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Taco Bell franchises to get $60 million

June 8
Reuters

Louisville, Ky. -- Tricon Global Restaurants Inc. on Friday said its U.S. Taco Bell restaurant franchisees would receive $60 million for lost business resulting from confusion over genetically modified corn in taco shells.

Tricon, the world's No. 2 fast food chain, said that FRANMAC, an association representing the franchisees, and Tricon reached an agreement under which the suppliers of its taco shells would pay the $60 million to the franchisees. The payment will help the franchisees partially offset lost business.

Tricon has said that Taco Bell restaurants lost business amid consumer concern after taco shells containing genetically modified StarLink corn were removed from store shelves. The shells, made by Kraft Foods Inc., were sold under the Taco Bell name. But those shells were not the same as those used at Taco Bell restaurants. Kraft is a unit of Philip Morris Cos Inc.

As part of their agreement, FRANMAC, Tricon and the taco shell suppliers will join together to seek damages from those responsible for the introduction of StarLink corn into the U.S. supply chain, the company said.

The company also reaffirmed its expectations for the second quarter and full-year.

Shell suppliers give $60M to Taco Bell

June 8
AP

Louisville, Ky. -- Taco Bell franchise owners will receive $60 million from taco shell suppliers to help recoup losses from a massive recall in response to a genetically altered corn scare last year.

Under the deal announced Friday, Taco Bell parent Tricon Global Restaurants will join its suppliers in seeking damages from the companies who introduced the bioengineered corn into the U.S. food supply.

The corn, called StarLink, was produced by North Carolina-based Aventis CropScience. It was approved only for animal feed because of unanswered questions about the potential to cause allergic reactions in humans.

In September, Kraft Foods recalled millions of packages of taco shells sold in stores under the Taco Bell name after tests showed that some contained the Aventis variety. Taco Bell temporarily switched to white corn in its restaurants as a precaution.

Since the recall, Aventis has agreed to pay between $100 million and $1 billion in compensation to grain farmers throughout the country. The company canceled its license to sell StarLink in October.

In March, the federal officials said there was little, if any, health risk from StarLink corn.

Amy Sherwood, a Tricon spokeswoman, would not identify the company's taco shell suppliers.

Taco Bell said the $60 million will help franchise owners recover lost sales from the recall, according to a statement Friday from Tricon, which also owns KFC and Pizza Hut. Louisville-based Tricon owns and operates about 20 percent of the nation's Taco Bell restaurants, but the statement said it would not share in the $60 million payment, ``so that the vast majority of the funds will directly benefit its franchisee partners.''

Belgium plans EU biotech food push

June 7
Reuters

Belgian Farm Minister Jaak Gabriels said on Thursday agriculture needed to embrace biotechnology and promised to promote the issue during the Belgian presidency of the European Union.

Gabriels, who for six months from July will chair the monthly EU farm ministers meetings, said he would devote an informal ministerial meeting to biotechnology in September.

``I think that an economic sector like agriculture has to be sustainable and competitive and should therefore be open to new technologies,'' he said at the launch of CropLife International, a new marketing arm for the biotechnology industry.

The EU has been much more resistant to genetically modified (GM) crops than the United States because of public concerns over their impact on health and the environment.

The EU has not approved any new GM crops since 1998. In June 1999, a majority of environment ministers informally agreed to block further approvals until legislation was revised.

EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner David Byrne has made moves to revamp EU rules on biotechnology and to restore public confidence through increased traceability and labeling.

But in February, France, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Austria and Luxemburg attached conditions to the new rules, which have effectively maintained the moratorium.

RESTARTING EU APPROVALS

Gabriels said he wanted to use the September meeting to kick-start the GM authorization process.

``I want to give this technology the chance to be applied in Europe as well.''

Referring to organic farming, which EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler is keen to promote in the interests of small farmers, Gabriels said 100 percent organic production was not a solution because it could lead to a lack of supply.

