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[biodemocracy]BioDemocracy News #43 Genetically Modified Democracy

 

 

 

BioDemocracy News #43 (August 2003) Genetically Modified Democracy

Quarterly News By: Ronnie Cummins

Organic Consumers Association www.organicconsumers.org

Quotes of the Month:

 

" In summary, the risk to Monsanto's shareholders from the company's genetic

engineering business are substantial. the company faces business constraints

in the form of market rejection by consumers, producers, and farmers;

significant legislative hurdles to commercialization; uncertainty in the

face of human health and environmental impacts stemming from the company's

products; and finally, significant risk exposure from potential

contamination of the human food chain by unapproved genetically engineered

traits. " Monsanto & Genetic Engineering: Risks for Investors

A report prepared by Strategic Value Advisors (April 2003)

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/goingdown041903.cfm

 

" Let's go eat some genetically modified food for lunch, "

 

George Bush, at a meeting with EU officials in Washington, June 25, 2003

 

_____________

Genetically Modified Democracy: Corralling the Critics

 

Running full speed to catch up with several thousand non-violent protestors

on " L " Street in Sacramento, I'm just a few yards ahead of a advancing

phalanx of Darth Vader look-alike cops, who are brandishing stun guns and

riot batons. As a booming voice announces via bullhorn " Leave the area

immediately or you will all be arrested, " it's pretty clear that the White

House's biotech bullying has reached a new level of desperation. Here at

the June 23-25 USDA summit conference on biotechnology in Sacramento, (sort

of a warm-up event for the September WTO Ministerial Meeting in Cancun),

even the police horses are decked out with ankle guards and head visors,

backed up by heavily-armed motorcycle cops, armored personnel carriers, and

an army of 2,000 riot police-dispatched to " protect " 500 international

agricultural delegates from America's Frankenfood critics.

 

As a government official from Africa remarks, " I've never seen such a

display of police force, other than in Communist states. " Rounding a street

corner, out of breath, I watch a beefy policeman charge into a young woman

and knock her to the ground, apparently for the crime of standing too close

to a Starbucks café with a protest sign. Welcome to the post 9/11 Republic

of Genetically Modified Democracy. For more on the Sacramento protests see

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/global_ag_usda.cfm

 

Global Bee Swarm: Driving Monsanto & Bush to Desperation

 

A thousand bee stings from global Civil Society have put Monsanto and the

other Gene Giants on virtual life-support. Overseas markets for genetically

engineered (GE) seeds and crops are closing down, protests are continuing,

scientific evidence of risk is mounting, and regulations and labeling

requirements are tightening. As Mexico-based biotech analyst Silvia Ribeiro

from ETC Group stated at a teach-in in Sacramento, " Five Gene Giants

(Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Bayer, and Dow) selling four GE seed crops

(soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton), to farmers in three countries (U.S.,

Canada, and Argentina) with two agricultural traits (herbicide-resistant and

Bt pesticide-spliced) have one goal: control of the global food system. " The

good news, reported daily on the Organic Consumers Association website,

www.organicconsumers.org, and in previous issues of BioDemocracy News and

Organic Bytes, is that the biotech industry's Master Plan for global

domination seems to be failing. Even with George Bush leading the charge,

even with intimidation and bullying reaching new levels of desperation, the

Biotech Express has derailed.

 

Once mighty Monsanto-whose GE seeds account for a full 91% of all global

Frankencrops-is in critical condition. The company's stock values have

fallen by 50%, reflecting a loss of $1.7 billion on $4.7 billion in sales

last year. As revealed in recent news stories, and a crucial investment

report published in April 2003, by Strategic Value Advisors, Monsanto and

the agbiotech industry's mounting vulnerabilities include:

 

· Global markets for GE seeds and grains are shrinking, due to

consumer resistance and mounting export and labeling restrictions. Global

sales of GE seeds have leveled off at $4.5 billion, while organic ($23

billion) and non-GE food sales are booming. U.S. and Canadian farmers have

literally lost billions of dollars in export sales of GE-tainted corn,

soybeans, and canola. Even in the U.S., consumer concerns are mounting. An

ABC News poll released July 15, found that the majority of U.S. consumers

(55%) are now opposed to GE foods, while 92% support mandatory labeling.

