Farmers in Midwestern U.S. increase planting of genetically altered soybeans
July 3
Knight Ridder/Tribune
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Farmers in Nebraska and Iowa and across the United States increased their planting of genetically modified soybeans this year, taking advantage of their potential to cut costs in production.
The use of biotech soybeans jumped 26 percent as farmers planted varieties that allow them to use weed killers without damaging the soybean plant, eliminating the labor-intensive task of walking through bean fields and pulling weeds.
Last year, 54 percent of soybean acres were planted to biotech seeds. This year, it is 68 percent. Farmers increased the share of biotech soybean acres from 72 percent to 76 percent in Nebraska and from 59 percent to 73 percent in Iowa. ...
Thailand: Campaign to begin against GM foods
July 6
Bangkok Post
Thai and international activists will join forces with consumer protection groups and farmer organizations to launch a campaign against genetically modified products next week.
The campaign is a response to an international conference on biotechnology, scheduled for July 10-12 and organized by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The activists believed the "New Biotechnology Foods and Crops: Science, Safety and Society" conference would be geared as a forum to promote acceptance of GM products in developing countries.
Organizers said the campaign against GM products would be launched on July 10.
Participants would include BioThai, a network of groups advocating protection of biological resources, Greenpeace International, Consumer International and Third World Network.
They would form a group called "People's against GMOs."Auaiporn Suthonthanyakorn, of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said the fact that Thailand was picked as a venue for the conference showed the intention of developed countries to force Thailand to allow in more GM products.
The activists said BioThai and the Foundation for Consumers had already turned down an invitation for them to become part of the conference's steering committee.
The conference's program was already fixed and their participation would not make any difference, they said.
Another activist claimed the conference would be focusing primarily on scientific aspect of GMOs in a bid to divert public attention from the ongoing debate which covered socio-economic, religious and ethical aspects.
"The conference is aimed at weakening the strong feeling against GMOs in developing countries while the OECD had failed to persuade their public to accept GM products," said Saree Ongsomwang, of the Confederation of Consumers Organizations.
The GM crop gamble could mean famine, not feast
July 1, Sunday Times (UK) column by John Humphrys
...The genetic modification of plants. This is
the big prize sought by many of the biotech bigwigs who have been
meeting in San Diego: the rollover lottery jackpot, the Oscar.
The victor ends up controlling the world's food supply: the seeds
that are planted; the fertilizer to make them grow; the
pesticides to kill the bugs and the weeds. Forget Bill Gates. His
success will seem modest compared with the riches on offer to the
companies that win the GM race. We don't all need computers in
our living rooms, but we all need food.
The biggest American multinationals have already spent mind-boggling sums of money on GM research and marketing. They simply cannot afford to have it fail. When they brought their wares to Europe a few years ago to persuade us to buy, they were so desperate to impress that they got it horribly wrong. A massive advertising campaign here peddled claims that were downright misleading. They treated us like simpletons.
GM, we were told, was a risk-free solution to the world's food problems. If we embraced the technology, no child need ever again go to bed hungry. If we rejected it we would be condemning half the world to starvation.
But a country still reeling from BSE was skeptical. We looked at what some of the excesses of factory farming had done to this country since the war - to the environment, to the quality and safety of our food - and we recoiled. The British Medical Association called for a moratorium on planting GM crops. The supermarkets whisked GM food off their shelves so fast that the biotech companies were left blinking. As they watched the value of their shares crashing, the saboteurs went into action. Trial plots of GM crops were ripped out of the ground by Greenpeace protesters in white boiler suits. They filmed themselves doing it, were arrested and taken to court.
The jury listened to their arguments and found them not guilty. The protesters are still at it and they are still getting away with it. The whole trial scheme is in a mess. Without convincing trial results the government will find it very difficult indeed to sanction the commercial planting of GM crops, however great the pressure from the multinationals and their friends in the American administration.
Britain is not alone in Europe. There are no GM crops being grown commercially in any of the other member states of the European Union. Now the EU is in the process of amending a directive that will come into force in October of next year and which, it says, will make it even more difficult for the biotech companies to put the squeeze on EU governments.
Nor are we alone in the world. There are GM crops growing on about 100m acres of land. But two thirds of that land is in the United States and almost all the rest is in either Canada or Argentina. The question is whether the world is right to be cautious.
Every independent scientist recognizes that there are risks involved. You might say the same for all new technologies and it is fiendishly difficult to assess risk. But let me recommend one approach: multiply the probability of a particular event occurring by the consequences of that event.
The probability of stubbing your toe on the bed at some time or another is great but the consequences are small, so you don't get rid of the bed. The probability of getting cancer from smoking 40 cigarettes a day is also great but the consequences are horrendous, so you'd be a fool to keep smoking.
With GM food we do not know what the probability is of something going wrong, but we do know what could happen if it does. Some of the world's most distinguished scientists say it is possible that swapping genes between different species could eventually create new diseases for which there is no cure. So the probability may be small but the consequences might be catastrophic.
There is another factor that influences the risk equation: benefit. If the benefit is overwhelming, it changes the picture. Who would not be prepared to take a sizeable risk if the benefit were, say, a cure for every known cancer?
The greatest potential benefit for GM crops is that they will help to feed the world. Note that the biotech companies have toned down their claims since their initial sales assault on Europe. It is now no longer the answer; it is part of the answer. But is it even that?
The reason why there are so many hungry people in the world is not that there is a shortage of food. It is because there are too many desperately poor people. There is more than enough food to feed every man, woman and child. They simply can't afford either to get to where it is or to buy it.
Some respected Third World charities believe the GM revolution might make matters worse. Christian Aid has produced a report that says GM crops would create "classic preconditions for hunger and famine".
That is because the multinationals have spent a fortune buying up many of the biggest seed companies and patenting the different seed varieties. Christian Aid says a food supply based on too few varieties of patented crops is the worst option for food security. The poorest countries themselves are deeply suspicious of the whole project.
So if the consequences are potentially catastrophic and the benefits are, at best, debatable, the risk begins to look pretty big even if we cannot assess the probability. Perhaps the biotech conference should have moved from California across the state border to Nevada. That's where everyone goes to gamble.