Berea Gardens.... Agriculture Issues

GM Soybean Receives USDA Deregulation

2012-01-04T07:41:00.000-05:00

MON 87705, a genetically modified soybean traded as Monsanto's Vistive®Gold oybeans has received deregulation approval by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The GM soybean produces soybean oil with increased levels of monounsaturated fat while significantly lowering saturated fat.
"With the availability of Vistive®Gold soybeans, farmers will soon be able to deliver an economical and sustainable source of nutritionally improved soybean oil to consumers and food companies," said Joe Cornelius, Monsanto global technology lead for food quality traits.
This USDA deregulation completes the regulatory processes in the United States, that would allow field testing and seed production within the United States, under strict stewardship guidelines until Monsanto has obtained the necessary regulatory approvals in the key soybean export markets. The Food and Drug Administration completed the consultation process in January 2011. The trait has also been approved for use in Canada.
See the news release at http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/vistive-gold-usda-deregulation The Registry can be viewed at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-12-16/pdf/2011-32323.pdf

Don't like the term GMO? How about "Molecular Breeding?"

2012-01-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

Vivienne M Anthony and Marco Ferroni of Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Switzerland reported the potential role of agricultural biotechnology in improving crop yields of farmers from developing countries. There has been rapid adoption of biotech crops by smallholder farmers in developing countries especially in China, India, and other Asian, African, and Central/South American countries. Molecular breeding has helped several research breakthroughs but release of new varieties has been slow at the same time. Thus, the authors recommend improvements in seed systems which are vital for enhanced crop genetics to reach farmers.
Read more at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958166911007312.

Must See Interview with Dr. Don Huber, Plant Pathologist

2011-12-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Interview with Dr. Huber on GMO plant and human health effects (Part 1 of 2)

Interview with Dr. Huber on GMO plant and human health effects (Part 2 of 2)

Food Chemical Safety Relies on Self-policing

2011-11-05T22:33:00.002-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Oct 27, 2011

The Pew Charitable Trusts has begun an effort to shed light on an often over-looked subject that affects most American eaters: the federal regulatory system for food chemicals.

According to the Pew Health Group, safety decisions regarding a third of the more than 10,000 chemicals and additives that can be put in food were made by food manufacturers and a trade association without any formal review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The findings were published Wednesday Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, a peer-reviewed journal.

"Congress established our food additive regulatory program more than 50 years ago, and it does not stand up well to scrutiny based on today's standards of science and public transparency," said Tom Neltner, Food Additives Project director in the Pew Health Group.

The shift away from public involvement in FDA's safety decisions led to an influx of food chemicals for the agency to review -- requests for approval doubled, according to the analysis.

"While the shift to a new regulatory process-one in which companies make safety decisions and ask FDA to confirm them-has sped up agency review, it has also bypassed the public," Neltner said in a release. "Subjecting safety decisions to comment from competitors, academic scientists, public interest groups, and the general public can result in stronger protections for consumers. In an age of growing demand for government transparency, there is virtually no meaningful opportunity for participation in decisions about large classes of substances added to the food supply."

Congress' Food Additives Amendment of 1958 created a structure that has "limited FDA's ability to effectively regulate substances added to food," according to Pew. The group points to two tenets of the law:

- It allows manufacturers to determine that the use of an additive is "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), and then use that substance without notifying the FDA. As a result, the agency is unaware of many substances that may be added to food and lacks the ability to ensure that safety decisions were properly made.

- It does not require that manufacturers inform the FDA when health reports suggest new hazards associated with additives already used in food. Therefore, the agency has no access to unpublished reports and must expend limited resources sifting through published information to identify potential problems and set priorities.

The report is the beginning of a broader effort to assess FDA's regulatory system for ensuring chemicals added to food are safe. Future articles will examine scientific analysis and law and provide case studies that illustrate weaknesses in the system, which will ultimately lead to policy recommendations, according to Pew.

The non-profit is already highly engaged on food and agriculture issues, including industrial farming, school lunch, and food safety reform.

Tell the FDA to Label Genetically Modified Food

2011-10-05T07:03:00.002-04:00

GM Biotech Revenues Increase in U.S.

2011-09-03T16:57:00.000-04:00

Biodesic 2011 Bioeconomy Update reports that "within the United States, more than 50% of cropland is now planted in genetically modified (GM) seed resulting in 2010 revenues of nearly $110 billion." Biodesic is an engineering, design and consulting firm based in Seattle, Washington.

For 2010, total revenues from GM products including those of biologics and industrial biotechnology exceeded $300 billion or the equivalent of more than 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The report further notes that "revenues from GM crops are growing rapidly and are substantially larger than generally reported."

GM corn, soy, and cotton earned $100 billion in U.S. farm scale revenues in 2010. GM sugar beets contributed over $1.5 billion while GM papaya, canola, and other crops gave another billion dollars. "Continued increases in GM crop acreage in the next few years will certainly raise the total, with revenues from GM alfalfa contributing $1-2 billion dollars next year," the report added.

The full report can be downloaded at http://www.biodesic.com/library/Biodesic_2011_Bioeconomy_Update.pdf.

Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves

2011-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

Honey Laundering

Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves

FDA has the laws needed to keep adulterated honey off store shelves but does little, honey industry says.

by Andrew Schneider | Aug 15, 2011

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals. A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities.

And the flow of Chinese honey continues despite assurances from the Food and Drug Administration and other federal officials that the hundreds of millions of pounds reaching store shelves were authentic and safe following the widespread arrests and convictions of major smugglers over the last two years.

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

"It's no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound," said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association.

"These big packers are still using imported honey of uncertain safety that they know is illegal because they know their chances of getting caught are slim," Adee said.

Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics. Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees, made from artificial sweeteners and then extensively filtered to remove any proof of contaminants or adulteration or indications of precisely where the honey actually originated.

An examination of international and government shipping tallies, customs documents and interviews with some of North America's top honey importers and brokers documented the rampant honey laundering and that a record amount of the Chinese honey was being purchased by major U.S. packers.

Food Safety News contacted Suebee Co-Op, the nation's oldest and largest honey packer and seller, for a response to these allegations and to learn where it gets its honey. The co-op did not respond to repeated calls and emails for comment. Calls and emails to other major honey sellers also were unreturned.

EU Won't Accept Honey from India

Much of this questionable honey was officially banned beginning June 2010 by the 27 countries of the European Union and others. But on this side of the ocean, the FDA checks few of the thousands of shipments arriving through 22 American ports each year.

According to FDA data, between January and June, just 24 honey shipments were stopped from entering the country. The agency declined to say how many loads are inspected and by whom.

However, during that same period, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that almost 43 million pounds of honey entered the U.S. Of that, the Department of Commerce said 37.7 million pounds came from India, the same honey that is banned in the EU because it contained animal medicine and lead and lacked the proper paperwork to prove it didn't come from China.

"There are still millions of pounds of transshipped Chinese honey coming in the U.S. and it's all coming now from India and Vietnam and everybody in the industry knows that," said Elise Gagnon, president of Odem International, a worldwide trading house that specializes in bulk raw honey.

The FDA says it has regulations prohibiting foods banned in other countries from entering the U.S. However, the agency said last month that it "would not know about honey that has been banned from other countries ..."

Adee called the FDA's response "absurd." He said the European ban against Indian honey is far from a secret.

"Why are we the dumping ground of the world for something that's banned in all these other countries?" asked Adee, who, with 80,000 bee colonies in five states, is the country's largest honey producer.

"We're supposed to have the world's safest food supply but we're letting in boatloads of this adulterated honey that all these other countries know is contaminated and FDA does nothing."

The food safety agency said it's doing the best it can with existing resources and will do more when the newly passed Food Safety Modernization Act is up and running.

Where Is Our Honey Coming From?

The U.S. consumes about 400 million pounds of honey a year - about 1.3 pounds a person. About 35 percent is consumed in homes, restaurants and institutions. The remaining 65 percent is bought by industry for use in cereals, baked goods, sauces, beverages and hundreds of different processed foods.

However, the USDA says U.S. beekeepers can only supply about a 48 percent of what's needed here. The remaining 52 percent comes from 41 other countries.

Import Genius, a private shipping intelligence service, searched its databases of all U.S. Customs import data for Food Safety News and provided a telling breakdown:

- The U.S. imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months.

- About 48 million pounds came from trusted and usually reliable suppliers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Uruguay and Mexico.

- Almost 60 percent of what was imported - 123 million pounds - came from Asian countries - traditional laundering points for Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone.

"This should be a red flag to FDA and the federal investigators. India doesn't have anywhere near the capacity - enough bees - to produce 45 million pounds of honey. It has to come from China," said Adee, who also is a past president of the American Honey Producers Association.

Why Is Chinese Honey Considered Dangerous?

Chinese honeymakers began using various illegal methods to conceal the origin of their honey beginning in about 2001. That's when the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a stiff tariff - as much as $1.20 a pound -- on Chinese honey to dissuade that country from dumping its dirt-cheap product on the American market and forcing hundreds of U.S. beekeepers out of the business.

About the same time, Chinese beekeepers saw a bacterial epidemic of foulbrood disease race through their hives at wildfire speed, killing tens of millions of bees. They fought the disease with several Indian-made animal antibiotics, including chloramphenicol. Medical researchers found that children given chloramphenicol as an antibiotic are susceptible to DNA damage and carcinogenicity. Soon after, the FDA banned its presence in food.

"We need imported honey in this country. But, what we don't need is circumvented honey, honey that is mislabeled as to country of origin, honey that is contaminated with antibiotics or heavy metal," said Ronald Phipps, co-chairman of the International Committee for Promotion of Honey and Health and head of the major honey brokerage firm CPNA International.

Heavy Metal Contamination

The Chinese have many state-of-the-art processing plants but their beekeepers don't have the sophistication to match. There are tens of thousands of tiny operators spread from the Yangtze River and coastal Guangdong and Changbai to deep inland Qinghai province. The lead contamination in some honey has been attributed to these mom-and-pop vendors who use small, unlined, lead-soldered drums to collect and store the honey before it is collected by the brokers for processing.

The amount of chloramphenicol found in honey is miniscule. Nevertheless, public health experts say it can cause a severe, even fatal reaction -- aplastic anemia -- in about one out of 30,000 people.

European health authorities found lead in honey bought from India in early 2010. A year later, the Indian Export Inspection Council tested 362 samples of honey being exported and reported finding lead and at least two antibiotics in almost 23 percent of the test samples.

The discovery of lead in the honey presents a more serious health threat.

"The presence of heavy metals is a totally different story, because heavy metals are accumulative, they are absorbed by organs and are retained. This is especially hazardous for children," Phipps said.

All the bans, health concerns and criticism of Indian honey hasn't slowed the country's shipping of honey to the U.S. and elsewhere. In February, India's beekeepers and its government agricultural experts said that because of weather and disease in some colonies, India's honey crop would be late and reduced by up to 40 percent.

Yet two months later, on April 15 in Ludhiana, officials of Kashmir Apiaries Exports and Little Bee Group, India's largest honey exporters, posed for newspaper photographers in front of "two full honey trains" carrying 180 20-foot cargo carriers with a record 8.8 million pounds of honey headed for the export ports.

"They're clearly transshipping honey from China and I can't believe that they are so brazen about it to put it right on the front page of a newspaper," honey producer Adee said.

Data received by FSN from an international broker in India on Friday showed that within the last month 16 shipments - more than 688,000 pounds - of honey went from the Chinese port of Nansha in Guangzhou China to Little Bee Honey in India. The U.S. gurus of international shipping documents - Import Genius - scanned its database and found that just last week six shipments of the honey went from Little Bee to the port of Los Angeles. The honey had the same identification numbers of the honey shipped from China.

Government investigators in the U.S. and Europe and customs brokers in India told FSN that previous successful criminal investigations had proven that the Chinese honey suppliers and their brokers are masterful at falsifying shipping documents.

Each of the shipments - whether from China or India - bore an identical FDA inspection number. However, FDA's Division of Import Operations did not respond to requests for information on how and where it issued that FDA number.

Food Safety News left several messages for the Little Bee Group to discuss the source of their honey and how they were breaking records when the rest of India's honey producers were months behind schedule. None of the phone messages or emails were returned.

Other major Indian honey exporters insist that India gets no honey from China. However, Liu Peng-fei and Li Hai-yan of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences disagree. In a scientific study of the impact the global financial crisis is having on China's honey industry, the apiculture scientists wrote that to avoid the "punitive import tariffs" Chinese enterprises "had to export to the United States via India or Malaysia in order to avoid high tariffs..."

Why Hasn't Smuggling Stopped?

The massive honey laundering scams that plagued the U.S. for more than a decade - the transshipment of Chinese honey to a second country before being reshipped to the U.S. -- were presumably given a deathblow over the past two years.

During that period, Justice Department lawyers and Department of Homeland Security and FDA investigators launched a series of indictments and arrests of 23 German, Chinese, Taiwanese and American corporate officials and their nine international companies.

They were charged with conspiracy to smuggle more than $70 million worth of Chinese honey into the U.S. by falsely declaring that the honey originated from countries other than China. That allowed them to avoid paying stiff anti-dumping charges imposed on China.

It was an impressive series of complex busts spanning three continents, and instant fodder for a great whodunit novel. But, according to some of North America's largest producers and importers of honey, the arrests bombed as a deterrent.

"There are still millions of pounds of transshipped Chinese honey coming into the U.S.A. and it's all coming now from India and Vietnam. Everybody in the industry knows that," said Odem International's Gagnon.

How Do They Get Away With It?

When it comes to honey laundering, the crooks are always trying to stay one step ahead of the criminal investigators.

For example, when customs agents discovered that China usually shipped its honey in blue steel drums, the exporters quickly painted the drums green.

It took investigators a while to learn that often -- while the drums were in port or en route at sea -- the Chinese shuffled drum labels and phony paperwork showing country of origin as places that didn't have an onerous anti-dumping tariff. The Russian Honey Federation blew the whistle on the Chinese relabeling millions of pounds as coming from Russia.

After that scam became known, the felons then shipped Chinese honey to countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and even Australia. There the honey was repacked, authentic local documents were issued and the honey was shipped on to the U.S. or elsewhere.

Another favorite con among Chinese brokers was to mix sugar water, malt sweeteners, corn or rice syrup, jaggery, barley malt sweetener or other additives with a bit of actual honey. In recent years, many shippers have eliminated the honey completely and just use thickened, colored, natural or chemical sweeteners labeled as honey.

However, sophisticated analysis that will match the pollen in honey to flowers from a specific geographic region is available at just two or three laboratories around the world. There are also simpler, less expensive tests to detect the telltale presence of commercial sweeteners and other adulterants that are more readily available.

A laboratory in Bremen, Germany, founded a half century ago by German beekeepers, can accurately scan honey samples for flower pollen. There is only one expert in the U.S. known to analyze pollen in honey to determine where it was actually grown and that would be at the Palygnology Laboratory at Texas A&M. The lab was created and is run by Vaughn Bryant, a forensic palynologist and Professor of Anthropology.

Melissopalynology, or pollen analysis, has been used for years by geologists seeking evidence of ancient coastal areas - often sites of major oil deposits. Scientists tracing the origins of the Shroud of Turin have identified 61 different pollens on the cloth that could only have come from around Jerusalem.

Forensic scientists have used pollen identification to help solve murder, rapes, kidnapping and at least one espionage case. Now, at least in the labs in Texas and Germany, melissopalynologists use pollen to determine - with great accuracy - the geographic area where the bees foraged for the nectar.

"If they find, for example, pollen from flowers that grow in northern latitudes - like China - but it's found in honey ostensibly produced in tropical countries - like India, Vietnam, Malaysia and the like - you know something's rotten or illegal," said CPNA International's Phipps, who also produces a quarterly, international intelligence report that monitors the country-by-country supply of honey and everyone's exports.

To avoid detection by concerned purchasers or criminal investigators, some Chinese producers in state-of-the-art processing plants pump the alleged honey, heated and under high pressure, through elaborate ceramic filters. This ultra-filtration removes or conceals all floral fingerprints and indicators of added sweeteners or contaminants.

"The Chinese have refined methods of masking their contaminated product by ultra-filtration so their honey seems perfect. But it's not honey anymore. There's no color. There's no flavor. There's nothing. So you take this perfect product, which could be confused with honey, and you blend it with real Indian honey," Gagnon said.

"Everyone avoids tariffs because government agents cannot test to prove it's from China."

The FDA says it has sent a letter to industry stating that the agency does not consider ultra-filtered honey to be honey.

"We have not halted any importation of honey because we have yet to detect ultra-filtered honey. If we do detect ultra-filtered honey we will refuse entry," said FDA press officer Tamara Ward.

"FDA is just not looking" was the answer that most honey brokers offered. They added that the FDA doesn't want to find it because then the agency would have to test for it, something it is incapable of doing in its existing laboratories.

Honey experts worry that new technologies will make detection of adulterants even more difficult.

At June's conference of the Institute of Food Technologists in New Orleans, there were hundreds of Chinese vendors working in small clusters beneath bright red banners. They offered for sale almost any spice, food-processing substance or additives a food processor might want and promises of concocting anything else they could dream of. "All FDA approved," they emphasized to potential clients.

One salesman quickly jerked back his business card when a reporter pulled out a tape recorder to capture the man's promises offering a "nanoparticle sweetener for honey that cannot be detected."

Does the FDA Care?

The U.S. Departments of Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have dollar and cents issues to worry about because hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes and anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese imports are circumvented by the honey laundering.

"These honey crimes are not a Republican or Democratic, Liberal or Conservative issue. The country is being ripped off of millions and millions," Phipps said.

Recent news releases by the border patrol and the FDA say they have developed an anti-smuggling strategy to identify and prevent smuggled foods from entering the United States and posing a threat to national security and consumer safety.

But at the field level, investigators with the two agencies and an agent with ICE's Commercial Fraud Unit said the cooperation is more on paper then in practice and that the FDA continues to be the weak link. They say the FDA either doesn't have the resources to properly do the job or is unwilling to commit them.

ICE and the border patrol can and do go after the honey launderers by enforcing the anti-dumping and tariff violation laws. But protecting consumers from dangerous honey, identifying it as adulterated and therefore illegal for importation, falls to the FDA. And many of its enforcement colleagues say the food safety agency doesn't see this as a priority.

A Justice Department lawyer told Food Safety News that the FDA has all the legal authority and obligation it needs to halt the importation of tainted honey. He cited two sections of the agency's regulations defining when food products are considered "adulterated."

The regulations say: "Food is adulterated if it bears or contains a poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health" and "damage or inferiority has been concealed."

