Organic Traders and Consumers Network

Governments duped over GM food crops

The following article has been reproduced from Eureka Street magazine with very kind permission

23-Aug-2007

By Charles Rue

Most Australian states have started reviews of their 2004 GM Acts which carry a de facto moratorium on growing genetically modified (GM) crops. The pro-GM lobby has responded with an orchestrated campaign.

Liberal insider Guy Pearce's website, High and Dry, tells how the Howard government's climate change policies became captive to the "greenhouse mafia" because of an ideology of neo-liberal economics. A `GM mafia' has captured the Federal political scene and is pressuring State GM Reviews.

"In the absence of consumer take-up of its products, selling stocks has become a biotech industry lifeline", stated The Wall Street Journal in 2004. In `Biotech's dismal bottom line: More than $40 billion in losses', it spelt out the immediate GM agenda.

Australian State governments been caught up in a religious type rapture over biotech promises of silver bullets. They have become naïve investors seemingly unaware of biotech economic strategies. Industry lobbyists such the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and its PR arm the Australian Environment Foundation have egged them on.

More importantly, big long-term profits for biotech companies will come through monopoly control of the food industry.

To achieve this, government mechanisms have been white-anted. In Australia, it means implementing the biotech led Trade Related Intellectual Properties (TRIPs) Agreement of the WTO and manipulating both the Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) and Food and Safety Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ).

Australia has implemented patenting laws that benefit GM seed companies. These are reinforced by the US-Aus Free Trade Agreement. (Pharmaceuticals are under the same threat). Farmers will be forced to buy GM patented seed and consumers will have no choice but to buy GM food in a monopoly system. The TRIPs office within DFAT has proved reluctant to reveal who forms Australian policy on patenting at WTO meetings.

The next step is to have federal bureaucracies help implement biotech monopoly of the food chain. The OGTR was set up to guarantee health and environmental standards but is headed by Dr Sue Meek who formerly promoted biotech based industries. The OGTR has approved GM crops without regard for the `precautionary principle'. This lack of caution is evidenced by the GM contamination of Australian canola seed.

GM contamination of the crops of conventional breeders and organic growers suits the long-term economic goals of the biotech companies; to undermine economic rivals. The OGTR is only restrained by State GM Acts of 2004 which have shown at least some concern for the economics of farmers about issues such as seed separation. That is why the State Reviews are under attack.

An aspect deserving attention is the negative effects of GM plants on the genetics of the natural environment. In economic terms it is a mere externality. However, for wheat and other food crops, cross pollination means GM contamination of genetic riches. It will grow worse as Roundup-Ready (gluphosate) crops become ineffective and replaced by Agent Orange related Dicamba-Ready GM crops.

The OGTR does no independent testing about health or environmental impacts. It relies on what the biotech companies tell them. Independent testing by the iconic CSIRO has all but stopped as it has been forced to form profit-oriented commercial partnership with biotech companies. These are bound by confidentiality clauses.

FSANZ, like OGTR, does no independent testing yet controls the approval of foods for consumption and food labelling. Food ingredients under one per cent GM go unlabelled. Even the report of Minister McGauran prepared by ACIL Tasman says that `consumers in some countries are not aware they are purchasing and consuming products containing GM foods. It is of note that co-founder of ACIL Tasman, David Trebeck, is on the board of Graincorp.

Information presented in the media has been deliberately limited or given as spin. The reports of Jason Koutsoukis are examples of creating the impression that lifting GM moratoriums is a done deal and consumers are for it. When reporting on a survey on customer attitudes to GM by Biotechnology Australia his article did not explain that key survey questions were prefaced with `What if?' caveats supposing evidence about health safety and benefits.

The Catholic Church in India is responding to the alarming number of suicides among farmers, many because of failed GM cotton crops. It would be good to see Catholic moralists and ethical institutes in Australia venture out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. Morality is about care for God's gift of life in every form. It means addressing what the alliance of the `GM-mafia' and neo-liberal economics is doing.

Stop the GE Cane Toad

As many farmers struggle with the drought, another threat looms. Victoria's agriculture minister Joe Helper wants to lift the state's ban on the commercial growing of genetically engineered (GE) canola. The ban protects all Australian consumers and farmers from risky GE contamination.

Just like cane toads, once hazardous GE canola is introduced it can never be recalled.
Take Action!

Write to your state premier

What is Genetic Engineering and why should you be concerned?

What is Genetic Engineering?

Genetic engineering is a radical new technology that allows scientists to move genes between different species. Using laboratory techniques scientists can create life-forms that could not occur in nature.

Genes are small lengths of DNA, the living blueprint of life found in the cells of all living things. Genetic engineers use viruses, bacteria and a device called a gene gun to randomly move genes from one organism into another. In the genetic engineering of food, these techniques are used to make plants grow differently. For example, a gene from an arctic flounder fish was added to the DNA of tomatoes in order to make the tomatoes resist the cold. Clearly, this would never happen through natural evolution.