 

· New labeling and traceability laws are slowly but surely closing

down the market for the last billion dollars of US GE-derived soybeans (down

from $3.2 billion several years ago) exported every year as animal feed to

Europe. Brazil, with a ban on GMOs (genetically modified organisms), has now

replaced the U.S. as the largest exporter of soybeans in the world.

According to the May 2003 trade publication, The Non-GMO Source, Brazil will

export $7.9 billion of soybeans this year, while the U.S. will export " less

than $7 billion. "

 

· The international Biosafety Protocol, which requires the labeling

of seeds and " prior consent " from countries importing GMOs, will come into

force in September, despite objections from Monsanto and the Bush

administration. Meanwhile the WTO's food standards body, the Codex

Alimentarius, has ruled that countries may legally require their own

additional safety testing and mandatory labeling for GMOs, including animal

feeds, which currently account for more than 80% of the world's GE crops.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/un_ge_standards.cfm

 

· Monsanto's only real commercial markets for GE seeds (the U.S.,

Canada, Argentina, and China) are quickly becoming saturated. A full 80% of

U.S. and 90% of Argentina's soybeans are already GE. One-third of U.S. corn

is GE, but this is mainly because Monsanto has been selling Bt and

Roundup-Ready corn seeds at bargain basement prices, a practice which it can

no longer afford. Two-thirds of US cotton is already GE. Canada's Roundup

Ready canola acreage has shrunk from 14 million acres to 9 million acres. No

other countries in the world are likely to plant GE crops on a major

commercial scale in the near future. A mounting number of developing nations

are not even willing to take GE-tainted corn and soya in food aid shipments.

 

· Monsanto and the industry's main future crops and projected profits

are in serious jeopardy. GE wheat, rice, trees, and biopharm drugs are

facing unprecedented opposition, not only from overseas buyers, but also

from U.S. and Canadian farmers. Even major trade associations such as the

National Food Processors Association and the Grocery Manufacturers of

America, and food giants such as General Mills and Frito-Lay, have told

Monsanto to back off on GE wheat and biopharm crops. " To the extent that

consumers want choice, they want to choose non-biotech,'' said Karil

Kochenderfer, the biotechnology coordinator for the Grocery Manufacturers of

America, which represents food companies such as Kraft and General Mills.

 

· While Monsanto and the biotech industry continue to lie and paint a

rosy future for GMOs in the media, it is a crime, under U.S. law, for them

to deliberately lie to investors. Thus in their most recent 10K report to

investors, Monsanto admits that genetic drift from biotech and biopharm

crops is unavoidable, that potential financial liabilities are

unpredictable, and that no new countries will be planting their GE seeds in

the near future.

 

· Monsanto's monopoly patent on glyphosate, the active ingredient in

Roundup, the top-selling herbicide in the world, traditional source of

almost half of the company's profits, has expired. Now Monsanto's

competitors, such as Syngenta (formerly Novartis), are selling glyphosate as

well, at reduced prices, slicing away at Monsanto's life support. In

Australia, Monsanto has stopped selling glyphosate altogether, with

lower-priced Chinese imports taking over the market. Monsanto has also

admitted to investors that its sales of Roundup will continue to decline,

from its current global market share of 77% to the low 60's by 2005.

Meanwhile the price per gallon Monsanto receives for Roundup is expected to

drop from $23 to $14-15 per gallon by 2005.

 

· As discussed in previous issues of BioDemocracy News, weeds such as

marestail (horsetail), rye grass, and hemp grass are starting to develop

resistance to glyphosate, a literal death sentence for Roundup-Ready crops,

which comprise 71% of the world's GMOs. In Arkansas, a full 20% of the state

's 2.9 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans and cotton are sprouting

herbicide-resistant marestail weeds.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/070903_ge_food.cfm

 

Biotech Bullying: Bound to Backfire

 

Unable to protect itself from the mounting bee swarm of its critics or bring

new patented crops to market in the overwhelming majority of the countries

of the world, Monsanto and the biotech industry have turned to the White

House, the courts, the police, and the WTO in desperation. Among the most

recent desperate tactics of the industry-all of which are likely to

backfire-are the following:

 

· Bush's WTO Challenge. After years of threats, the Bush

administration filed a formal complaint May 13 with the World Trade

Organization to force the European Union, under the threat of a billion

dollars in fines, to accept GE crops and imports. Unfortunately for Bush and

the Gene Giants, this move has done nothing but create more anger in the EU,

with supermarkets, food manufacturers, farmers, and consumer groups vowing

that they will never accept Frankenfoods, no matter what the WTO says.