Those two factors pretty much sum up the health concerns that many have with the smuggled honey. But the honey industry and Congress can't get the FDA to even come up with a legal definition of what honey is.

Eight years ago, America's beekeepers and some honey packers petitioned FDA to issue an official definition of honey. Their concern was how to determine whether honey is bogus if there is no official standard to measure it against. The FDA did nothing.

Last Nov. 15, senators asked the food safety agency for the same thing. Again, nothing.

On Aug. 10, two members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations tried once more.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and John Hoeven (R-ND) urged the FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to issue the official definition.

Calling the lack of regulations "a food safety concern," Gillibrand said a national standard of identity for honey is needed "to prevent unscrupulous importers from flooding the market with misbranded honey products..."

An investigator in FDA's import section explained the agency's refusal to develop an official definition to FSN. "If we had an official description of honey then FDA would have to inspect everything we're importing to ensure it's legal. That's the last thing we want to do," he said, but would not allow his name to be used because he wasn't authorized to make public statements.

How Do You Stop The Illegal Flow?

Gagnon and four other major players in the honey industry have formed a voluntary group called True Source Honey. They hope it will eventually expand into an international, industry-wide program to certify the origin and quality of honey.

"We need an origin traceability program, a professional audit of both the exporters and the packers so those buying and selling honey can ensure its authenticity and quality," said Gagnon, who is the group's vice chairman.

Meanwhile, it's rumored that the feds are increasing their surveillance of the large U.S. importers and not too soon, Adee and others say.

Adee likens the honey laundering to a huge auto chop shop, where the police occasionally arrest the low-level car thieves but others pop up to continue supplying the criminal operation, which authorities never go after.

"That's what's happening here," Adee explained. "ICE and the other investigators have arrested a handful of the middle men, the brokers who supply the honey packers, but haven't gone after the big operators buying the phony foreign honey."

Adee and others interviewed by Food Safety News say there are 12 major honey packers in the U.S. and four or five that are involved with the bulk of illegal trade.

"We know who they are," he said. "Everyone in the industry knows. If these packers are allowed to continue buying this possibly tainted but clearly illegal smuggled honey, the importers will always find a way to get it to them."

Monsanto rolls out GMO sweet corn

2011-08-20T23:58:00.001-04:00

NOTE: This press release was issued by "The Packer," a fresh produce industry publication for industrial food crops.

08/17/2011 9:57:17 AM
Andy Nelson

Vegetable seed giant Monsanto Co. is entering the genetically modified sweet corn market earlier than expected, but how soon consumers will get over their fear of GMOs remains to be seen.

Creve Coeur, Mo.-based Monsanto will sell GMO sweet corn for plantings this fall, said Danielle Stuart, a company spokeswoman. Originally, rollout of the product was slated for 2012.

The seed, to be sold under Monsanto’s Seminis Performance Series label, protects against European corn borers, corn earworms, fall army worms and corn rootworm larvae and is resistant to Roundup weed control herbicides, Stuart said.

Boise, Idaho-based Rogers Brand Vegetable Seeds, a division of Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta International AG, introduced its Attribute brand GMO sweet corn seed in 1998.

Even after 13 years, however, consumer resistance to GMO sweet corn remains high, grower-shippers say.

E. Miedema & Sons, Byron Center, Mich., uses GMO seed on about 100 of its 700 sweet corn acres, said Dave Miedema, the company’s president.

GMO seed provides good disease and pest protection, Miedema said, but consumer resistance has checked category growth.

“It definitely has a place, but you always have to be careful,” he said. “Certain customers won’t accept it.”

GMO sweet corn has been the victim of propaganda, not legitimate criticism, Miedema said.

“It’s just PR,” he said. “It’s silly. It’s just people’s perceptions.”

Miedema said consumers’ attitudes toward GMOs haven’t changed much in recent years.

Those attitudes will likely change, but it hasn’t happened yet, said John Gill, owner of Hurley, N.Y.-based Gill Corn Farms Inc.

Because of consumer resistance, Gill Corn Farms doesn’t grow any GMO sweet corn.

People already eat plenty of GMO foods, including grains and chicken, Gill said. That’s one of the reasons he thinks they’ll eventually come around on sweet corn and other produce commodities.

GMO foods are not only safe, Gill said. They’re also environmentally friendly, since they require fewer pesticides.

China: 2,000 Arrested in Food Safety Crackdown

2011-08-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

China's latest food safety crackdown, which focused on the rampant use of illegal and often dangerous food additives, resulted in 2,000 arrests and 4,900 business shut downs, official state media announced last week.

Since April, authorities have inspected nearly 6 million food or additive manufacturers and catering businesses, according to an update issued by the Food Safety Commission, which operates under the State Council. The campaign is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at quelling widespread distrust of food production in China.

In May, Chinese authorities announced they resolved more than 1,000 severe food safety cases so far in 2011, including hundreds of arrests.

In a country with an enormous food sector, and limited transparency, it's difficult to assess the overall impact of the waves of enforcement, but the campaigns have certainly not kept food safety from the headlines.

In the past few months alone, hundreds have been seriously sickened by clenbuterol-tainted pork, over a dozen noodle makers were ordered to stop production because they were using ink, industrial dyes and paraffin wax as ingredients, and 16 tons of pork were pulled from the marketplace for containing sodium borate, a chemical that seemingly transforms cheap pork into darker, higher-value "beef."

Chinese officials also arrested 12 people for involvement in a 40-ton bean sprout debacle, in which farmers were using sodium nitrite (a known carcinogen), urea, antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzaledenine to make the sprouts grow faster and look shinier.

In recent weeks, seemingly fantastic exploding watermelons and glow-in-the-dark pork scandals have garnered international media attention as well, further complicating China's effort to boost consumer confidence.

According to the latest update, police have investigated 1,200 criminal cases concerning "the illegal adding of non-edible materials in food" and destroyed key elements of black market food production.

The statement said government agencies across the country will "continue the fight against irregularities to safeguard food" and severely punish violators.

by Helena Bottemiller | Aug 09, 2011

With Debt Deal, Food Safety Funding Uncertain

2011-08-11T22:46:00.000-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Aug 08, 2011

The debt deal struck by leaders in Washington last week has food policy insiders worried about the future of food safety funding at both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

The deal -- liked by virtually no one, but praised for saving the country from default -- raised the debt ceiling through 2012 in exchange for between $2.1 and 2.4 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, including $917 billion in savings by capping discretionary spending, which includes public health agencies.

Future budget cuts, though significant, will "protect core investments," according to the Obama administration, but it is hard to see a budgetary scenario in which FDA and USDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are able to expand their capacity or invest in additional initiatives. Appropriators in the House and Senate have tough decisions ahead as they work to trim almost a trillion dollars from a wide variety of programs.

The spending limits come right as FDA is working to implement an ambitious food safety overhaul, mandated by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that President Obama signed into law in January.

"I don't see [FDA] going above flat line at best ... which is effectively a cut," says food safety consultant David Acheson, who served as associate commissioner of foods at FDA under the Bush administration. "FDA will likely stay on track with the [Food Safety Modernization Act] rule writing, but enforcement will be compromised as will the inspection mandates."

The Alliance for a Stronger FDA, a group of consumer and industry interests that lobbies for building the agency's capacity to regulate food and drugs in the 21st century, says it's "impossible to say" where exactly FDA or other agencies stand before the appropriations subcommittees weigh in, but the agency would likely fare better than under the House-passed agriculture appropriations bill. The House measure called for $285 million in cuts to the agency for fiscal year 2012, an 11 percent cut, $87 million of the reduction would come from food safety.

The Alliance is continuing to actively lobby for a budget increase at FDA and is planning an ad campaign targeting Capitol Hill publications in September.

"We have been active in presenting the Senate with reasons why FDA needs an increased level of funding in FY 12," writes Steven Grossman, deputy executive director for the Alliance. "We have been working to show the House that a higher FDA number from the Senate would be justified and should be accepted."

"FDA's responsibilities are not going to shrink just because federal spending is being reduced. We hope Congress sees, as we do, that FDA is not optional," added Grossman. "It is part of what society needs to function."

How the debt deal will impact USDA programs, including the Food Safety and Inspection Service, is also not entirely clear. Though the deal stipulates what cannot be cut -- food stamps and direct payments, for example, are protected through at least 2013 -- discretionary cuts will still apply.

"We're not sure how they're going to allocate these discretionary cuts, but clearly, you know, the department's going to get their share, and they've been cut so much already that it's going to have an impact," Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, told Farmpolicy.com in an interview last week.

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack told an audience of food protection professionals in Milwaukee he would work to keep food safety a priority at USDA.

"There are a lot of things we'd like to do, but one of the things we must do, and I will tell you that food safety is one of those things that ... is a must do," said Vilsack at the International Association of Food Protection conference last week, citing the tough budget landscape ahead. "We'll be looking at ways in which we can, even in a constrained resource environment, do a better job."

The House agriculture appropriations bill, passed in June, calls for a $35 million cut, a less than 4 percent cut for meat, poultry, and processed egg inspection. The Senate has not acted on FDA and USDA budgets for FY 2012 yet.

As for the more structural spending cuts under the debt deal, a so-called super committee made up of six Democrats and six Republicans will ultimately outline the toughest reductions -- entitlement reform, tax reform and revenue are all on the table, though what combination of these will be tenable is not clear. The panel must develop a plan to reduce approximately $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years and report back by Nov. 23.

If the committee fails to find cuts, or Congress refuses to adopt them, an enforcement mechanism will trigger spending reductions beginning in 2013 - split 50/50 between domestic and defense spending, according to the White House outline of the agreement.

Enforcement protects Social Security, Medicare beneficiaries, and low-income programs from any cuts, but the triggers could have significant impacts on other domestic programs, including food safety and other public health functions.

National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Threatens Small Growers

2011-07-17T17:53:00.003-04:00

"Big Ag" is at it Again

The most powerful “Big Ag” players in the leafy green industry are pushing the National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (NLGMA). The sellers, processors, and distributors that sign on to the rule will require that the farmers they purchase from comply with its standards. The rule adds a second and conflicting layer of food safety standards and audits on top of FDA food safety rules.

This confusing and duplicative rule could effectively shut small and mid-sized farmers out
of the leafy greens market. Tell the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to withdraw their unnecessary and confusing rule.

Add your comments to USDA using the link below and then click on the submit button. Use the following talking points to help compose your comment. It is best, however, if you use your own words.

1.    The Agricultural Marketing Service is NOT a food safety agency and it should leave food safety regulation to the Food and Drug Administration.   AMS staff is made up of economists and marketing specialists who convene industry to reach agreement on orderly marketing of produce. They are NOT food safety scientists.

2.    The governance structure for this agreement is dominated by processors and distributers and provides only token representation for farmers and consumers. The standards developed under this rule are likely to be driven by the most powerful voices and the largest players in the leafy greens market to the detriment of small and mid-sized farmers and processors.

3.    Consumers expect food safety standards to apply to all produce, not just those subject to a marketing agreement. Food safety should not be used to gain a competitive advantage in the market place.

4.    If a final rule is issued it should include those provisions in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) that provide food safety alternative compliance measures for small and mid-sized producers and processors.   Food safety must be achieved without obstructing the growing interest and investments in producing for local and regional food systems. Broad access to these growing markets is vital to rural economic recovery, public health and nutritional well-being.

Please submit your comments here:
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5735/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=4109

Catchy Propaganda

2011-07-17T11:47:00.000-04:00

Chinese and Swahili Versions of Mandy and Fanny Cartoon Book on Biotech

The novel educational cartoon featuring two characters, "Mandy" and "Fanny" impersonating biotech maize and biotech cotton, is now finding its way to China and East Africa through Mandarin and Swahili versions.

The 60-page educational cartoon publication features a lively dialogue between Mandy (biotech maize) and Fanny (biotech cotton). Eye-catching frames present factual messages about biotech crops as contributors to sustainable agriculture. The educational cartoon publication aims to demystify misconceptions/notions that biotech crops are harmful to human beings and their environment.
Dr. Clive James, Founder and Chairman of ISAAA commented that "Sharing knowledge with young people about the new technologies of the 21st century, such as biotech crops, is vital, because they will be the decision-makers of tomorrow. The educational cartoon illustrations will enhance the understanding of children and young people about the utility and safety of biotech crops, which represent an essential element in a global strategy that will contribute to food security and the alleviation of poverty in developing countries."

Follow "Mandy & Fanny" on http://www.facebook.com/mandyandfanny and log on to http://www.chinabic.org and http://www.isaaa.org/india for more information about the cartoon and illustrations, selected images and a print copy of the cartoon publication "Mandy & Fanny: The Future of Sustainable Agriculture". For a print copy of the Chinese version contact China BIC at zhangt@mail.las.ac.cn and zhanghx@mail.las.ac.cn. The Chinese, English, and Swahili versions of Mandy & Fanny are available at http://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/mandy_and_fanny/default.asp

Fight for FDA Funding Turns to Senate

2011-07-14T21:49:00.000-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Jul 06, 2011

As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration works to meet deadlines and implement an ambitious new food safety law, the agency's budget for the next fiscal year remains highly uncertain. The House recently approved a $285 million cut to FDA, $87 million of which would come from the agency's food safety program. Now, food safety advocates are turning their focus to the Senate to make the case for a strong budget, or at the very least, no budget cuts.

The Senate has been slow to begin the appropriations process as Democrat and Republican leadership and the president work to strike a broad deficit-cutting deal as part of a plan to raise the debt ceiling, which the U.S. government is projected to be in danger of reaching August 2.

"No one had much insight into what the Senate will do next on appropriations, nor was their great optimism that any agency or program will do well," says Steven Grossman, deputy executive director of Alliance for a Stronger FDA, referring to recent meetings with staff. The Alliance -- a coalition of consumer and industry interests advocating for FDA funding -- is stepping up lobbying efforts on agency's behalf.

"We received positive feedback on the Alliance's fundamental position: programs that are the necessities of a stable functional society must be funded regardless of the overall budget situation," wrote Grossman, on the Alliance's blog last week. "When Congress makes those judgments, FDA should (properly) be seen in the same company as national defense and air traffic controllers ... rather than with other programs."

But Grossman, and others in the food safety community, are not taking the steep cuts the House cleared lightly.

"The threat from the House position is still under-appreciated. Many offices did not understand that the House FY 12 position on FDA funding (a $285 million cut) is larger than the cut we faced in FY 11 in the House-passed HR 1 (a $242 million cut)," explains Grossman.

Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at FDA, has stressed on numerous occasions that the agency will need resources to enforce the new FDA Food Safety Modernization Act signed by president Obama in January.

"While we build on a strong foundation and we have a base of resources that we can do a lot with, you can't build a new house without new financing," said Taylor at a recent meeting of food and drug officials in Plano, Texas. "You can't pretend that all the new programs and systems that this law calls for can be achieved without new resources."

The Alliance has been working to especially highlight FDA's critical role in ensuring the safety of imported food. Among the group's talking points is pointing out that a decade ago, 6 million shipments of FDA-regulated goods came in through U.S. ports, this year that number is 24 million shipments.

"Along with our points about safe foods and more/better medications, the safety/quality issues raised by imports captured attention, interest and sympathy," adds Grossman.

A debt ceiling agreement between party leaders is expected to jump start the appropriations process in the Senate --i f leaders can agree on general domestic spending levels for the next few years, then Senate committees will have ballpark figures to work with for each appropriations bill.

Because the House agriculture appropriations bill, which covers FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has already been completed, it could be one of the earlier bills taken up by the Senate, but the timeline remains up in the air.

Biotech Country Facts and Trends

2011-07-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

Biotech Country Facts and Trends are one- to two-page summaries that highlight the commercialization of biotech crops in the developing countries. Data on biotech crop commercialization (hectarage and adoption), approvals and planting, benefits and future prospects in each country are presented in a brief and easily understandable manner. The contents are all based on the annual ISAAA Brief on the Global Report of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops, authored by Clive James.

Genetically modified food labels don't sit well in U.S.

2011-07-10T15:54:00.000-04:00

By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times

July 10, 2011

Activists rejoiced last week when a hard-fought battle over international standards for labeling genetically modified food came to an end — finally — after decades of debate.

But the agreement, which many say opens the door for labels to be placed on such foods, will probably have little effect on food labels in the U.S. for the foreseeable future.

And that could be a good thing, some scientists said.

"The public gets bogged down on whether [crops are] genetically engineered or not. We think that's a distraction," said Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at UC Davis. "The consumer needs to know: Is it safe to eat?"

Delegates to the so-called Codex Alimentarius Commission, a body created in 1963 by the United Nations to set voluntary standards for food safety and handling, have been arguing over labels for genetically engineered food for the better part of 20 years.

Concerned that the biotech food is not adequately tested and could be unsafe for people or the environment, some countries, particularly ones in Europe, have pushed for mandatory labeling. Others, including the U.S., have argued that such labels are misleading because the genetically modified products that are on the market have been thoroughly tested and deemed safe.

Requiring that genetically engineered foods be labeled as such would be unfair, said Nathan Field, director of biotechnology and economic analysis at the National Corn Growers Assn. in St. Louis, echoing the feelings of many in the food production industry.

"There is no nutritional content difference between the products," he said. Genetic engineering "doesn't affect the environment or food or feed quality in any way. If there's no evidence they're different, there shouldn't be a label."

But some consumer advocates argue that chronic effects of eating genetically engineered foods could go undetected by what they see as lax oversight.

"Consumers have a legitimate right to be skeptical, given the imperfections of our safety system," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist at the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday in Geneva, Codex delegates agreed on guidance that had been cobbled together to give each side of the debate a little bit of what they wanted.

The document declared on the one hand that "different approaches regarding labeling of foods derived from modern biotechnology are used" around the world. And, in what was probably a concession to the U.S., it also declared that it "is not intended to suggest or imply that foods derived from modern biotechnology are necessarily different from other foods." The document then pointed to 10 existing Codex standards that countries should comply with in food labeling.

Though this might seem like a very modest achievement after 20 years of consideration, it broke up a logjam and — simply by laying out some ground rules — legitimized the practice of labeling genetically modified foods.

"This is a major victory and milestone for consumer rights," said Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives for the Consumers Union, a consumer advocacy organization in Yonkers, N.Y.

Still, the agreement fell short of what many activists, including Halloran, wanted because it didn't call for mandatory labeling. Countries are free to do what they want.

In some Latin American and African countries — "battlegrounds" where consumer groups are fighting for labeling laws, Halloran said — that might very well mean new labeling policies. But the Codex decision is highly unlikely to affect practices in places like the U.S. and Canada, where many genetically engineered crops are grown and products are consumed. In the U.S., more than 70% of processed foods contain genetically engineered or biotech ingredients.

