June headlines

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Battle for control of world's crop genes

June 23
Guardian (UK)

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), most EU governments, many G77 developing nations, and grassroots non-governmental groups and farmers' networks are concerned about "bio-piracy", in which commercial companies patent germ plasm - the part of the germ cell that contains hereditary material - and privatize gene banks.

They are pressing for a binding global agreement that will govern the use of the crop seed varieties and genetic resources which underpin global food security.

It is urgently required, they say, because of the rapid loss of these seed varieties - more than 75% in the past century - and because of the increasing use of intellectual property rights to claim sole ownership.

The agreement would cover 30 major food crops to ensure that their genetic material is preserved and available for present and future researchers.

It would also recognize the farmers' rights to access and use seeds, a controversial area following the introduction of GM crops.

The dissenting countries are principally the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Brazil and Colombia are expected to try to hold out for a better deal, allowing them to make individual deals with other countries.

The US has argued throughout the six years of negotiations that there should be no restrictions on the "right" to patent genetic resources.

The issues, the Americans say, should be a matter for the World Trade Organization, which they say has legal primacy, rather than the UN. They are believed to have persuaded the global seed industry to withdraw its support for an international agreement, to the chagrin of the non-government groups.

"Bio-piracy is rife. Intellectual property rights regimes create private ownership rights which remove locally adapted varieties from communal ownership and exchange, threatening future development of these varieties," Patrick Mulvany, of the international development group ITDG, said yesterday. "These resources are our 'life insurance' against future adversity, be it from climate change, war, industrial developments or ecosystem collapse."

The negotiations will continue next week at the FAO.

GM crop trial web site gets mass of hits

June 23
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

There have been 100,000 hits in a day to a web site listing the locations of about half of Australia's 120 trials of genetically modified crops.

But the sites of the rest will remain a secret for at least another couple of weeks.

The multinationals Monsanto and Aventis want to keep the locations of their GM crops secret, and the Gene Technology Regulator says it will take weeks to decide if it will agree to allow commercial confidentiality.

Aventis' Naomi Stephens says there are concerns about protesters damaging the crops, if the locations are revealed, and contingency plans are being made.

"It would be no different to someone protecting a shop or a local business," Ms Stephens said.

The Greens Senator, Bob Brown, says it is the multinationals who are the vandals, threatening Australia's organic food industry with genetic contamination.

"It is far beyond any threat of a few greenies crossing a fence and pulling out a few plants," Mr Brown said.

Biotech battle moves to San Diego

Protest: With a major conference in town, foes of genetically engineered food plaster 'hazardous' stickers on items in supermarket. Mayor welcomes the industry

June 22
Los Angeles Times

SAN DIEGO -- In dueling media events Thursday, the biotechnology industry was excoriated as dangerous and imperialistic, and then praised as saintly and beneficent.

And so it will go for the next five days or so as San Diego becomes ground zero for a rolling tutorial on a burgeoning industry that--for good or ill--is changing the American food supply and its approach to health and medicine.

An estimated 12,000 to 15,000 people are expected to attend BIO 2001, an international biotechnology convention that will begin Sunday at the waterfront convention center. They will talk of scientific advances and the hunt for funding.

Providing counterpoint are several thousand protesters rallying under a coalition slogan of Biodevastation 2001. They allege thatbioengineered food can be harmful to one's health and that the biotechnology industry is conspiring with agribusiness to snuff out family farms.

In the first "direct action" by protesters, two dozen members of Greenpeace stormed into an Albertsons in the blue-collar neighborhood of North Park, trailed by nearly as many reporters.

The protesters busied themselves slapping stickers--"Genetically Engineered Food--Hazardous"--on food packages, shelves and grocery carts.

Holding a box of Freaky Fruits breakfast cereal, Greenpeace member Brett Doran offered his group's views on canola, corn and soy. "These are the big three of bioengineered foods," he said.

An exasperated store manager demanded that the television and newspaper cameras leave immediately. As the cameras departed, so did the Greenpeace contingent.

Soon there arrived San Diego Police Officer Ronald Weiss, who is roughly the size of an NFL linebacker.

Weiss, talking to protesters milling around the storefront, explained that, personally, he has no views pro or con about biotechnology but that he does believe firmly in not blocking the doors to a supermarket. The Greenpeace protesters moved.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Jeanne Merrill said the tactical withdrawal does not mean the group has ruled out civil disobedience or more assertive conduct later. "We take each event as it comes," she said.

The Albertsons employees had barely finished removing the "hazardous" stickers when Mayor Dick Murphy and several biotech executives held their own media event: a news conference at the convention center.

"This is an industry that does an enormous amount of good in the world," Murphy said.

The San Diego City Council is split on most matters, but biotechnology is not one of them. The council--"in a rare unanimous vote," Murphy said--proclaimed next week Biotechnology Week.

