NOFA/Massachusetts Social Action Center
Genetic Engineering News
December 10, 2008
compiled by Jack Kittredge
NOFA/Mass Social Action Coordinator
Biotech Crops in Food and Feed Prompt Warning on Monitoring
Federal agencies should improve their monitoring of genetically engineered crops to ensure they don't harm the environment or human health, government investigators say. In at least six incidents since 2000, unapproved versions of biotech ?crops got into the food and feed supply, and there are likely to be more because it is so easy for plant genetic material to spread, according to ?a report released Friday by the Government Accountability Office. The report urged the three federal agencies in charge of regulating?biotech crops - the Agriculture Department, Food and Drug Administration?and Environmental Protection Agency - to work more closely together to ?evaluate and monitor crops, including those already on the market. The report also called on the FDA to post on its Web site safety evaluations of biotech crops.
source: Des Moines Register, 12/8/08 http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20081206/BUSINESS01/812060321/1
Unauthorized GM Cotton Mixed With Commercial Cotton
An unauthorized strain of genetically modified cotton was accidentally mixed in with other harvested cotton in Texas in November, but government officials played down any safety concerns. About a quarter ton of the experimental cotton seed engineered to contain a protein that produces a pesticide was combined with about 60 tons of commercial cotton growing nearby, said Eric Flamm, a senior adviser at the Food and Drug Administration.The mixture, grown near Lamesa in West Texas, about 300 miles west of Fort Worth, was then stored along with 20,000 tons of commercial cotton seed in a warehouse. Nearly half the crop was processed into cottonseed oil and cotton meal to use as animal feed before officials at Monsanto Co., which grows the experimental cotton on a test plot, realized the mistake.
One food safety group said the case shows the need for stricter government regulation over experimental crops. "This incident and a string of others that have come to light over the past two years show that the USDA is fundamentally incapable of protecting our food," said Karen Perry Stillerman, a food analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
source: The Associated Press, December 3, 2008
GMO Crop Critics Fear USDA Will Ease Regulations
Critics of biotech crops are trying to head off rule changes by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the waning days of the Bush Administration that they say would ease restrictions on the controversial crops. "USDA is laying the statutory groundwork to eliminate a lot of genetically modified plants from any regulation at all, even at the field test stage," said Center for Food Science policy analyst Bill Freese.
The USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which regulates certain genetically engineered organisms including plant pests that may damage crops and other plants, have been revising their policies. APHIS spokeswoman Rachel Iadicicco said the goals were to insure the safe development and use of certain genetically engineered organisms while reducing the "regulatory burden." Biotech critics said one particular concern deals with language that states "all state and local laws or regulations that are inconsistent... (with APHIS rules) will be preempted." That potentially could impact actions like that seen last month in Hawaii where a county council recently banned growing biotech coffee as well as taro.
source: Reuters, Nov 21, 2008
Hawaii Island Bans Genetically Modified Coffee
The Hawaii County Council has overriden a veto by the Big Island's mayor to ban genetically modified taro and coffee. The council voted unanimously to override the veto of Mayor Harry Kim, who argued Hawaii has an obligation to help feed the world through the testing of genetically modified organisms. Council members had approved the measure in October. Many natives supported the prohibition, citing Hawaiian tradition that says humans grew out of the earth from the roots of the taro plant. Opponents of the bill included biology researchers, farmers and business leaders, who said science is needed to save both crops from disease and pests. Violators could face a $1,000 fine.
source, November 15, 2008, The Associated Press
Progress on rBGH Milk
o The Indiana study group formed after their bill died this spring decided that it would not recommend that Indiana adopt a state-specific law or rule. Instead, they recommended that the legislature pass a resolution "urging the FDA to revisit the milk labeling guidelines so as to not create a patchwork of regulations from state to state . . ."
o The latest word out of the Utah Dept. of Agriculture is that the horrible rules they proposed last spring are dead and there are no current plans to introduce revised ones.
o The Missouri Farm Bureau has recommended as part of its legislative priorities that the state introduce a bill on rBGH labeling for 2009.
o A number of sources are reporting that Wal-Mart is telling ALL its dairy suppliers for all its dairy products (not just fluid milk) that they must be rBGH-free in the first quarter of 2009.
source: personal Email, December 3, 2008
Tortilla Chips Going Biotech
White corn, the variety that's milled into chips, taco shells and tortillas, has for years been free of genetic engineering. Millers and companies such as snack-food giant Frito-Lay bought only conventional, biotech-free varieties of the specialty corn from farmers. But that's changing. Farmers in Iowa, Nebraska and other states started growing a small amount of genetically modified white corn this year after word came down from processors they would start accepting it.
"They've come to a comfort level where they can convince their customers it's OK," said Todd Gerdes, specialty grains manager for Aurora Cooperative, which buys white corn at three of its locations in Nebraska. Morry Bryant, Pioneer Hi-Bred's key account manager for corn processing, said millers have changed their minds about biotech corn in part because of concerns about grain quality. Corn that has insect damage is susceptible to diseases that can make the grain toxic. "When you have a healthier plant you typically have better grain quality," Bryant said. "They also like it because their growers like it." Foreign corn buyers also are playing a role in the acceptance of biotech corn, Gerdes said. They already pay farmers a premium for white corn and feared that would go up unless they allowed farmers to grow genetically engineered versions, he said.