Hendrick Verfaillie, chief executive officer of U.S. biotechnology giant Monsanto applauded Gabriels.

``I appreciate his balance and also his commitment and courage to take a leadership on this issue which is very controversial in the EU,'' Verfaillie told the meeting.

``I am very encouraged not only by what Jaak Gabriels said and also by the efforts Commissioner David Byrne is undertaking in making sure regulations are in place for sustainable farming and labeling rules,'' he said.

Michael Pragnell, vice-president of CropLife International and former chief executive of Zeneca Agrochemicals, which then became part of Syngenta , said he had never heard an agriculture minister address consumers so clearly on the issue.

He welcomed Europe's planned new Food Safety Authority but emphasized the need for it to be free from political bias.

``The best way to ensure public trust is for it to have a legal mandate,'' Pragnell said.

Debate over GM beer in Canada comes to a head

June 5
Globe and Mail

A strange brouhaha has erupted over whether Canada's beer contains genetically modified organisms -- and whether the country's food watchdog has certified one brewer's product as GMO-free.

In almost 200 billboards that have gone up across Quebec in the past week, brewer Unibroue Inc. says its beer is free of modified crops. For proof, it points to a government food inspector's signature on an export document that describes the beer that way.

The federal food agency says Unibroue's assertion is nonsense, given that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is not in the business of determining whether foods derived from gene-splicing science are in commercial products.

What's beyond dispute about Unibroue beer, critics say, is that it points to the need for a GMO-labelling system. That way Canadians, like people in many other countries, would know if the things they consume have significant amounts of genetically modified food.

"The government's been caught with their pants down again," Greenpeace Canada's Michael Khoo said, arguing that whether it's beer or French fries or anything else, Canadians want to know what's in their food.

Around the world, the debate is raging over whether genetically modified foods are safe to be grown and consumed. No public-health catastrophes have emerged.

While Unibroue is making a point of saying its product is GMO-free, there's little evidence to show that Canada's beers contain altered foods. In fact, neither Unibroue nor the CFIA nor the Brewers Association of Canada could cite one example yesterday of a beer that contains GMOs. Then again, no one could definitively say Canadian beer is free of modified foods.

"We won't go into that kind of business, as to whether there are or there aren't," Jean-Pierre Robert, Montreal regional director of the CFIA, said.

The agency doesn't regulate the quantities of modified foods in products on grocery shelves, but it does say which GMO crops can be grown and sold in Canada.

Genetically modified hops and barley are not approved here. However, forms of corn are. Unibroue president André Dion said his brewery uses corn, but only imported from France; he can't be sure corn here is GMO-free.

The GMO-free claim is especially important, Mr. Dion said, because Unibroue exports 15 per cent of its beer, mostly to Europe, where concern about GMOs is much higher.

Seeds of discontent

Farmers - and the public - may soon learn there's no turning back on genetically modified foods as the hemisphere hurtles toward another ill-considered trade pact 

June 3
Maine Sunday Telegram column by Nancy Allen 

As George W. Bush took the reins of power in Washington, perennial political hopeful Steve Forbes predicted that "we're going to get as much as we can as fast as we can." With the coming vote in Congress on so-called "fast track" trade rules (or Trade Promotion Authority, as the Bush people call it), Forbes' boast appears to be on target. This is especially true when we consider the link between promotion of genetically engineered foods and the passage of trade deals.   Back in 1992 only a few people, mostly connected to Ralph Nader and the Green Party, saw what these trade deals really meant for our food supply, for farmers, for workers and for the environment. Most people are simply unaware that trade deals, along with World Trade Organization (WTO) decision making, could override local, state and even national laws. 

On April 5, the Wall Street Journal published a study on genetically modified foods (GMOs) almost ignored in the rest of the media. Twenty food products labeled "non-GMO" or "GMO-free" were tested on behalf of the Journal by a prominent food laboratory. Of the 20, 16 contained evidence of genetic material used to modify plants.  

