September headlines

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Biotech industry endorses tighter controls on gene-altered crops

September 26
AP

A group representing the biotechnology industry endorsed proposals by Kraft Foods to tighten controls on genetically engineered crops in the wake of a recall of taco shells made with corn that isn't approved for human consumption.

In a letter Monday to federal regulators, the Biotechnology Industry Organization agreed that farmers shouldn't be allowed to grow a crop that isn't approved for food use. That was one of four recommendations that Kraft made to the Food and Drug Administration in announcing the recall on Friday.

The biotech group, which represents more than 900 companies, research institutions and affiliated organizations, said that "consumer confidence in the safety of all food products must be our first and only priority."

The biotech corn used in the taco shells is only approved for animal feed because of unresolved questions about its potential to cause allergic reactions in people.

The group also backed Kraft's other recommendations, including one calling for mandatory review of all new biotech crops, something the FDA itself proposed in May, and another urging the government not to approve new crops unless there is a proven method of testing for their genetic material.

"As the science develops, refinements to the regulatory process may be necessary and desirable to keep pace with the science and to continue to provide for the safety of the food supply," the letter said.

Critics of biotechnology say the recommendations show that government regulation of the industry is inadequate.

"It's significant that a major food company is recognizing that the regulatory scheme at FDA is weak," said Jane Rissler, a biotechnology expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

FDA officials say they are considering Kraft's recommendations but are confident the existing regulations are working to protect public health. They have said there is no known health risk from the corn used in the tacos.

The corn, which contains a bacterium gene that makes it toxic to an insect pest, is produced by Aventis Corp. and goes under the trade name StarLink. Aventis is a member of the biotechnology organization.

Kraft recalled of the taco shells that it sells in stores under the Taco Bell name. Taco Bell Corp. said it is similarly replacing all of the shells in their restaurants later this week.

Biotech corn isn't serious threat to monarchs, draft U.S. report finds

September 26
New York Times

In a finding that is being hailed by the biotechnology industry and denounced by environmentalists, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued a preliminary report concluding that genetically modified corn is unlikely to pose a serious threat to monarch butterflies.

The report, which was made public last week and focuses on crops genetically modified to produce an insecticide known as Bt, also minimized the potential for other environmental problems, including the persistence of the insecticide in the soil and the evolution of pests that can withstand it.

"Although there may be individual butterflies that could be adversely affected, the overall population of monarch butterflies is not at any risk" from Bt corn, Brian Steinwand, a spokesman for the environmental agency, said. But he said the report's conclusions were tentative and that new data were continuing to come in. Bt stands for Bacillus thuringiensis, the scientific name of the bacterium from which the toxin and the gene producing the toxin originate.

The report comes after more than a year of controversy following the publication of a Cornell University study showing that Bt-containing pollen from the genetically modified corn could kill monarch butterfly caterpillars in the laboratory. That finding turned the monarch into a symbol of fragile nature threatened by biotechnology. Opponents criticized the environmental agency for approving the corn, which was planted on 20 million acres last year.

The report is a major step in a continuing re-evaluation of the safety of Bt crops that will culminate in a decision next fall to discontinue or reapprove their widespread commercial use. Meanwhile, the report noted, companies are phasing out Bt corn varieties that produce a particularly toxic pollen — those that carry the genetically engineered DNA known as Event 176. The change could help reduce risks to monarchs and other nonpest insects.

Dr. Val Giddings, vice president for food and agriculture at Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents companies that sell seed for genetically modified crops and other biotech products, praised the report. He called the review rigorous, and said it confirmed that biotech crops "pose no adverse health or environmental problems."

But Dr. Jane Rissler, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been critical of the agency's handling of Bt crops, said: "We were disappointed. It's clear that there are insufficient data."

Because studies showing actual effects of Bt corn pollen on monarch butterfly populations in the wild are still in progress, the report relied instead on indirect studies that, like the original Cornell research, simply indicate a greater or lesser likelihood of risk to the monarchs from the pollen. Data considered include the toxicity of different strains of Bt corn and the distance that toxic pollen can move within and beyond a cornfield.

