnesses from New Zealand and abroad, and worked through more than 10,000 submissions from the public. More than 100 individuals or groups presented evidence in formal hearings.

Representatives of industry said they would not object to the additional scrutiny recommended. "Field trials were going to be expensive anyway," said Dr. Ian Warrington, chief executive of HortResearch, a state-owned company that is using gene technology to improve fruit production. "It is a very good report," he said.

The report also calls for a new advisory body on ethical, social and cultural matters in biotechnology.

The commissioners said they recognized that greater use of genetically modified crops would create some problems. For instance, the report calls for a strategy that will allow both genetically modified crops and the continued production of organic honey, which requires no contact with pollen from genetically modified plants. But Pete Hodgson, minister of research, science and technology, conceded that it would be extremely difficult to keep the bees from those plants.

The full report is online at www.gmcommission.govt.nz.

Fancy a juicy steak?

August 21
Reuters

Sydney -- Australian scientists say they have discovered new ways to produce better beef and more tender, juicier steaks could go on sale following a breakthrough in gene technology.

The scientists have identified a particular gene associated with beef tenderness, and have also found that slower-moving cattle taste better than their quicker cousins.

Both breakthroughs use advances in molecular genetics to identify cattle that have genes which produce tender steaks.

"We're not interfering with the bovine genome. We're using it as an aid to selection," Dr Bernie Bindon, who heads up the Co-operative Research Center (CRC) for Cattle and Beef Quality.

Bindon said it was the first time that a direct gene marker has been identified for tenderness in cattle, and only the second genetic test in the world for meat quality. The first was for inter-muscular fat, or marbling.

"There are many larger groups around the world struggling away at this very important new technology," Bindon told Reuters on Tuesday, adding the findings would give the Australian industry an edge over its rivals.

Australia is already the world's biggest beef trader, with annual exports worth about $2.2 billion.

The CRC brings together scientists from a regional university, two state government departments and the federal government agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

Bindon said both breakthroughs were the brainchild of the Dr Bill Barendse, of the CSIRO's livestock industries section.

Fast and tough

Barendse said in a statement the project had identified a particular gene form associated with either beef tenderness or toughness.

Breeders could improve tenderness by removing animals with two copies of the 'tough' gene, and also by selecting to increase the frequency of the 'tender' gene.

Gene markers have already been used for disease traits in livestock, but the Australian gene tests for tenderness and marbling are the first for production traits.

CRC is using the 'tender' gene marker in conjunction with another genetically based breakthrough that links cattle temperament with better beef.

This process measures "flight time", or how long it takes an animal to travel two metres (six feet) after leaving a weighing machine.

"An undesirable temperament is expressed by (cattle which) come out of the blocks like lightning," Bindon said.

"The ones that perform like an F-111 (fighter jet), they're the ones whose progeny are going to be tougher. It's a genetic correlation. So we can use this simple test to choose sires whose progeny are going to be more tender," he said.

The direct gene marker test can be carried out at birth by examination of DNA, while the "flight time" test can be carried out at weaning age of six or seven months.

Both procedures have been patented by CRC, although Bindon said policing unauthorized use of the flight time test might be hard. The CRC project also found that electrical stimulation of the carcass at slaughter, or alternative hanging methods such as tender stretching, significantly improved the tenderness of beef by encouraging natural breakdown of muscle tissue.

Bindon said the breakthroughs involved the key issues that faced beef producing nations world-wide, apart from food safety.

"Consumers of protein are now very choosy. Unless we get a consistently tender product (we have) an underlying serious problem."

Climbing on the organic gravy train

Pesticides and manipulated genes are out, says food-industry veteran Mark Rodriguez, who sees this market becoming increasingly fertile

August 21
Business Week

These days, organic foods are the fastest-selling food category not just in the U.S. and Canada but in Japan and much of Western Europe. The reasons: mad cow disease, concerns about genetically engineered food, and general public angst over the quality of the food we eat.

Now, the big trend in North America is that organic foods, which until recently consisted mainly of regional niche brands with a sort of counterculture flavor to them, are going mainstream. And, consumer food fears aside, the big reason is that the first U.S. standards for organic foods -- enforced by U.S. Agriculture Dept. -- will officially come into effect in 2002. That will assure consumers for the first time that uniform national standards are observed by the purveyors of organic foods.

