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Green groups blocking help for poor nations - UN

July 9
Reuters

London -- Western environmental groups are blocking ways to ease hunger in the poorest parts of the world by stifling the development of genetically modified foods, the lead author of a United Nations report said.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, lead author of the U.N. Development Program's annual Human Development Report, said green groups had failed to consider how gene-spliced crops could help people out of poverty by revolutionizing agriculture and food production.

``The developing world needs these technologies as soon as possible and European countries and campaigners are slowing everything up,'' Fukuda-Parr, director of the Human Development Report Office, told Reuters.

``I think that first world environmental groups should put on the hat and shoes of farmers in Mali who are faced by repeated crop failure.''

She said Europe and Japan, where there was what she called an effective moratorium on gene-modified crops, had little need for pest-resistant crops and cheaper food as most consumers seemed happy with stocked supermarket shelves.

But their contentment and increasing fears over the new technology should not prevent poor people benefiting from drought- and pest-resistant crops, she said.

``For European consumers and for Japanese consumers, there is really very little to be gained from having genetically modified food. We don't need lower prices for food and we don't really need a longer shelf-life for our tomatoes,'' she said.

``But it is a very different challenge that some countries are facing when faced with food shortages, chronic low rainfall and chronic crop failure.''

She challenged environmental groups to produce hard evidence to back up their fears that gene-modified food was unsafe for the countryside and a threat to public health.

Green groups say GM crops, spliced with foreign genes to help them resist drought or ward off pests, will create superweeds, contaminate traditional crops and change the face of the countryside by killing off other flora and fauna.

``The first thing to remember is that scientific evidence for health and environmental harm is quite limited and very weak,'' she said, adding that the public sector should be more involved in developing and testing new GM crops to make the technology more accessible to poorer nations.

``But we are not saying poor people should be guinea pigs.''

She urged people to open up the debate and see the development of biotechnology from poor countries' point of view.

``I think in Europe and Japan an extreme position has been taken,'' she said.

``Biotech has tremendous potential for ... agriculture, to address these problems of hunger and malnutrition and food and security in Africa and other areas of the world and its potential should not be underestimated.''

The Human Development Report 2001 is due to be officially released by the U.N. Development Program in Mexico City on Tuesday.

Biotech 'Frankenstein crops' may yield food to poor

July 9
Reuters

Genetically-modified crops, under attack in the West, may provide an answer to cutting malnutrition in poor nations by developing seeds resistant to drought, a new U.N. report says.

Despite somewhat unpredictable results, the report -- to be released on Tuesday by the U.N. Development Program -- argues against a blanket rejection of genetically-altered crops, saying they could produce a higher yield in countries with poor soil and where populations are desperate for food.

The so-called ``Frankenstein foods'' have been put on hold in European countries, and are under attack in the United States and Canada because of fears over potential health and environmental hazards that genetic engineering could produce.

``The current debate in Europe and the United States over genetically modified crops mostly ignores the concerns of the developing world,'' said the annual 265-page Human Development Report 2001, to be officially released in Mexico City by UNDP.

The successful Western campaign to ban the pesticide DDT, for example, has produced a new breed of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in many tropical countries.

"BALANCED APPROACH"

``Instead of changing the environment to fit the seed, the seed could be changed to drought-resistant crops,'' said Kate Raworth, co-author of the report, in an interview. ``We are calling for a more balanced approach.''

Mark Malloch Brown, head of UNDP, pointed to an effort by Japan to develop new varieties of rice in West Africa that have 50 percent higher yields, are more tolerant of drought and richer in protein.

Yet UNDP is cautious, with Raworth saying research into potential health hazards, biosafety measures and labeling has to be part of the technological revolution. Australia, Brazil, Japan and Britain require such labels and 80 percent of the consumers in the United States want them as well.

Harvard Professor Richard Lewontin says it is still impossible to determine the consequences of biotechnology, although the negative consequences have yet to emerge.

However, many studies in the United States are not based on government data but provided ``by the very parties who are asking for approval to distribute the new variety in the first place,'' he warned recently in the New York Review of Books.

NORWAY FIRST IN ``HUMAN DEVELOPMENT''

The report, the 11th annual survey of more than 160 countries, produces a broad human development index, aimed at showing that ``progress'' is not dependent on income alone but health, education, adult literacy and life expectancy.

This year Norway is in first place, followed by Australia, Canada, Sweden, Belgium and the United States dropping from third to sixth place. Raworth, however, says that the index is basic so all countries can be measured and that the top nations are statistically close.