At about the same time, a telephone poll conducted by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 75 percent of U.S. respondents say they wanted to know if their food contained GMO ingredients. And 58 percent opposed such ingredients. The public clearly mistrusts genetic manipulation of food. That concern is not unfounded.  

According to the Wall Street Journal study, "the problem, regulators say, is that some genetically modified crops - which have been designed to resist disease, pests and chemicals - can cross-pollinate freely with regular crops, passing along their altered traits to the next generation".

Perhaps this contamination of our food is more than just an accident.  

"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded [with genetically engineered  organisms] that there's nothing you can do about it. You just sort of surrender", food industry consultant Don Westfall is quoted as saying in the Toronto Star earlier this year. Westfall, who supports the development of genetically modified foods, is vice-president of Promar International, a consulting company based in a Washington, D.C. suburb. 

The problem exists because government regulators badly underestimated the situation. To me, this is more than just a "problem". It is an unmitigated disaster, especially for farmers trying to sell crops in an increasingly globalized marketplace. Many countries will not import genetically modified food from the United States. Farmers become victims of international trade promotion sanctioned by a U.S. Congress that appears willing to subvert laws of national governments to those of an un-elected, unaccountable international trade organization. 

In a newsletter sent to county organizations in April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked farmers to "check corn seed." The newsletter warned: "StarLink is the trade name for corn genetically modified to be pest resistant by producing a protein called Cry9C. USDA is recommending that farmers not plant any corn unless they are certain that the seed has been tested and found to be free of this protein. Farmers should ask seed companies to verify the seed corn has been tested to ensure their corn does not contain the Cry9C protein." 

The warning comes too late. StarLink, the genetically altered corn approved only for animal feed and planted on less than 1 percent of U.S. corn acres in 2000, has been found in corn meant for human consumption. It is now widespread in human food and in this years' seed corn. 

Last month, four scientists in Canada submitted a report to the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee saying the human food supply is in danger of being contaminated by genetically modified crops. The Boston Globe reported on May 17 that StarLink corn "has turned up in nearly one out of four grain samples undergoing the government's most stringent tests, a far higher number than previously reported and another sign of the chaos the corn's presence has caused." 

The contamination is ongoing, not only because of cross-pollination but also because of product mixing in grain elevators, barges and combines. 

Involved federal agencies haven't the faintest idea what to do other than to ask farmers to get their seed companies to certify the seed they plant this year is GMO free! This is no solution; this is passing the buck to the blameless farmer for any liability caused by StarLink contamination. 

In a May 8 letter to me regarding what I should do about my corn seed for this year, EPA official, Jay Ellenberger, in the Office of Pesticide Programs wrote, "We recommend that you verify from the seed company before your purchase that it has tested for the StarLink protein using USDA-certified test kits and it has subsequently determined that no StarLink protein is present in its product." 

The answer I got from my own corn seed company was that seed testing for StarLink corn was in a two-month backlog and they could not certify my seed corn. Farmers will have already planted this year's corn before regulators catch up with the situation. 

Why wasn't Washington paying attention? The answer has a lot to do with a government regulatory process, and trade policy, so dominated by a "fast track" to corporate success and profit that citizen action and farmer concerns about genetic manipulation of food have been all but ignored. 

Soon Congress will vote on "fast track" authority for the new trade agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which would extend the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the southern hemisphere. In spite of the fact that almost all statistics show that NAFTA has been a dismal failure for workers and the environment in the three countries already involved (Canada, Mexico and the United States), agribusiness traders are drooling at the prospect of extending their crop coup to Central and South America. 

"Fast track" authority would allow a president to draw up a pact and submit it to Congress for a simple yes-or-no vote, without amendments. (No advice, please, senators, just consent.) 

