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Grower survey shows farmers report planting six percent fewer acres to GMO corn varieties in 2001 compared to 2000

77 percent believe U.S. consumer and foreign customer concerns are important

July 16
American Corn Growers Association press release

Completing their third Annual Farmer Survey on the issue of genetically modified (GMO) crops, the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) found that producers reported planting 6 percent fewer acres to GMO corn varieties in 2001 than in 2000. The survey, conducted by Robinson and Muenster Associates, Inc. of Sioux Falls, S.D., polled 509 farmers in fourteen states from June 14 to June 23. The farmers surveyed reported planting 526,118 total acres to corn in 2001. The random, scientific survey has a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent. Using the June USDA-NASS planted corn acreage reported for the fourteen states, the survey estimates that farmers in those major corn growing states, which represent 88 percent of total U.S. corn acreage, planted 21 percent of their total corn acreage to GMO corn varieties in 2001.

``Of the growers surveyed, 77 percent feel that consumer and foreign market concerns about GMOs are very or somewhat important and 78 percent said they are willing to plant traditional, non-GMO corn varieties instead of biotech GMO varieties in order to keep world markets open to U.S. corn,'' said Larry Mitchell, CEO of the ACGA. ``Farmers believe 'the customer is always right,' a pretty basic marketing premise for being successful in business and keep customers for the future.''

``Our analysis revealed that 73.7 percent of the farmers in the survey believe customer rejection of GMOs contributes to the ongoing low commodity prices received by corn growers and 56 percent believe Congress should require the labeling of foods and export cargoes to show GMO levels,'' said Dan McGuire, ACGA Policy Committee Chairman. ``It appears that farmers are responding to concerns about the impact that GMO varieties are having on export markets like Japan, South Korea and Europe.''

``Corn producers have seen recent news reports that the Korean Corn Processing Association (KOCOPIA) is requesting international trading houses to replace U.S. corn with non-U.S. sources of corn and will indefinitely exclude the U.S. as an optional origin at future tender purchases,'' added McGuire. This survey reaffirms the fact that the American farmer understands the importance of providing customers the products they demand. Of the farmers surveyed, 56 percent are tuned in to the reality that our export competitors are using non-GMO marketing initiatives.``

Survey Results:

Question -- On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the most important and 5 being the lest important, how important is it for you, as a farmer, to take the concerns of U.S. customers and foreign markets into consideration, when you decide to plant GMOs?

50.5% - Very Important

26.9% - Somewhat Important

13.2% - Neither Important Nor Not Important At All

4.5% - Somewhat Not Important At All

4.9% - Not Important At All

Question -- If keeping your customers satisfied and keeping world markets open to U.S. corn means not planting GMO corn varieties, are you willing to do that?

77.8% - Yes

15.9% - No

6.3% - Don't Know or Refused To Answer

Question -- Should the U.S. Congress require labeling as a marketing strategy and sales tool to instill consumer confidence and promote global markets for U.S. corn?

55.6% - Yes

30.6% - No

13.8% - Don't Know or Refused To Answer

Biotech conference urges adoption of international law on GM food

July 13
Agence France Presse

Delegates at the forum, sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the British government, said that despite its faults the protocol was crucial to the development of the controversial technology.

"There was a feeling among many of the participants that countries should sign and ratify the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol as soon as possible," said conference chair Lord John Selbourne.

The protocol is the first international law governing the international trade and movement of transgenic or genetically modified (GM) foods and crops.

So far, at least 100 countries have signed the document, but only five have gone on to ratify it, a step which must be taken before the measures can be implemented.

The law is especially important for developing countries, said Chee Yoke Ling of the Malaysia based non-governmental group Third World Network.

"It took a lot of work (to negotiate this protocol). There was so much resistance to regulation from developed countries," he said.

"Even though it is not the best, for the first time we have an international law that recognizes that GMOs (genetically modified organisms) raise safety and environmental concerns that require a separate regulatory system."

The protocol was intensely negotiated over several years before countries were able to come up with a formulation they could all agree upon.

The United States, Canada and Argentina wanted very little regulation of the trade in GM crops and seeds, but developing countries preferred strict regulation to protect their environments, farmers and biological diversity.

European countries pushed for labeling and information of transgenic crops, to appease consumer groups in their countries.