Genetic Engineering is completely different from traditional crossbreeding. Whereas in traditional breeding methods organisms are bred within the same species, in genetic engineering genes are forced to move across species. This sort of manipulation has resulted in such things as toad genes inserted in potatoes, scorpion genes in corns and even human genes forced into pigs and into rice. By inventing new life-forms in this way chemical companies hope to find new and profitable uses for living things - to alter nature to better suit the needs of industry.

Genetic engineering (GE) is sometimes called `genetic manipulation' or genetic modification (GM). The resulting life-forms are often known as genetically modified organisms (GMO's). Genetic engineering is often described as a form of `biotechnology'. However, biotechnology also encompasses a wide range of traditional practices such as cheese-making and brewing - practices that are not in any way like genetic engineering. `Genetechnology' is a broad term that includes techniques such as cloning and gene therapy. These are also different from genetic engineering because they do not necessarily involve moving genes between species.

Why should it concern you?

Genetic engineering is highly unpredictable. Contrary to industry claims, the techniques used in genetic engineering are random and imprecise. Because scientists still understand very little about how genes work, genetic engineers frequently find unexpected side effects when they move genes across species, or even within the same species.

These unexpected effects of genetic engineering, sometimes called `pleitropic' or `secondary' effects, can include the production of new or `novel' proteins. These new proteins can potentially cause allergies or have toxic effects. They can significantly change the plant in ways such as making it weak, or changing its colour. Scientists do not know what unexpected results to look for in their experiments. Further, genetic engineering companies are keen to avoid testing for unexpected effects. Thus these effects only emerge after the crops have been released. For example, Monsanto's GE soy plants with extra lignin (the woody part of a stem), began to crack when exposed to heat - but nobody knew why. A genetically engineered bacteria, Klebsellia Planticola, was found to produce so much alcohol that it killed soil life..

We cannot know what further problems with genetic engineering, lie undiscovered. There are many examples of technologies that have gone badly wrong, such as nuclear power and chemical pesticides. However, genetic engineering represents a different threat due to their living nature. Once GE organisms have been released into the environment and the food-chain, they cannot be recalled. The living genetically engineered organism will replicate forever.

This content comes from the True Food Network. It has a regularly updated analysis of companies and how much or little GM food they use.

Don't believe everything you read about food issues

"Australia missing out on the GM revolution" is the headline in an article written by David McKenzie on Jan 18 2006 in The Weekly Times. He goes on to say...

AUSTRALIAN farmers could lose out in world markets if they fail to join the global push into genetically modified crops, according to a prominent GM analyst.

The warning came after news five European countries were among 21 nations -- and 8.5 million farmers -- now growing GM crops.

The latest report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications has found France, Portugal and the Czech Republic started growing GM maize for the first time last year.

They joined other EU countries Spain and Germany in commercial GM crop production.

The figures were challenged by Bob Phelps of Gene Ethics, using ISAAA's own data ...

Claims that Australia will fall behind without genetically engineered (GE) canola (Weekly Times P10, 18/1/06) are a furphy. The annual ISAAA (www.isaaa.org) hyping of GE crops is not credible.

The OGTR issued licenses for the unrestricted and unconditional commercial release of GE canola in 2003 on a narrow set of technical criteria. The states and territories correctly imposed bans on commercial GE canola for marketing reasons. The bans should be permanent.

Even the ISAAA's upbeat figures show commercial, herbicide tolerant, GE canola stalled in 1999 at 3.4 millions hectares. In 2000 it dropped back to 2.8m ha; was 2.7m in 2001; 3.0m in 2002; 3.6m in 2003; 4.3m in 2004; and 4.6m in 2005. GE canola was just 18% of the global canola crop in 2005. And Bureau of Agricultural Economics (ABARE) claims that Australia could lose $300 million pa without GE canola, when the whole canola crop was worth just $685 million in 2004 (ABS stats), are simply absurd.

ISAAA figures also show that despite twenty-five years of development, tens of billions of dollars spent on research & development, and ten years of commercial experience, just four GE crops are commercial - soy, corn, cotton and canola. These GE crops contain just two commercial agronomic
traits - herbicide tolerance and Bt insect toxins. The acreage of herbicide tolerant crops that demand more expensive chemical inputs and create weed pressure is expanding, but Bt crops are not.

No GE crops with more useful traits will be ready for commercial use within five years, if ever, according to the recent Australian government report:
Genetically Modified Crops in Australia: the next generation
(www.affashop.gov.au/PdfFiles/biotech_5__2_.pdf).

Commercial GE crops are not a global industry. Over 98% of all GE crops are grown in just seven countries, five of those in North or South America - USA 55.3%; Argentina 19%; Brazil 10.4%; Canada 6.4%; Paraguay 2%; China 3.7%; India 1.4%. Another fourteen countries, including Australia with cotton, grow less than 2% of global GE crops between them.

There are plenty of reasons to say 'no' to GE crops and scant evidence of their success.

Bob Phelps, CEO Gene Ethics Network http://www.geneethics.org