At the bottom of the list are countries in sub-Sahara Africa, with Sierra Leone in last place.

This year UNDP invented a new technological index that ranks 72 countries according to leaders in the field, potential leaders, dynamic adopters and those who are marginalized.

Finland, which has the highest percentage of citizens using the Internet, leads this list followed by the United States, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Britain, Canada, Singapore, Germany and Norway.

Ironically, India, which has one of the world's most dynamic technological hubs, ranks 63rd, behind Zimbabwe, Syria and Paraguay and well below China, according to the survey.

This is because Bangalore, where much of India's new technology is concentrated, is a small enclave in a nation where the average adult receives only about five years of education and there are only 29 telephones per 1,000 people.

Report: Progress needs technology

July 8
AP

Mexico City -- Governments will have to take advantage of genetically engineered food, cutting-edge medicine and technology to combat poverty in a world that comes far from meeting basic development goals, a United Nations report has concluded.

The 11th annual Human Development Report, scheduled to be released in Mexico City on Tuesday, found that the world's richest countries are holding back scientific breakthroughs key to eradicating hunger and stamping out poverty.

``The current debate in Europe and the United States over genetically modified crops mostly ignores the concerns of the developing world,'' the report says, adding that crops altered to produce higher yields could revolutionize farming in Africa, Latin America and across the underdeveloped world.

It further argues that the developed world's push to cap technology once widely available has hurt the world's poor, highlighting how the campaign to ban DDT has left tropical countries battling a new breed of Malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

The report also faults wealthy nations for driving up international prices of prescription drugs by refusing to pay their share of high prices.

``The citizens of rich countries must understand that it is only fair for people in developing countries to pay less for medicines and other products,'' the report says.

``The report is intended to challenge prevailing skepticism about technology,'' Mark Malloch Brown, head of the U.N. Development Fund, said in a recent interview. ``There is a view that the history of development was a history of technology's failure.''

The report ranked 174 countries based on income, education, life expectancy and health care, awarding Norway the world's highest standard of living.

``This is a recognition that our government combines a good welfare system for all people with a dynamic economy,'' Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stolenberg said.

``With a good welfare state you have people who are willing to take risks they can't take elsewhere,'' Stolenberg said. ``You have well-educated people with good health who are more productive and create a more dynamic economy.''

Stolenberg's country was followed in the rankings by Australia and Canada, the latter having topped the report six years in a row.

African nations made up 29 of the report's 36 worst performers, with war-ravaged Sierra Leone lodged at rock bottom for the second-straight year. A baby born in Sierra Leone today will likely die before it turns 39, compared to Norway's life expectancy of 79.

The United States slipped from third to sixth in this year's report. Ranked at 134, Haiti was the Americas' least-developed nation.

At last year's unprecedented U.N. Millennium Summit, countries pledged to reduce mortality rates for children under 5 by two-thirds, cut poverty in half, and reduce the percentage of their citizens living without drinking water by 50 percent, all by 2015.

But without the aid of new technology, most of the world has no chance of meeting those goals, according to the report, which notes that 30,000 children under age 5 die worldwide of preventable causes everyday, almost 1 billion people live without safe drinking water, and 1.2 billion people are still forced to survive on less than $1 per day.

Canada braces for frenzied growth of organic food: U.S. outlets expand

July 6
Financial Post

After decades of having to seek out specialty stores or growers to meet their needs, Canadian consumers who want to buy organically grown food are about to enjoy a feast of choices.

Natural foods have been the fastest-growing category in U.S. supermarkets during the past decade, expanding at a rate of 20% a year into a US$8-billion business, and a similar explosion is set to erupt in Canada over the next two years.

Whole Foods Market Inc., the Texas-based company that has built itself into the leading natural food supermarket in the United States, will jump into the Canadian market with a store in Toronto this fall and plans to open as many as 10 of its large-scale outlets coast to coast in Canada over the next few years.

Colorado-based Wild Oats Markets Inc., the number two player in the United States, already has four outlets operating under the Capers banner in British Columbia and is scouting locations in Toronto and Calgary.

Lucrative as the Canadian market may appear, the U.S. chains won't find they can scoop it up without a fight. That's because Canada's major grocery chains -- Sobeys, A&P, Safeway and Loblaw Cos. -- have already smelled what's cooking on the organic food front and have been rapidly stocking up on a widening assortment of natural foods.

Loblaw, the country's biggest supermarket chain, is so keen on organics that it has created a separate private label for them. President's Choice Organics was launched late last year and sells about 25 products, including coffee, cooking oil, cereals and condiments.

