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> The_Fahrenheit_9/11_of_GM

> " GM_WATCH " <info

> Thu, 9 Sep 2004 21:04:54 +0100

>

> GM WATCH daily

> http://www.gmwatch.org

> ---

> " The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of

> the genetically engineered food battle. " - Doug

> Mosel as quoted in Wired News Article (see item 2)

>

> " As we move on into this so-called biotech

> revolution and we start producing more and more

> transgenic manipulations, we'll start seeing pieces

> of DNA interacting with eatch other in ways that are

> totally unpredictable... I think this is probably

> the largest biological experiment humanity has ever

> entered into. " - Ignacio Chapela

> http://www.thefutureoffood.com/resources.htm

>

> How to buy the film on VHS or DVD:

> http://www.thefutureoffood.com/sales.htm

>

> 1.The Future of Food

> 2.GMO-Food Foes Turn to Film

> 3.Bad Seeds

> ---

> 1.The Future of Food

> http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

>

> " The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of

> the genetically engineered food battle. " - Doug

> Mosel as quoted in Wired News Article (see item 2)

>

> " If you eat food, you need to see The Future of

> Food... " - Newstarget.com

>

> " This stylish film is not just for food faddists and

> nutritionists. It is a look at something we might

> not want to see: Monsanto, Roundup and

> Roundup-resistant seeds, collectively wreaking havoc

> on American farmers and our agricultural neighbors

> around the world. In the end, this documentary is a

> eloquent call to action. " - The Telluride Daily

> Planet

> ---

> 2.GMO-Food Foes Turn to Film

> By Jason Silverman

> Wired News, Jul. 08, 2004

>

> Last March, the food-safety organization GMO Free

> Mendocino did something no group had ever done: It

> ushered through a law banning genetically engineered

> crops and livestock.

>

> It was a David-thrashes-Goliath victory. Opponents

> of the legislation, led by the agricultural trade

> group CropLife America, outspent the anti-GMO

> activists by a nearly 10-1 ratio. But GMO Free

> Mendocino had a secret weapon: a film, then a work

> in progress, called The Future of Food.

>

> The new documentary, created by Deborah Koons

> Garcia, uses archival footage and interviews with

> farmers and agriculture experts to argue that GMO

> foods are jeopardizing our food safety. During the

> past 10 years, the film tells us, genetically

> engineered crops have infected our food supply and

> undermined cultivation methods that have been

> refined over thousands of years.

>

> The Future of Food lays out a detailed case against

> genetically engineered crops. Exploring a gamut of

> issues from so-called suicide seeds to lax

> food-safety enforcement laws, and from the

> controversy over patented genes to infected

> cornfields, the film is a comprehensive and chilling

> example of anti-GMO rhetoric.

>

> GMO Free Mendocino spokesman Doug Mosel described

> The Future of Food as a major factor in the passage

> of Measure H, which banned the use of GMO farming

> within Mendocino County, California.

>

> " The Future of Food could be the Fahrenheit 9/11 of

> the genetically engineered food battle, " Mosel said.

> The film is currently touring festivals and other

> events, including an upcoming screening in San

> Francisco.

>

> Garcia, Jerry Garcia's third and final wife, has

> been interested in the ways plants can be mutated

> since childhood. At 15, she won a science fair award

> for an experiment involving irradiated plants, and

> she has followed the evolution of genetic

> engineering for years.

>

> " My goal was to make a film that gave the average

> person a clear understanding of how genetic

> engineering works, from the cellular level to the

> global level, " Garcia said. " I'm hoping this film

> can be a combination of Silent Spring and The Battle

> of Algiers. Once you see it you'll feel compelled to

> act, even if that means just changing the kind of

> food you eat. "

>

> Though The Future of Food is not intended as a

> two-sides-to-the-story analysis, Garcia said she

> requested interviews from representatives at

> Monsanto, the multinational seed and pesticide giant

> that is driving the genetically engineered food

> movement. She did not receive a response.

>

> Perhaps Monsanto is trying to keep a low profile.

> The company has suffered a string of well-publicized

> setbacks to its genetically engineered crop

> initiatives in recent years, including closure of

> its GMO wheat project in May.