Labeling here is voluntary; what labeling exists is mostly used to declare that a food has no genetically modified ingredients. Products labeled organic, for instance, fall into this category.

The official acknowledgement that genetically modified foods can be labeled does at least mean that countries that label such foods shouldn't have to worry about sparking trade disputes, Halloran said. "It seems to us a major step forward."

In Europe, where modified foods are labeled, the European Union Parliament is taking steps to go much further: It voted last week on draft legislation to give countries greater authority to ban such crops altogether.

While critics of genetically modified foods said they believed oversight in the U.S. is too lax, many scientists say that ample studies have demonstrated the items are safe.

"People have been eating products from genetically modified crops for almost 15 years," said UCLA molecular biologist Bob Goldberg, who helped develop a genetically engineered canola plant that is widely planted in Canada and produces more oil than conventional canola. "They've been more tested than any food product you can imagine, without even a sneeze."

Ronald of UC Davis, who is married to an organic farmer and whose lab has genetically engineered rice for resistance to diseases and flooding, wonders why more consumers don't worry about unintended consequences arising from conventionally bred crops. One type of celery, for example, was conventionally bred to resist insects. But it caused allergic reactions in farmworkers during the harvest.

"Everything we eat has been genetically improved by some method," she said. When crops are altered by genetic engineering, she added, the process is regulated. Conventional breeding methods are not.

"The most important aspect isn't how the seed is developed — but can it be used to increase food security, reduce insecticide use, foster good soil and improve the lives of farmers and communities?" she said. "I would like to see barcode labeling where you see, 'This conventionally bred cotton shirt was grown using insecticides. This genetically engineered cotton shirt was not.' But I don't see us getting that information."

eryn.brown@latimes.com

FDA issues anti-smuggling strategy and draft guidance on new dietary ingredients

2011-07-07T10:24:00.001-04:00

For Immediate Release: July 5, 2011
Media Inquiries: Doug Karas, 301-796-2805, douglas.karas@fda.hhs.gov
Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

Agency meets critical milestones in Food Safety Modernization Act
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced that it has completed two tasks required by the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). FDA has issued an anti-smuggling strategy, and issued draft guidance clarifying agency expectations on new dietary ingredients.

The FDA issued an anti-smuggling strategy developed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will help to identify and prevent smuggled foods from entering the United States and posing a threat to national security and consumer safety.

“The Food Safety Modernization Act requires the agency to build a new food safety system,” said Deputy Commissioner for Foods Michael R. Taylor. “This new system, overall, will better leverage the resources of federal agencies and it will make industry an important partner in safeguarding the health of U.S. consumers.”

FDA will work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in DHS to review historical data and better identify products, firms, and countries of origin to establish food smuggling targeting criteria. The FDA and CBP also will share information on import shipments and conduct joint examinations, when appropriate, to identify shipments that may contain smuggled food. When possible, the agencies will work together to publicize food smuggling enforcement actions to deter others from attempting similar acts.

“Safeguarding the American public from unsafe or potentially harmful imported goods is a priority for U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” said CBP Commissioner Alan D. Bersin. “CBP and FDA are working closer than ever to identify and prevent smuggled foods from entering the country, as well as streamline the flow of legitimate products.”

The FDA also issued draft guidance clarifying agency expectations on new dietary ingredients for industry which is an important preventive control to ensure that consumers are not exposed to unnecessary public health risks from new ingredients with unknown safety profiles.

Dietary supplement manufacturers are required to notify the FDA in advance when they intend to add a new dietary ingredient to their products, except in certain situations when the ingredient has been part of the food supply and has not been chemically altered for use in supplements. The notifications must identify the new dietary ingredient and be accompanied by evidence on its safety. The draft guidance is intended to inform and assist manufacturers, distributors, and others in deciding when a premarket safety notification for a dietary supplement containing a new dietary ingredient is necessary and in preparing premarket safety notifications.

FSMA requires FDA to undertake many actions in strict time frames, in order to build a new food safety system based on prevention. FSMA required the FDA to complete both tasks on or before July 3, 2011, or within 180 days of the signing of FSMA into law.

FDA has created a special website to inform the public about the various aspects of FSMA implementation. Among other developments related to FSMA implementation, the FDA also announced that the agency’s authority to suspend the registration of food facilities to prevent the import and export into the United States, or other intrastate or interstate distribution of food became effective on July 3, 2011.

The FDA expects individuals responsible for registered food facilities to take steps to produce safe products. If those efforts fail, the facility should file a food report with FDA, voluntarily recall affected products, and take action to keep products from reaching consumers.

FDA may suspend the registration of a facility in certain circumstances involving food that has a reasonable probability of causing serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals.

Additionally, the rule, issued in May, has gone into effect that allows the FDA to administratively detain food products that it has reason to believe are adulterated or misbranded for up to 30 days, if needed, to ensure they are kept out of the marketplace. Under this rule, these products will not be sold or distributed while the agency determines whether an enforcement action such as seizure or federal injunction against distribution of the product, is warranted.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

For more information:
• Federal Register Notice for New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues
• Federal Register Notice for Interim Final Rule on Criteria Used to Order Administrative Detention of Food for Human or Animal Consumption

• FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)

China Ratifies 7 GM Crops

2011-07-03T09:00:00.002-04:00

China has issued biological safety certificates to seven GM crops including cotton and papaya. Aside from GM cotton, other GM crops have been planted in small-scales in China such as delayed-ripening tomatoes, phytase corn, pest-resistant rice, and disease-resistant peppers.

China's national agricultural GM biosafety evaluation authority ratified imports of genetically modified cotton, soybean, corn, and rape. China only allows imported cotton to be used for planting, and the other three imports can only be used as materials for processing. Most GM imports of China come from the U. S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina.

Read the original article at http://english.cri.cn/6909/2011/06/28/189s645259.htm.

USDA Announces Decision to Deregulate Genetically Engineered Corn Seed

2011-07-03T08:55:00.002-04:00

The USDA in its Federal Register recently issued a non-regulated status to Pioneer Hi-Bred International's GM corn event DP32138-2. The line has been genetically engineered to produce male-sterile/female inbred plants to generate non-transgenic hybrid corn. The decision is based on evaluation data and on the comments received from the public in response to public solicitations on the environmental assessment and plant pest risk assessment. Documents on the written determination and findings of no significant impact are now available to the public.

See http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/2011/06/engineered_corn_seed.shtml for complete details

Taylor Talks FSMA Implementation, Funding

2011-06-26T12:28:00.000-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Jun 21, 2011

Taylor Optimistic on FSMA Implementation, Funding

Food and Drug Administration "food safety czar" Michael Taylor expressed cautious optimism Monday that FDA can resolve what has become a primary concern: a huge new regulatory mandate coupled with the threat of no resources for implementation.

Taylor told an audience of state and local food and drug officials that while the funding to implement the newly enacted FDA Food Safety Modernization Act -- a sweeping new responsibility for FDA -- remains uncertain, the agency remains optimistic that "at the end of the day, it won't be so dire."

As he has several times in outreach speeches to the food policy community, Taylor pointed out that FDA has a "a huge workload." And even though public health officials are working hard, the agency will likely not meet all of its deadlines. On top of the back log, FDA has no idea what its budget will be for fiscal year 2012. An agriculture appropriations bill that cleared the House last week would cut food safety programs $87 million below fiscal year 2011.

Under FSMA, the agency has to craft standards for produce safety and preventive controls, establish a risk-based inspection program, conduct a traceability pilot, and the list goes on.

"This is part of the empathy-inducing aspect of the law, because it is, in fact, a huge work load. But one that we readily embrace," said Taylor in his remarks at the opening session of Association of Food and Drug Officials conference in Plano, Texas.

"There's a lot of work going on. People are energized," added Taylor, emphasizing, again, that it is "impossible to meet all the deadlines."

"The reality of our resources and the processes of getting rules cleared...it's physically impossible to do all of them," he said. The FDA is working to prioritize these issues and push through "the most essential building blocks" first.

All of these initiatives, of course, depend on resources.

"[The resource challenge] is a serious one," said Taylor. "We have been given really a whole new job...been given a mandate to build a whole new system of food safety oversight."

"While we build on a strong foundation and we have a base of resources that we can do a lot with, you can't build a new house without new financing," he said. "You can't pretend that all the new programs and systems that this law calls for can be achieved without new resources."

Without more funding, FDA can still create regulations, though rulemaking could be delayed, according to Taylor, but it remains to be seen whether the agency will be able to build the capacity to enforce them.

"I think we all know that words on the page don't make food safer," said Taylor. "What do you do to make those come to life? What investments do we have to make to make those regulations come to life so they can have the effect we want them to have on strengthening food safety?"

Taylor pointed to the need for real investments in science and research as well as state and local capacity as critical elements of the new system.

"Again, you can't do this without the resources. The current budget situation does paint a challenging picture," said Taylor, noting that a patchwork of continuing resolutions to keep the government funded -- as we saw in 2011 -- makes it nearly impossible to plan ahead.

"When Congress gives us our budget over half way through the fiscal year it's very difficult to use that money in as orderly a way as possible. You cant use that money to hire the experts you need because the hiring process is such that you wont get them hired until the end of the fiscal year." All of this compounds the resource issue.

"We just have to work together to figure this out," said Taylor. "We can make good, efficient use of whatever we've got, but figuring out a way to get a more predictable flow of resources is crucial for all of us."

House Moves to Ban GE Salmon, Ag Debates Continue

2011-06-16T20:21:00.000-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Jun 16, 2011

The House of Representatives continued debate yesterday on an agriculture appropriations bill that affects key food safety programs. The bill still contains significant cuts to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service, but has yet to be adopted by the lower chamber.

Lawmakers spent the better part of Tuesday and Wednesday debating a series of amendments affecting a wide variety of programs--from federal nutrition to conservation to food safety.

Late Wednesday, the House approved an amendment by Congressman Don Young (R-AK) that would bar the FDA from spending money to approve an application for controversial genetically-engineered (GE) salmon. If the agency were to approve the GE fish--which grow rapidly, reducing cost of production--it would be the first GE animal approved for human consumption.

The measure passed the Republican-controlled House by voice vote.

AquaBounty, the company that developed the salmon technology, insists the salmon pose no threat to human health and will be kept out of wild salmon populations; but consumer groups and much of the seafood industry remain staunchly opposed to the idea.

The modified fish, formally known as AquaAdvantage salmon, are essentially Atlantic salmon with an inserted growth gene from a Chinook salmon and an antifreeze gene from an ocean pout. They grow twice as fast as typical Atlantic salmon and require approximately 10 percent less feed to achieve the same weight.

Lawmakers from salmon states--who often call GE salmon "alien fish," "frankenfish" or "monsters"-- have been fighting for months to pass legislation to block FDA's expected approval of the fish.

"Frankenfish threatens our wild stocks, their habitat, our food safety, and would bring economic harm to Alaska's wild salmon fishermen," said Senator Begich (D-AK) in February, when a similar measure was introduced in the upper chamber, adding that he believes the modified fish are "risky, unprecedented and unnecessary."

AquaBounty argues that its Salmon would complement, not harm, existing wild fisheries.

"The availability of AquAdvantage Salmon can help meet demand for a safe and sustainable food by providing a US-grown farmed Atlantic salmon, without stressing the valuable and finite Alaskan fisheries, preserving their markets," the company has stated.

However, members of Congress from several key salmon states, on both sides of the aisle, have now signed onto bills to block the salmon. The Senate has not yet voted on the matter.

The House is expected to continue debate on the agriculture appropriations and to vote on the spending bill this week.

China Genetically Modifying Cows To Produce Human Breast Milk

2011-06-09T06:58:00.001-04:00

Updated: Wednesday, 08 Jun 2011, 7:54 AM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 08 Jun 2011, 7:54 AM EDT

BY NEWSCORE

BEIJING - Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years.

The milk produced by the transgenic cows is identical to the human variety, with the same immune-boosting and antibacterial qualities as breast milk, scientists at China's Agricultural University in Beijing said.

The transgenic herd of 300 was bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows. The technology used was similar to that used to produce Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned by scientists, in Scotland.

The milk is still undergoing safety tests, but with government permission it will be sold to consumers as a more nutritious dairy drink than cow's milk.

Workers at the university's dairy farm have already tasted the milk -- and said it is sweeter and stronger than the bovine variety, according to Sky News .

"It's good," said worker Jiang Yao. "It's better for you because it's genetically modified."
The scientists have also produced animals that are resistant to mad cow disease, as well as beef cattle that are genetically modified to produce more nutritious meat.

The director of the research project, Professor Li Ning, said Western concerns about the ethics of genetic modification are misplaced.

"There are 1.5 billion people in the world who don't get enough to eat," he said. "It's our duty to develop science and technology, not to hold it back. We need to feed people first, before we consider ideals and convictions."

Bill to Accelerate Biotech Approvals in U.S.

2011-06-07T06:49:00.000-04:00

Representative Stephen Fincher, a congressman from Tennessee, USA, introduced a legislation to speed up the process of approval for biotech crops. Fincher, who is also a farmer, called the bill as 'Expediting Agriculture Through Science (EATS) Act'. The legislation would allow Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to have 180 days "to approve or deny a petition for non-regulated status, with an additional 60 days if needed to ensure the safety of the environment and compliance is met before deeming the petition approved."

Fincher emphasized the need for a more efficient approval process to keep the U.S. farmers leaders in biotech crop production.

The original news is available at http://brownfieldagnews.com/2011/05/31/bill-would-accelerate-biotech-approvals/.

The problem with GM nutritionally enhanced plants - study

2011-05-10T20:17:00.002-04:00

Perspective: The Problem with Nutritionally Enhanced Plants
David R. Schubert
Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
JOURNAL OF MEDICINAL FOOD
J Med Food 11 (4) 2008, 000–000
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jmf.2008.0094

ABSTRACT Among the next generation of genetically modified (GM) plants are those that are engineered to produce elevated levels of nutritional molecules such as vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and amino acids. Based upon the U.S. current regulatory scheme, the plants and their products may enter our food supply without any required safety testing. The potential risks of this type of GM plant are discussed in the context of human health, and it is argued that there should be very careful safety testing of plants designed to produce biologically active molecules before they are commercially grown and consumed. This will require a mandatory, scientifically rigorous review process.

CONCLUSIONS
The above paragraphs summarize published data that clearly show the following: (1) Compounds structurally related to a common small molecule can have a lethal effect when present as even a minor contaminant in a food supplement. (2) The GM enhancement of a metabolic pathway by the overexpression of genes for that pathway can have unpredictable consequences in the form of synthesizing a toxin. (3) Finally, in the case of golden rice, it is argued that biologically active compounds derived from aberrant plant carotenoid synthesis could have profound effects on human development. Similar arguments can be made for NEP-derived fatty acids that are directly incorporated into brain lipids and about NEPs overproducing vitamin E. Aberrant fatty acid composition of brain lipids is implicated in Alzheimer's disease, and vitamin E has a role similar to RA in mammalian development. The excess consumption of a nutrient can also have negative effects. For example, a clinical trial with vitamin E supplementation showed that a relatively small dose increased the risk of heart failure, and smokers who supplemented their diet with -carotene had an increased risk of lung cancer. Therefore, there is a potential for nutrient toxicity in NEPs because upper tolerable levels of many nutrients are not well established and are likely to vary between individuals and lifestyles.

The information presented here shows that not only the potential harm of the product should be considered for risk assessment, but the GM process itself. The data clearly invalidate the argument that "the regulatory trigger for risk assessment should be based upon the physical features of the product rather than the process by which the product was generated." While it is true that traditional breeding methods can give rise to potentially hazardous products, the most recent assessment of GM food safety by the National Research Council stated that GM "has a higher probability of producing unanticipated changes than some genetic modification methods", but it curiously concludes by stating that the risk of GM technology is no greater than conventional breeding methods. There are, in fact, no data comparing the food safety profiles of GM versus conventional breeding, and the ubiquitous argument that since there is no evidence that GM products make people sick, they are safe (see, for example, McHughen and Smyth, Bradford et al., and Miller et al.) is both illogical and false. There are, again, simply no data or even valid assays to support this contention. Without proper epidemiological studies, most types of harm will not be detected, and no such studies have been conducted. The necessity of labeling all GM products and particularly NEPs is therefore critical if there is any hope of monitoring adverse health consequences due to their consumption. For example, it would have been impossible to identify the source of the toxic tryptophan supplement if the product were not traceable through labeling.

It follows that before NEPs producing biologically active molecules such as beta -carotene, omega-3 fatty acids, or vitamin E are introduced into the food chain, great care must be taken to do rigorous, multigenerational animal safety assessments with the hope of identifying risks to health (for methods, see, for example, the 2007 publication by the National Toxicology Program and Pusztai and Bardocz). In addition, the products must be labeled and traceable, and the unpredictable and unintended metabolic changes that may occur in NEPs require the thorough testing of the entire edible portion of the plant, not just the designated product as is almost always done by biotech companies. To date there is essentially no multigenerational animal safety testing published for GM plants and no required labeling in the United States for any GM product. In an excellent review of our current GM regulatory process, Mandel concluded that for second-generation GM products, like NEPs, "it is necessary to establish a comprehensive, efficient and scientifically rigorous regulatory system." As discussed herein there are very valid scientific concerns to support this conclusion.

USDA Decision on Deregulation of GM Plums

2011-04-21T07:21:00.000-04:00

Scientists in West Virginia have planted purple-black HoneySweet plums, which are one of the two transgenic fruit trees approved by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). This genetically engineered (GE) fruit has been developed by the scientists of USDA to fight the emerging, invasive plum pox virus, which has infected 100 million trees in Europe and surfaced in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York during the past 12 years.

"We couldn't find a gene for plum pox resistance in any plums, so we turned to genetic engineering," says Ralph Scorza, a horticulturist and lead scientist at the USDA's Appalachian Fruit Research Station. "We've had test-field plantings in Europe since 1996 and the U.S. since 1995, and we've never had a single tree infected."

HoneySweet plums have been in the GM approval pipeline for eight years and will clear final regulatory hurdles this year. Scorza said that he does not expect farmers to plant the GE plum since plum pox can still be managed. But when the pathogen causes outbreaks in the U.S., especially in California which is the largest producer of prunes, HoneySweet will be of great help to producers.
For more details, read http://audubonmagazine.org/features1103/biotech.html.

