New report: After GM Food – here comes Nano Food!

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New report: After GM Food – here comes Nano Food!

" GM WATCH " <info

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:41:17 GMT

 

 

New report: After GM Food – here comes Nano Food!

http://www.gmwatch.org

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ETC Group

News Release

Wednesday November 24, 2004

www.etcgroup.org

 

After GM Food – here comes Nano Food!

UK food regulators challenged to remove Nanotech foods from the

shelves.

 

Publication of new report: " Down on the Farm: The Impact of Nano-Scale

Technologies on Food and Agriculture "

 

As the government committee who first let GM Food into Britain

prepares to meet again, The ETC Group (an international research and

advocacy organisation) has called for an urgent public debate about

the use of Nanotechnology in food and agriculture – recommending that

unassessednano-foods and pesticides be removed from the market. In a

new sixty page report, " Down on the Farm " (available online), ETC

Group offers the first comprehensive look at how nano-scale

technologies will transform farming, food and agriculture. At today's

public meeting of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes

(ACNFP) questions have been tabled calling for the withdrawal,

assessment and labelling of nanotech foods in line with

recommendations by the Royal Society and others. ETC will also be

writing to the European Commission as well as Food, Agriculture and

Environment Ministers worldwide asking them to take precautionary action.

 

Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter at the scale of

atoms and molecules, where size is measured in billionths of metres

and quantum physics determines how a substance behaves. According to

Hope Shand, ETC Group's Research Director, " Over the next two decades,

technologies converging at the nano-scale will have a greater impact

on farmers and food than farm mechanisation or the Green Revolution.

Most consumers and farmers are still unaware and have never been asked

whether they want these changes to the food chain " .

 

ETC's new report 'Down on the Farm' dishes out some big surprises: A

handful of food and nutrition products containing invisible and

un-labeled nano-scale additives are already on supermarket shelves. In

addition, a number of pesticides containing nano-scale materials have

been released in the environment and are commercially available.

Nanomaterials exhibit different properties than the same materials at

larger scales – and scientists are now finding out that some

nano-scale materials are more reactive and mobile if they enter the

body. Only a handful of toxicological studies exist. Because of these

concerns, ETC Group believes that the use of new, nano-scale materials

must be guided by the Precautionary Principle. " By allowing nanotech

food and agricultural products to come to market in the absence of

public debate and regulatory oversight, governments and industry may

be igniting a new and more intense debate – this time over

'atomically-modified' food and farming, " adds Jim

Thomas, ETC Group Programme Manager based in Oxford, UK.

 

Most of the world's largest food and drink corporations – including

Unilever, Nestle and Kraft – are conducting research and development

(R & D) on nano-scale technologies to engineer, process, package and

deliver food and nutrients. Major agribusiness firms, such as

Syngenta, BASF, Bayer and Monsanto are reformulating their pesticides

at the nano-scale to make them more biologically active and to win new

monopoly patents.

Down on the Farm examines a wide range of current R & D, ranging from

atomically-modified seeds, nano-sensors for precision agriculture,

plants engineered to produce metal nanoparticles, nano-vaccines for

farmed fish, nano-barcodes for tracking and controlling food products,

and more.

 

Last month the US Patent and Trademark Office established a new

classification for nanotechnology patents, notes ETC Group. " It's

ironic that a company can win a monopoly patent because their

nano-scale product is recognised as novel, but food and safety

regulators have yet to acknowledge the novelty of the nano-scale, "

notes ETC Researcher, Kathy Jo Wetter in North Carolina.

 

Commodity Roulette: Industry expects nano-scale technologies to create

dramatic shifts in supply and value chains, turning commodity markets

upside-down. ETC Group finds that small farmers and agricultural

workers in the developing world will be among the first and most

adversely affected by nanotech's new designer materials. Poor farmers

are seldom in a position to respond quickly to abrupt economic

changes. Particularly at risk are farm communities and countries in

the global South that depend on primary export commodities such as

rubber and cotton – products that could be displaced by new nanotech

materials. " Even if there might be environmental benefits to replacing

some natural commodities with materials designed at the nano-scale,

that won't prevent market disruptions from causing real harm to

livelihoods in the poorest countries, " explains Jim Thomas.

 

ETC Group recommends that society – including farmers, consumers,

civil society organisations and social movements – engage in a wide

debate about nano-scale technologies and their multiple economic,

health and environmental implications. " Any efforts by governments or

industry to confine the discussion to meetings of experts or to focus

the debate solely on health and safety aspects will be a mistake. The

broader social and ethical issues must be addressed, " warns ETC's

Silvia Ribeiro, Programme Manager in Mexico City.

 

In 2002, ETC called for a moratorium on the commercialisation of new

nano-scale materials arguing that laboratory protocols and regulatory

regimes need to be put in place that take into account the special

characteristics of these materials and that few safety studies exist.

In July this year a government sponsored investigation by the Royal

Society and The Royal Academy of Engineering also concurred that there

were significant regulatory gaps and safety issues associated with

nanomaterials. Accordingly, in Down of the Farm, ETC Group recommends

that all food, feed and beverage products incorporating manufactured

nanoparticles be removed from the shelves and new ones be prohibited

from commercialisation until companies and regulators have shown that

they have taken nano-scale property changes into account. Similarly,

nano-scale formulations of agricultural products such as pesticides

and fertilisers should be prohibited from environmental release until

a regulatory regime specifically designed to examine these nano-scale

products finds them safe.

 

Goo Plate Special: ETC's report also puts the spotlight on the

rapidly emerging field of synthetic biology – the construction of new

living systems in the laboratory that can be programmed to do things

that no natural organism can. " Living machines " frequently involve the

integration of living and non-living parts at the nano-scale – also

known as nanobiotechnology. " What if new life forms, especially those

that are designed to function autonomously in the environment, prove

difficult to control or contain? " asks ETC Group. Given the extreme

risks (that even mainstream scientists are beginning to acknowledge),

 

Down on the Farm calls for an immediate moratorium on laboratory

experimentation and environmental release of synthetic biology

materials until society can engage in a thorough analysis of the

health, environmental and socio-economic implications.

 

Down on the Farm: The Impact of Nano-Scale Technologies on Food and

Agriculture is now available on the ETC Group web site:

http://www.etcgroup.org

 

The Advisory Committee of Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP) is holding

an open meeting at Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London on the

afternoon of Wednesday 24 November 2004 from 1:30pm. The meeting will

seek public views on GM and non-GM novel foods (including nanofoods).

Jim Thomas of ETC group will be available at the ACNFP meeting for

comment.

 

For more information:

 

Jim Thomas jim

ETC Group – Oxford, UK phone: +44 1865 201719 mobile: +44 7752

106806.

 

Hope Shand: hope Kathy Jo Wetter: kjo ETC

Group - North Carolina, USA phone: 1-919 960-5223

 

Silvia Ribeiro: silvia

ETC Group – Mexico City phone: +52 5555 6326 64 mobile: +52 5526 5333

30

 

Pat Mooney: etc

ETC Group – Ottawa, Canada phone: 1-613 241-2267

 

 

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