Myth and Necessity of GM Free Zones

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Myth and Necessity of GM Free Zones

" GM WATCH " <info

 

 

Sun, 3 Oct 2004 14:53:23 +0100

 

 

 

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Another Spilling the Beans newsletter featuring the third in a monthly

series of articles on genetically engineered foods by author Jeffrey

Smith. Provides a very useful roundup of the contamination issue.

 

EXCERPT: University of Washington professor Phil Bereano reported in

the Seattle Times in 2002 that Emmy Simmons, assistant administrator of

USAID, " said to me after the cameras stopped rolling on a vigorous

debate we had on South Africa TV, 'In four years, enough GE [genetically

engineered] crops will have been planted in South Africa that the pollen

will have contaminated the entire continent' "

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The Myth and Necessity of GM Free Zones

By Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception

 

Institute for Responsible Technology

Spilling the Beans, October. 1, 2004

 

Imagine being hired by a new company whose boss says, " You're an

environmentally minded person. That's why we picked you to organize a

recall

of our genetically engineered salmon—from the ocean. Good luck. "

 

While this may seem far fetched, it may not be far off. One company,

Aqua Bounty, had hoped for US government approval for their genetically

modified (GM) salmon as early as 2002. A study published in June 2004

may prolong their wait. When GM salmon, engineered to be seven times

their normal size, were put into tanks with a limited food supply, all

hell

broke loose. Whether swimming with other GM fish or with natural

salmon, the " transgenic salmon experienced population crashes or complete

extinctions. " [1] Some of the Frankenfish killed and even ate their rivals.

 

While organizing a recall of GM fish from the ocean or GM insects from

the air (planned for the future) is not yet an issue, widespread

contamination by GM plants is. On September 9, 2004, citizen groups

announced

that tests of nearly 20,000 papaya seeds on the Big Island of Hawaii

revealed that half were genetically modified. Eighty percent were taken

from organic farms and not supposed to be GM. Twenty percent were from

home gardens and wild papaya trees. Contamination was also found in

Thailand, where the Department of Agriculture had accidentally sold GM

papaya seeds.[2] After foreign buyers cancelled orders for Thai

Papaya, the

government pledged to destroy any GM tree it finds and quarantine the

area.

 

Many Americans became familiar with GM contamination in September 2000,

when StarLink® corn, a potentially allergenic GM variety not approved

for human consumption, was found in taco shells and other corn products.

Planted to less than 1 percent of the nation's corn acreage, StarLink

was found in 22 percent of the corn samples tested by the USDA and

prompted the recall of more than 300 food brands. After an extensive

program

to remove it, three years later StarLink still showed up in more than 1

percent of corn samples.

 

In late September 2004, a government study reported that the

light-weight pollen of a GM variety of bentgrass had cross pollinated

with

natural bentgrass nearly 13 miles downwind.[3] The GM variety,

developed by

Monsanto and Scott corporations for use on golf courses, does not die

when sprayed with Monsanto's Roundup® herbicide. Although designed to aid

golf course managers control weeds (and Monsanto to sell herbicide) if

this hard-to-kill grass spreads via pollination, it could itself become

a weed. The Forest Service opposes its approval and says that the grass

" has the potential to adversely impact all 175 national forests and

grasslands. " [4] Scott had expected pollen to travel only about 1000

feet.

The 13 miles was described by one researcher as " a paradigm shift in

how far pollen might move. " [5] Responding to the study, a September 30

New York Times editorial stated, " We must ensure that the genes from

genetically engineered plants do not escape into the wild and wreak havoc

in natural ecosystems. " It said that the finding " virtually demands a

careful reassessment of how such plants are regulated. "

 

UK researchers, however, had earlier found that canola pollen can be

carried by bees for 16 miles.[6] And on September 24, 2004, a UK paper

described new research indicating that for canola, " most pollination was

carried out by bees, rather than windblown pollen. " [7] Thus, distances

of several miles may be common. Canola contamination has been

particularly notorious:

 

Canadian Percy Schmeiser was sued by Monsanto when the company's

herbicide tolerant canola was found in Schmeiser's field. According to a

ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court, irrespective of whether farmers

intentionally plant GM seeds without a license or their plants are

contaminated by wind blown pollen or insects, a company's patent on a

gene

extends to living organisms containing the gene. Therefore, farmers

can be

sued when their crops are contaminated and their plants can be

confiscated.