>

> According to agriculture expert Chuck Benbrook,

> Monsanto and other biotech agriculture companies are

> " retrenching -- reducing their research, reducing

> projections for profits, watching the range of

> viable applications shrinking. "

>

> Benbrook served in the Carter and Reagan

> administrations before becoming executive director

> of the Board on Agriculture of the National Academy

> of Sciences. In his various positions, he watched as

> biotech companies rushed products to market. The

> first GMO foods reached shelves in 1997.

>

> Though scientists were initially supportive to the

> point of being myopic -- Benbrook described early

> reports from the National Academy as " unadulterated

> boosterism " -- biotech foods today look less

> promising than they did even a few years ago.

> According to Benbrook, genetic engineering has

> failed to solve the problems advocates hoped it

> would. And, he added, food-safety concerns remain

> unresolved.

>

> " The biotech industry is beginning to recognize that

> there are lots of reasons why it's hard to move

> genes across boundaries, " Benbrook said. " Scientists

> have found ways around the natural protections, but

> there are really good reasons for them being there,

> and we violate them at some cost. "

>

> For five-sixths of the problems that genetic

> engineering promises to address, Benbrook added,

> genetic solutions are not necessary.

>

> GMO companies are also finding increased resistance

> on the legal front. In April, Vermont became the

> first state to require registration and labeling of

> genetically modified products. According to one

> anti-GMO site, nearly 100 towns in New England have

> approved some sort of anti-GMO legislation.

>

> Since the Mendocino law was signed, Garcia said as

> many as a dozen other California municipalities have

> drawn up similar legislation.

>

> " The Future of Food has already helped change

> policy, " Garcia said. " I think it is possible to

> make California GE-free, and it's exciting to think

> that the film could have some role in that. "

> ---

> 3.Bad Seeds

> By Denise Caruso, AlterNet. Posted August 23, 2004

> http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19628/

>

> Whoever controls the seed controls the food. And as

> a new film documents, the dangers of monoculture,

> industrial agriculture – and Monsanto –bode poorly

> for the future of food.

>

> In less skillful hands, a film about genetically

> modified (GM) food could have been tough sledding

> for regular folks to sit through. Making visual

> sense of the science alone would be a daunting task.

> But The Future of Food is an engaging and lucid

> presentation of not only the science of genetic

> engineering, but of the people and the politics

> behind what looks to be a pitched battle to control

> the global food supply.

>

> Deborah Koons Garcia, a long-time documentary

> filmmaker (and wife of the Grateful Dead's Jerry

> Garcia), spent the past three years writing,

> directing and producing Food for her Mill Valley,

> CA-based Lily Films. The idea for the film came

> after her award-winning educational series " All

> About Babies, " an in-depth examination of the first

> two years of a child's life. She's had a lifelong

> concern about how food is grown, and " I always

> wanted to make a big film about agriculture that was

> as thorough as 'Babies,' " said Garcia.

>

> She has said that her goal in making the film was to

> produce a cross between Silent Spring – Rachel

> Carson's historic shot-heard-'round-the-world about

> the dangers of chemical pesticides – and The Battle

> of Algiers, the 1965 film by Gillo Pontecorvo that

> became a training film for the Black Panthers as

> well as those who opposed the Vietnam War.

>

> And it's true, The Future of Food makes no secret of

> its desire to see GM seed and food removed from the

> food supply. But its rendition of the science of

> genetic modification (and its potential risks) is

> clear and accurate. And the many startling facts

> that it presents about both the agriculture industry

> and the U.S. government, which continues to prop it

> up with taxpayer subsidies, make the film very

> difficult for a reasonable person to dismiss as mere

> anti-GM propaganda.

>

> Fear of a Modified Planet

>

> In farming, a monoculture is the result of

> cultivating a single plant variety over a large area

> of land. Monocultures make a single strain of plant

> – one particular variety of soybean, for example,

> out of the hundreds that may exist – particularly

> vulnerable to being wiped out by a single pest,

> microbial infection or some other environmental

> stressor, like an unseasonable heat wave or cold

> snap.

>

> In fact, according to the film, a monoculture caused

> the 1845 potato blight and subsequent famine in

> Ireland that killed a million people. When the same

> blight hit Peru, where potatoes originated and many

> different strains are still grown, its effect was

> far less devastating.

>

> One of the hazards that has already come to pass

> with GM crops is that seeds from modified,

> " transgenic " plants are contaminating fields planted

> with traditional, non-GM crops. History provides

> ample evidence that this type of contamination and

> other unintentional plantings of GM seed may

> gradually create dangerous, invasive species-type

> monocultures on many of the most fertile, diverse

> and productive crop lands in the world.