Seed saving, seed banks, Monsanto and Gates

2011-04-17T00:59:00.000-04:00

Seed Saving and Seed Banks
By Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director
Center For Food Safety
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/save-our-seeds/seed-saving-and-seed-banks/

My first experience with the perils of large scale seed banks was the scandal that erupted over the Fort Collins collection in the mid 1980s. Journalists had published stories dramatically detailing the grossly negligent manner in which deposits to the seed bank were treated. Numerous seed deposits were spilling out onto the floors of the facility, the facility was woefully understaffed, there was no testing of the seed and a virtually complete failure of required regeneration - in short a seed saving disaster. A legal petition by my organization to rectify the decision seemed to get the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) attention. But when no real action resulted we litigated. I was a very active member of that legal team. As such I reviewed much of the material in the case that documented USDA’s complete disregard for the safety and integrity of the seeds under its care. This litigation ultimately forced a settlement where USDA agreed to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and conditions at the seed bank improved somewhat.

Since that first experience I learned that bigger is definitely not better or safer when it comes to seed saving. As noted elsewhere on this site, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) strongly advocates for in situ protection of plant diversity, and when ex situ seed saving is required it should reside at the most local and ecologically appropriate level. This has been one of the bases for CFS’ longstanding concerns about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Not surprisingly these fears have recently been justified. In December 2010 NordGen, the entity overseeing Svalbard, fired its Director Jessica Kathle. Some at NordGen believed that she was a “scapegoat” for the seed bank’s well known problems including continuing deficits, significant understaffing, and failure to do routine tests on the deposited seed to determine viability. (http://dagendresen.wordpress.com/about/Dot.) Sadly it seems like the Fort Collins fiasco redux.

There is however yet another important concern about Svalbard. The Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT), which supports the operational costs of Svalbard, has received almost $30 million dollars in support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Global Diversity Trust, “Funding Status 1-1-2011.” http://www.croptrust.org/main/funds.php) This is by far the largest support of any non-governmental entity. As is well known, the Gates Foundation has very close working ties to Monsanto. The Gates Foundation invested $23 million in Monsanto in 2010 to help the company through some financial woes, and has been a determined supporter of spreading Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops throughout the developing world. In 2006 the Gates Foundation hired Rob Horsch, a former Monsanto Vice President and a key scientist involved in the creation of the company’s Round Up Ready crops in the 1980s, as their Senior Program Officer for their International Agriculture Development Program. This Monsanto connection to Svalbard is very troubling as the corporation owns almost a quarter of all the world’s commercial seeds and is the world’s leader in the genetic engineering of crops and the patenting of plant genetics (including plant genes, cells and seeds). Monsanto has also had a decade long history of persecuting and prosecuting thousands of farmers for saving seeds.

Svalbard’s ties to the Gates Foundation and Monsanto are not the only issue. Only two private corporations have donated to the GCDT. Dupont/Pioneer Seeds has donated $1 million as has Syngenta. (Global Diversity Trust, “Funding Status 1-1-2011.” http://www.croptrust.org/main/funds.php)Together these two companies own another 25% of the world’s commercial seeds and are also among the leaders in agriculture biotechnology and in patenting of plant genetics. So a major question looms. Why this interest by these biotech companies and their surrogates in paying the operational costs of Svalbard? These companies have no record of altruistic concern for the integrity and diversity of seeds and have in fact been destroying that diversity through genetic engineering and patenting for decades. The most obvious hypothesis is that these corporations see in Svalbard an opportunity to gain further control of the world’s plant genetics — being able to utilize the seed bank as a resource for germplasm that can be used for creating patentable hybrid or genetically engineered seed varieties.

To test that hypothesis I requested that the CFS legal team investigate the deposit agreements at Svalbard. The point of this analysis was to see if in some way the contract between Svalbard and depositors created an advantage for these corporations in their efforts to control and patent seed genetics. As the legal memorandum reveals, the answer to the question is “yes.” The Svalbard agreement does provide corporations seeking to patent plant genetics additional advantages in their efforts.

Determining this, however, turned out to be no easy task. As the following legal memorandum indicates, the Svalbard deposit agreement is extremely complicated, opaque, at times downright misleading and involves difficult questions and interpretations of international law. The very complexity of this deposit agreement is another major red flag with Svalbard. Numerous seed banks only require a simple Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with depositors. This allows for informed consent by the depositors. By contrast, there is little chance that some seed banks and collections, especially those that are local, smaller scale and/or from developing countries, have the legal expertise, or funding to hire attorneys to decipher the myriad complications of the Svalbard contract. Meanwhile the GCDT, and its supporting biotech companies and their surrogates, are advertising how they are spending millions of dollars trying to acquire local and smaller seed collections from developing countries for Svalbard. As noted, these local collectors have little chance to understand, much less give informed consent, to what can happen to their deposits. As will be discussed in the Memorandum, this informed consent problem, and the issue of corporate patenting of the genetics of the seeds deposited in Svalbard, can only be resolved through major revisions in the Agreement.

CFS will continue to monitor both the operational and legal aspects of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and provide on this website new material and analysis on an ongoing basis.

View CFS Legal Memorandum
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Legal-Memorandum.FINAL_.pdf

For an alarming example of the damage that the usurping of local seed saving by Svalbard advocates can cause, and for a trenchant critique of Svalbard, please see a recent speech given by Kent Whealy at Wes Jackson’s Land Institute on what happened to the Seed Savers Exchange which he founded and tended for more than three decades.

Kent Whealy Speech
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Land-Inst-Svalbard-portion.pdf

Kent Whealy Response
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Response-Final.pdf

Genetically modified cows produce ‘human’ milk

2011-04-03T08:00:00.002-04:00

By Richard Gray
Telegraph UK

Sientists have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk. Human milk contains high quantities of key nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections.

The scientists behind the research believe milk from herds of genetically modified cows could provide an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies, which is often criticised as being an inferior substitute.

They hope genetically modified dairy products from herds of similar cows could be sold in supermarkets. The research has the backing of a major biotechnology company.

The work is likely to inflame opposition to GM foods. Critics of the technology and animal welfare groups reacted angrily to the research, questioning the safety of milk from genetically modified animals and its effect on the cattle’s health.

But Professor Ning Li, the scientist who led the research and director of the State Key Laboratories for AgroBiotechnology at the China Agricultural University insisted that the GM milk would be as safe to drink as milk from ordinary dairy cows.

He said: “The milk tastes stronger than normal milk
.
“We aim to commercialize some research in this area in coming three years. For the “human-like milk”, 10 years or maybe more time will be required to finally pour this enhanced milk into the consumer’s cup.”

China is now leading the way in research on genetically modified food and the rules on the technology are more relaxed than those in place in Europe.

The researchers used cloning technology to introduce human genes into the DNA of Holstein dairy cows before the genetically modified embryos were implanted into surrogate cows.

Writing in the scientific peer-reviewed journal Public Library of Science One, the researchers said they were able to create cows that produced milk containing a human protein called lysozyme.

Lysozyme is an antimicrobial protein naturally found in large quantities in human breast milk. It helps to protect infants from bacterial infections during their early days of life.

They created cows that produce another protein from human milk called lactoferrin, which helps to boost the numbers of immune cells in babies. A third human milk protein called alpha-lactalbumin was also produced by the cows.

The scientists also revealed at an exhibition at the China Agricultural University that they have boosted milk fat content by around 20 per cent and have also changed the levels of milk solids, making it closer to the composition of human milk as well as having the same immune-boosting properties.

Professor Li and his colleagues, who have been working with the Beijing GenProtein Biotechnology Company, said their work has shown it was possible to “humanise” cows milk.
In all, the scientists said they have produced a herd of around 300 cows that are able to produce human-like milk.

The transgenic animals are physically identical to ordinary cows.
Writing in the journal, Professor Li said: “Our study describes transgenic cattle whose milk offers the similar nutritional benefits as human milk.

“The modified bovine milk is a possible substitute for human milk. It fulfilled the conception of humanising the bovine milk.”

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, he added the “human-like milk” would provide “much higher nutritional content”. He said they had managed to produce three generations of GM cows but for commercial production there would need to be large numbers of cows produced.

He said: “Human milk contains the ‘just right’ proportions of protein, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, and vitamins for an infant’s optimal growth and development.

“As our daily food, the cow’s milk provided us the basic source of nutrition. But the digestion and absorption problems made it not the perfect food for human being.”

The researchers also insist having antimicrobial proteins in the cows milk can also be good for the animals by helping to reduce infections of their udders.

Genetically modified food has become a highly controversial subject and currently they can only be sold in the UK and Europe if they have passed extensive safety testing.

The consumer response to GM food has also been highly negative, resulting in many supermarkets seeking to source products that are GM free.

Campaigners claim GM technology poses a threat to the environment as genes from modified plants can get into wild plant populations and weeds, while they also believe there are doubts about the safety of such foods.

Scientists insist genetically modified foods are unlikely to pose a threat to food safety and in the United States consumers have been eating genetically modified foods for more decades.

However, during two experiments by the Chinese researchers, which resulted in 42 transgenic calves being born, just 26 of the animals survived after ten died shortly after birth, most with gastrointestinal disease, and a further six died within six months of birth.

Researchers accept that the cloning technology used in genetic modification can affect the development and survival of cloned animals, although the reason why is not well understood.

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals said the organisation was “extremely concerned” about how the GM cows had been produced.

She said: “Offspring of cloned animals often suffer health and welfare problems, so this would be a grave concern.

“Why do we need this milk – what is it giving us that we haven’t already got.”

Helen Wallace, director of biotechnology monitoring group GeneWatch UK, said: “We have major concerns about this research to genetically modify cows with human genes.

“There are major welfare issues with genetically modified animals as you get high numbers of still births.

“There is a question about whether milk from these cows is going to be safe from humans and it is really hard to tell that unless you do large clinical trials like you would a drug, so there will be uncertainty about whether it could be harmful to some people.

“Ethically there are issues about mass producing animals in this way.”

Professor Keith Campbell, a biologist at the University of Nottingham works with transgenic animals, said: “Genetically modified animals and plants are not going to be harmful unless you deliberately put in a gene that is going to be poisonous. Why would anyone do that in a food?

“Genetically modified food, if done correctly, can provide huge benefit for consumers in terms of producing better products.”

The Food Safety Act is Getting its Teeth Sharpened

2011-04-01T18:08:00.000-04:00

Senate Panel OKs Harsher Penalties for Unsafe Food

by Helena Bottemiller | Apr 01, 2011

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved legislation Thursday that would stiffen criminal penalties for those who knowingly violate food safety standards.

Committee chairman Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who authored the Food Safety Accountability Act, first introduced the bill last summer and reintroduced the bill in the 112th Congress in January.

The bill would increase the offense from a misdemeanor to a felony and allow prosecutors to seek prison sentences of up to 10 years for any individual or corporation that "knowingly endangers American lives by contaminating the food supply" or by knowingly allowing tainted food products into commerce.

"Current statutes do not provide sufficient criminal sanctions for those who knowingly violate our food safety laws," said Leahy, who has become an outspoken advocate of food safety reform. "Knowingly distributing adulterated food is merely a misdemeanor right now, and the Sentencing Commission has found that it generally does not result in jail time. The fines and recalls that usually result from criminal violations under current law fall short in protecting the public from harmful products."

Leahy recently pressed the Department of Justice for an update on the status of its ongoing investigation into Peanut Corporation of America's (PCA) involvement in a massive product recall and Salmonella outbreak in 2008 and 2009. Ultimately, thousands of products were recalled, hundreds were sickened, and nine people lost their lives.

Stewart Parnell, president of PCA, declined to testify before Congress about the contamination. Parnell cited his Fifth Amendment rights when he appeared before the House Energy Commerce Committee in February 2009.

One of Leahy's constituents, a then 7-year-old boy from South Burlington, Vermont, was seriously sickened after eating peanut butter crackers. The boy's mother, Gabrielle Meunier, has become a fierce advocate for stronger food safety laws, prompting Leahy to invite her to testify about her son's illness before the Senate Agriculture Committee last year.

Leahy has found strong support for the bill on the Judiciary Committee, including Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). Indeed, an aide said "there was no debate to speak of" as the committee considered the bill Thursday. But it's not clear that the measure will pick up any steam in the full Senate, where it competes with a log-jammed legislative agenda currently dominated by budget wrangling.

Latter-Day Luther Nails Troubling Thesis to GM Farm & Food Citadels

2011-03-30T21:06:00.000-04:00

© 2011 - by Steven McFadden
http://bit.ly/gTbBSq

After trucking across the high plains for five hours, and casting my eyes over perhaps 100,000 acres or more of winter's still deathly gray industrial farmland, I came face to face with the newly famous Dr. Don M. Huber in the cave-dark meeting room of the Black Horse Inn just outside the American Heartland village of Creighton, Nebraska.

On the morning of March 24, along with about 80 farmers and Extension agents, I listened as Huber discoursed with erudition and eloquence upon industrial farming practices that may be impacting nearly every morsel of food produced on the planet, and that subsequently may also be having staggeringly serious health consequences for plants, animals, and human beings.

Huber is emeritus soil scientist of Purdue University, and a retired U.S. Army Colonel who served as an intelligence analyst, for 41 years, active and reserves. In Nebraska, he stood ramrod straight for three hours with no notes and spoke with an astonishing depth and range of knowledge on crucial, controversial matters of soil science, genetic engineering, and the profound impact of the widely used herbicide glyphosate upon soil and plants, and ultimately upon the health of animals and human beings.

Dressed in a conservative dark suit and tie, Huber set the stage for his presentation by observing that he has been married for 52 years, and has 11 children, 36 grandchildren, and a great-grandchild on the way. He then began his formal talk framed by a PowerPoint slide bearing a Biblical quote: "All flesh is grass." - Isaiah 40:6. With this he emphasized the foundational reality that the biotech grains we eat, as well as the biotech grains eaten by cows, hogs, and chickens, are grown in vast herbicide-treated fields.

For the domineering giants of industrial agriculture - multinational corporations, universities, and governments - Huber's assertions about the impact of glyphosate, and the mounting scientific questions about GMO crops, may be as significant and disrupting as Martin Luther's "heretical" act in 1517. That's when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany to challenge the systemic problems in the almighty institutions of his era.

Luther disputed the claim that spiritual forgiveness from sins could be legitimately sold for money. Huber and other researchers say they are accumulating evidence that - along with the 2010 report of the U.S. President's Cancer panel which bluntly blames chemicals for the staggering prevalence of cancers - raises profoundly challenging questions about the chemical and genetic-engineering practices of industrial agriculture. The challenge, if it holds up, has implications not just for agricultural institutions, but also for the primary food chain serving the Earth's population.

Not an altogether new controversy, the complex matters of industrial agriculture, genetic engineering and the far-flung use of herbicides has been ominously and exponentially accentuated in the last year by virtue of its ominous context: last summer's epic oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, the nation-ripping 9.0 earthquake in Japan earlier this month, with its subsequent tsunami and nuclear meltdown which is contaminating the nation's water and food chain, in combination with the statistical reality that on our planet of nearly seven billion people, over a billion human beings - one of every six of us - is hungry.

All of this was brought into prominent public focus - both sharp and fuzzy - in January of this year by the unlikely matter of alfalfa.

Challenges to the Web of Life

The seminar with Dr. Huber, sponsored by Knox County Extension and the Center for Rural Affairs, commenced on a somber note. The moderator announced that Terry Gompert, 66, a veteran Extension educator and respected advocate for sustainable agriculture, and a man who had played a key role in organizing the conference, had just suffered a massive heart attack. A moment of silence followed before Dr. Huber began his presentation. Mr. Gompert died on March 25, the day after the conference he organized.

At the conference, Huber's talk was highly technical, yet he had easy command of voluminous technical detail. For many, it must have sounded like an alien language as he spun out the esoteric terms: zwitterion, desorbtion, translocation, rhizosphere, meristemic, speudomanads, microbiocidae, bradyrhizobium, shikimate, and more.

Huber spoke about a range of key factors involved in plant growth, including sunlight, water, temperature, genetics, and nutrients taken up from the soil. "Any change in any of these factors impacts all the factors," he said. "No one element acts alone, but all are part of a system...When you change one thing," he said, "everything else in the web of life changes in relationship."

That brought him to the subject of glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide, most commonly recognized in the product named Roundup®. Because it is so widely used, Huber said, it is having a profound impact upon mega millions of farm acres around the world. More than 155 million acres of cropland were treated with glyphosate during the 2008 growing season, and even more by now. Subsequently, Huber said, this chemical is having a sweeping impact on the food chain.

He asserted that glyphosate compromises plant defense mechanisms and thereby increases their susceptibility to disease, that it reduces the availability and uptake of essential nutrients, that it increases the virulence of pathogens that attack plants, and that it ultimately reduces crop vigor and yield (Yield Drag).

Most dramatically, Huber reported on what he described as a newly discovered pathogen. While the pathogen is not new to the environment, Huber said, it is new to science. This pathogen apparently increases in soil treated with glyphosate, he said, and is then taken up by plants, later transmitted to animals via their feed, and onward to human beings by the plants and meat they consume. The pathogen is extraordinarily small. It can be observed only via an electron microscope operating at 38,000 power of magnification. It has yet to be phenotyped or named, though that work is almost complete and will be announced in a matter of weeks.

Huber warned that ignoring these emerging realities may have dire consequences for agriculture such as rendering soils infertile, crops non-productive, and plants less nutritious. It could also, and apparently already is, he said, compromising the health and well-being of animals and humans.

The Stratosphere of Controversy

What propelled Huber, glyphosate and biotech crops into the stratosphere of public attention earlier this year was a pending decision on alfalfa (hay) by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The "queen of forages," alfalfa is the principal feedstock for the dairy industry. The USDA was being asked to approve unrestricted use of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, which could result in as many as 20 million more acres of land being sprayed with up to 23 million more pounds of toxic herbicides each year.

Because alfalfa is pollinated by bees that fly and cross-pollinate between fields many miles apart, the biotech crop will inevitably contaminate natural and organic alfalfa varieties.

Dr. Huber wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack asking for a delay in making the decision, and for the resources to do further research. In his letter, Huber raised questions about the safety of glyphosate. Huber's letter also warned of the new pathogen, apparently related to the use of glyphosate, which appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock fed these crops, and that they have experienced sterility, spontaneous abortions, and infertility.

"I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high-risk status," Huber wrote. "In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency." Vilsack set Huber's letter aside for later consideration, and on January 27 he authorized the unrestricted commercial cultivation of genetically modified alfalfa. Immediately thereafter, the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the USDA, charging that the agency's approval of genetically engineered alfalfa was unlawful.