In addition to arguing against risks to monarchs, the report also disputed the significance of other studies that had suggested the potential for unexpected environmental threats from Bt crops. For example, some studies have indicated that the Bt toxin from these plants can persist much longer than had been thought possible in the soil. Other studies have indicated that pest caterpillars that have eaten the Bt toxin can sicken the beneficial insect predators that eat them.

In one of few concessions to critics, the report suggests that more can be done to prevent the evolution of pests that are resistant to the Bt toxin. Bt toxin has traditionally been sprayed on fields by farmers. The arrival of genetically engineered Bt potatoes, corn and cotton that continually produce Bt in their tissues raised the possibility that insects would be exposed more often and for longer periods to the toxin. Such exposure could speed the evolution of pests that are resistant to the insecticide, a development that would render Bt useless. Produced naturally by a bacterium, Bt toxin is an important insecticide for organic farmers and one of the few available for their use.

Over the next year, Mr. Steinwand said the agency would continue to reassess Bt crops. He said half the new research that the agency had requested from scientists to assess the potential threat of Bt corn to monarchs had not yet been submitted to the agency.

In just the last month, he said, the E.P.A. was surprised to learn from researchers that monarch caterpillars could be found in the middle of cornfields, the place where most of the toxic pollen from Bt corn plants ends up landing.

"That told us, Hey wait a minute," said Mr. Steinwand. "We're still waiting for a considerable amount of data."

Taco wars: Read all about it

September 26
Cropchoice News

Since Kraft Foods announced the recall of over 2.5 million packages of Starlink Bt corn-contaminated taco shells on Saturday, the finger-pointing has been accelerating. How did it happen? The farm lobby, Dan Glcikman, grocers, biotech companies, activists, and everybody inbetween are putting in their two cents worth about the world's most famous potentially allergenic taco shells.

While it is still unclear how the mixup was made, it is probable that 1) the spillover will lead to more regulations and 2) at least some of the big company protagonists will point an accusing finger at farmers, who are easier to blame than others who are potentially responsible.

Aside from the many newspaper and other press stories, here's a wide selection of news items about the recall mess from industry, farm, and activist groups:

Kraft, a subsidiary of Philip Morris, admits the activists' accusation was correct and has recalled millions of boxes of taco shells. Kraft is calling for more regulation of biotech foods.

Ag Secretary Dan Glickman says America needs to do a better job segregating.

Taco Bell, which licensed its brand to Kraft, says it is replacing its restaurant taco shells with new stock from other providers, since it also bought some of its yellow corn from the same 225,000 ton a year Plainview, Texas mill which made the Kraft shells.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization is eating a lot of crow by admitting that Kraft's call for more regulation of biotech foods may have merit.

The powerful Grocery Manufacturer's Association of America also agrees with Kraft and isa calling for more biotech regulations.

GE Food Alert, the activist coalition that initially identified the contamination, is pushing for immediate and extensive government action.

After incorrectly suggesting that Genetic ID, the testing company that identified the contamination, might be wrong, Aventis, the seed company which makes Starlink, is keeping quiet and hasn't posted any relevant information to its website. (Genetic ID, meanwhile, has explained its tests in detail.)

Azteca Milling, a joint venture between ADM and Mexico's Gruma, provided the corn that was contaminated. Azteca isn't posting any information to the internet either, but you can still visit them online.

The American Corn Grower's Association says that there is a danger that incidents like this may lead to more and more of the burden of segregation being placed on farmers. ACGA says that the costs of segregation should be taken on by industry.

Thousands of Indian farmers protest against GM agriculture

September 26
Agence France Presse

The farmers, representing 26 Indian peasant organizations, attended a protest rally in the city of Bangalore, shouting slogans against multinational seed companies whose products, they argued, had resulted in crop failures.