Some food-industry experts figure that organics will account for all the growth in the North American food market for at least the next five years. Its share of the market -- now less than 2% -- could quadruple by the end of the decade.

Sensing a major business opportunity, big food companies such as General Mills are buying up organic brands with an eye toward dramatically expanding their franchise. To get a bead on the trend, I checked in with Mark Rodriguez, 48, a former hotshot at Dannon who is now CEO of Acirca, a privately held New Rochelle (N.Y.) company that acquired the venerable Walnut Acres organic foods brand. Acirca has the backing of former America Online honcho David Cole and North Castle Partners, a Greenwich (Conn.) private equity firm that specializes in investing in health-oriented companies.

Rodriguez, who built Dannon's North American bottled water and specialty food sales from $60 million into an $800 million business by the time he left in April, 2000, has shut down Walnut Acres' original hodgepodge of organic brands and is focusing on building a national franchise in a few market segments. So far, Acirca has introduced Walnut Acres organic salsas and soups, which are pretty widely available in stores such as Kroger, Whole Foods, and Jewel-Osco. The company is buying up smaller organic brands, such as pasta sauces, and plans to add additional product segments in coming months. Here are edited excerpts of my recent talk with Rodriguez:

Q: Why would you leave a job with a successful company like Dannon to go into organic foods, which is pretty much a backwater of the food business?
A: I think there's going to be a high correlation between [the fast growth] of the bottled-water business in this country between 1990 and 2001 and how the organic foods industry will develop. What drove high sales of bottled water was consumers' desire [to eat and drink] less alcohol, sugar, and caffeine -- wanting to do something positive that would lead to better health. That took the bottled-water industry from about $800 million [in annual sales] to about $5 billion when I left Dannon last year.... When you talk to current consumers of organic foods, you find that 90% of them cannot even recall a brand. So, there is a huge branding opportunity.

Q: You commissioned the Roper Starch organization to do a consumer survey on organic foods. What stands out to you about the results of the survey?
A: Three-quarters of Americans are concerned about the quality of the food supply. Sixty-six percent of Americans say organic products are not a fad and will become a larger part of their purchasing decisions in the years ahead. We think those are very strong foundational elements for this industry to explode in coming years. But the watershed event will be the adoption of the National Organic Program by the USDA and the application of the USDA seal on packaged organic products in October, 2002. We believe that single move will really accelerate the growth of this entire industry.

Q: What is it about the national standards that are going to give consumers confidence? After all, it was the product of years of lobbying and compromise. Why isn't it just going to be like a lot of other government standards -- full of loopholes?
A: [Organic foods previously] was a cottage industry with brands distributed regionally rather than nationally, so you had wide variances in the quality specifications. Today, you have national standards that we think are stringent and achievable. [Organic food companies] have to be able to show that 95% of their product -- after removal of water and salt -- is certified organic in the growing and manufacturing process. You also have to show segregation of the product all the way through the supply chain.

Q: But if I buy organic soup instead of Progresso or Campbell's or whatever, what is it I'm going to get that I'm going to like better?
A: You're going to get a product that is certified to not contain synthetic pesticides, hormones, and genetically modified ingredients all the way along the supply chain.... All this is certified by an independent third party [the USDA]. So you're not just depending on the manufacturer. You have a third party performing audits in supply chain, in the factory, in the warehouse to ensure that the rules are being followed.

Q: By, say, 2010, what percentage of packaged food sales do you think will be organic?
A: The North American organic [food and beverage] business is about $8 billion this year. We believe that by 2005 it will be about a $20 billion industry. You can run the math and [come to the conclusion that the] $12 billion in additional [sales] represents all the growth in the North American food business over that period. That would be [around] 3% or 4% of the total food business.... Our guess is that by 2010, somewhere around 8% of the North American packaged-food business will be organic.

Q: Will the same thing happen in restaurants?
A: That's harder to quantify, but today you do see more and more chefs incorporating more and more fresh organic ingredients into their meal plans. Even in a place like TGI Fridays, they're selling about 1 million natural beef hamburger patties per month.

Q: If there is going to be this huge growth, where is all the needed organic food going to come from?
A: There are farms converting [to organic growing methods] every day to satisfy the growing demand.