Compromises were eventually made on all sides, and many observers from developing countries feel the protocol has been watered down. Jan van Aken of Greenpeace International told the forum that because genetically modified crops can reproduce themselves, they are not like other crops or products that are traded internationally. "Irreversibility distinguishes the release of GMO's from other technologies. Once they are in the environment, they can not be recalled," he said. Van Aken said the protocol could help prevent environmental problems because it is "an important tool to allow countries to make their own decisions about the import of genetically modified crop." Under World Trade Organization rules, a country banning the import of genetically modified crops could be seen as using discriminatory trade practices, not allowed by the powerful international organization. But the biosafety protocol allows countries to outlaw the import of such foods and crops based on risks to human health, food safety or the environment. Alexander Golikov, director of the Russian Federation's Biotechnology Information Center, said he was strongly in favor of the protocol but warned against early ratification. "Urging the immediate ratification of the protocol is no good, because many countries still have to take the first step of adjusting their own national legislation to be in line with e protocol before they n ratify it," he said.

Even after ratification, giving the law some teeth may still be difficult, especially in developing countries that lack expert scientists and regulators.

"It will be critical that a country have the capacity in these areas in order to implement the protocol," said Gabrielle Persley of the International Council of Scientific Unions.

Seeds of wrath: Silencing debate on biotech foods

July 13
LA Weekly

"You'll Be Sorry"

-Sign held by demonstrator in front of Starbucks, which is now partnered with Monsanto and other companies in developing a genetically engineered coffee.

"Can we take a ride?" Han Shan, Ruckus Society organizer and spokesman for an anti-biotech protest action called BioJustice, looks tense. He leans in the door of a frenetic activist house in San Diego, motioning me outside. As we walk to my car, he says, "We just got a report that the cops are amassing right around the corner and may be preparing for a sweep. Do you have a camera?"

Being an activist has really taken an Orwellian turn in the age of globalization and anti-globalization. The New York Times' Thomas Friedman (author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree) may have called globalization "the next great foreign-policy debate," but, increasingly, the terms of these critical debates are being set not by the public but by corporate security: the police. To be fair, the police haven't done as much to create this situation as have the industries that are leaning on them - in this case, San Diego's Bio2001, the annual conference of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). 

Bio2001 is only the latest example of a bad trend: Because of industry power, discussions vital to a global citizenry - about, for instance, public control of genetic manipulation and the patenting of life itself - are being pushed out into the streets. Where angry people are getting increasingly confrontational. Where increasing militarization of the police response is systematically shutting down dissent. Where no debate is really happening at all.

In San Diego, like Quebec and other recent globalization flashpoints, exercising your right to free speech now automatically comes with a sort of packaged counterintelligence response. This includes surveillance, tailing, nuisance ticketing and vehicle hassles, interfering with employers and landlords, videotaping, permit rigging, kidnapping, undercover police Black Blocs (too bad it's not funny, because it sorta is) - and, above all, militaristic overkill, including water cannons, armored vehicles and (as we recently saw in peace-loving Sweden) live ammo. In saying No More Seattles, police everywhere have found a whole new mandate, and since militarization has proved extremely effective in deflecting attention from globalization issues themselves, it's bound to increase.

Fifteen thousand executives from the booming biotech sector showed up in San Diego last month, the world's largest biotech gathering. When they gathered last year in Boston, they were met by a street carnival of 2,500 demonstrators. This year, in the wake of massive anti-globalization protests worldwide, police expected anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 protesters. But when only 1,000 people showed up for a completely peaceful, high-energy march on June 24, no one had to ask why.

The city made no effort to hide its intention of squeezing BioJustice until it went away. Interviewed about the numbers of expected demonstrators, San Diego Police Chief Dave Bejarano crowed, "At this point, I don't think we're going to see more than 500 - a thousand would be tops - which is good news."

According to department spokesman Dave Cohen, the San Diego P.D. spent about $3 million in "hard costs" - overtime, new equipment, etc. - but that doesn't include the Harbor Patrol (which monitored rowboating protesters calling themselves BioJustice Buccaneers), the Sheriff's Department or police departments from neighboring cities. Only 20 arrests were made, none of them violent.

"They've had this town locked down for months," says Shan as we drive a few blocks to Balboa Park golf course. "Police here have been meeting with business owners and spreading a culture of fear. We have gone to extremes to make sure this has gone smoothly. We met with [the police]. We met with a mediation team from the City Council. We have been transparent in our procedures and trainings and teach-ins, and the first principle of anyone wanting to work under the banner of BioJustice was a commitment to nonviolence. The march was perfectly peacful, not one incident."

We pull over near a water-district building on Pershing. Below us, in the parking lot, about 50 officers in full riot gear run through drills in front of half a dozen paddy wagons, yelling, "Hup! Hup! Hup!" Two officers in front cover the drill with shotguns.

"Shit," says Shan, grabbing a camera and clicking away. The cops stop drilling and look at us. It's difficult to tell whether what we're looking at is a staging area for an impending bust or a drill. Either way, says Steph Sherer, the police-and-media liaison for BioJustice (whose house is also headquarters), it's a display of intimidation.