"Foreign companies have entered our motherland and they are taking away our seeds. Indian farmers are being driven to suicide. We will fight these companies till the last," said Vandana Shiva, an Indian ecologist who headed the protest.

The farmers' associations slammed corporate control over agriculture and said they were against genetically modified seeds being sold to farmers by foreign companies such as US-based Kargill Seeds and Monsanto.

Monsanto has been in the thick of controversy in India after the government cleared a plan for trials of genetically engineered cotton seeds in Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital, despite opposition from non-governmental forums.

"Monsanto thinks they own our lands, our farmers. They have got patents to sell their seeds. But we will not allow them here. We will continue to exchange seeds between farmers. It is our basic right and no company can steal that right away," Shiva said.

"We will cultivate in our own terms using our own methods and our tradition. Let us grow from strength to strength and oust Monsanto out of our country," she said.

On Monday, a tribunal formed by the farmers groups recommended a 10-year national moratorium on the commercial use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

The tribunal came out with 13 recommendations after listening to farmers from across India who spelt our their woes arising from the industrialization of agriculture and patents on seeds.

Members of global farm bodies expressed their solidarity with the Indian counterparts.

"Your fight is our fight also. We have to fight together to throw out big corporations who want to kill family farming. We also have to destroy all genetically-engineered seeds," French anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove said.

"I call for non-cooperation against all these corporations," Bove said.

Dena Hoff, a spokeswoman for Via Campesina, a global peasant movement, said: "My skin is white but my hands are those of a farmer. The fight is global. Monsanto live on our blood and land. We have to drive them out."

On Monday, five Greenpeace activists were arrested while protesting at the inaugural session of an Asian Pacific Seed Association's annual conference here.

"Of serious concern is the fact that the very basis of life -- the seed -- will be owned and controlled by commercial interests," Michelle Chawla, Greenpeace's genetic engineering campaigner said.

"Corporate controlled vested interests are developing gene-altered seeds and utilizing the patent regime, claiming exclusive ownership of seeds to gain control over agriculture," Chawla said.

UK: Agency to press for action on food labels to protect consumers

September 25
Press release

The new Food Standards Agency is to press for far reaching changes in European food labeling rules to provide clearer information for consumers, tighter controls on claims about GM ingredients and better information for people with allergies.

The Agency is also planning to work with industry on voluntary action to make food labels easier to understand and develop a new  national code of guidance on the promotion of foods to children.

The action plan, agreed by the Food Standards Agency Board at its meeting in Belfast today, follows nine months of consultation and consumer research.

The Agency is calling for the compulsory EU listing of all ingredients in food that could cause allergic reactions, and wants to extend the listing to include alcoholic drinks.

To help end consumer confusion caused by misleading health claims such as low-fat, fat-free, and 80% fat-free, the Agency will be pressing for legally binding EU standards on nutrition claims and clear nutrition labeling on all foods.

There is considerable concern that the promotion to children of foods that are high in fat/sugar/salt are contributing to childhood obesity and long-term health problems. The Agency plans to work with consumers and industry to develop and implement a new code of practice on the promotion of foods to children.

Country of origin is important for many consumers, particularly when they are choosing meat and dairy products. The Agency is to press for clear EU rules on the use of terms like 'produce of' and extend the rules to a wider range of foods.

Food Standards Agency Deputy Chair, Suzi Leather, said: "Consumers have said that too many labels are confusing, misleading or simply do not provide enough information for them to make sensible choices on what is best for their health. 

"We know that up to 8% of infants and young children suffer from adverse reactions to particular foods and ingredients and we want to put in place measures which help protect them.

"This is a balanced program that seeks European wide legal safeguards and voluntary action by the food industry that responds to consumer needs."

Recent surveys by the Agency have found that GM remains an important issue for consumers with nearly a third of shoppers saying that they wanted to know if there are GM ingredients when buying food.