 

GM canola has so thoroughly contaminated non-GM varieties, including

traditional seeds, Saskatchewan's organic growers abandoned the crop

altogether and are suing Monsanto and Bayer CropScience for damages.

 

Canola engineered to survive applications of certain herbicides

pollinated weedy relatives, turning them into super weeds that

withstand the

weed killers.

 

Unharvested GM canola seeds fall to the ground and then grow (and

reseed) in subsequent years. Thus, if GM canola is grown in a field

during

one season and non-GM varieties are grown thereafter, GM contamination

levels will be at 1 percent or higher for an estimated 16 years.[8]

 

Contamination from a previous years' crop was responsible for a

pharmaceutical corn planted in 2002 contaminating soybeans planted in

the same

field in 2003. The " pharm " corn, genetically engineered to produce a

pig vaccine, got mixed into half a million bushels of soybeans that had

to be destroyed. Prodigene, the makers of the pharm corn, tried to

introduce another drug-making variety recently. USDA rules require a

buffer

zone of at least one mile between pharm corn and food grade corn. But

in Illinois last year, after a farmer planted blue corn in his field,

blue kernels appeared in cornfields as far as three miles away. Sierra

Club air pollution expert Neil Carman, however, argues that particles

with the molecular weight of corn pollen can be swooped up in certain

weather conditions and theoretically travel hundreds of miles during

the 24

hours that the pollen remains viable.[9]

 

Seeds also travel. Consider Hawaii, once pure lava rock, now a lush

tropical paradise. It is more than 2000 miles away from the nearest

mainland.

 

Even if we could stop pollen or seeds from traveling, accidental mixing

occurs in harvesting equipment, during storage or transport, or through

human error. Soybeans, for example, do not cross pollinate, yet at

least half of the bags of supposedly non-GM soybean seeds purchased by

the

Union of Concerned Scientists were contaminated by GM seeds.[10]

 

Studies show that the more people learn about GM foods, the less they

trust them. Consequently, the world market for GM food is shrinking.

Because of the threat of contamination, buyers often reject all crops

from

a region where GM varieties of that species are grown. Thus, even

though about 60 percent of US corn is not GM, US corn growers have

lost 99.4

percent of their European corn market. Similarly, Canada lost its

European markets for GM and non-GM canola, and for their honey which may

contain canola pollen. The world market share for US soy dropped from 57

to 46 percent, and is expected to further decline as Europeans reject

products from animals fed GM soy. The economic impact from GM crops has

been a disaster for the US, where increased farm subsidies due to lost

markets are estimated at an extra $2-$3 billion per year.

 

When Monsanto threatened to introduce herbicide tolerant wheat, 87

percent of Canada's foreign wheat buyers said they would go elsewhere if

the GM variety was grown.[11] In the US, a loss of 30-50 percent of

foreign wheat markets was projected, with an expected drop in prices by

about a third.[12] The wheat industry lobbied hard for North America

to be

a GM-wheat-free-zone. While no laws were passed, Monsanto responded to

pressure by temporarily curtailing their efforts.

 

Citizens around the world seeking to protect their economy,

environment, and/or health are establishing " GM free zones " -- tracts

of land,

even whole countries, where GM crops cannot be planted. Nearly two

thousand jurisdictions[13] in 22 countries[14] in Europe have declared

themselves GM free zones and the same holds true for parts of New

Zealand,

most states in Australia, Venezuela, most of Brazil, Angola, Sudan, and

Zambia. And on March 2, 2004, Mendocino County, California became a GM

free zone after voters there passed a ballot initiative. On November 2,

citizens in other counties will vote on similar measures. County

supervisors in Trinity County didn't wait for a vote. They passed an

ordinance

banning GM crops in August.

 

GM free zones have the unenviable distinction of being inadequate to

prevent contamination in the long term (see Hawaii) and absolutely

necessary to slow it down in the short term. In California, for

example, the

biotech industry hopes to soon introduce GM rice, lettuce, and

strawberries. This threatens to close doors to both foreign markets and a

growing number of non-GM US brands.