While Huber's letter of warning was not intended for public consumption, it was leaked and immediately went viral on the Internet. In a matter of days Huber became a lightning rod, attracting intense attention from both the scientific community, and the general public, which is understandably concerned about the genetically engineered food it has never wanted and - since GM food is unlabeled - never been able to identify. The prospect of a new and virulent pathogen sweeping through the food chain was profoundly unsettling

Meanwhile, researchers were deeply upset that they were not first notified by Huber of the new pathogen - as is customary - before the matter became public knowledge. They felt they had been blindsided. Huber says that his letter to USDA Secretary Vilsack was leaked, and thus its publication was not his doing.

Huber became the focus of tremendous pushback. His message of urgent concern and the need for delay until more research was completed was unwelcome in many corporate and university citadels, and was deemed heresy by some vested in the multi-billion dollar industry of GMO crops.

The biggest beef researchers have with Huber is that he has not yet made data available for scientific scrutiny. Many researchers, including some at Purdue, say Huber's data and hypotheses, when studied, are not likely to hold up to peer review, and that in general his allegations are exaggerated.

When contacted for comment on Huber's concerns, Monsanto, maker of Roundup® (glyphosate) and producer of Roundup Ready® seeds, sent a link to a host of professional criticisms of Huber's work as well as to their official corporate statement: "Independent field studies and lab tests by multiple U.S. universities and by Monsanto prior to, and in response to, these allegations," the statement reads in part, "do not corroborate his claims."

Consequences

Glyphosate is a particularly strong broad-spectrum toxin with the power to kill many kinds of plants that have been designated as weeds. As a chelator, or binder, glyphosate changes the physiology and thereby makes plants susceptible to plant pathogens. Roundup Ready® plants are tolerant of glyphosate because technology inserts a new gene. While the RR plants do not die after the toxic herbicide is sprayed over farm fields, the plants do suffer a reduced efficiency in some crucial regards, according to some researchers, changing the nutrient balance in plants. When that change occurs, all subsequent relationships - including the diet of livestock and humans - is changed.

The extensive use of glyphosate and the rapid, widespread use of GM crops resistant to it, have intensified the deficiencies of essential micronutrients, and some macronutrients. This is leading, Huber argues, to weaker and more disease-prone plants, animals, and people. In his presentation, he offered a list of about 40 diseases that, he says, tend to increase in farm fields where glyphosate is used. Those plant diseases include Sun Scald, Leaf Chlorosis, Tomato Wilt, Apple Canker, Barley Root Rot, Bean Root Rot, Wheat Take All, Wheat Head Scab, Wheat Glume, and Grape Black Goo.

Subsequently, he hypothesized, the decrease in nutrients and the increase in the new pathogen in food lead to empty calories, which likely explains increases in allergies, and chronic diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

The list of diseases that Huber suspects may be affected by glyphosate and the new pathogen is, he said, increasing as growers and pathologists recognize the cause-effect relationship:

* Increase in cancers of the liver, thyroid, kidneys, tests, and skin melanomas.

* Increase in allergic reactions in general, and an increase of up to 50% in soybean allergies in the USA in the last three years.

* Increase on an epidemic-scale in the incidence of Alzheimer's disease, perhaps as much as 9,000% over the last 30 years. Specialists say they expect the incidence of Alzhiemer's to spike far higher over the next four years.

* Increase in the incidence of Parkinson's disease, which researchers say, is being provoked in part by the factor of chemical pesticides.

What Has Changed?

As if it were a mantra, during his three-hour talk Dr. Huber often raised a rhetorical question: What has changed? If all of these troubling conditions are on the rise for plants, animals and humans in recent years, then what has changed to bring it about?

The most apparent change, he answered, is that glyphosate and genetically engineered plants are out widely in the world. According to Huber, farm animals, including cattle, pigs, horses and chickens that are fed GM crops grown on glyphosate-treated fields have shown an alarming increase in sterility, spontaneous abortions, and stillbirths. By way of anecdotal evidence, he said he gets two to three communications a week from farmers and veterinarians about this troubling phenomenon. "We can no longer ignore the increase in livestock infertility, stillbirths, and spontaneous abortions over the last three to four years," he said.

GMO feed grown on glyphosate treated fields tends to irritate the stomach of livestock, such that many farm animals are fed daily rations of bicarbonate of soda in an attempt to sooth their stomach lining. Huber showed a slide bearing images of dissected hog stomachs; one from a hog fed GMO feed and the other conventional feed. The GMO hog had a rudely inflamed mass of stomach and intestinal tissue.

A handout from Dr. Huber that was made available at the Nebraska seminar cited 117 peer-reviewed scientific studies that raise serious questions about the impact of glyphosate. These studies have reached critical mass, Huber said, and they could no longer be discounted or ignored. Yet, there are also a substantial number of studies stating that glyphosate and GMO crops are safe and ought to be the cause of no concern.

What Is this Stuff?

Glyphosate is the most used herbicide in the USA. Every year, 5 to 8 million pounds are used on lawns and yards, and another 85 to 90 million pounds are used in agriculture. It is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds, especially weeds known to compete with crops grown widely across the Midwest. Initially sold by Monsanto in the 1970s under the trade name Roundup®, its U.S. patent expired in 2000, and thus glyphosate is now marketed in the U.S. and worldwide in different solution strengths under various trade names. Because these products may contain other ingredients, they may have different effects.

Glyphosate inhibits a key enzyme that is involved in the synthesis of amino acids in the plant. Many fungi and bacteria also have this same pathway. Aromatic amino acids in plants are the building blocks for many of their defense compounds.

Some crops have been genetically engineered to be resistant to it (i.e., Roundup Ready®). Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence herbicide against both broadleaf and cereal weeds, but the development of similar resistance in some weed species is emerging as a costly problem.

Glyphosate kills plants by interfering with the synthesis of the amino acids which are used by the plant as building blocks in for growth and for defense against disease and insects. Plants that are genetically engineered to tolerate the glyphosate contain a gene that provides an alternative pathway for nutrients that is not blocked by the glyphosate herbicide. But this duplicate pathway requires energy from the plant that could be used for yield, thus many GMO crops experience Yield Drag - a reduction in yield.

Huber had several recommendations for growers, especially a much more judicious use of glyphosate, as small a dose as possible. He said farmers also need to provide supplementary nutrients to counteract its effects and thereby to restore plant resistance to toxins and diseases.

He mentioned that there are other herbicide products on the market, but they are more specific to particular weeds and degrade more swiftly, whereas glyphosate is broad spectrum and thus kills many types of weeds, and also endures for a longer span of time in the soil and plants.

"Slow down," Huber said. "It takes time to restore soil biota if a field has been treated with glyphosate. We have 30 years of accumulated damage, so it may take some time to remediate all of this."

"There are a lot of serious questions about the impacts of glyphosate that we need answers for in order to continue using this technology," he continued. "I don't believe we can ignore these questions any more if we want to ensure a safe, sustainable food supply and abundant crop production."

Primary Realities of Our Genetically Engineered Planet

In his presentation at the Black Horse Inn Huber was convincing in his demeanor, encyclopedic in his knowledge, precise and eloquent in his delivery. Late in the morning as he spoke of the fertility and yield issues, the complications for farmers, and the increased prevalence of disease, his eyes momentarily welled up with tears. Then as he concluded his talk he received a standing ovation from the assembly of about 80 Nebraska farmers and Extension staff.

Still, Huber's personal integrity and his positive reception, at least at the Black Horse Inn, may be of small consequence in the face of a tsunami of criticism arising from the citadels of corporations and universities. None of that will be resolved until the data he and others have gathered passes peer review.

The primary realities in the GM and glyphosate debates are corporate avidity, scientific uncertainty, and overwhelming public disapproval. Many peer-reviewed articles suggest that biotech crops and foods are harmless; many suggest otherwise. The jury is still out. However, as Huber was arguing, the number of published articles showing that glyphosate and the biotech crops grown in its chemical soup cause harm to livestock is rising rapidly.

Studies showing the public has little taste for genetically engineered foods, and especially not for unlabeled and thus unidentifiable genetically engineered foods, remain convincing. According to reports from Food & Water Watch, 90% of Americans want GM foods labeled, and 91% say the FDA should not allow genetically modified pigs, chicken and cattle into the food supply. To date, the main parties keen about promoting unlabeled GM foods, and their herbicidal aides, are multinational corporations and their investors.

"Before we jump off the cliff," Huber said, "we need to have more research done. It takes a lot to reverse the problems." Many observers would argue, convincingly, that we have already jumped off the cliff.

Huber sought just $25,000 to do sequencing to establish the phenotype of the newly identified pathogen, and then to name it. But no government, university, or corporation would provide that relatively paltry amount of money. Finally, a private individual came forward and made the money available. Then the lab that was originally keen to do the phenotyping backed out. The issue had become a hot potato and they did not want the controversy. Still, Huber persevered, and he said they should have the phenotype established, and then be able to name the pathogen, in a matter of weeks.

"Let me emphasize that all of this is not a calamity," Huber said, surprisingly, near the end of his talk. "Agriculture is the most critical infrastructure for any society. American agriculture has undergone a revolution and it will continue to progress.

"Still, I saw no reason to rush into the critical alfalfa decision and to thereby cause so many more acres to be treated with glyphosate," he said. "Why take a chance until we get the answers? Research needs to be done... There is lots of new data that needs to be considered, lots of new studies that cannot be ignored."

ORGANIC FARMERS AND SEED SELLERS SUE MONSANTO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM PATENTS ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED

2011-03-30T21:03:00.002-04:00

Preemptive Action Seeks Ruling That Would Prohibit Monsanto From Suing Organic Farmers and Seed Growers If Contaminated By Roundup Ready Seed
http://www.pubpat.org/osgatavmonsantofiled.htm

NEW YORK – March 29 2011 – On behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations, the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit today against Monsanto Company to challenge the chemical giant's patents on genetically modified seed.   The organic plaintiffs were forced to sue preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past.

The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan and assigned to Judge Naomi Buchwald.   Plaintiffs in the suit represent a broad array of family farmers, small businesses and organizations from within the organic agriculture community who are increasingly threatened by genetically modified seed contamination despite using their best efforts to avoid it. The plaintiff organizations have over 270,000 members, including thousands of certified organic family farmers.

“This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's transgenic seed should land on their property,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. “It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients.”

Once released into the environment, genetically modified seed contaminates and destroys organic seed for the same crop. For example, soon after Monsanto introduced genetically modified seed for canola, organic canola became virtually extinct as a result of contamination. Organic corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets and alfalfa now face the same fate, as Monsanto has released genetically modified seed for each of those crops, too. Monsanto is developing genetically modified seed for many other crops, thus putting the future of all food, and indeed all agriculture, at stake.

In the case, PUBPAT is asking Judge Buchwald to declare that if organic farmers are ever contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified seed, they need not fear also being accused of patent infringement. One reason justifying this result is that Monsanto's patents on genetically modified seed are invalid because they don't meet the “usefulness” requirement of patent law, according to PUBPAT's Ravicher, plaintiffs' lead attorney in the case. Evidence cited by PUBPAT in its opening filing today proves that genetically modified seed has negative economic and health effects, while the promised benefits of genetically modified seed – increased production and decreased herbicide use – are false.

“Some say transgenic seed can coexist with organic seed, but history tells us that's not possible, and it's actually in Monsanto's financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply,” said Ravicher. “Monsanto is the same chemical company that previously brought us Agent Orange, DDT, PCB's and other toxins, which they said were safe, but we know are not. Now Monsanto says transgenic seed is safe, but evidence clearly shows it is not.”

The plaintiffs in the suit represented by PUBPAT are: Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association; Organic Crop Improvement Association International, Inc.; OCIA Research and Education Inc.; The Cornucopia Institute; Demeter Association, Inc.; Navdanya International; Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association; Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, Inc.; Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont; Rural Vermont; Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association; Southeast Iowa Organic Association; Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society; Mendocino Organic Network; Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance; Canadian Organic Growers; Family Farmer Seed Cooperative; Sustainable Living Systems; Global Organic Alliance; Food Democracy Now!; Family Farm Defenders Inc.; Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund; FEDCO Seeds Inc.; Adaptive Seeds, LLC; Sow True Seed; Southern Exposure Seed Exchange; Mumm's Sprouting Seeds; Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co., LLC; Comstock, Ferre & Co., LLC; Seedkeepers, LLC; Siskiyou Seeds; Countryside Organics; Cuatro Puertas; Interlake Forage Seeds Ltd.; Alba Ranch; Wild Plum Farm; Gratitude Gardens; Richard Everett Farm, LLC; Philadelphia Community Farm, Inc; Genesis Farm; Chispas Farms LLC; Kirschenmann Family Farms Inc.; Midheaven Farms; Koskan Farms; California Cloverleaf Farms; North Outback Farm; Taylor Farms, Inc.; Jardin del Alma; Ron Gargasz Organic Farms; Abundant Acres; T & D Willey Farms; Quinella Ranch; Nature's Way Farm Ltd.; Levke and Peter Eggers Farm; Frey Vineyards, Ltd.; Bryce Stephens; Chuck Noble; LaRhea Pepper; Paul Romero; and, Donald Wright Patterson, Jr.

Many of the plaintiffs made statements upon filing of the suit today.

Jim Gerritsen, a family farmer in Maine who raises organic seed and is President of lead plaintiff Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association based in Montrose, Colorado, said, "Today is Independence Day for America. Today we are seeking protection from the Court and putting Monsanto on notice. Monsanto's threats and abuse of family farmers stops here. Monsanto's genetic contamination of organic seed and organic crops ends now. Americans have the right to choice in the marketplace - to decide what kind of food they will feed their families - and we are taking this action on their behalf to protect that right to choose.   Organic farmers have the right to raise our organic crops for our families and our customers on our farms without the threat of invasion by Monsanto's genetic contamination and without harassment by a reckless polluter. Beginning today, America asserts her right to justice and pure food."

Dr. Carol Goland, Ph.D., Executive Director of plaintiff Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association (OEFFA) said, “Consumers indicate, overwhelmingly, that they prefer foods made without genetically modified organisms. Organic farms, by regulation, may not use GMOs, while other farmers forego using them for other reasons. Yet the truth is that we are rapidly approaching the tipping point when we will be unable to avoid GMOs in our fields and on our plates. That is the inevitable consequence of releasing genetically engineered materials into the environment. To add injury to injury, Monsanto has a history of suing farmers whose fields have been contaminated by Monsanto's GMOs. On behalf of farmers who must live under this cloud of uncertainty and risk, we are compelled to ask the Court to put an end to this unconscionable business practice.”

Rose Marie Burroughs of plaintiff California Cloverleaf Farms said, “The devastation caused by GMO contamination is an ecological catastrophe to our world equal to the fall out of nuclear radiation. Nature, farming and health are all being affected by GMO contamination. We must protect our world by protecting our most precious, sacred resource of seed sovereignty. People must have the right to the resources of the earth for our sustenance. We must have the freedom to farm that causes no harm to the environment or to other people. We must protect the environment, farmers livelihood, public health and people’s right to non GMO food contamination.”

Ed Maltby, Executive Director of plaintiff Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA) said, “It's outrageous that we find ourselves in a situation where the financial burden of GE contamination will fall on family farmers who have not asked for or contributed to the growth of GE crops. Family farmers will face contamination of their crops by GE seed which will threaten their ability to sell crops as organically certified or into the rapidly growing 'Buy Local' market where consumers have overwhelmingly declared they do not want any GE crops, and then family farmers may be faced by a lawsuit by Monsanto for patent infringement. We take this action to protect family farms who once again have to bear the consequences of irresponsible actions by Monsanto.”

David L. Rogers, Policy Advisor for plaintiff NOFA Vermont said, “Vermont’s farmers have worked hard to meet consumers’ growing demand for certified organic and non-GE food. It is of great concern to them that Monsanto’s continuing and irresponsible marketing of GE crops that contaminate non-GE plantings will increasingly place their local and regional markets at risk and threaten their livelihoods.”

Dewane Morgan of plaintiff Midheaven Farms in Park Rapids, Minnesota, said, "For organic certification, farmers are required to have a buffer zone around their perimeter fields. Crops harvested from this buffer zone are not eligible for certification due to potential drift from herbicide and fungicide drift. Buffer zones are useless against pollen drift. Organic, biodynamic, and conventional farmers who grow identity-preserved soybeans, wheat and open-pollinated corn often save seed for replanting the next year. It is illogical that these farmers are liable for cross-pollination contamination."

Jill Davies, Director of plaintiff Sustainable Living Systems in Victor, Montana, said, “The building blocks of life are sacred and should be in the public domain. If scientists want to study and manipulate them for some supposed common good, fine. Then we must remove the profit motive. The private profit motive corrupts pure science and increasingly precludes democratic participation.”

David Murphy, founder and Executive Director of plaintiff Food Democracy Now! said, “None of Monsanto’s original promises regarding genetically modified seeds have come true after 15 years of wide adoption by commodity farmers. Rather than increased yields or less chemical usage, farmers are facing more crop diseases, an onslaught of herbicide-resistant superweeds, and increased costs from additional herbicide application. Even more appalling is the fact that Monsanto’s patented genes can blow onto another farmer’s fields and that farmer not only loses significant revenue in the market but is frequently exposed to legal action against them by Monsanto’s team of belligerent lawyers. Crop biotechnology has been a miserable failure economically and biologically and now threatens to undermine the basic freedoms that farmers and consumers have enjoyed in our constitutional democracy.”

Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst for plaintiff The Cornucopia Institute said, “Family-scale farmers desperately need the judiciary branch of our government to balance the power Monsanto is able to wield in the marketplace and in the courts. Monsanto, and the biotechnology industry, have made great investments in our executive and legislative branches through campaign contributions and powerful lobbyists in Washington. We need to court system to offset this power and protect individual farmers from corporate tyranny. Farmers have saved seeds since the beginning of agriculture by our species. It is outrageous that one corporate entity, through the trespass of what they refer to as their 'technology,' can intimidate and run roughshod over family farmers in this country.   It should be the responsibility of Monsanto, and farmers licensing their technology, to ensure that genetically engineered DNA does not trespass onto neighboring farmland. It is outrageous, that through no fault of their own, farmers are being intimidated into not saving seed for fear that they will be doggedly pursued through the court system and potentially bankrupted.”

More information about PUBPAT's suit against Monsanto's seed patents can be found at PUBPAT > Monsanto Seed Patents.

Dark side of giving: The rise of philanthro-capitalism

2011-03-26T21:51:00.003-04:00

Naren Karunakaran, ET Bureau
The Economic Times
25 Mar, 2011
http://bit.ly/ebYA9Z

A few years ago, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, had a chance meeting with Som Pal, former member of the Planning Commission and earlier minister of state for agriculture, and was bowled over by his sage-like views on developmental issues. The president promptly invited Som Pal to his blighted country to suggest policy measures to get out of a developmental quagmire. Som Pal travelled to Rwanda; he was hosted at the presidential palace and allocated an entire office during two long stints.

Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land and favourable climatic conditions. "A set of policy guidelines and an action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame - Rwanda could be food surplus in a short time," recalls Som Pal.

His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed him, even attempting to buy water hand-pumps at $12,500 apiece. "Most African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for international support in dollars," laments Som Pal. "A complete nexus between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at work." Elements of this trend can be seen in India too.

Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - an initiative driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories, respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5 million to AGRA.

"They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a foothold into the continent," explains Som Pal. "Their large philanthropic resources are being utilised to further the interests of business." In countries with weak governance mechanisms, like in Africa, it becomes a lot easier.

Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms), sustainable agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent policy wonks and scientists across the world.

For instance, the Gates Foundation's sheer clout is taking it, intentionally or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education, healthcare and agriculture.

The $23.1-million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the world's largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend.

Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from organics and tech-driven agriculture.

The Gates Foundation's insistence that its investments and grants ought to be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. The question is asked: how can it be a 'passive investor' in companies such as Monsanto when its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? "Doubts about his (Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are beginning to cloud my thinking," concedes Mira Shiva, a public health activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and March 22, went unanswered.

In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it 'Monsanto in Gates' clothing'.

He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying the ground for a conventional breeding programme - labs, experiment stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went into promoting and developing GM seeds.

GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business models of those very companies.

Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundation's announcement of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by Bill Gates. "The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM rice is too well known," she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year.

Food First is concerned that US agencies, acting in tandem with MNCs, are gaining muscle by the day. The Casey-Lugar Global Food Security Act - a legislation that seeks to tie foreign aid to GMOs - is often cited. Or, that the newly appointed head of USAID is a former Gates Foundation employee.

A set of powerful voices - in business and in philanthropy - are beginning to talk of a new GM-led green revolution despite the ravages of the previous green revolution techniques, which were grounded in similar principles, in India. In the Punjab, Haryana and western UP belt, soils are degraded, and yields and groundwater levels are plunging, causing deep socio-economic challenges.

The onslaught continues despite numerous studies indicating that GM crops are no panacea. A few years ago, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) - a multi-stakeholder consultation that lasted three years, and involved 900 experts from 110 countries - concluded GM crops are no solution to the world's food security challenges.

Second Only to the US

Concerns aired by agriculturists are finding an echo in another arena in which philanthropic capital, in recent years, has catalysed remarkable progress: healthcare.

It has delivered results in access to medicines, research in neglected and tropical diseases, development and distribution of vaccines to low-income countries, maternal, neonatal and child health, and nutrition.

The Gates Foundation and its partners have re-invigorated health issues and given them a global profile like never before. Since 1994, the foundation has invested over $13 billion in healthcare alone, representing 60% of its giving to date.

In public health, other than the US government, there is no donor as influential as the Gates Foundation. It has emerged as the second largest donor to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This can be seen both ways: donor money has infused life into a nearly bankrupt entity, but it is also causing much consternation.

Effects of the structural changes being pushed by the new interests will be seen years or decades down the line.

"The very mandate and constitution of the WHO is being undermined," says KM Gopakumar, legal advisor and senior researcher of the Third World Network in India.

Speaking to the media in Bangalore this week, Warren Buffett, who has committed most of his $50 billion wealth to the Gates Foundation, admitted it takes a long time to see the full results of philanthropic work.

While it is conceded that it would be downright impudent to look a gift horse in the mouth, the concentration of power in the hands of new philanthro-capitalists is causing alarm; especially on issues around equity and social justice, on the accountability of donors and its impact, maybe unintended, on global institutions and processes.

"The rapid demise of public sector policy-making in key areas of public health, and the reliance on the Gates family and its staff, is impoverishing debate over public health priorities," says James Love, director, Knowledge Economy International (KEI), a US-based not-for-profit that seeks better outcomes to the management of knowledge resources. It is borne out by occasional outbursts from people within the system.

Concentration of Power

Some time ago, the head of WHO's malaria research revealed that the increasing dominance of the Gates Foundation was stifling diversity of views among scientists and that it could seriously impede the policy-making function of the world body. He was dismayed by the foundation's decision-making process: "A closed, internal process, accountable to none other than itself".

More recently, in January 2011, the Peoples Health Movement, a grassroots campaign for health for all, wrote to members of the WHO's executive board, calling attention to a number of issues. This included innovation, intellectual property rights (IPR), millennium development goals, and also the future of financing WHO, especially the unhealthy trend of donor money increasing in proportion to that of contributions from member states.

WHO's recent over-reliance on medicines, diagnostics and other technological fixes is being criticised. "Allocations to the social determinants of health have shrunk greatly," says Mira Shiva. "Water, food, sanitation and other social circumstances have a greater play on the health of the poor." Shiva has been an ardent proponent for the rational use of medicines.

In contrast, a humungous push on vaccines is underway. The Gates Foundation, for example, has allocated $10 billion to this field and describes this as the decade of vaccines. However, the GAVI Alliance, and some of the mechanisms it has fostered, is now under fire.

One such mechanism is the Advance Market Commitments (AMC), inspired and supported by the Gates Foundation. The AMC seeks to provide pharma companies a captive market for 10 years, provided they agree to develop and supply vaccines to developing countries, in millions of doses, at a deep discount.

The pilot AMC of $1.5 billion, funded by the Gates Foundation and G7 countries, for pneumococcal diseases, which kills almost a million children annually, pays $3.50 per dose to the companies in the mechanism (GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer-Wyeth, among others). Recipient countries make a small co-payment. However, instead of developing new vaccines, the AMC brought in vaccines already developed by big pharma, for which costs had been recovered substantially from sales in western markets.

Donald W Light, a distinguished academic and visiting professor at Stanford University, was part of the AMC process, but found himself out of it when his views crossed that of big pharma. Light often dubs it the "advance procurement commitment" for its overwhelming bias towards big pharma and profits. "GAVI is basically setting the markets for big pharma," says Leena Menghaney, campaign co-ordinator (India), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), a medical humanitarian organisation that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

The GAVI Alliance is already in a deep funding crisis. It is expected to scour for $4.1 billion this year, primarily because of action skewed in favour of big pharma. "Leaders of donor nations and GAVI board members should sit with the chairman of Pfizer and GSK to negotiate a new price near $2," says Light. "In the longer run, they should negotiate licensing, technology transfer and other ways to foster price-competition from other low-cost producers."

The suggestion is indeed relevant for the AMC, which disregards the immense potential of small pharma companies in developing countries to bring cheaper vaccines to the world. The Pune-based Serum Institute of India participates in the AMC, but when it requested funding support during its R&D process for a vaccine, it was turned down. Light is in favour of companies in the Serum Institute mould.

Institutional Influence

The Gates influence and stranglehold on global institutions and mechanisms in healthcare are quite evident. It doesn't stop here. Numerous proposals for a 'Medical R&D Treaty' as a more egalitarian alternative to the existing one, which links R&D costs to product prices, has been systematically snuffed out.

The treaty seeks to place global, and country-specific obligations, on funding medical R&D. Each country is expected to extend support on the basis of its national income. "It's regrettable that the Gates Foundation opposes discussions at the WHO on a possible treaty on medical R&D," says James Love. "An initiative that can create new global sustainability standards, promote access to knowledge, and usher much-needed transparency and ethical norms." At a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gates said: "I don't know about this treaty. I don't have a position on this."

Interestingly, while large organisations such as the WHO bare a tendency to capitulate easily to pressure, smaller, newer outfits show more spunk. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), a product development partnership, which also seeks funds from the Gates Foundation, has clear firewalls in place.

"We limit funds from a single donor to not more than 25% of our total requirement," says Bernard Pecoul, executive director, DNDi, which is seeking to raise euro 274 million by 2014. The Gates Foundation has committed around $40 million to DNDi. It demanded a board position, but DNDi refused.

But such instances of refusing to bow to big philanthropy are rare. "It's a crisis of accountability today," says Shiva. "It's no more accountability of corporations or philanthropists alone; the government too has a lot to answer.".

Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape'

2011-03-06T19:46:00.001-05:00

ISIS Report 02/03/11

Genetically modified genes can jump species via wounds, yes horizontal gene transfer happens, and at high frequencies; it is the greatest, most underestimated hazard from GMOs released into the environment Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Gene “escape” a misnomer for horizontal gene transfer

Scientists at Bristol University in the UK announced the discovery of [1] “a previously unknown route” whereby “GM genes may escape into the natural environment.” “Escape” is a misnomer. There is no need for the GM (genetically modified) genes to “escape”, when genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been released in great abundance and with gay abandon into the environment over the past 17 years. At issue is how fast and how widely the GM genes can spread, and what dire consequences could arise.

The “escape” referred to is horizontal gene transfer – the spread of GM genes by infection and multiplication (literally like a virus) regardless of species barriers; hence the rate of spread is much more rapid, and the extent virtually unlimited. New combinations of genetic material are created at unprecedented speed; affecting species the most that reproduce the fastest, i.e., bacteria and viruses that cause diseases. Horizontal gene transfer and recombination is indeed a main route for generating new strains of bacteria and viruses that cause diseases. Genetic modification and release of GMOs into the environment is nothing if not greatly facilitated horizontal gene transfer and recombination. It has created highways for gene trafficking in place of narrow by-ways and occasional footpaths that previously existed.

Some of us have long considered horizontal gene transfer to be the most serious hidden and underestimated hazard of genetic engineering, and have alerted regulators accordingly, time and again, since GMOs were first released (see for example [3, 4] (Gene Technology and Gene Ecology of Infectious Diseases, ISIS scientific publication; Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare, ISIS publication). The recent “emergency” warning sent by a senior US Department of Agriculture scientist to US Secretary of Agriculture on a suspected pathogen “new to science” associated with GM crops may prove to be a case in point [5] (Emergency! Pathogen New to Science Found in Roundup Ready GM Crops? SiS 50).

Plant wounds hotspots for gene trafficking

The researchers at Bristol University showed that plant wounds, that could be created by insect bites, abrasion and other mechanical damage, are hotspots for gene trafficking due to the wound hormones produced by the plant. Under such circumstances, the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which causes crown gall disease in plants, could enlarge its host range to infect fungi, and insert foreign genes into the fungi’s genome [2]. This has large implications on the safety of GMOs already widely released into the environment.

A. tumefaciens is probably unique among natural plant pathogens in carrying out trans-Kingdom horizontal gene transfer during an infection, and it is this ability that has been widely exploited for creating GM crops, grown on an estimated 134 million hectares worldwide in 2009, and “jumped’ another 10 percent in 2010, according to industry-funded International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) [6].

Research commissioned by the UK Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in the 1990s had already revealed that it is very difficult, if not impossible to get rid of the Agrobacterium vector used in creating the transgenic plant [7], and the bacterium is likely to remain dormant even after the transgenic plants are transplanted into the soil. Hence, it is expected to facilitate horizontal gene transfer, in the first instance, to wild-type Agrobacterium in the soil, and further afield.

Disease-causing strains of A. tumefaciens have an extrachromosomal Ti (tumour-inducing) plasmid that enables the horizontal transfer of a segment of the Ti plasmid, the T-DNA, into the plant cell genome when the bacterium’s virulence (disease causing) system is activated by hormones produced by the wounded plant. This feature is exploited in creating genetically modified organisms (GMOs), by disarming the bacterium, and incorporating the virulence genes in a ‘binary’ vector that has to be used in conjunction with the disarmed Agrobacterium strain.
In the 1990s, it was shown that the range of organisms transformed by Agrobacterium could be extended if the wound hormone acetosyringone was used to induce the virulence system.
The researchers at Bristol University reasoned that as A. tumefaciens is a soil-dwelling pathogen that often infects plants through wounds, it is conceivable that the bacterium could encounter numerous species of microorganisms, including pathogenic fungi that the same method to gain entry into the plant. The wound sites are likely to be exuding wound hormones such as acetosyringone, so the bacteria are primed for T-DNA transfer.

Experiments confirmed their suspicion in full

They carried out their investigation using the wilt-causing fungus Verticillium albo-atrum, a strong candidate for encounters with Agrobacterium in the plant, as it has a similar wide host range in plants, infecting both root and crown. Previous lab experiments have shown that V. albo-atrum cannot be transformed by Agrobacterium in the absence of acetosyringone. So, if it is presented with Agrobacterium on plant tissue, and transformation does occur, it must be the plant that supplies the wound hormone.

Peeled and sliced potato tubers and carrots, leave- and stem-sections from tobacco plants were used as the plant tissues for testing. After sterilization, they were inoculated with both A. tumefaciens and V. albo-atrum and left at room temperature in a covered agar dish for a minimum of 8 days and a maximum of 42 days.

Successful transformants of V. albo-atrum were obtained from every kind of plant tissue. 2 out of 17 potato slices, 1 out of 15 carrot slices; 14 out of 42 dishes each with 3-5 leaf pieces, and 10 out of 31 stem sections (without agar plate, so as to be as close to the natural condition as possible). These transformants were confirmed with molecular genetic analyses.

Implications on risk assessments of GMOs still understated

The researchers concluded [2]: “This work therefore raises interesting questions about whether the host range of A. tumefaciens in nature is greater than just plants. It is possible that evidence of such events could be looked for retrospectively in the increasing number of genome sequences becoming available....

“In addition, the result may well have implications for the risk assessment of GM plants generated via Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, as Agrobacterium can survive within plant tissue through transformation and tissue culture and can therefore be found within regenerated transgenic plants...”

This is an understatement of a serious risk that has been known almost since the first release of Agrobacterium-transformed GMOs into the environment.

The risks are far greater than admitted

We have repeatedly drawn attention to the possibility of facilitated horizontal gene transfer from GMOs created with Agrobacterium vector, which is even stronger than originally envisaged due to other discoveries made since then. I reproduce what we wrote in 2008 [8] (Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMOs Does Happen, SiS 38), which repeats an earlier account [9] (Living with the Fluid Genome , ISIS publication) (see Box).

Agrobacterium vector a vehicle for facilitated horizontal gene transfer [8, 9]

“We have ..provided evidence strongly suggesting that the most common method of creating transgenic plants may also serve as a ready route for horizontal gene transfer [9, 10].
“Agrobacterium tumefaciens, the soil bacterium that causes crown gall disease, has been developed as a major gene transfer vector for making transgenic plants. Foreign genes are typically spliced into the T-DNA - part of a plasmid of A. tumefaciens called Ti (tumour-inducing) – which ends up integrated into the genome of the plant cell that subsequently develops into a tumour.

“But further investigations revealed that the process whereby Agrobacterium injects T-DNA into plant cells strongly resembles conjugation, the mating process between bacterial cells.
Conjugation, mediated by certain bacterial plasmids requires a sequence called the origin of transfer (oriT) on the DNA that’s transferred. All the other functions can be supplied from unlinked sources, referred to as ‘trans-acting functions’ (or tra). Thus, ‘disabled’ plasmids, with no trans-acting functions, can nevertheless be transferred by ‘helper’ plasmids that carry genes coding for the trans-acting functions. And that’s the basis of a complicated vector system devised, involving Agrobacterium T-DNA, which has been used for creating numerous transgenic plants.

“It soon transpired that the left and right borders of the T-DNA are similar to oriT, and can be replaced by it. Furthermore, the disarmed T-DNA, lacking the trans-acting functions (virulence genes that contribute to disease), can be helped by similar genes belonging to many other pathogenic bacteria. It seems that the trans-kingdom gene transfer of Agrobacterium and the conjugative systems of bacteria are both involved in transporting macromolecules, not just DNA but also protein.

“That means transgenic plants created by the T-DNA vector system have a ready route for horizontal gene escape, via Agrobacterium, helped by the ordinary conjugative mechanisms of many other bacteria that cause diseases, which are present in the environment.

“In fact, the possibility that Agrobacterium can serve as a vehicle for horizontal gene escape was first raised in 1997 in a study sponsored by the UK Government [7, 12], which found it extremely difficult to get rid of the Agrobacterium in the vector system after transformation. Treatment with an armoury of antibiotics and repeated subculture of the transgenic plants over 13 months failed to get rid of the bacterium. Furthermore, 12.5 percent of the Agrobacterium remaining still contained the binary vector (T-DNA and helper plasmid), and were hence fully capable of transforming other plants.

“Agrobacterium not only transfers genes into plant cells; there is possibility for retrotransfer of DNA from the plant cell to Agrobacterium [13]. High rates of gene transfer are associated with the plant root system and the germinating seed, where conjugation is most likely [14]. There, Agrobacterium could multiply and transfer transgenic DNA to other bacteria, as well as to the next crop to be planted. These possibilities have yet to be investigated empirically.

“Finally, Agrobacterium attaches to and genetically transforms several human cell lines [15, 16] (Common plant vector injects genes into human cells ISIS News 11/12). In stably transformed HeLa cells (a human cell line derived originally from a cancer patient), the integration of T-DNA occurred at the right border, exactly as would happen when it is transferred into a plant cell genome. This suggests that Agrobacterium transforms human cells by a mechanism similar to that which it uses for transforming plants cells.

“The possibility that Agrobacterium is a vehicle for horizontal transfer of transgenic DNA remains unresolved to this day.”

Agrobacterium transfers genes into human cells

It is also worth reiterating our comment on the scientific paper [15] documenting that Agrobacterium can transfer genes into human cells [16].

“The paper shows that human cancer cells along with neurons and kidney cells were transformed with the Agrobacterium T-DNA. Such observations should raise alarm for those who use Agrobacterium in the laboratory.

“The integrated T-DNA will almost certainly act as a mutagen as it integrates into human chromosomes. Cancer can be triggered by activation of oncogenes (ie, cancer genes) or inactivation of cancer-suppressing genes. Furthermore, the sequences carried within the T-DNA in the transforming bacterium can be expressed in the transformed cells (the viral promoter CaMV has been found to be active in HeLa cells [17]) ….

“It is clear that little has been done to prevent environmental escape of the transforming bacteria or to quantify such releases. In conclusion, a study of cancer incidence among those exposed to Agrobacterium tumefaciens in the laboratory and in the field is needed. It would be worthwhile to screen workers for T-DNA sequences.”

To conclude

The discovery by the Bristol University researchers barely scratches the surface of the hidden hazards of GMOs from horizontal gene transfer. It is high time for a global ban to be imposed on further environmental releases of GMOs, and all those responsible for releasing them should be brought to book.