About 250 biotechnology companies and 180 medical device companies are located here, with more than 32,000 employees and a $2-billion annual payroll.

Greenpeace activists, in their Albertsons foray, lectured shoppers that food packages do not provide labels warning when they contain ingredients derived from gene splicing and other bioengineering methods.

"People don't know they are eating this stuff," said Ama Marston, holding a box of Frosted Flakes.

Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which is hosting the convention, countered that protesters seem uninterested in dialogue.

"When you're training to scale buildings and set up barricades," he said, "I'm not sure you're asking for a conversation."

Protesters, mayor give two versions of biotech story

June 22
AP

San Diego -- Launching a week's worth of protests tied to a biotechnology convention, activists entered a supermarket Thursday and slapped warning labels on shelves they say were filled with foods made with genetically engineered crops.

"People don't know they are eating this stuff," said Ama Marston, 26, of San Francisco, before placing a yellow warning label below boxes of Frosted Flakes. The label warned fans of Tony the Tiger: "Genetically Engineered Food -- Hazardous for kids, health and the environment."

Across town, San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy joined a number of biotech executives to kick off the BIO 2001 convention, which officially begins Sunday.

"Biotechnology is a big word for 'hope,' " said BIO President Carl Feldbaum.

The two events about an hour apart amounted to a long-distance debate over an industry taking center stage next week when 15,000 people and thousands of protesters are expected to converge on the San Diego Convention Center.

The convention will be a showcase for an industry that says it benefits humanity with new cures for diseases and medicines that ease the suffering of millions. Outside, thousands of protesters are planning marches, demonstrations and other colorful, telegenic actions to drive home the message that biotech firms are introducing potentially harmful, genetically engineered products into homes and farms, placing profits above people.

Police plan a major presence throughout downtown.

There have been mounting fears that the protests may turn violent, but Thursday's half-hour event at the Albertson's supermarket was peaceful. The dozen or so activists were careful to avoid defacing merchandise, labeling only the shelves. They left the store moments before police arrived.

No arrests were made. Supermarket employees told police they would not press charges.

Montie Robinson happened to be shopping with his mother for his favorite cereal, Frosted Flakes at the moment the Greenpeace activists were busy attaching labels, with a gaggle of reporters watching.

"I don't know what's in all our food," he said. "No one is telling me whether I should eat it."

At the mayor's conference, four people with life-threatening diseases stepped forward to say that treatments pioneered by the biotech industry helped save their lives.

Larry Kincaid, an attorney from East San Diego County, said he is living with a rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma with the help of a drug produced by Ligand Pharmaceutical Co.

"A year ago, I was planning my funeral. Now, I'm looking forward to retiring and spending time with my grandchildren," Kincaid said. "This kind of technology gives us a future. It gives our children a future."

The three others were an AIDS survivor taking a drug discovered by a pharmaceutical company, a man with lupus who is participating in a clinical trial and a breast cancer survivor who showed her support for firms pioneering new cancer therapies.

"They are why this conference is important ---- not just to San Diegans but to people around the world," Murphy said.

Protesters are holding their own convention, called Beyond Biodevastation 2001, beginning today. Organizers have issued pledges promising all events will follow a strict code of non-violence.

Police, however, aren't taken any chances. Officers have been training for months to deal with protesters who plan on being disruptive or violent. The biggest concerns are the "black blocs" of masked anarchists who brought mayhem to the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle and other areas.

"There will be the heaviest presence of blue uniforms in downtown San Diego that this city has seen in some time," said police spokesman David Cohen. He declined to provide specifics on weapons or tactics.

As many as 4,000 demonstrators, many from the West Coast, converged on the industry's conference last year in Boston. San Diego police expect the crowd to be much larger this year.

Officers will move quickly to arrest any demonstrators who block intersections and violate laws and get them off the streets for the duration of the convention, which ends Wednesday.

"We will be very aggressive," Cohen said. "Our goal is to not let it become a Seattle."

Australia to get tough on gene crop tests

June 22
Reuters

CANBERRA -- New Australian laws on testing genetically modified crops will force companies to reveal the location of secret trials except in very limited cases, a new gene technology watchdog said yesterday.

However she said new laws which came into effect yesterday meant the location of GM experiments by companies such as Monsanto Co and Aventis - which dominate Australia's crop trials - could only be kept secret if proved to be "commercial in confidence".

This meant that the company has to prove that disclosure would threaten its ability to make a profit.

Cain said the regulator would release the trial site information unless companies could show there would be damage to the environment, to human health and safety or to property as a if the crop locations were made known.

Companies also has to prove that revealing a crop site is not in the public interest to ensure site information is kept secret.

"The onus is really on the companies to meet an incredibly high test that applicants are going to have to get over if they are to have their site information dealt with as commercial-in-confidence information," Cain told reporters.