Responding to the Bush move, the European Union passed in July new strict

labeling and traceability requirements for GE food, cooking oil, and animal

feed. This will result in a major decrease in GMO animal feed exports from

North America to the EU.

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/eu_frankencrops_canada.cfm

 

· As Jeremy Rifkin put it, " US strong-arming cannot make Europeans

eat genetically modified food. A European GM food boycott will only expose

the underlying weakness of globalization and the existing trade protocols

that accompany it. In the unfolding struggle between global commercial power

and local cultural resistance, the GM food fight might turn out to be the

test case that forces us to rethink the very basis of the globalization

process. " (The Guardian U.K. June 2, 2003)

 

· Buying off Tony Blair. As if UK Prime Minister Tony Blair didn't

already have enough problems, due to his politically disastrous support for

Bush's Iraq invasion, Blair's continued support for GE crops has angered

British consumers and farmers even more. The Daily Mail, a major British

newspaper, reported on July 7, that a call from the White House to Blair in August 1998 likely precipitated the firing of the world's

preeminent GE food safety researcher, Dr. Arpad Pusztai. Pusztai had

discovered, in a government-financed study at the Rowett Institute in

Scotland, that genetically engineered potatoes damaged the immune system and

vital organs of laboratory animals.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/070903_ge.cfm

 

· Since then Pusztai has continued his research:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gmo_lab_studies.cfm

 

· Desperate to stifle dissent, even inside his own Cabinet, Blair

fired his popular Environmental Minister, Michael Meacher, in June. Meacher,

in response, urged the UK government to maintain a moratorium on GE foods,

stating, " There could be risk to the immune system. There could be risk to

sexual development in young children or babies from GM-based soya infant

feed. There have been no tests. That is an enormous gap and I think a

scandalous omission in making the decision about whether or not these are

safe to eat. " http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/062403_uk_ge.cfm

 

· Pushing for Commercialization of GE Wheat, Rice, and Fish.

Desperate to keep their stock values from collapsing, Monsanto and the other

biotech companies still maintain they will get permission from the U.S. and

other governments to commercialize new food crops and fish. They may indeed

prevail in getting the Bush administration to approve commercialization of

these crops, but if they do they will alienate-not only consumers and

environmental activists-but major food companies, supermarket chains,

farmers, fishing communities, and overseas buyers.

 

· Even the Canadian Wheat Board, the largest purchaser of wheat in

the world, threatened in May to sue Monsanto, if they move forward on GE

wheat. Similarly, major international buyers of North American wheat and

rice have threatened to boycott billions of dollars of U.S. and Canadian

exports. In the words of the largest wheat importer in Italy, Antonio

Costato of Grandi Molini Italiani SpA, " The European milling industry will

simply not buy one more kilo of any U.S. wheat if the U.S. approves GMO

wheat crops. " http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071403_ge_wheat.cfm

 

· GE Pharm Crops. Even more foolhardy than trying to force-feed

unwilling consumers GE wheat and rice are the " pharm " crops-whereby

pharmaceutical drugs or industrial chemicals are being gene-spliced into

corn and other farm crops, in effect turning plants or animals into

" bioreactors. " There have already been 300 secret field trials of these

pharm crops in the U.S. by Monsanto and other companies, 2/3 of them

utilizing corn, a crop noted for spreading its pollen (and genetic

characteristics) far and wide. In March the OCA joined the Center for Food

Safety and other groups to file a legal petition to stop the planting of

biopharm crops. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/030503_biotech_usda.cfm

 

· As Monsanto admitted to investors in its most recent 10k report,

biopharm crops will likely spread their pollen and seeds into the

environment, resulting in more Starlink-type food recalls. As Frank Dixon,

Managing Director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors put it " The risk of

heavy financial losses due to genetic pollution or technology failure

coupled with sustained market rejection of GE foods makes Monsanto a poor

investment. " As reported previously, the USDA has already admitted that

there have been two cases of pharm crops (pig vaccine, and also possibly an

experimental AIDS drug) getting into animal feed. Even major food

manufacturers and supermarket chains, formerly supporters of agbiotech, are

up in arms about pharm crops.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071203_biotech.cfm