Q: But isn't organic farming inherently less productive? When I was growing up out in farm country, we were always taught that herbicides and pesticides and modern farming techniques were making North America the breadbasket of the world.
A: We can reference studies, and the answer from our perspective is clearly no. It's not less productive.

Q: Still, lot of people believe organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods. Are prices actually higher? And what's going to happen to prices over time?
A: On a per-ounce basis, prices are higher today than they are for conventional goods. That would be a function of [organic goods having] a less efficient supply chain all the way through. [But] you will see the gap between organic and conventional food consistently narrow in the years ahead.

Market enforcers

Biotech firms found persuasion didn't work, so they are using a new tactic: coercion

August 21
Guardian (UK)

A year ago, the biotech companies' grave had been dug. They had failed repeatedly to refute the three principal arguments against deployment: that GM crops enhance corporate power by allowing companies to patent the food chain; that the long-term safety tests to establish whether or not they pose a risk to human health have never been conducted; and that consumers don't want to buy them. The companies might bluster about children in the developing world turning blind if we don't eat up our GM cornflakes in Europe, but there's no shortage of evidence to suggest that corporate control of the food chain has devastating effects on nutrition. But, though we have won the argument, we are losing the war. For the GM companies have rediscovered the old way of dealing with reluctant customers: if persuasion doesn't work, use force.

The new opium wars are being waged in the fields of North America, where many farmers are beginning to shy away from engineered seed. GM crops, they have found, are harder to sell. There is evidence that some varieties yield less while requiring more herbicide. But farmers are swiftly coming to see that the costs of not planting GM seed can greatly outweigh the costs of planting it.

Last month, lawyers warned a farming family in Indiana that the only way they could avoid being sued by the biotech company Monsanto was to sow their entire farm with the company's seeds. Two years ago, the Roushes planted just over a quarter of their fields with the company's herbicide-resistant soy. Though they recorded precisely what they planted where, and though an independent crop scientist has confirmed their account, Monsanto refuses to accept that the Roushes did not deploy its crops more widely. It is now demanding punitive damages for the use of seeds they swear they never sowed. The Roushes maintain that they are, in effect, being sued for not buying the company's products. So next year, like hundreds of other frightened farmers, they will plant their fields only with Monsanto's GM seeds. Like the opium forced upon a reluctant China by British gunboats, once you've started using GM, you're stuck with it.

But the solution proposed by the Roushes' lawyers was a prudent one. In April, a Canadian farmer called Percy Schmeiser was forced to pay Monsanto $85,000, after a court ruled that he had stolen Monsanto's genetic material. Schmeiser maintained that the thinly- spread GM rape plants on his farm were the result of pollen contamination from his neighbor's fields, and he had done all he could to get rid of them. But Monsanto's proprietary genes had been found on his land whether he wanted them or not. Following the time- honored convention that the polluted pays, Mr Schmeiser was forced to compensate the company for what he insists was invasion by its vegetable vermin.

Where the courts won't enforce compliance, governments will. In 10 days' time, Sri Lanka will introduce a five-year ban on genetically engineered crops, while scientists seek to determine whether or not they are safe. The United States, worried that thorough testing could destroy the value of its biotech companies, has threatened to report the ban to the World Trade Organization.

In Britain, the Welsh Assembly voted unanimously that Wales should be a GM-free zone. But the Westminster government has ignored the ruling and licensed trials of Aventis's genetically modified maize there. The trials are supposed to determine whether or not the new variety is safe to plant. But Aventis has already received consent to grow it commercially, even if the "experiments" show that planting is an ecological disaster. Welsh activists suggest that the purpose of the trials is to lend credibility to a done deal.

Monsanto will never repeat the mistake of seeking to persuade consumers that they might wish to purchase its products. In future, it won't have to. Like the other biotech companies, it has been buying up seed merchants throughout the developing world. In some places farmers must either purchase GM seeds - and the expensive patent herbicides required to grow them - or plant nothing at all.

The European environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom warned in March that the EU could be sued by biotech firms if it upheld its ban on the sale of new GM foods. "We cannot afford," she explained, "to lose more years of not aiding the biotechnology industry". Biotech companies have been pressing to raise Europe's legal limit for the contamination of conventional crops with modified genes: in time, they hope, genetic pollution will ensure that there is so little difference between GM and "non-GM" food that consumers will give up and accept their products. The US government has begun pressing for a worldwide ban on the labeling of GM food, to ensure that consumers have no means of knowing what they're eating.