"We will wait and see how many are able to do that," she said.

But there has been much criticism on how to handle the risks of trials of mutant plant varieties, with fears under the new law that tests for bigger and better crops could damage existing farming practices.

"The law is flawed, like the failed voluntary system it replaces, leaving the environment and public health at risk," Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Bob Phelps said in a statement.

"The many projects out of control under the guidelines will continue to be exempt from assessment and monitoring."

Concerns about the secrecy surrounding GM crops peaked this year when the voluntary guidelines were breached in South Australia and Tasmania after GM seed was spread to other crops on the clothes of workers.

Genetically engineered varieties of some 20 crops, such as wheat, soybean, corn and rapeseed, are being grown on 44 million hectares of land in 13 countries, including Australia.

A total of 120 GM crop field trials, each with several sites around Australia, had been approved under an interim voluntary monitoring system but their sites had not been disclosed.

"About half of them are going to lodge a request for their site locations to be treated as commercial in confidence information," Cain said.

Aventis has 30 trials underway in Australia, Monsanto about five, and the remaining trials are being conducted on poppies, grapes, lupins and cotton by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and some universities.

Australia: Aventis plans for GM protests

June 22
ABC Rural

In the aftermath of Australia's new Gene Technology Act coming into force, Aventis Crop Science has raised concerns about the potential for protests, if it's forced to reveal the location of its trial sites for genetically-modified crops.

Under the new Act all sites are to be made public, unless an exemption can be granted under commercial confidentiality rules.

Aventis has just received approval to plant nine winter trial sites in New South Wales and Victoria with genetically modified canola.

Its agri-chemical colleague, Monsanto has the go-ahead to plant six GM canola sites in the two states and Western Australia.

Naomi Stevens from Aventis says the potential for protests from anti-gm groups is at the forefront of the company's concerns, and contingency plans have already been put in place.

India: Government bans GM cotton crop

June 22
just-style.com

Pune-based NGO Kalpavriksh, Deccan Development Society, Center for World Solidarity, the Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defense of Diversity and organizations working on formulating India's National Biodiversity Strategy said that GM crops posed a real threat to India's ecology and economy.

The NGOs emphasized that government-appointed Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) should now insist on long term studies on the potential ecological, social and economic impact of any proposed GM crop or GM Food.

Major setback for Monsanto as India refuses commercial growing of genetically engineered cotton

June 21
Greenpeace press release

New Delhi/London -- Greenpeace today congratulated India, one of the world's leading cotton growing countries (1), for its decision to not allow the commercial growing of genetically engineered (GE) cotton but maintain the country's GE free status.

The Indian authority ordered an additional year of field trials for the GE cotton to be conducted under an independent supervision of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The authorities concluded that the data provided by the companies Monsanto/Mahyco was not sufficient as their field trials were not conducted during a normal cotton season, and therefore, no valid information on the crops performance could be determined.

"At a time when the issue of GE crops is highly controversial, increasing scientific evidence emerges about potentially harmful effects of GE crops to the environment. No country should blindly rush into taking a decision on commercial planting," said Michelle Chawla, Genetic Engineering Campaigner for Greenpeace India. "The fact that Monsanto/Mahyco was hastening the process on the basis of inadequate data is deplorable."

"Monsanto/Mahyco intended to introduce to India an outdated GE product that has failed to get market approval in Europe because of environmental and health concerns. This crop also contains an antibiotic resistance gene, which may render diseases immune to an important antibiotic used in India against tuberculosis, Streptomycin," Chawla added.

GM rice will trigger market for non-GM rice?

Thais call demand for non-GM crops a 'golden opportunity'

June 21
PlanetRice.net

Greenpeace has recently campaigned to expose the widespread use of GM ingredients--imported from abroad--in Thailand and the Philippines. In the process, Greenpeace may have also unwittingly exposed a growing market opportunity for foods that are certified as not having been made from GM crops, the Far Eastern Economic Review reported on June 14. Unlike the United States and Canada, Asian countries have not embraced GM seeds, the FEER reported. Japan recently approved three GM seed varieties, but China is the only Asian country that now grows a GM crop: cotton.

But several countries have imported GM seeds for field trials, and GM rice is under development, with commercial varieties about 5 years off. Multinational seed companies have promoted GM seeds as a key technology for feeding growing populations.

But for agricultural exporting countries like Thailand, India, and Vietnam, the marketing benefits of avoiding GM crops may far outweigh any yield increases or nutritional benefits GM seeds may offer, the FEER said.

"Now is our golden opportunity. Most countries are looking for non-GM produce. We should take advantage of it," says Wanchai Cherdshewasart, a member of Thailand's National Board of Biosafety. The advantage of non-GM crops has all to do with consumer perceptions of GM crops. Carole Burke, editor of Japanscan's Food Industry Bulletin, says, "Japanese consumers are very concerned about food quality and safety in general, and are very skeptical about the safety of GM foods."