>

> " A single genotype that's preferential crowds out

> diversity, and that is a threat to food security, "

> says one of the scientists interviewed in the film.

> " Without access to genetic resources, we will have

> challenges we cannot solve. "

>

> And while this is a frightening enough proposition,

> it becomes clear in The Future of Food that there

> are other, equally insidious " monocultures " involved

> in this story.

>

> The second, more figurative monoculture is

> developing as a result of consolidation in the food

> supply chain. Today only four clusters of seed

> companies provide seed to farmers around the world.

> In the last decade, this consolidation has started

> to happen in the retail sector too. Within the next

> 10 years, one expert estimates, all retail food will

> come from six American firms. This level of

> corporate control means we'll have virtually no

> choice about what's on our store shelves.

>

> As another scientist in the film says, " Whoever

> controls the seed, controls the food. "

>

> The third and possibly most frightening monoculture

> is the political one that Garcia details. It has

> already contaminated most of what could pass as

> public discourse, and it's co-evolved between

> government regulators and industry – industry, in

> the case of GM food, meaning primarily the Monsanto

> Company.

>

> A one-stop shop for global industrial agriculture,

> Monsanto has also managed to install a revolving

> door between its corporate headquarters and most of

> the agencies in the U.S. government that regulate

> its products.

>

> During the first Bush administration, for example,

> after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists

> protested the lack of regulation for GM foods, the

> agency hired Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto

> official, to write a new, industry-friendly FDA

> policy for GM food crops. Linda Fisher, a former

> executive vice president at Monsanto, is now deputy

> administrator for the Environmental Protection

> Agency. (According to the film, Fisher has actually

> been back and forth between Monsanto and EPA three

> times.) Ann Veneman, the head of the U.S. Department

> of Agriculture, is a former Monsanto executive. So

> is Mickey Cantor, former Secretary of Commerce. As

> is Clarence Thomas: now a Supreme Court judge,

> formerly a lawyer in Monsanto's pesticide and

> agriculture division.

>

> One is tempted to begin this next sentence with " As

> a result ... " But of course we don't know why,

> exactly, the U.S. EPA and FDA have determined that

> GM crops and the foods produced from them should be

> classified under the rubric " GRAS " – 'generally

> recognized as safe.' In any case, the fact remains

> that these products require no labeling, no

> traceability, no corporate liability and no ongoing

> collection of data on health effects.

>

> And the GRAS designation doesn't even touch the

> patent laws that allow companies like Monsanto to

> prosecute farmers who end up with Monsanto plants

> that they didn't sow contaminating crops on their

> own property. Just blowing in from a neighboring

> field is good enough for the company to drive onto

> thousands of farmers' properties and demand a sample

> of whatever is growing in their fields. One farmer

> in the film, who was being sued by Monsanto,

> believes the company has sent 9,000 patent

> infringement letters demanding payment, and has 100

> active lawsuits against farmers.

>

> " It's like a return to the feudal system, " he said.

>

> Roundup of Reliable Sources

>

> While The Future of Food falls short of Garcia's

> goal of creating a hybrid of Silent Spring and The

> Battle of Algiers, that's hardly her fault. First,

> there's a shameful lack of scientific data about

> genetic engineering overall: simply not enough to

> support or condemn GM food in the same way that

> Carson condemned DDT. As one scientist says,

> transgenic manipulations are " probably the largest

> biological experiment humanity has ever entered

> into, " while there's been virtually no long-term

> risk or safety analyses to support their widespread

> deployment. As for Algiers: so far, successful

> guerrilla warfare against multinational corporations

> has proven to be even more difficult to sustain than

> war on the equally elusive target of terrorism.

>

> That said, the film is an eloquent, compelling

> introduction to one of the most complicated,

> critically important and criminally overlooked

> issues of the day. It's a story well-told, mostly by

> the people who are living it – the film's

> " consultants, " as they're called, are for the most

> part involved in blowing the whistle, or trying to,

> on the present situation.