The Agency wants to extend EU rules to require the labeling of GM animal feed and clearer regulations on the use of GM free labeling. Nine out of ten consumers agreed that it was important to know the country of origin of food, 79% said meat was the most important food that should have a country of origin label. Recent examples of confusing labeling include bacon made from imported pigmeat that was labeled as British or produced in the UK.

The food industry is called upon to adopt clear and transparent criteria for the use of potentially misleading terms like fresh, pure, traditional, and country-style. Additional voluntary action is called for to reduce unnecessary warnings, such as may contain nut traces, to extend consumer choice.

The Agency is proposing the abolition of the rule that exempts ingredients from listings if they are part of a compound ingredient that makes up less than 25% of the food.

Kraft calls for increased GM regulation

September 25
just-food.com

Kraft Food, a packaging unit of Philip Morris, has recently widened the gap between the scientific and food industries by announcing that there should be a tougher regulation of crop biotechnology. The comments are relatively mild compared to any of the proposals put forward by major anti-biotech groups, but this is the first time that any food industry giant has demanded a reorganization of GM crop monitoring.

The announcement follows hard after the recent embarrassment that left Kraft recalling products in a Mexican food line from US supermarkets. The items are worth an estimated US$50m in annual sales and sold under license from the fast-food chain Taco Bell.

The voluntary recall of the taco shells, made with StarLink corn, was the first in the US history of GM food. While the federal authorities and Kraft have stressed that there is no evidence that the corn has actually harmed the health of consumers, it is still illegal for StarLink to enter the human food chain. Produced by French pharmaceuticals giant Aventis, the insect resistant corn uses the Bacillus thuringiensis gene to make a toxic protein called Cry9C. It is supposed to be eaten only by livestock or processed into ethanol fuel because the government has not yet been able to confirm that Cry9C is not a potential food allergen.

Kraft has now said it wants the US government to ban the planting of GM crops that are not yet cleared for human consumption, and the response from the biotech industry has been muted. While some have pointed out that the protein is near impossible to reliably detect, Val Giddings, an official from the Biotechnology Industry Organization, commented: “Kraft's suggestions have merit and deserve to be taken seriously.”

The reason for the mix-up with the taco shells is, as yet, unknown. However the US Food and Drug Administration has announced that it does not expect any more recalls of products which contain StarLink. This confidence may be a little premature, however, given that the problem seems to be the screening for StarLink at a large corn-flour mill owned by Azteca Milling, which is used by numerous companies, including Kraft, to process snack foods. President of Azteca Milling, Dan Lynn, commented that no GM corn whatsoever should be in the mill, and that the company was “trying hard to figure this out.”

Kraft, which has total annual revenue of US$27bn, has said that consumers taking part in the recall would get refunds for any products they return.

McKnight defends biotech agriculture

$40 million funding has genetic focus

September 25
AP

Foundation officials recently announced plans to expand a focus on agricultural science that the foundation started in 1993, with the goal of improving food supplies and nutrition in developing countries.

The foundation's public relations firm called the outcry over genetically modified foods ``a creation of the well-fed privileged classes in Europe and North America'' in announcing a briefing on McKnight's renewed thrust into agricultural research.

McKnight's directors decided early this year to expand their commitment to the research despite the controversy surrounding crop biotechnology, said Carol Berde, the foundation's executive vice president.

``We recognize that this is one of a range of tools that needs to be available in the public domain for developing countries to feed their people,'' she said.

Heated debate on genetic manipulation pits scientists and agricultural officials against consumer and environmental groups that have declared war on modern crop biotechnology.

The groups fighting crop biotechnology argue that the crops haven't been adequately tested for their long-term effects on human health and the environment and accuse government regulators of giving too much autonomy to companies that stand to gain from sales of the crops.

Berde said the Minneapolis-based foundation is taking its cues from such leaders in the developing world as Nigerian Agriculture Minister Hassan Adamu, who has sharply criticized biotech foes.

``They claim to have the environment and public health at the core of their opposition,'' he wrote last week in the Washington Post. ``But scientific evidence disproves their claims that enhanced crops are anything but safe. If we take their alarmist warnings to heart, millions of Africans will suffer and possibly die.''