 

· Propaganda Barrage. Desperate for acceptance, Monsanto and the

biotech lobby have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on

advertising and public relations, with repeated (and now thoroughly

discredited) claims that Frankencrops will reduce pesticide use, feed the

world's hungry, and produce healthier food. But even in the heartland of

biotech, a recent ABC News poll found that 62% of American women would not

feed GE food to their children.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071703_ge.cfm

 

· After threatening and harassing thousands of seed savers, and

taking legal action against 400 North American farmers, most of whom have

been forced to pay damages for the " crime " of seed saving, Monsanto will

soon " face the consequences " in Canada's Supreme Court, where its highly

publicized case against Saskatchewan canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, comes

up for a hearing in early 2004. Either Schmeiser will win the case (with the

court ruling that Monsanto does not own the Roundup Ready seeds found on

Schmeiser's farm), which means that Monsanto will lose their patent on

Roundup Ready canola, and millions of dollars in annual royalties; or else

Monsanto will win (with the Court ruling that Monsanto owns the mutant seed,

wherever it turns up), which will expose the company to millions of dollars

in lawsuits from farmers who have suffered GMO pollution of their crops.

Either way Monsanto is damned.

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071603_ge.cfm

 

· Apparently convinced that bullying is still a viable tactic,

Monsanto in July sued a Portland, Maine dairy, Oakhurst, for the " crime " of

telling its customers that its cows weren't injected with Monsanto's

controversial Bovine Growth Hormone. BGH is banned in every industrialized

country in the world, except for the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil. The FDA,

always Monsanto's handmaiden in regulatory matters, told Cheese Market News

July 11 that the FDA is considering sending " warning letters " to dairies

making rBGH-free or hormone-free claims. In recent months a Monsanto-funded

front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign

against organic dairies, including Organic Valley Co-op, claiming they are

defrauding consumers by making rBGH-free claims.

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/anti_organic_consumer_group.cfm

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/071303_rbgh.cfm

 

· Unable to sell GE corn and soybeans to many of its domestic or

overseas customers, the biotech industry has enlisted the Bush

administration to force GE-tainted grain on countries in Africa, Asia, and

Latin America receiving food aid. This has now backfired into a major public

relations disaster for the Bush administration, with recipient nations

rejecting the Frankencrops, and scientists pointing out that the GE-tainted

corn shipments do pose potentially serious health and environmental risks.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071403_ge_africa.cfm

 

· U.S. bullying reached a new ethical low point in May, when a " sense

of the Congress " resolution attached to an AIDS Prevention bill called for a

cutoff of AIDS prevention funds for countries which refuse to accept America

's GMO crops. The move has disgusted public health officials and enraged

AIDS activists worldwide. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/aids.cfm

 

Triumph of the Bees: Lessons for Civil Society

 

The biotech monster is mortally wounded, and now cornered. This is the

fundamental reason why we are seeing such desperate moves by Monsanto, the

idiot savants of biopharming, and the Bush/Blair Axis. We the " bees " of

global Civil Society-everyone from the ordinary organic consumer, to

international heroes like Percy Schmeiser, Vandana Shiva, Jose Bove, Michael

Hansen, Ignacio Chapella, Tewolde Egziabher, Jane Akre, and Arpad

Pusztai-should all be congratulated on a monumental victory. This is the

first time in modern history that a new and unsustainable technology,

supported by many, if not most, major corporations and governments, is being

stopped dead in its tracks. This is the first, but certainly not the last,

swarm of the bees.