The monster has begun to walk. The technology which, we were promised, would broaden consumer choice, is becoming compulsory. This is the free trade which George Bush and Tony Blair have promised to the world. It is the freedom which, they have assured us, will overthrow vested interests, challenge market concentration, enhance competition and empower consumers. It is the freedom we must be forced to swallow.

When protesters against this forced emancipation were arrested by the freedom-loving police in Genoa, some of them were tortured, then shown a photograph of Mussolini. They were obliged to salute it and shout "Viva il Duce!" Presumably because this enthusiastic defense of market forces is compatible with free trade, neither Tony Blair nor Jack Straw saw fit to complain. Had they done so, they would have spoken to one of the most senior members of Italy's borderline-fascist government, the foreign minister Renato Ruggiero. Before becoming a minister, he was director-general of the World Trade Organization, the body responsible for enforcing free trade.

Mr Ruggiero has not changed his politics: he has long upheld the right of the strong to trample the weak, of corporate power to crush human rights. The organization he ran has now chosen as the venue for its next summit meeting one of the most repressive nations in the rich world. In November, WTO delegates will be discussing freedom in Qatar, safe in the unassailable fortress of a country which tolerates no dissent. This is the force behind market forces.

It has become fashionable of late to claim that we can buy our way out of trouble: that through the judicious use of shares and shopping we can force companies to change the way they trade. But it is surely not hard to see that consumer choice is an inadequate means of curbing corporate power. Trapped inside PFI hospitals or sponsored schools, forced through lack of choice to buy cars, shop at superstores and eat GM food, we cannot escape the coercion which facilitates free trade. If market forces operate outside the market, then so must we.

India still studying commercial use of GM foods

August 17
Reuters

New Delhi -- Citing safety concerns, India said on Thursday it had allowed several research studies but not yet approved the commercial production and use of genetically modified foods in the country.

"The center (federal government) has made it clear that it has not yet approved commercial release of any genetically engineered food in the country," a government statement said.

The country's agriculture ministry is pursuing efforts to develop transgenic cotton, rapeseed-mustard, rice, tobacco and potato to ensure pest and disease resistance in crops.

"As this technology is new, fears have been expressed about the safety of such foods and case by case testing is undertaken by countries to ascertain merits and demerits of using such foods," the statement said.

Fears over the effects of genetically-modified products on health and the environment compelled policy-makers in some Asian countries to impose guidelines on such products.

But biotechnology companies say such fears are unfounded, as studies done on GM crops have not shown adverse effects.

An Indian environment ministry committee in June said it wanted more field trials of a genetically modified cotton before it decides whether to allow its cultivation on a commercial scale.

'Superfish' to ease food shortage

August 16
BBC

The tilapia is said to be the second most important food fish in the world, after the carp.

Now geneticists at Southampton University hope to increase the speed of its growth through genetic modification.

It is also hoped that the research will lead to the cheap production of a blood-clotting agent, which is used in treating injuries.

Norman Maclean, professor of genetics at the university, said they plan to carry out trials of the work in Thailand.

The team's work has been funded by the Department for International Development.

Professor Maclean said: "With this work we hope that we can enable a three-fold increase in the growth rate of the tilapia.

"They will also be bigger than the naturally-occurring fish."

The researchers are currently trying to produce a sterile strain of the fish, so that it can be safely used in agriculture.

Reduce costs

Professor Maclean said they also hoped to use the fish as a "bio factory" to produce medical treatments.

"We are currently working with an American bio-tech company to produce this blood-clotting agent called 'factor seven', which is very important in the treatment of someone who has, for example, been involved in a road accident," he said.

"At the moment, factor seven is being used, but it is very expensive, and this research should help reduce the costs of its production."

GM education

Professor Maclean acknowledged that because the research is a GM process, the work could prove controversial.

"We realize that people are not going to be happy with the idea of a genetically-modified fish," he said.

"A lot of education has to be done to remove misunderstandings and concerns about the hazards of GM.

"But I'm confident that people will come to understand and know what's safe to eat."