That same skepticism has spurred several European countries to reject numerous shipments of American and Canadian GM corn, soy beans, and canola.

Thailand's prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is well aware of how such consumer sentiment affects export markets. He recently told a local newspaper, "We should not say that we want or do not want GM...People are just suspicious of the technology."

While some GM commodities have been approved for import into Europe and Japan, many European governments now require the labeling of foods with GM ingredients. Asian countries are beginning to follow suit. Some companies like food-processing giants Unilever and Nestle have eliminated the use of GM ingredients in their operations in Europe.

Japan's top two brewers, Asahi and Kirin, eliminated GM ingredients several years ago. Says Burke, "All leading food-processing companies in Japan are very conscious of consumers' fear of GM foods. Market leaders in all segments of the food industry are demanding GM-free commodities, and the menus of major restaurant chains note their foods are GM-free."

As labeling becomes widespread, the demand for GM-free food is likely to increase and could potentially represent a multibillion-dollar market. Burke says the growth in demand can be compared to the demand for organic food.

In Japan organic foods represent only 1%-2% of food sales, "but will grow considerably" she says.

Organic foods are the fastest growing segment of food sales in the U.S. To meet that demand, U.S. food processor Archer Daniels Midland has been offering American farmers a premium for non-GM corn and soybeans of around 8 cents a bushel.

But maintaining separate storage and processing facilities for GM and non-GM commodities requires vigilant tracking, which increases costs.

To avoid this complication, Brazil adopted the alternative strategy of simply banning the import of all GM seeds and commodities. Brazil's new reputation as a reliable source for non-GM corn and soy beans was the key factor in South Korea's recent decision to import Brazilian, rather than American, corn.

When GM rice hits the market, demand for non-GM rice will likely follow, and Asia, the world's ricebowl, will be expected to meet that demand.

In Asia, Thailand is the country best positioned to reliably serve the non-GM market. More than 2 years ago, the government banned the import and cultivation of commercial-GM seeds. While there are currently experimental field trials of Monsanto's GM cotton, and the government-funded National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology is conducting research into GM papaya, tomato, and cucumber, those field trials may not be legal for much longer.

At the urging of Thai NGO Assembly of the Poor, Thaksin's cabinet is considering a ban on the field-testing of GM seeds and plants.

Agricultural economist Chaiwat Konjin, who oversees a major Asian Development Bank agricultural loan in Thailand, says, "It is not in the interest of Thailand to produce transgenic crops. The trade issue is very important and we must protect our export markets."

The Philippine Senate tried to pass similar legislation last year. Despite an active NGO community opposed to GM crops, the move was unsuccessful. Unlike Thailand, the Philippines is a net importer of food, especially rice, and is more concerned about feeding its population.

The Philippines is also home to the International Rice Research Institute. The IRRI's spokesman, Duncan Macintosh, says the proposed ban was short-sighted and would have been counterproductive.

"We try to keep our research agenda separate from consumer concerns. Because without the science, consumers will never get the facts they need to have a constructive debate."

China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and even Thailand are part of the IRRI's Asian Rice Biotechnology Network, which may eventually develop GM rice varieties, the Far Eastern Economic Review reported.

If such a variety were to come to market, "there is just no way Japan would accept it," says Burke. "The Japanese are extremely fussy about their rice."

Chaiwat says Thailand is keenly aware of this attitude and neither the Ministry of Commerce nor the Ministry of Agriculture will promote GM crops. "We want to protect our own varieties of rice."

Vietnam is the world's second-largest rice exporter, after Thailand, but the Vietnamese serve a different market segment with lower-quality rice and so are not as opposed to the idea of GM rice.

The governments of China and Indonesia, like the Philippines, are more concerned about food security than export-market security and so are not opposed to GM rice. While the Indian government is cautiously optimistic about GM crops, a delegation of private soybean producers recently visited several European countries to confirm that Indian soy was still non-GM.

While Thailand's stance toward GM crops may be pre-emptive, it is not simply forward-looking. Thailand has already run into problems with some of its export markets. A few months ago, the government of Saudi Arabia rejected shipments of tuna packed in soy oil produced from GM soybeans, imported from North America. The two countries have resumed trade in tuna, but Thai manufacturers must now label the product as GM-free and pay for certification by a third-party testing facility.

This experience underscores the complexity of the situation and lends credence to Greenpeace's calls to ban imports of GM commodities from other countries, which are often used in foods processed in Thailand.

But there are reports of Thai farmers smuggling and growing GM seeds from China, and there is always the possibility that GM seeds and plants will be brought into the country illegally or by accident. While the verdict is still out on whether GM crops are a boon for farmers and consumers or a risk with far-reaching environmental implications, Thailand's pragmatism suggests an answer already familiar to business:

The customer is always right.