 

Mexico is home to corn's original and diverse genetic resources. To

protect these vital indigenous varieties, there has been a ban on

planting

GM corn there since 1998. But corn imported from the US for use as food

is often planted by farmers. Consequently, recent studies in Mexico

reveal widespread contamination from GM varieties, including the outlawed

StarLink. On September 29, 2004, the Chicago Tribune reported that an

expert panel of the North American Commission for Environmental

Cooperation issued a report recommending that US corn be milled into

flour

before it is exported into Mexico, to prevent further contamination.[15]

The controversial report has not been made public and some believe it

will not officially surface until after the November election.[16] Its

recommendations are bound to anger the US government, which last year

refused requests by African countries to mill the GM corn being given as

food aid. The US has been pressuring other governments for years to

accept GM food and crops, and many believe that the U.S. Agency for

International Development (USAID) consciously uses contamination as a

means to

promote that acceptance. Indeed, University of Washington professor

Phil Bereano reported in the Seattle Times in 2002 that Emmy Simmons,

assistant administrator of USAID, " said to me after the cameras stopped

rolling on a vigorous debate we had on South Africa TV, 'In four years,

enough GE [geneticallyengineered] crops will have been planted in South

Africa that the pollen will have contaminated the entire continent' " [17]

 

1.Robert H. Devlin *, Mark D'Andrade, Mitchell Uh and Carlo A. Biagi ,

Population effects of growth hormone transgenic coho salmon depend on

food availability and genotype by environment interactions, online: June

10, 2004, 10.1073/pnas.0400023101, or PNAS | June 22, 2004 | vol. 101 |

no. 25 | 9303-9308,

2.GE papaya scandal in Thailand: Illegal GE seeds found in packages

sold by Department of Agriculture Greenpeace, July 27, 2004

http://www.greenpeace.org/news/details?item_id=547563

3.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: (DOI:

10.1073/pnas.0405154101)

4.Andrew Pollack, Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study

Finds, NY Times, September 21, 2004

5.Andrew Pollack, Genes From Engineered Grass Spread for Miles, Study

Finds, NY Times, September 21, 2004

6.Paul Brown, Scientists uncover risks in GM oil seed rape, The

Guardian, October 14, 2003

7.RESEARCH COULD CHANGE WAY GM CROPS ARE GROWN, September 24, 2004,

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=143632 & command=displayConten\

t & sourceNode=142719 & contentPK=11011383

8.Paul Brown, Scientists uncover risks in GM oil seed rape, The

Guardian, October 14, 2003

9.Neil J. Carman, Sierra Club comments to U.S. Department of

Agriculture, APHIS docket # 04-044-1 & # 04-041-1, APHIS' draft

Environmental

Assessments of Prodigene Inc.'s permit applications to grow

biopharmaceutical corn in Frio County, Texas, August 10, 2004.

10.Margaret Mellon and Jane Rissler, Gone to Seed: Transgenic

Contaminants in the Traditional Seed Supply, Union of Concerned

Scientists,

2004,

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/biotechnology/page.cfm?pageID=1315

11.Canada wheat board cheers Monsanto GMO decision, Reuters, May 11,

2004

12.Robert Wisner, Market Risks of Genetically Modified Wheat, Iowa

State University, October 30, 2003,

http://www.worc.org/issues/gmo_temp.html

13.Campaign for GM free zones and regions gathers force,

Environmentalists and regional authorities launch joint initiative,

(Friends of the

Earth Europe), September 14, 2004,

http://www.ebfarm.com/news-world/FOEgmfree091404.html

14.Stefania Bianchi, Anti-GM Movement Spreads Across Europe, Inter

Press Service, April 22, 2004

15.Hugh Dellios, Report could put a crimp in corn exports, Chicago

Tribune, September 29, 2004

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

16.Hugh Dellios, Report could put a crimp in corn exports, Chicago

Tribune, September 29, 2004

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

17.Phil Bereano, Opinion piece, Seattle Times, November 19, 2002

 

The above article may be used as a stand-alone opinion piece, or as

part of a monthly series about genetically modified foods by Jeffrey

Smith. Publishers and webmasters may offer the series to your readers

at no

charge, by e-mailing a request to us. Individuals may read the column

each month, by subscribing to a free newsletter at

www.seedsofdeception.com.

 

 

© Copyright Jeffrey M. Smith. Permission is granted to reproduce this

article in whole or in part.