"BioJustice formally asked BIO to a debate," says Sherer. "The executive director of BIO called me back â and said we didn't 'deserve' a debate. 

That we were wasting his time. And he asked me who I thought I was, saying, 'You are a bunch of hooligans, I don't need to call you back.'"

"They know we'd wipe the floor with them," says Shan, agitated.

"This is just what I need," said Sherer, weary and hoarse from a week of press conferences. "We get to the end of this thing, then they sweep my house."

The problem with this exchange is that no debate happened. While hippie-hating San Diegans were distracted by the need to protect their city from what one TV reporter kept cryptically calling the "radical 5 percent" of protesters - the 5 percent who evidently never showed up - the biotech industry went right on policing itself on the critical issues at hand. 

Demonstrators' concerns about biotech are as diverse and universal as DNA itself, including ethical and scientific challenges to cloning, stem-cell research, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Genetic Engineering (GE); the possibility of mutation or the development of new pathogens; the lack of response to safety issues, and the increasingly disturbing issue of gene patents, among others.

No problem, we have the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect us, right? Well, that's not clear. And that's the problem. Despite poll after poll indicating that U.S. consumers want labeling for "Frankenfoods" - the activist term for GE products - no such labeling law has ever made it past the FDA. (In a recent informal ABC News poll, 93 percent favored labeling.) That should be a basic protection. Labeling is the law of the land in Europe, Japan and other civilized countries. It's hard not to feel a bit cynical about this when Bush starts loading these agencies with industry-friendly appointees. Linda Fisher, for example, who is now the deputy administrator of the EPA, was formerly a vice president with biotech megafirm Monsanto's D.C. lobbying office for five years. 

This is why people are in the street: no public advocacy.

"Corporations - the executives and investors and lawyers and PR people - are making decisions that affect the future of all life on Earth," says Brian Tokar, faculty member at the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont and editor of Redesigning Life?, a collection of essays challenging genetic engineering to be released next week. "Those decisions need to be made in the public sphere, not behind closed doors, in corporate boardrooms and at high-priced business conventions."

"What we're doing is new, and it raises a lot of questions," says Dan Eramian, V.P. of communications for BIO. "Genetic discrimination. Germ line therapy - meaning you can change a person's gene structure in the embryo. 

These are really serious questions. People want to protest this? They have a right to protest."

Activists all weekend long pointed out that, despite good intentions on the part of some scientists, most of the altruistic claims of biotech have been shot down: Biotech doesn't grow more food. Doesn't feed more people. Has not increased the nutritional value of foods. Isn't the darling of the Third World. (In fact, most developing nations are formulating GE screening guidelines now, and some, such as tiny Sri Lanka, have banned such foods outright.) Biotech products have become a liability in world markets and thus in the stock market.

I cannot frame the resulting problem any better than author, ag expert and MIT scholar Frances Moore Lappé, who chastised the biotech industry in the op-ed pages of the June 27 L.A. Times: "Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy."

GMOs? You're soaking in them. You've been eating them for years, in a majority of processed foods and even in places you think are all green and friendly. Like Trader Joe's (Greenpeace tested a sampling of its products and found GE ingredients in the corn-bread mix. Sorry.) Gerber baby food recently announced it would stop using them. The 1999 StarLink corn debacle opened everyone's eyes to the problem, when an Aventis CropScience variety approved only for livestock feed (because of potential allergic reactions in humans) turned up in corn dogs, Kraft's Taco Bell taco shells, Kellogg's Corn Flakes and then 300 other processed foods. Subsequently, the U.S. corn industry saw exports decline as much as 90 percent to some countries.

Ironically, the biotech biz uses that as an excuse to go on doing it - the genie's already out of the bottle, it says. But only in the U.S. And it's not too late to put it back in. 

It's not hard to see why big companies are pushing so hard to globalize: Right now, the only barriers against the spread of GMOs are national borders.

A global system of patent enforcement is a major agenda item of what globalization chronicler Robert Kaplan has called the "dense ganglia" of international trade agreements and institutions such as the World Trade Organization. Then megacorps could just go ahead and sue the hell out of the rest of the world for: 1) using their GMOs, or 2) slandering their GMOs by refusing to use them. In fact, this is already happening. As the case of Monsanto vs. Schmeiser has shown, it doesn't even matter if anyone knows the patented gene exists.

Percy Schmeiser's story is well-known, but is the one of the best-developed examples of just how GMOs and patents are changing the global gene pool - and the relationship between corporations and everyone else. The 75-year-old Schmeiser has farmed for most of his working life in Bruno, Saskatchewan. He also served as mayor of Bruno from 1966 to 1983 and in the provincial Legislature from 1967 to 1971. He grows canola, an increasingly popular oil seed formerly known as rapeseed. Like many farmers, Schmeiser prides himself on reseeding from his own canola stock every year; over 40 years, he has essentially developed his own personal seed bank. That seed bank was his guarantee of the quality of his crop - that is, until Monsanto tested his crop and claimed ownership of it.