Loblaw plans expand it to 200 offerings by the end of this year. In addition, all new Loblaw stores will be built with Natural Foods sections, which occupy about three to four half-aisles.

There is a segment of healthier eating and healthier lifestyle that is growing in Canada, and there is increased demand for these types of products, said spokesman Geoff Wilson, who would not reveal specific sales figures.

Loblaw has carefully monitored the strategy of Whole Foods --which stocks both organic and traditional fare free of additives and chemicals -- retail experts say. Customers say they never have to visit traditional supermarkets because Whole Foods sells all of the additional household items they need.

Like Loblaw, Whole Foods has its own private label, 365, which consumers find appealing because it comes with a lower price tag. And like Whole Foods, Loblaw has hired natural foods experts to staff its aisles, educating consumers about the products and helping them make choices.

Loblaw has been watching this market for a long time, said John Williams, a retail consultant with J.C. Williams Group of Toronto. If you look at the (most recent) Loblaws Insider Report, it's just amazing the emphasis the company is placing on organic or whole foods.

Roy Kingsmith, marketing director at Yves Veggie Cuisine Inc., Canada's biggest producer of soy-based meat alternatives such as veggie bologna, says 10 years ago 80% of the company's customers were vegan or vegetarian. As Yves' business grew, that number has shrunk to 4%.

Clearly, these are mainstream consumers looking for healthy alternatives, Mr. Kingsmith said.

While Whole Foods and Wild Oats surely pose a threat to smaller, independent health food stores, all of them could face more formidable competition from Canada's traditional supermarket giants, Mr. Kingsmith said.

Regular grocery stores are on top of it. They are building their own store-within-a-store concept to try to keep the Whole Foods customers to themselves.

Both Mr. Williams and Mr. Kingsmith believe the trend toward natural eating has been spurred by a growing desire among consumers to improve their eating habits, particularly as the population ages.

At the same time, fears about genetically modified foods are on the rise. NPD Group Canada, a market research firm, said 85% of the consumers polled in a recent survey want products free of genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such.

Though more consumers appear to want organic foods, they still have far to go to be sure of what they're getting. The Canadian government has created a standard for what can be called organic food. It says such products must be free of genetically engineered or modified organisms and must not be preserved through ionizing radiation.

But there is no official certification body in Canada that polices the labeling of foods as organic -- and the Canadian standard is voluntary.

There are several groups across Canada that inspect organic farms and some are seeking to qualify as certifying agencies, but not all of them are defining organic in the same way. The Canadian General Standards Board is currently in talks to establish a national standard for the label GMO-free.

Kash n' Karry and Food Lion ask Wise Foods Inc. to investigate FDA findings

July 5
Delhaize Group press release

Salisbury, N.C. -- Kash n' Karry and Food Lion have asked the manufacturer of their private label 11 oz. white corn chips to start an investigation after the Food and Drug Administration found traces of a genetically-altered strain of corn called Starlink in the product made by Wise Foods Inc.

The FDA conducted the tests at the request of a shopper who purchased an 11 oz. bag of white corn tortilla chips in Florida. Although the FDA did not require it, Kash n' Karry withdrew the 11 oz. white corn tortilla chips as a precautionary measure on June 26, when it was made aware of the FDA test results. Sister company Food Lion, which is also supplied an 11 oz. white corn tortilla chip by Wise, withdrew the product from its stores as well. Both companies are withdrawing the 11 oz. product indefinitely pending results from Wise's internal investigation.

Both retailers also offer an 8 oz. size white corn tortilla chip. However, it is made by another manufacturer, and it is not involved in the withdrawal.

``On behalf of shoppers, we have asked Wise Foods to look into the FDA's test results,'' said James Ball, food safety and quality director for the companies.

Customers may direct their questions to Wise's toll-free customer help- line, 1- 800- 426-7336.

Tampa, Fla.-based Kash n' Karry operates more than 140 stores in West and Central Florida. Salisbury, N.C.-based Food Lion operates more than 1,100 stores throughout the Southeast. Both companies are divisions of Delhaize America, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delhaize Group

China says will tread carefully on GMO imports

July 5
Reuters

Beijing -- China will cautiously allow imports of genetically modified products as long as they conform to new rules announced in early June, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.

"The government holds a cautious attitude on application of genetically-modified products ...but we did not say it could not be imported," Tang Zhengping, director-general of the international cooperation department, told Reuters late on Wednesday.