Unfortunately, FTAA, like NAFTA, will not be voted on as a treaty, though it most certainly is one. To pass a treaty, however, requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate and FTAA backers know they do not have the necessary votes. 

With the passage of the new trade agreement, the U.S. biotech corporations would have a much easier time marketing their genetically altered food products. FTAA/WTO rules could consider national laws prohibiting GMO foods as barriers to trade. The countries trying to keep their food supply free of genetically modified foods would have to either submit to the WTO decision or pay large sanctions. 

Once the food supply is so infiltrated with these products that their presence is inevitable, the corporations will have free rein to market all over the world and their profits and purpose will be fully operational. 

One can only marvel at the foresight, planning, lobbying, money and power that go in to this scenario. The true losers, of course, are farmers and consumers who are victims of this crop coup, along with an environment so contaminated with cross-pollinated crops it will be nearly impossible to reverse. With the food genie out of the bottle and the trade train on the congressional fast track, Steve Forbe's bully prediction will almost certainly come true. 

But if farmers, workers, consumers and environmental activists make the connection between undemocratic, destructive trade policies and plans for a worldwide genetically manipulated food supply, it becomes quite clear we are all being taken for a power-grabbing ride once again - a ride which has been a very long one indeed for many, many people. 

Still, we do have time to stop the "Fast Track" train. The vote is expected in mid-summer. Maine's Congressional delegation has a decent record opposing it. Greens and others should hold them to it. 

Nancy Allen, of Brooksville, Maine is a Green Party organizer and the party's media coordinator. She can be contacted at: nallen@acadia.net.

Tainted pigs show up in sausage at funeral

June 3
AP

Tainted pork from genetically altered pigs stolen from the University of Florida showed up in sausage served at a funeral in High Springs, university police said. 

For months, university officials said they had recovered and incinerated all of the meat from the experimental pigs stolen in January. 

But police said the meat from the pigs, which had been genetically altered and injected with enough barbiturates and chemicals to kill a 500-pound pig, was ground up and made into sausage by a butcher in High Springs, finally making its way to a funeral service there. 

Kenny Atkins was fired from his position as an animal technician there after admitting to stealing three of six dead pigs that were to be incinerated. 

Atkins gave two of the pigs to Norman Blake of Alachua and sold one for $65 to Joe Darling of High Springs. Dave Washington, the butcher who dressed Blake's pigs, told university police he made sausage from the meat, kept some and brought some to a funeral dinner. He said he and his brother sampled the sausage but threw it away because "it didn't taste right." 

The stolen pigs were genetically engineered to develop a disorder similar to diabetic blindness in humans. University officials do not know what effect, if any, the treated meat could have on people who eat it. 

The pig incident is one in a series of missteps at the university's Animal Resources department which oversees the treatment of biomedical research animals. 

Last June, the director of Animal Resources, Jerry Davis, was fired after the unit was put on probation in the wake of an annual inspection that found problems with routine care of research animals and the oversight of the program. 

Federal regulators are currently investigating complaints about the facility's animal care procedures.

Altered food becoming less popular, says Texas A&M prof

June 1
Mustang Daily (California Poly State U.)

"We are what we eat," and two-thirds of the products consumers get from grocery stores are genetically-modified, said Texas A&M political science professor Guy Whiten.

Whiten, who is studying how people form their opinions on genetic alterations in food, presented his findings to approximately 50 people in the science building Wednesday at California Polytechnic State University.

Whiten said genetically-modified organisms (GMO) are found most prominently in corn and soy products and are used to change the actual genetic structure of food. An example of a GMO is a type of corn that is genetically altered to produce a pesticide and prevent the need to spray crops.

"The public is just starting to find out about this despite the fact that GMOs have been used since the mid-1990s," Whiten said. "This is largely due to the fact that Europe recently banned foods that use them. Our researchers are finding that most people don't have any idea that the products they eat have been subject to genetic modifications. The way the public reacts to this could dictate the future of GMOs."