In the 1990s, Monsanto developed a variety of canola that could  survive treatment with its ultrapopular herbicide Roundup. This  Roundup-Ready (RR) canola was planted on fields adjacent to Schmeiser's and, according to Monsanto's gene sleuths, turned up in a portion of his fields in 1997. 

Monsanto filed a $400,000 lawsuit against Schmeiser for using its seed. Schmeiser had never planted it. He said it was the product of wind-borne cross-pollination. He then filed suit charging that Monsanto had deliberately contaminated his crop with "genetic pollution." 

Predictably, in March 2001, Judge Andrew MacKay ruled in favor of Monsanto in the first case, saying that Schmeiser had infringed upon its copyright. 

He made it clear that how the RR canola got there didn't matter, saying, "The source of the Roundup-resistant canola . . . is really not significant for the resolution of the issue of infringement." Schmeiser's pollution suit has yet to come to trial.

The ramifications of this decision, should it hold up on appeal, are immense. Rapidly conglomerating seed companies (Monsanto owns many of the world's biggest right now) would have no trouble at all literally dominating the global food supply. Simply plant your untested, possibly genetically harmful new variety and let nature take its course. If it's really superpotent, perhaps it will displace all other varieties and become the world's dominant variety. It can't be undone. Then, in a few seasons, send everyone a bill.

Schmeiser sums it up (on his Web site) this way: "If I would go to St. Louis and contaminate their [Monsanto's] plots - destroy what they have worked on for 40 years - I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away."

In the absence of any meaningful public debate about the merits of GE anything, the first line of resistance to this technology has become farmers and consumers. Wheat farmers in Idaho and Washington,  citing fears that they'd be blackballed by foreign markets just like U.S. corn growers, recently pledged to grow no GE wheat. Monsanto (weird how often you read that name, eh?) recently pulled its genetically engineered potato off the market after the two largest potato growers and distributors in North America, J.R. Simplot, which supplies McDonald's, and Canadian French-fry giant McCain Foods, refused to use them, saying it's their policy to accept no GMO potatoes. Such actions are becoming more common. If people don't buy them, there's no incentive for biotech to invent them.

But will those farmers and consumers be allowed to organize and meet the biotech industry as anything but end users? At this point, it's not looking too likely. It's simply too convenient for international trade organizations and industry groups to bully their way into the market and blame any resulting scuffle on anarchists and the police. Leaving BIO, for instance, to hold internal debates over bioethics within the ranks of its own members, according to BIO spokesman Eramian. As the GE fox watches over the increasingly GE henhouse, most of the kids in the street are watching the detectives.

"Let me put it this way," says Biojustice campaigner Sarah Seeds. "There were three Black Blocs marching on Sunday, and two of them were comprised entirely of undercover police."

Perhaps, muses Ruckus co-founder and Greenpeace campaigner Mike Roselle, before the public can turn its attention to the actual issues, the movement will simply need to achieve some kind of ritualized stasis with the police.

"I was watching some Korean protests on TV recently," he said, attending a June Ruckus camp outside San Diego where Biojustice campaigners were trained. "It looks super-gnarly, but afterward the thousands of people go home and there are like six arrests and two minor injuries. It's become this sort of ritualized confrontation. Maybe this is where this movement is heading. Maybe this is the new nonviolence."

In the meantime, democracy as practiced by biotech has its own special flavor. It tastes like chicken.

For more information on genetically engineered foods, GMOs, food-safety protocol or patent developments, see Greenpeace, Pure Food Campaign, and the Los Angeles Independent Media Center.

Monsanto plans genetically modified wheat in five years

July 13
CBC

FREDERICTON -- Modified wheat is coming, whether Canadian farmers want it or not, says an executive of international food giant Monsanto.

"We need to make sure in Western Canada that we make some significant changes in wheat over the long term that will help farmers improve productivity and improve profitability," he said.

GM soybeans, corn and canola have been effective tools for farmers over the past years.

But wheat farmers are reluctant to embrace the technology – or to contemplate putting it in the ground.

One reason is that the largest market for Canadian wheat is Europe, where GM foods are not allowed.

"Certainly most people have read the news and heard that Europe does not want any (genetically modified organisms) at all," said Jerry Kubik, a wheat farmer from Wrentham, Alberta.

And Edmund Lesfrund, whose wheat farm is in Vulcan, Alberta, said the technology can't be trusted.

"There is the morbid fear that science may fail us," he said. "Wheat is far too close to people's well-being to have a gamble."

Monsanto hopes to change some of those minds before it introduces its seed in half a decade.