He declined to comment on whether the new regulations would limit imports, but said firms would be allowed to import as long as they conformed with the regulations.

"The only difference is the need for importers to label whether the products are GMO or not," Tang said.

The market has been puzzled about implementation of the GMO rules, announced in June and effective immediately, which range from  research and production to food processing and labeling.

They include production field tests required by seed growers, the need for state approval of applications for bio-engineered crops, which could take up to 270 days.

Confusion over the new regulations has sapped importers' appetite for foreign soybeans with few deals sealed since the announcement, traders said.

Cargoes contracted before the announcement were approved for import and exempted from the rules, which require a certificate that the GM products are not harmful for human beings, animals or the environment, traders and analysts have said.

Monsanto France weighs action after GM crop attack

July 3
Reuters

Paris -- Monsanto Co's French subsidiary is considering legal action following the destruction of a gene-modified (GM) maize test field just days after the farm ministry published a list of all GM crop trials in France. 

Monsanto Agriculture France said in a statement on Tuesday it may file a lawsuit against as-yet unnamed parties and urged greater protection of GM crop trials following the latest incident in southwest France. 

The trial involved maize engineered to resist Monsanto's Roundup herbicide and had been authorized under French and European Union laws, the company said.

Monsanto said the attack came shortly after the farm ministry last week published a list of all GM crop trials in France, following a court decision earlier this year ordering the government to do so for the sake of greater transparency.

The farm ministry did not publish the exact location of the sites but listed the towns near where they were located.

``Unfortunately, the facts of last week showed that the transparency desired by some is quickly exploited by others in order to satisfy...opposition behavior that is blind and illegal,'' the company said in a statement. 

Opponents of bio-engineered foods have destroyed dozens of GM crop trials across Europe, citing the threat of possible long-term damage to the environment.

Farmers plant 18% more land with genetically modified seed

July 2
Wall Street Journal

U.S. farmers, resuming their stampede into crop biotechnology, used genetically modified seed to plant 82.3 million acres this spring, 18% more than last year, according to a government survey.

The size of the jump is surprising to Wall Street analysts and even to crop biotech firms. The debate over the safety of insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant soybean, corn and cotton plants was widely expected to discourage a lot of farmers from greatly expanding their use of seeds containing a transplanted gene or two.

Guided by spring surveys of farmers by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and others, the agriculture industry had expected overall sales of transgenic seed to grow a modest 10% this year.

"This is a really positive result, given all the noise of late," said Richard L. McConnell, president of DuPont Co.'s crop biotechnology unit, Pioneer Hi-Bred International.

The crop biotech boom that started in 1996 suddenly stalled in late 1999. The renewed sales growth will help companies such as DuPont begin to recoup the billions of dollars spent on research.

According to a June survey of farmers released Friday by the USDA, 68% of all the soybeans planted in the U.S. this spring contained a Monsanto Co. gene, compared with 54% of the soybeans planted last year. Soybeans, the nation's second-biggest crop, are used to make everything from vegetarian entrees to baby food and cooking oil.

The gene, transplanted from a micro-organism, gives the plant immunity to Monsanto's all-purpose herbicide Roundup. The seed, called Roundup Ready, is popular with farmers because it allows them to chemically weed their soybeans without damaging their crops.

At some grain elevators in certain markets, however, genetically modified corn and soybean yield a lower price than do conventional crops. 

Monsanto, a St. Louis company that is 85%-owned by Pharmacia Corp., Peapack, N.J., sells the seed to farmers and licenses rivals to use the gene. According to the USDA's June survey, U.S. farmers planted Roundup Ready soybean seed on 51.3 million acres this spring, up 27.5% from the 40.2 million acres planted last year.

The U.S. cotton industry also is switching to transgenic plants. According to the latest USDA survey, cotton farmers planted genetically modified seed on 11.2 million acres this year, 69% of total cotton acreage and 18% more acres than last year.

According to the USDA survey, U.S. corn farmers planted genetically modified seeds on 19.8 million acres this spring, just 26% of total corn acreage, and essentially flat compared with last year.

The biotech industry has yet to introduce a plant that appeals to farmers all across the corn belt. Roundup Ready corn is stymied because the European Union, a major customer of U.S. farmers and food companies, hasn't approved it for human consumption.

Many corn farmers were made leery of biotechnology by the debacle last year with Aventis SA's line of pest-resistant corn, which is called StarLink.

The crop was approved only for feeding to U.S. livestock, yet it leaked into hundreds of food products and sparked huge recalls.