In addition to the European ban, the U.S. public has learned more about GMOs as a result of an incident involving Taco Bell. A type of corn that was genetically modified and approved for animals, but not people, found its way into Taco Bell taco shells. The genetic modification caused the shells to take longer than non-modified shells to break down and increased the risk of allergic reactions, he said.

When conducting their research, Whiten and his fellow researchers primarily use telephone surveys that allow each person in the United States who is 18 years or older an equal chance of being selected. If a person agrees to take the survey, he or she is asked 120 questions in approximately 20 minutes. The questions are centered on environmental, economic and public health concerns and make use of word association.

Respondents will be asked what comes to mind when they hear the word "biotechnology" while another is asked what comes to mind when they hear "genetic modification." The researchers have found that genetic modification receives a much more negative response. Variables such as time of response are also taken into account, yielding 170 total variables to be studied.

Whiten and his fellow researchers have identified four different groups of people in the United States through their surveys. Of the respondents, 35.3 percent think the risks and the benefits of GMOs are low, while 29.5 percent feel the risks and the benefits are high. Another 23.5 percent think the benefits are high and the risks are low, and 11.7 percent feel the risks are high and the benefits are low.

"This issue is really starting to take off in the United States, and through our surveys we are interested in learning about several different areas that people will be dealing with in forming their opinions," Whiten said. "We are really looking at how the public responds to arguments for and against genetically-modified food as well as how they form their opinions."

The Cal Poly political science department put on the presentation, which was free and open to the public.

"This is a timely issue that has been around for a long time and is just now starting to be dealt with," said political science professor Alesha Doan. "It is interesting to see how an issue that many people see as strictly scientific has a social science aspect to it as well."

US presses EU for changes in crop rules

June 1
Reuters

The United States expressed concern on Friday about the European Union's plan to require new labeling and ``traceability'' rules for genetically modified crops, EU officials said at their weekly briefing.

Acting on a recent letter from 19 U.S. industry groups, U.S. Undersecretary of State Alan Larson pressed EU Health Commissioner David Byrne on the issue in a telephone call Friday morning, the EU aides said.

``At the end, they have decided ... that the technical staff will meet again and discuss the draft regulations,'' which are scheduled to be approved on June 20 by the European Commission, the EU's executive body, an EU official said. 

``The commissioner tried to explain the political situation is such'' that both EU member states and the European Commission feel they must do something to address consumer concerns about genetically-modified crops,'' the official said.

In a May 18 letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Grocery Manufacturers of American, and 17 other farm and commodity groups warned the EU's proposed regulations threatened ``a $4 billion U.S. agricultural export market.''

U.S. farm groups contend that the EU proposal to require the tracing of grain crops back to their source is unworkable and unfairly discriminates against the U.S., the world's leading producer of genetically-modified crops.

``We're advising them we think there are elements in these draft regulations that clearly have the potential to violate the EU's WTO (World Trade Organization) commitments,'' Audrae Erickson, a trade expert for the Farm Bureau, told Reuters.

``We're putting them on notice that we're concerned'' and could challenge the EU's new regulations at the WTO, she said.

At the briefing, EU officials defended the proposed regulations and said the U.S. industry's estimate of how much trade could be affected was exaggerated.

``On the basis of USDA (U.S. Agriculture Department) data, we think the (EU) market (for U.S. farm goods) is approximately $2.2 billion,'' the EU official said.

The higher figure of $4 billion may have been true in 1996, when U.S. farmers first began planting genetically modified crops, but grain prices have fallen and Argentina and Brazil have become bigger competitors since then, the aide said.

Meanwhile, some ``fundamental'' provisions of the draft regulations are still under discussion in Brussels, he said.

That includes the level of genetically modified crop material not approved in the EU that would be allowable in bulk commodity shipments from other countries.

As a move toward addressing U.S. concerns, the European Commission has suggested setting the threshold for accidental contamination at 1 percent, the aide said.