References

1. “Hazards of GMOS: Agrobacterium mediated transformation”http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2010/7279.html
2. Knight CJ, Bailey AM, Foster GD. Investigating Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Verticillium albo-atrum on plant surfaces. PLOS ONE 2010, 5(10): e13684. Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013684
3. Ho MW. Gene technology and gene ecology of infectious diseases. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease 1998, 10, 33-59.
4. Ho MW. Genetic Engineering Dream of Nightmare? The Brave New World of Bad Science and Big Business, Third World Network, Gateway Books, MacMillan, Continuum, Penang, Malaysia, Bath, UK, Dublin, Ireland, New York, USA, 1998, 1999, 2007 (reprint with extended Introduction). http://www.i-sis.org.uk/genet.php
5. Ho MW. Emergency! Pathogen new to science found in Roundup Ready GM crops? Science in Society 50 (to appear).
6. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops, 2009, ISAAA, http://www.isaaa.org/
7. Mc Nicol MJ, Lyon GD, Chen MY, Barrett C and Cobb E. Scottish Crop Research Institute. Contract No RG 0202.The Possibility of Agrobacterium as a Vehicle for Gene Escape. MAFF. R&D and Surveillance Report: 395.
8. Ho MW and Cummins J. Horizontal gene transfer from GMOs does happen. Science in Society 38, 22-24, 2008
9. Ho MW. Living with the Fluid Genome, ISIS/TWN, London/Penanag, 2003. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/fluidGenome.php
10. Ferguson G and Heinemann J. Recent history of trans-kingdom conjugation . In Horizontal Gene Transfer 2^nd ed., Syvanen M and Kado CI. (eds.) Academic Press, San Diego, 2002.
11. Ho MW. Horizontal gene transfer, book review. Heredity 2003, 90, 6-7.
12. Barrett C, Cobb E, MacNicol R and Lyon G. A risk assessment study of plant genetic transformation using Agrobacterium and implication for analysis of transgenic plants.Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture 1997, 19,135-144.
13. Kado C. in Horizontal Gene Transfer 2^nd ed., Syvanen M and Kado CI. (eds.) Academic Press, San Diego, 2002.
14. Sengelov G, Kristensen KJ, Sorensen AH, Kroer N, and Sorensen SJ. Effect of genomic location on horizontal transfer of a recombinant gene cassette between Pseudomonas strains in the rhizosphere and spermosphere of barley seedlings. Current Microbiology 2001, 42, 160-7.
15. Kunik T, Tzfira T, Kapulnik Y, Gafni Y, Dingwall C, and Citovsky V. Genetic transformation of HeLa cells by Agrobacterium. PNAS USA, 2001, 98, 1871-87.
16. Cummins J. “Common plant vector injects genes into human cells. ISIS News 2002, 11/12, p. 10.
17. Ho MW, Ryan A and Cummins J. CaMV 35S promoter fragmentation hotspot confirmed and it is active in animals. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease, 2000, 12, 189.

Genetically-Modified Maize Threatens Crunchy Snack Chips

2011-02-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

Voice of America
Steve Baragona | Washington, D.C

Variety intended for ethanol could make cereal soggy and chips crumbly

A new type of genetically-modified maize intended for ethanol biofuel production has won approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The biofuels industry welcomes this new GM maize, created by the agriculture giant Syngenta. But opposition is coming from an unusual source - snack food makers.

Maize-based snacks are a $6 billion business in the U.S. And the snack industry says the crunch of their chips is threatened by an enzyme genetically engineered into Syngenta's new maize.

Easier ethanol
The enzyme, known as alpha amylase, breaks down starch into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.

According to Syngenta, having the enzyme built into the maize will help produce more ethanol while consuming less water and energy, which in turn will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A 2007 U.S. law requiring gasoline to be blended with renewable fuels has driven up demand for ethanol. This year, 40 percent of the U.S. maize crop went to ethanol production.

Soggy cereal, crumbly chips
But what is good for producing ethanol is not good for everyone.

"We don't produce ethanol. We produce food products," says Mary Waters, president of the North American Millers Association, one of five major food industry groups that are, in their words, "deeply disappointed" with USDA's decision to approve the crop without restrictions.
They are not worried about food safety. In a joint statement, they noted they have supported other genetically-engineered crops.

The worry, Waters says, is that Syngenta's starch-busting maize could turn cereal soggy, snack chips crumbly or hurt other processed foods if even a tiny amount ends up in the human food chain.

"It would only take one kernel in 10,000 to affect food processing," she says.

History of contamination
And it would not be the first time a genetically-modified product wound up where it did not belong. Unapproved GM maize turned up in the food supply in 2001, as did unapproved rice in 2006. Estimates vary widely, but the financial losses from these contamination cases ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The contaminated maize did not cause health problems. "But it did cause major disruptions in the availability of food grade [maize]," says Jim McCarthy, president of the Snack Food Association. "So, we do think this will have a major impact and we're urging Syngenta to rethink this."

Not a 'major issue'
"I don't really believe that there's much probability that there's going to be any kind of major issue with misdirection of the grain," Syngenta's Jack Bernens says.

Bernens says the company will only sell the seeds to farmers who will deliver the crop to nearby ethanol plants. And they will not sell seed near where food facilities get their maize.
Besides, Bernens says, the chance that a few stray kernels would create big problems is overblown. He says the enzyme is most active at specific conditions of temperature, moisture and alkalinity that are different from most food processing.

"We've done a lot of work in that area," he says, "and for the most part, the processes don't come together under those conditions that would equal the most activity."

'Restrictive' access to information
The Snack Food Association's Jim McCarthy would like to see that research, but he says Syngenta won't share the data without strict conditions.

"There have been some very restrictive allocations of data to this point," he says. "And that's one of the major concerns we have."

Syngenta originally offered the trade groups access to their evidence, but only if they backed the company's application to the USDA for approval. The trade groups rejected that offer. Then Syngenta said they could have the data and samples to test, but only if they signed a confidentiality agreement.

The company says that's standard business practice to protect trade secrets. But it didn't sit well the North American Millers Association's Mary Waters.

"We can't have access to information predicated on support no matter what, and an inability to share it with our scientists," she says. "All we care about is the science."

Syngenta notes that it has provided access to information to some in the industry who did sign confidentiality agreements. And the company is setting up an advisory council with members across the industry to resolve any contentious issues.

But the food groups are not satisfied. They say they are now considering a lawsuit to protect the crunch of their chips.

Researcher: Glyphosate (Roundup) or Roundup Ready Crops May Cause Animal Miscarriages

2011-02-21T13:15:00.000-05:00

Jill Richardson
La Vida Locavore, February 18 2011
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/4523

A bombshell has been quietly dropped on the website of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. I should disclose, upfront, that the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA) is founded and run by my close friend Judith McGeary. Said bombshell is an open letter written by Dr. Don Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, to Tom Vilsack, presenting a finding of a correlation between either glyphosate or Roundup Ready crops and a new, previously unknown organism that may be the cause of animal miscarriages and infertility.

As the letter, printed below, notes, this research is still preliminary. However, Huber, who has 40 years experience working as a scientist for "professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks," believes this should be treated as an emergency until more research can confirm or disprove these initial findings.

Needless to say, the recent deregulation of GE alfalfa is something to think about, because that will dramatically increase the use of Roundup on animal feed and the feeding of Roundup Ready crops to our livestock. There is more to be said on this, but I want to tread carefully and stick to facts that I can confirm, so stay tuned.

Dear Secretary Vilsack:

A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup.   This organism appears NEW to science!

This is highly sensitive information that could result in a collapse of US soy and corn export markets and significant disruption of domestic food and feed supplies. On the other hand, this new organism may already be responsible for significant harm (see below). My colleagues and I are therefore moving our investigation forward with speed and discretion, and seek assistance from the USDA and other entities to identify the pathogen's source, prevalence, implications, and remedies.

We are informing the USDA of our findings at this early stage, specifically due to your pending decision regarding approval of RR alfalfa. Naturally, if either the RR gene or Roundup itself is a promoter or co-factor of this pathogen, then such approval could be a calamity. Based on the current evidence, the only reasonable action at this time would be to delay deregulation at least until sufficient data has exonerated the RR system, if it does.

For the past 40 years, I have been a scientist in the professional and military agencies that evaluate and prepare for natural and manmade biological threats, including germ warfare and disease outbreaks. Based on this experience, I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status. In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency.

A diverse set of researchers working on this problem have contributed various pieces of the puzzle, which together presents the following disturbing scenario:

Unique Physical Properties

This previously unknown organism is only visible under an electron microscope (36,000X), with an approximate size range equal to a medium size virus. It is able to reproduce and appears to be a micro-fungal-like organism. If so, it would be the first such micro-fungus ever identified. There is strong evidence that this infectious agent promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare.

Pathogen Location and Concentration

It is found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas.

Linked with Outbreaks of Plant Disease

The organism is prolific in plants infected with two pervasive diseases that are driving down yields and farmer income-sudden death syndrome (SDS) in soy, and Goss' wilt in corn. The pathogen is also found in the fungal causative agent of SDS (Fusarium solani fsp glycines).

Implicated in Animal Reproductive Failure

Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of this organism in a wide variety of livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility. Preliminary results from ongoing research have also been able to reproduce abortions in a clinical setting.

The pathogen may explain the escalating frequency of infertility and spontaneous abortions over the past few years in US cattle, dairy, swine, and horse operations. These include recent reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%.

For example, 450 of 1,000 pregnant heifers fed wheatlege experienced spontaneous abortions. Over the same period, another 1,000 heifers from the same herd that were raised on hay had no abortions. High concentrations of the pathogen were confirmed on the wheatlege, which likely had been under weed management using glyphosate.

Recommendations

    In summary, because of the high titer of this new animal pathogen in Roundup Ready crops, and its association with plant and animal diseases that are reaching epidemic proportions, we request USDA's participation in a multi-agency investigation, and an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of RR crops until the causal/predisposing relationship with glyphosate and/or RR plants can be ruled out as a threat to crop and animal production and human health.

    It is urgent to examine whether the side-effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well-documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases; it dismantles plant defenses by chelating vital nutrients; and it reduces the bioavailability of nutrients in feed, which in turn can cause animal disorders. To properly evaluate these factors, we request access to the relevant USDA data.

    I have studied plant pathogens for more than 50 years. We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. This pathogen may be instrumental to understanding and solving this problem. It deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure.

    Sincerely,

    COL (Ret.) Don M. Huber
    Emeritus Professor, Purdue University
    APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS)

Genetic Engineering: Scientists warn of link between dangerous new pathogen and Monsanto’s Roundup

2011-02-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

By Rady Ananda

Global Research, February 21, 2011

Urges USDA to rescind approval of genetically engineered alfalfa: “In layman’s terms, it should be treated as an emergency.”

A plant pathologist experienced in protecting against biological warfare recently warned the USDA of a new, self-replicating, micro-fungal virus-sized organism which may be causing spontaneous abortions in livestock, sudden death syndrome in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy, and wilt in Monsanto’s RR corn.

Dr. Don M. Huber, who coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens committee of the American Phytopathological Society, as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System, warned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that this pathogen threatens the US food and feed supply and can lead to the collapse of the US corn and soy export markets. Likewise, deregulation of GE alfalfa “could be a calamity,” he noted in his letter (reproduced in full below).

On January 27, Vilsack gave blanket approval to all genetically modified alfalfa. Following orders from President Obama, he also removed buffer zone requirements. This is seen as a deliberate move to contaminate natural crops and destroy the organic meat and dairy industry which relies on GM-free alfalfa. Such genetic contamination will give the biotech industry complete control over the nation's fourth largest crop. It will also ease the transition to using GE-alfalfa as a biofuel.

"My letter to Secretary Vilsack was a request to allocate necessary resources to understand potential nutrient-disease interactions before making (in my opinion) an essentially irreversible decision on deregulation of RR alfalfa," Huber told Food Freedom in an email.

But, he cautions:

"Although the organism has been associated with infertility and spontaneous abortions in animals, associations are not always evidence of cause in all cases and do not indicate what the predisposing conditions might be. These need to be established through thorough investigation which requires a commitment of resources. "I hope that the Secretary will make such a commitment because many growers/producers are experiencing severe increases in disease of both crops and animals that are threatening their economic viability."

On Feb. 16, Paul Tukey of SafeLawn telephoned Dr. Huber who told him, “I believe we’ve reached the tipping point toward a potential disaster with the safety of our food supply. The abuse, or call it over use if you will, of Roundup, is having profoundly bad consequences in the soil. We’ve seen that for years. The appearance of this new pathogen may be a signal that we’ve gone too far.”

Tukey also conveyed that while Huber admits that much further study is needed to definitively confirm the link between Round-Up and the pathogen, “In the meantime, he said, it’s grossly irresponsible of the government to allow Roundup Ready alfalfa, which would bring the widespread spraying of Roundup to millions of more acres and introduce far more Roundup into the food supply.”

Huber, who has been studying plant pathogens for over 50 years and glyphosate for over 20 years, has noticed an increase in pathogens associated with the herbicide. In an interview with the Organic and Non-GMO Report last May, he discussed his team's conclusions that glyphosate can, “significantly increase the severity of various plant diseases, impair plant defense to pathogens and diseases, and immobilize soil and plant nutrients rendering them unavailable for plant use.”

(Image: Sudden Death Syndrome in soy where the right field was sprayed the previous year with glyphosate. Iowa, 2010. Photo by Don Huber)

This is because “glyphosate stimulates the growth of fungi and enhances the virulence of pathogens.” In the last 15-18 years, the number of plant pathogens has increased, he told the Non-GMO Report. “There are more than 40 diseases reported with use of glyphosate, and that number keeps growing as people recognize the association (between glyphosate and disease).”

In his undated letter to the USDA, Huber highlighted "the escalating frequency of infertility and spontaneous abortions over the past few years in US cattle, dairy, swine, and horse operations." He reported that spontaneous abortions occurred in nearly half the cattle where high concentrations of the pathogen were found in their feed. Huber notes that the wheat "likely had been under weed management using glyphosate."

Other Research Supports Huber's Warning

Last year, Argentine scientists found that Roundup causes birth defects in frogs and chickens. Publishing their paper, "Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling," in Chemical Research in Toxicology, Alejandra Paganelli, et al. also produced a large set of reports for the public at GMWatch:

"In Argentina and Paraguay, doctors and residents living in GM soy producing areas have reported serious health effects from glyphosate spraying, including high rates of birth defects as well as infertility, stillbirths, miscarriages, and cancers. Scientific studies collected in the new report confirm links between exposure to glyphosate and premature births, miscarriages, cancer, and damage to DNA and reproductive organ cells."

One of the researchers, Andrés Carrasco, told GM Watch, “The findings in the lab are compatible with malformations observed in humans exposed to glyphosate during pregnancy.”

When trying to present these findings to the public in August of last year, Dr. Carrasco and the audience were attacked by 100 thugs who beat them and their cars with clubs, leaving one person paralyzed, Amnesty International reported. Local police and a wealthy GM rice grower were implicated in that attack.

In a 2009 study, researchers linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize, based on Monsanto's trial data. As we reported last year, Gilles-Eric Séralini, et al., concluded that the raw data from all three GMO studies reveal that novel pesticide residues will be present in food and feed and may pose grave health risks to those consuming them.

In a 2005 paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives, Sophie Richard, et al. compared the toxicity of Roundup with that of just glyphosate, its active ingredient. They found Roundup to be more toxic, owing to its adjuvants. They also found that endocrine disruption increased over time so that one-tenth the amount prescribed for agriculture caused cell deformation. Citing other research, they also reported that Roundup adjuvants bond with DNA.

Such negative findings probably explain why Monsanto and other biotech firms so vociferously block independent research.

Tom Laskawy at Grist estimated that in 2008, nearly 200 million pounds of glyphosate were poured onto US soils. But, he notes that “exact figures are a closely guarded secret thanks to the USDA’s refusal to update its pesticide use database after 2007." This figure more than doubles what the EPA estimates was used in 2000.

USDA Approves Corn Amylase Trait

2011-02-19T20:34:00.000-05:00

The US Department of Agriculture had announced the full deregulation of Syngenta's corn amylase trait. The corn labeled as Enogen corn seed is the first genetically modified (GM) corn for the ethanol industry. It contains a gene that optimizes the action of the alpha-amylase enzyme on corn for efficient ethanol production.

Davor Pisk, Chief Operating Officer of Syngenta said that. "Enogen corn also reduces the energy and water consumed in the production process while substantially reducing carbon emissions."

The news release said that "the corn amylase trait in Enogen has already been approved for import into Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, and Taiwan, and for cultivation in Canada."

See the original news at http://www2.syngenta.com/en/media/mediareleases/en_110211.html and http://www2.syngenta.com/en/media/pdf/mediareleases/en/20110211-EN-USDA-approves-Enogen-Corn-Amylase-Trait-for-Enogen.pdf.

Plants Cloned as Seeds

2011-02-19T20:32:00.000-05:00

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have cloned plants as seeds for the first time. According to one of the scientists, Simon Chan, they were trying to make a hybrid that breeds true, that even if it undergoes sexual reproduction, the offspring would be genetically identical to one parent.

In a previous study conducted last year, Chan and his team were able to breed haploid Arabidopsis plants carrying chromosomes from only one parent. After fertilization, the chromosomes from one of the parents are discarded. In the new study they crossed these plants with two mutants that can produce diploid eggs. The results of the experiment showed that "in about one-third of the seeds produced, the diploid eggs were successfully fertilized, and the chromosomes from one parent were eliminated, leaving a diploid seed that was a clone of one of its parents."

The researchers hopes to produce crop plants that can fertilize themselves and yield clonal seeds.

Read the media release at http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9766.

Mexico freeze kills 80-100 pct of crops; US food prices to soar

2011-02-14T13:40:00.000-05:00

Devastating freeze in Mexico is worst freeze in over 50 years

By Sysco Corporation

All of our growers have invoked the act of god clause on our contracts (force majuere) due to the following release:

The extreme freezing temperatures hit a very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico, from Hermosillo in the north all the way south to Los Mochis and even south of Culiacan. The early reports are still coming in but most are showing losses of crops in the range of 80 to 100%.

Even shade house product was hit by the extremely cold temps. It will take 7-10 days to have a clearer picture from growers and field supervisors, but these growing regions haven’t had cold like this in over a half century.

This time of year, Mexico supplies a significant percent of North America’s row crop vegetables such as green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, peppers, asparagus, and round and roma tomatoes.

Florida normally is a major supplier for these items as well but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments; that is no longer an option.

With the series of weather disasters that have occurred in both of these major growing areas, we will experience immediate volatile prices, expected limited availability, and mediocre quality at best.

This will not only have an immediate impact on supplies, but because of very strong blossom drops, this will also impact supplies 30 – 60 days from now. Some growers are meeting with their boards right now to determine whether they should immediately re-plant, hoping for a harvest by late-march-to-early-april, or whether they should disc the fields under and wait for another season.