With world population expected to grow by 3 billion during the next three decades to 9 billion, now is the time for major new investment in crop research, the McKnight Foundation said in outlining the new effort.

The scientific leader of the project is Robert Goodman, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

The foundation this week will begin to evaluate 350 proposals that it has received for research projects to be funded starting next year, Berde said.

A book documenting the crop-research projects that McKnight has funded since 1993, ``Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution,'' is to be released by North Point Press in October.

The projects funded to date have linked researchers at major universities in the United States with scientists in Ethiopia, Mexico, China, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Uganda and India.

Some of the projects seek to preserve genetic diversity in crops or manipulate genes through traditional breeding methods. Others involve genetically engineering plants to help them resist pests or to improve their nutritional qualities.

Biotech crops face international obstacle course

September 18
Ag Trade Outlook

Rumors are circulating in the international agriculture arena that the European Commission may end its three-year de facto moratorium on agricultural biotechnology by December. But that could produce a mixed bag of good news for U.S. farmers as strings attached to the lift could produce tighter controls on product labeling and traceability of biotech crops.

Biotechnology continues to be one of the most contentious ag trading issues between the United States and the European Union, the World Trade Organization's No. 1 and No. 2 heavyweights. While U.S. farmers have embraced the technology and plant the most acres in the world, consumer fears and environmental concerns have hampered a similar evolution in Europe. That in turn has impacted U.S. ag exports to Europe.

Prior to the moratorium, 18 biotech products were approved for import. But since the moratorium was instituted in October 1998, no new biotech crops have received approval because of increased concern over potential health and environmental impacts of genetically modified organisms in various European Union-member states.

The EC's main instrument for allowing experimental releases of GMOs into the environment and for placing ag biotech products on the market is Directive 90/220, a law that is currently under revision.

Alex Jackson, an American Farm Bureau Federation director of governmental relations, said that the moratorium occurred because the revision process "created a vacuum where there is not a current regulatory approval process."

Effects of the moratorium on the U.S. ag industry have been dramatic, said Jackson. Just one example is U.S. corn producers' inability to access EU markets for the last three years, he said.

"The EU has approved approximately four GMO corn varieties," Jackson said. "But the United States grows approximately 10 different GMO varieties. The EU needs to quickly revise its directive and begin the review process of these and other new biotech products."

EU commissioner for the environment Margot Wallström said last month that she was confident the EC's recently proposed strategy on ag biotech GMO approvals will help restore public trust and relaunch the approvals process.

"The approach proposed by the commission is a first step toward a more constructive and responsible strategy on GMOs," Wallström said. "Our role is first and foremost to provide a framework for the authorization and control of GMOs, which is safe and reliable for consumers and the environment. We need to re-establish confidence in our approvals system. Citizens must be allowed to choose for themselves whether they want products containing GMOs or not."

EU food safety commissioner David Byrne said that the new legislation would include provisions on labeling, traceability, time-lined authorizations and a need for continued research.

At this point, however, speculation does exist whether the changes will enjoy the full support of EU farm ministers, many of whom appear divided on how fast the approval process for ag biotech crops should be. France, as EU president, is trying to forge consensus around the issue. But as French farm minister Jean Glavany called on EU governments to "slow down," Belgium and the Netherlands criticized the text for being "too cautious." Glavany said that the task was now to "work towards harmonizing views."

As Farm Bureau looks to the next round of the WTO, Jackson said that U.S. farmers are also concerned with a move by the EU to establish a biotechnology working group within the international trade organization.

Anti-biotech forces could conspire to erode the sanitary and phytosanitary agreements that were established in the Uruguay Round, the precursor to the WTO, he said.

Jackson said that the United States needs to continue to tout the science behind ag biotech as products face potential export rejection. "Ag biotech products have been in production for a decade now and there is no indication that they pose a risk to human, plant or animal health," he said.