>

> They include Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director

> of the Center for Food Safety; Charles Benbrook,

> Ph.D., the former director of the Board on

> Agriculture for the National Academy of Science

> whose extensive research counters much of the

> biotech industry's hype; Rodney Nelson of Nelson

> Farm Enterprises in North Dakota, who claims his

> livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a

> Monsanto lawsuit; Ignacio Chapela, the U.C. Berkeley

> professor whose graduate student discovered that the

> Mexican land races of maize had been contaminated

> with Monsanto's Bt version – and whose peer-reviewed

> results were subsequently disavowed in pages of a

> leading science journal; and Arpad Puzstai, the

> former Rowett Research Institute scientist who was

> suspended from his position after releasing

> preliminary results that transgenic potatoes had

> stunted growth in rats.

>

> And perhaps most famously, Percy Schmeiser, the

> Canadian canola farmer whose fields were invaded by

> Monsanto's " Roundup Ready " canola seeds which blew

> off a neighbor's truck driving by his land.

> ( " Roundup Ready " seeds have been genetically altered

> to resist the popular herbicide, Roundup, so that

> farmers can douse entire fields with the chemical

> and only the crops survive. Monsanto sells farmer

> both the seed and the herbicide.) Monsanto sued him

> for infringing on its patent, and the case went all

> the way to the Supreme Court in Canada; Schmeiser

> lost.

>

> People who know the subject matter may have some

> quibbles with Garcia's presentation. For example,

> nowhere in the film does she say that she tried to

> contact Monsanto for a comment, although apparently

> she did and they didn't respond. Noting this would

> have deflected at least the most obvious criticism

> about why and how Food is an un-balanced

> representation of the situation.

>

> And some of the facts of the cases she presents – in

> particular, the Percy Schmeiser case – may have

> suffered a bit from wishful interpretation. The

> Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser decision made

> headlines around the world because for the first

> time a company won control over the higher life form

> – in this case, the plant – that contained its

> patented gene, and not just the gene itself.

>

> But according to an article on the decision,

> published in the July-August 2004 issue of the

> newsletter GeneWatch, " the Court was at pains to

> point out that its decision was based on the facts

> as found at trial and that in different factual

> circumstances, a different legal outcome " might have

> resulted. The factual circumstances were that a year

> after Schmeiser's fields were contaminated,

> Monsanto's tests showed that 95 to 98 percent of his

> plants contained the company's patented gene.

>

> " The issue is not the perhaps adventitious arrival

> of Roundup Ready Canola on Mr Schmeiser's land in

> 1998, " it says in Paragraph 92 of the decision.

> " What is at stake in this case is the sowing and

> cultivation [its emphasis] which necessarily

> involves deliberate and careful activity on the part

> of the farmer. "

>

> Nowhere does Schmeiser or the film explain the

> conflict between the original, accidental arrival of

> Monsanto's canola on his land and the court's

> finding – undisputed by Schmeiser – that he'd sown

> and cultivated the seeds once they were there.

> Analyses of the case have been based on wildly

> diverging versions of what actually happened. By not

> acknowledging this factor in the court's decision,

> the film again opens itself to accusations of

> selective interpretation of the facts.

>

> But these are small as quibbles go. If The Future of

> Food starts making the rounds on VHS and DVD in

> living rooms, as Garcia is hoping it will, it might

> well start a movement that cannot be stopped in the

> usual fashion; that is, by maligning researchers or

> suing farmers. Garcia says she often sees people cry

> during the film, or they " get so freaked out about

> food that they stay awake at night and end up going

> through all their cupboards checking ingredients and

> chucking food. "

>

> Such reactions might instigate a grassroots response

> across the U.S. much like that which is happening in

> California today: Following the example of Mendocino

> and Trinity counties, which have passed laws banning

> genetically modified organisms, several other

> California counties have begun GE-free campaigns.

> Vermont and Maine are considering moratoria or bans

> as well. The power of such a response should not be

> underestimated: In response to overwhelming negative

> reaction from consumers and suppliers around the

> world, Monsanto has dropped its Roundup Ready wheat

> globally and withdrawn its applications for food use

> in all countries except for the U.S.

>

> Of course, it has already been approved for human

> consumption here.

>

> 'The Future of Food' will be screened August 20-27

> at the ArcLight Theater in Los Angeles as part of

> the International Documentary Association's InFACT

> Festival. VHS copies are available now; DVDs will be

> ready mid-September.

>

> Denise Caruso is the former technology columnist for

> The New York Times and serves on the board of the

> Independent Media Institute, the parent organization

> of AlterNet. Her book, Redefining Risk in the

> Post-Genome World, will be published by Doubleday in

> 2005.

>

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