 

The reason we're winning this bee swarm is because we've finally started to

educate, communicate, and mobilize on a global basis, across class and

ethnic divides, in thousands of communities, reaching out to hundreds of

millions, in fact billions, of ordinary consumers and farmers. We've stuck

to the truth and our basic moral principles. We've placed our trust in the

basic common sense and decency of everyday people, while our adversaries

have resorted to lies, half-truths, and slick propaganda. We've realized, as

an enormous and diverse global Civil Society, that we don't have to agree on

every detail, tactic, and nuance-as long as we share an over-arching

vision-in this case, healthy food, healthy farming communities, and

biodiversity. Another reason we're winning this battle is because we've

stubbornly persisted, for 10 long years (Monsanto's recombinant Bovine

Growth Hormone was approved for commercialization in the U.S. in 1993), even

in the face of overwhelming odds, ridicule, and intimidation. In many cases

we've risked arrest, our jobs, and reputations. And finally, we've learned,

North and South, East and West, to use our incredibly potent market power,

the power of our consumer dollars, to vote against Frankenfoods and crops,

and instead to cast our votes for healthy food, Fair Trade, family-sized

farms, humane treatment of farm animals, and a sustainable future.

 

Of course, as a BioDemocracy News r, a scientist recently warned

me, " Techies like Monsanto never die. They come back again and again. "

Constant vigilance will be required, even as this first generation of 135

million acres of herbicide-resistant and pesticide-spliced crops shrivels up

on the vine. We must focus our next collective bee swarm on the key threats

that loom ahead-the WTO and the next generation of Frankencrops, genetically

engineered wheat, rice, trees, and biopharm crops-and make certain these

mutants are destroyed. But first and foremost, we must grasp the fact that

we are global, vast, and strong, and that is why we are winning. This is the

good news. Spread this buzz near and far.

 

And by the way if you want to join in on the next bee swarm, you are invited

to join yours truly, Ronnie Cummins, Michael Hansen, and the OCA on an

escorted delegation to the WTO teach-ins and protests in Cancun Mexico

September 4-11. http://www.organicconsumers.org/wto_cancun.htm

 

Beyond the Frankenfoods Threat

 

The bad news is that the unsustainable, energy-intensive, petroleum-based

practices of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture and long-distance

food transportation are major contributing factors to global warming and

climate disruption. Even without genetic engineering-now supercharged by

NAFTA and the WTO-industrial agriculture poses a mortal threat to public

health, biodiversity, and the environment. Almost a quarter of all

greenhouse gases in the global North are generated by industrial

agriculture: pesticide and nitrate fertilizer production, food processing,

food packaging, food waste in landfills, and long-distance food

transportation.

 

Beating back Monsanto and genetic engineering must embolden us to phase-out,

as soon as possible, industrial agriculture in general, and convert the U.S.

and global economy to a sustainable economy based upon natural biological

systems, solar power, wind, and hydrogen, instead of fossil fuels and

nuclear energy. If current trends of global warming persist, sustainable

agriculture, in fact all agriculture, will become problematic by the end of

this century, and perhaps as soon as the year 2050. A number of scientists

now believe that rapidly accumulating changes in the composition of the

atmosphere could trigger a catastrophic " die off " of most living organisms

by the year 2100, similar to what happened in the last catastrophic

extinction of species 250 million years ago.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/climate_change.cfm

 

And of course the second bit of bad news is that non-genetically engineered,

organic food is not going to taste that good in a fascist state. If

corporations and military contractors are allowed to pollute at will in

waterways such as the Colorado River basin, it won't just be California

organic produce such as lettuce that tests positive for deadly chemical

compounds such as perchlorate, a residue from rocket fuel.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/070903_toxic_lettuce.cfm

 

If the chemical and petroleum industries, the Pentagon, and dioxin-spewing

incinerators are allowed to continue venting their poisons, eventually

organic food, and even mothers' breast milk, will become toxic. If schools

and cities are starved for funds they'll never make the transition to

organic foods and fibers. If citizens and especially the poor remain

economically stressed and impoverished, they'll have little choice but to

continue buying cheap, junk food. If the corporate assault on organic

standards and organic companies continues, and if mainstream food

corporations are allowed to take over the organic industry, then it won't be

long before the " organic " label becomes meaningless.

 

In other words, we, the worker bees, have got our work cut out for us. Stay

tuned to OCA's website and Organic Bytes for news and alerts on the next

moves of the Predators and swarm of the bees. In the meantime enjoy yourself

and count the blessings of an emerging and powerful global Civil Society

that may indeed save the world. Peace and Justice. Bon Appetit.

 

***End of BioDemocracy News #43***

 

 

 

 

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