The fact that another food market has fallen to agricultural biotechnology isn't evidence that consumers are accepting genetically engineered crops, said Bill Freese of the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group long critical of the industry. The continued growth in sales of organic foods shows consumers don't want biotech foods, he said. Organic farming rules prohibit use of genetically engineered seeds.
source: Des Moines Register, Nov. 30, 2008
Obama's GMO Policy?
Barack Obama is sending mixed signals about his attitude toward agricultural biotech. Michael Taylor was formerly the outside attorney for the biotech giant Monsanto, and later became their vice president. As the FDA's Deputy Commissioner of Policy in the first President Bush's administration he oversaw the final FDA policy, which did not require any safety tests or labeling. Michael Taylor is on the Obama transition team.
Dennis Wolff, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture, has used his position to single-handedly declare rBGH-free milk labels illegal in his state. Such a policy would make it impossible for national dairy brands to declare their products rbGH-free, since they couldn't change packaging just for Pennsylvania. Wolff's audacious move so infuriated citizens around the nation, that the governor stepped in and stopped the prohibition before it took effect. Dennis Wolff, according to unbossed.com, is being considered for Obama's USDA Secretary.
Obama's top scientific advisers during the campaign included Sharon Long, a former board member of the biotech giant Monsanto Co., and Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate who co-chaired a key favorable study of genetically engineered crops by the National Academy of Sciences back in 2000.
Obama has said biotech crops "have provided enormous benefits" to farmers and expressed confidence "that we can continue to modify plants safely." On the other hand, he indicated that he wants "stringent tests for environmental and health effects" and "stronger regulatory oversight guided by the best available scientific advice." And he has said he will require mandatory labeling of GMOs.
source: Spill the Beans, November, 2008
UN Study Supports Organic Agriculture for Africa
The UN Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development has issued a report suggesting organic farming is the best development role for Africa. From the Executive Summary:
o "Organic farming increases access to food on several levels. First, increased quantity of food produced per farm leads to household food security which results in all members of the household having access to enough food. Second, the production and selling of food surpluses at local markets means that farmers benefit from higher incomes, which increases their purchasing power. Third, fresh organic produce becomes available to more people in the wider community. Finally, organic farming enables new and different groups in a community to get involved in agricultural production and trade where previously they were excluded for financial or cultural reasons"…
o"Organic farming leads to many improvements to the natural environment, including increased water retention in soils, improvements in the water table (with more drinking water in the dry season), reduced soil erosion combined with improved organic matter in soils, leading to better carbon sequestration, and increased agro-biodiversity. As a result soils are healthier, are better able to hold water and are more stable, can sustain plant growth better and have a higher nutrient content. All this enables farmers to grow crops for longer periods, with higher yields and in marginal conditions. This of course can make a major impact on reducing the food insecurity of a region"…
"Organic farming leads to an increase in human capital, evident in all of the case studies detailed in this report"...
"Organic farming has a positive impact on poverty in a variety of ways."
source: http://www.unep-unctad.org/cbtf/publications/UNCTAD_DITC_TED_2007_15.pdf
Modified Genes Spread to Local Maize
Researchers led by Elena Álvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) say they have found transgenes from genetically modified (GM) maize in traditional "landrace" maize varieties in the Mexican heartland. The article says their work "largely confirms" a similar, controversial result published in the journal Nature in 2001 and may reignite the debate in Mexico over GM maize, which is not approved there for commercial cultivation. The researchers report that they found transgenes in three of the 23 locations that were sampled in 2001, and again in two of those locations using samples taken in 2004. The new research does not confirm one important conclusion of the 2001 paper in Nature, which was whether the transgenes had been integrated into landrace genomes and passed along to progeny plants. The research has been published in the journal Molecular Ecology. The article can be viewed online at the link below.
source: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081112/full/456149a.html
GM Corn Linked to Lower Fertility
Genetically modified corn has been linked to a threat to fertility in an official study that could deliver a hammer blow to controversial ?'Frankenstein Food'. A long-term feeding trial commissioned by the Austrian government found?mice fed on GM corn or maize had fewer offspring and lower birth rates. The Austrian scientists performed several long-term feeding trials with?laboratory mice over a course of 20 weeks. One of the studies was a so-called reproductive assessment by continuous?breeding (RACB) trial, in which the same parent generation gave birth to?several litters of baby mice. The parents were fed either with a diet containing 33 per cent of GM?maize, a hybrid of Monsanto's MON 810 and another variety, and a normal ?feed mix.?The team found changes that were 'statistically significant' in the ?third and fourth litters produced by the mice given a GM diet. There?were fewer offspring, while the young mice were smaller.
source: November 2008, Daily Mail
Petition Obama for Sustainable Ag Secretary
As of this writing, Barack Obama has yet to choose a Secretary of Agriculture. Wendell Berry, Michael Pollen, Alice Waters, Marion Nestle, Bill McKibben and many others just wrote a letter to him, urging him to consider six people with sustainable ag interests. Their candidates are:
o Gus Schumacher, Former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
o Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, NE.
o Sarah Vogel, former two-term Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of North Dakota, attorney, Bismarck, ND.
o Fred Kirschenmann, organic farmer, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
oMark Ritchie, current Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota's Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
o Neil Hamilton, attorney, Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Professor of Law and Director, Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA.
You can sign the petition at the website below
source: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/.
This page was last modified on December 18, 2008 at 9:34:35 AM.
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