We are doing everything we can with our growers to minimize the effect of this disaster on you. With the unprecedented magnitude of this event we wanted to immediately make you aware of the conditions. We will continue to send out communications as our people on the ground report back to us. We thank you and we appreciate your understanding during this time.

The OrganicGate Scandal

2011-01-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

Forbes

Jan. 29 2011 - 4:30 pm

Posted by Scott James

Frankencrop? Monsanto's alfalfa is genetically engineered.

Whole Foods has been nicknamed “Whole Paycheck” for years, given its perceived high prices on organic products. But it’s in danger of earning a new nickname, “Whole Traitor,” by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) and others.

Whole Food Markets (WFM), Stonyfield Farms, and Organic Valley, three of the largest brands in the the natural foods sector, have joined forces to cut a deal with Monsanto. The rest of the organic industry is up in arms about it. That’s no surprise, given those folks view Monsanto on a par with the worst of the worst corporate citizens for behavior and ethics. Is Big Organic defecting from the organic movement to join forces with Big Ag?

At the source of the conflict is Medicago Sativa, known to you and me as common alfalfa. Monsanto’s version is no common crop. This is a genetically engineered (GE) wonder that works in concert with its favored pesticide, RoundUp. What’s the fuss about? Farmers and scientists alike are concerned about a GE perennial crop, particularly one tied to a pesticide that the Swedes have recently shown to double the cancer rate in both farm workers and nearby town folks.

OCA is leading a public cry of outrage, suggesting collusion at the CEO level among Stonyfield, WFM, and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, and the acceptance of “hush money.” The target? The largest clients of Big Organic, who are giants themselves and have valuable green halos from their own CSR efforts to protect. Brands like Wal-Mart, Kroger, Publix and Safeway.

Move over Wiki Leaks, the OrganicGate scandal is about to break.

Team Organic will Never Surrender to Monsanto: Now We Continue the Fight, Together

2011-01-29T22:04:00.001-05:00

From the Non-GMO Project:

By Megan Westgate
I am no stranger to the rush of radical activism, to the satisfaction of identifying an enemy and throwing heart and soul into righteous indignation. In this complicated world, it’s tempting to reduce shades of gray to simple black and white. Sometimes that’s the only way to achieve a reassuring sense that we know where we stand (and therefore who we are). As a college student a decade ago, I devoted endless hours organizing protests against the Keck Graduate Institute, the first university in the world dedicated solely to biotechnology. When we successfully shut down their inaugural celebration, I wrote about it in the Earth First! Journal. In 2001 I attended the Ruckus Society’s “Biojustice” Action Camp, where I learned about the threats posed by the new science of genetic engineering, and how to scale a building or lock myself to the axle of a car if an action called for those skills.

It was all incredibly exhilarating, and my friends and I did accomplish some things of lasting value, including the protection of what remains one of the largest plots of endangered Coastal Sage Scrub habitat in Los Angeles County. As time passes, though, what I cherish most from my early activist days is not the rush of combat, but the satisfaction I experienced in collaborating with like-minded allies. The true power behind everything we accomplished came from our ability to work together as a team. In the wake of the USDA’s recent decision to deregulate genetically modified alfalfa, it is that power—the power of unification with like-minded allies—that we must seek. The understandable (and completely justified) feelings of anger, frustration and helplessness that the organic community is experiencing must be directed constructively. We are too small and up against too much for there to be any other way forward.

Leading up to the ruling, a broad coalition of organic organizations and companies were working around the clock in an attempt to influence the USDA’s decision. The USDA had already made it clear that alfalfa would be deregulated, but hope remained that there might be some way to soften the blow. Organic Valley, Whole Foods and Stonyfield Farm, along with many others in the organic community, were doing everything in their power to secure protections for organic farmers so that if their fields were contaminated once the GMO alfalfa was released, biotechnology companies for the first time would be held accountable for their pollution and would be forced to pay for the damages. These groups were also pushing for measures to protect seed purity so that non-GMO alfalfa supplies could be maintained. Unfathomably, these tireless organic organizations are now being criticized for their efforts. In total denial of the incontrovertible fact that the USDA was never even remotely considering a full ban on GMO alfalfa, some are suggesting that these group’s efforts to make the most of a bad situation *somehow* (though no one is very specific on how, exactly) signals corruption, and are even calling for boycotts. HOW ON EARTH is taking this out on 1200 organic family farmers going to help anything?! This is divisiveness we cannot afford.

Of the whole circular firing squad that’s been exploding in recent days, most shocking to me personally was a statement by Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association that the Non-GMO Project “is basically a greenwashing effort.” Say what?! Cummins goes on to say that the Project is unnecessary for organic products, since they are already “basically free from GMOs,” while “failing to focus on so-called ‘natural’ foods.” Totally wrong on both counts!

First of all, the hard truth is that organic foods are not necessarily “free” of GMOs. While the National Organic Program (NOP) identifies genetic modification as an excluded method, GMOs are not a prohibited substance. This means that although GMO seeds are not supposed to be planted, and GMO ingredients are not supposed to be used, no testing is required under the NOP. With the majority of key crops like soy and corn being planted with GM varieties in North America, contamination of seeds and ingredients is a real risk, even for certified organic products. It is critical to understand that the ONLY way to identify (and control) GMO contamination is through testing, in combination with other best practices. The organic standards do not require testing; the Non-GMO Project Standard does. Over half of the companies participating in the Non-GMO Project produce certified organic products. These companies have chosen Non-GMO Project Verification in addition to their organic certification because they are committed to keeping their products non-GMO, and are concerned that organic certification is not adequate. Many organic companies joined the Project after their internal GMO testing indicated a growing risk of contamination.

With regard to natural products, there are literally thousands of them enrolled in the Non-GMO Project, so I fail to see how we are “failing to focus” on them. As an example, Whole Foods has their entire 365 product line, organic AND natural enrolled in the Non-GMO Project. This commitment means that they are requiring testing of every single GMO risk ingredient used in every single one of their house brand products, both organic and natural. As a founding member of the Non-GMO Project, Whole Foods made a point from the very beginning of ensuring that this program would be available for not only their organic products, but their natural ones, too. Their commitment is exemplary. In fact, it is exactly the sort of positive action step that Cummins called for in his recent article.

Okay, so I’ll admit it—this is where I got really confused. After talking trash about the Non-GMO Project and its founders, Cummins, whose support is important to me, says “We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products.” Oh hey, good idea! Let’s do that! I know: we can create a non-profit to oversee standards, third party verification, and consistent labeling so that consumers can have full transparency about companies’ non-GMO practices. We can call it the Non-GMO Project, and it can be the most effective tool in North America for stopping the unchecked flow of GMOs into natural and organic products.

Oh, wait a minute…
Yes, that’s right, how wonderful for everyone—all of that work has already been done. Yay! As a founding board member of the Non-GMO Project, and its first (and only) Executive Director, I have been working on exactly this strategy virtually non-stop for the last four years, along with a huge group of passionate, determined, and highly-principled people and organizations, and I have to admit I feel pretty darn good about what we are accomplishing. I am loath to even dignify the “greenwashing” accusation with a response, but I guess I should.

So please consider this: Since being handed my first article about the deadly impact of GMO corn pollen on monarch larvae in 1999, when I was 19 years old, I have been moved to action on the GMO issue. Following my activism in college, I worked as the Outreach Coordinator at the Food Conspiracy Co-op in Tucson, AZ, where I saw firsthand how much confusion there was in the public about GMOs, and how bad the situation was getting. With the government consistently ignoring consumer calls for labeling, and organic products increasingly at risk, a group of small retailers decided it was time to take matters into our own hands. That was the beginning of the Non-GMO Project, and those of who started it were motivated by one thing: the desire to make sure that Americans did not lose the right to eat non-GMO food. Our efforts are finally starting to pay off, though the battle is far from over. Because of the Non-GMO Project, hundreds of farmers, processors and manufacturers across North America are learning how to control GMO contamination as much as is possible, and consumers are finally being given an informed choice in the form of the “Non-GMO Project Verified” label. It’s just barely not too late.

I do this work because when I start having children in a few years, I want to make sure that they can eat non-GMO food for their whole lives. I am also doing this because I am a person of exceptional moral integrity who believes it is my duty to do what I can to serve the greater good, and food and health are my passion. This is not an easy undertaking, and it will not succeed without the full support of everyone who cares about stopping GMOs. Since Thursday’s ruling, far too much anger and blame has been directed in entirely the wrong direction. It’s time to take a step back, remember that we are all on the same team, and get smart about our next steps. For my part, I am going to make a donation to the Center for Food Safety, so that they can get the USDA back into court ASAP, and them I’m going to spend the weekend catching up on running the Non-GMO Project. I hope I don’t get waylaid by any more baseless criticism; none of us can afford it. The health of our children, our grandchildren, and our environment is at stake, so let’s take good care of each other and give this our best.

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?

2011-01-29T21:53:00.000-05:00

By Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association, Jan 27, 2011
Straight to the Source

"The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must." - Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto's Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation's 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America's organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it's time to surrender to Monsanto. Top executives from these companies have publicly admitted that they no longer oppose the mass commercialization of GE crops, such as Monsanto's controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa, and are prepared to sit down and cut a deal for "coexistence" with Monsanto and USDA biotech cheerleader Tom Vilsack.

In a cleverly worded, but profoundly misleading email sent to its customers last week, Whole Foods Market, while proclaiming their support for organics and "seed purity," gave the green light to USDA bureaucrats to approve the "conditional deregulation" of Monsanto's genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant alfalfa. Beyond the regulatory euphemism of "conditional deregulation," this means that WFM and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.

In exchange for allowing Monsanto's premeditated pollution of the alfalfa gene pool, WFM wants "compensation." In exchange for a new assault on farmworkers and rural communities (a recent large-scale Swedish study found that spraying Roundup doubles farm workers' and rural residents' risk of getting cancer), WFM expects the pro-biotech USDA to begin to regulate rather than cheerlead for Monsanto. In payment for a new broad spectrum attack on the soil's crucial ability to provide nutrition for food crops and to sequester dangerous greenhouse gases (recent studies show that Roundup devastates essential soil microorganisms that provide plant nutrition and sequester climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases), WFM wants the Biotech Bully of St. Louis to agree to pay "compensation" (i.e. hush money) to farmers "for any losses related to the contamination of his crop."

In its email of Jan. 21, 2011 WFM calls for "public oversight by the USDA rather than reliance on the biotechnology industry," even though WFM knows full well that federal regulations on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) do not require pre-market safety testing, nor labeling; and that even federal judges have repeatedly ruled that so-called government "oversight" of Frankencrops such as Monsanto's sugar beets and alfalfa is basically a farce. At the end of its email, WFM admits that its surrender to Monsanto is permanent: "The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well True coexistence is a must."

Why Is Organic Inc. Surrendering?

According to informed sources, the CEOs of WFM and Stonyfield are personal friends of former Iowa governor, now USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack, and in fact made financial contributions to Vilsack's previous electoral campaigns. Vilsack was hailed as "Governor of the Year" in 2001 by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and traveled in a Monsanto corporate jet on the campaign trail. Perhaps even more fundamental to Organic Inc.'s abject surrender is the fact that the organic elite has become more and more isolated from the concerns and passions of organic consumers and locavores. The Organic Inc. CEOs are tired of activist pressure, boycotts, and petitions. Several of them have told me this to my face. They apparently believe that the battle against GMOs has been lost, and that it's time to reach for the consolation prize. The consolation prize they seek is a so-called "coexistence" between the biotech Behemoth and the organic community that will lull the public to sleep and greenwash the unpleasant fact that Monsanto's unlabeled and unregulated genetically engineered crops are now spreading their toxic genes on 1/3 of U.S. (and 1/10 of global) crop land.

WFM and most of the largest organic companies have deliberately separated themselves from anti-GMO efforts and cut off all funding to campaigns working to label or ban GMOs. The so-called Non-GMO Project, funded by Whole Foods and giant wholesaler United Natural Foods (UNFI) is basically a greenwashing effort (although the 100% organic companies involved in this project seem to be operating in good faith) to show that certified organic foods are basically free from GMOs (we already know this since GMOs are banned in organic production), while failing to focus on so-called "natural" foods, which constitute most of WFM and UNFI's sales and are routinely contaminated with GMOs.

From their "business as usual" perspective, successful lawsuits against GMOs filed by public interest groups such as the Center for Food Safety; or noisy attacks on Monsanto by groups like the Organic Consumers Association, create bad publicity, rattle their big customers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Publix and Safeway; and remind consumers that organic crops and foods such as corn, soybeans, and canola are slowly but surely becoming contaminated by Monsanto's GMOs.

Whole Food's Dirty Little Secret: Most of the So-Called "Natural" Processed Foods and Animal Products They Sell Are Contaminated with GMOs

The main reason, however, why Whole Foods is pleading for coexistence with Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and the rest of the biotech bullies, is that they desperately want the controversy surrounding genetically engineered foods and crops to go away. Why? Because they know, just as we do, that 2/3 of WFM's $9 billion annual sales is derived from so-called "natural" processed foods and animal products that are contaminated with GMOs. We and our allies have tested their so-called "natural" products (no doubt WFM's lab has too) containing non-organic corn and soy, and guess what: they're all contaminated with GMOs, in contrast to their certified organic products, which are basically free of GMOs, or else contain barely detectable trace amounts.

Approximately 2/3 of the products sold by Whole Foods Market and their main distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI) are not certified organic, but rather are conventional (chemical-intensive and GMO-tainted) foods and products disguised as "natural."

Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by UNFI and Whole Foods, employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called "natural" food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations such as Dean Foods, threatens the growth of the organic movement.

Covering Up GMO Contamination: Perpetrating "Natural" Fraud

Many well-meaning consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as "natural," and those nutritionally/environmentally superior and climate-friendly products that are "certified organic."

Retail stores like WFM and wholesale distributors like UNFI have failed to educate their customers about the qualitative difference between natural and certified organic, conveniently glossing over the fact that nearly all of the processed "natural" foods and products they sell contain GMOs, or else come from a "natural" supply chain where animals are force-fed GMO grains in factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).

A troubling trend in organics today is the calculated shift on the part of certain large formerly organic brands from certified organic ingredients and products to so-called "natural" ingredients. With the exception of the "grass-fed and grass-finished" meat sector, most "natural" meat, dairy, and eggs are coming from animals reared on GMO grains and drugs, and confined, entirely, or for a good portion of their lives, in CAFOs.

Whole Foods and UNFI are maximizing their profits by selling quasi-natural products at premium organic prices. Organic consumers are increasingly left without certified organic choices while genuine organic farmers and ranchers continue to lose market share to "natural" imposters. It's no wonder that less than 1% of American farmland is certified organic, while well-intentioned but misled consumers have boosted organic and "natural" purchases to $80 billion annually-approximately 12% of all grocery store sales.

The Solution: Truth-in-Labeling Will Enable Consumers to Drive So-Called "Natural" GMO and CAFO-Tainted Foods Off the Market

There can be no such thing as "coexistence" with a reckless industry that undermines public health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world's 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. There is no such thing as coexistence between GMOs and organics in the European Union. Why? Because in the EU there are almost no GMO crops under cultivation, nor GM consumer food products on supermarket shelves. And why is this? Because under EU law, all foods containing GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom to choose or not to choose GMOs; while farmers, food processors, and retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs, as long as they are safety-tested and labeled. Of course the EU food industry understands that consumers, for the most part, do not want to purchase or consume GE foods. European farmers and food companies, even junk food purveyors like McDonald's and Wal-Mart, understand quite well the concept expressed by a Monsanto executive when GMOs first came on the market: "If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

The biotech industry and Organic Inc. are supremely conscious of the fact that North American consumers, like their European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without a PhD, consumers understand you don't want your food safety or environmental sustainability decisions to be made by out-of-control chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont - the same people who brought you toxic pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment, only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling laws from getting a public discussion in Congress.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio) recently introduced a bill in Congress calling for mandatory labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don't hold your breath for Congress to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers' right to know what's in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the so-called "Citizens United" case gave big corporations and billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain anonymous, as they do so) to buy media coverage and elections, our chances of passing federal GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all but non-existent. Perfectly dramatizing the "Revolving Door" between Monsanto and the Federal Government, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, formerly chief counsel for Monsanto, delivered one of the decisive votes in the Citizens United case, in effect giving Monsanto and other biotech bullies the right to buy the votes it needs in the U.S. Congress.

With big money controlling Congress and the media, we have little choice but to shift our focus and go local. We've got to concentrate our forces where our leverage and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

The Organic Consumers Association, joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, has just launched a nationwide Truth-in-Labeling campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans.

Utilizing scientific data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure giant supermarket chains (Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway, Supervalu, and Publix) and natural food retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's to voluntarily implement "truth-in-labeling" practices for GMOs and CAFO products; while simultaneously organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling ordinances - similar to labeling laws already in effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens. If local and state government bodies refuse to take action, wherever possible we must attempt to gather sufficient petition signatures and place these truth-in-labeling initiatives directly on the ballot in 2011 or 2012. If you're interesting in helping organize or coordinate a Millions Against Monsanto and Factory Farms Truth-in-Labeling campaign in your local community, sign up here: http://organicconsumers.org/oca-volunteer/

To pressure Whole Foods Market and the nation's largest supermarket chains to voluntarily adopt truth-in-labeling practices sign here, and circulate this petition widely: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_22309.cfm

The New GMO Swine Flu CornFlakes

2011-01-25T07:11:00.000-05:00

AMES, IOWA — Iowa State University researchers are putting flu vaccines into the genetic makeup of corn, which may someday allow pigs and humans to get a flu vaccination simply by eating corn or corn products.

“We’re trying to figure out which genes from the swine influenza virus to incorporate into corn so those genes, when expressed, would produce protein,” said Hank Harris, professor in animal science and one of the researchers on the project. “When the pig consumes that corn, it would serve as a vaccine.”

This collaborative effort project involves Mr. Harris and Brad Bosworth, an affiliate associate professor of animal science working with pigs, and Kan Wang, a professor in agronomy, who is developing the vaccine traits in the corn.

According to the researchers, the corn vaccine would also work in humans when they eat corn or even corn flakes, corn chips, tortillas or anything that contains corn, Mr. Harris said. The research is funded by a grant from Iowa State University’s Plant Sciences Institute, and is their Biopharmaceuticals and Bioindustrials Research Initiative.

If the research goes well, the corn vaccine may be possible in five to seven years. In the meantime, the team is trying to expedite the process. “While we’re waiting for Wang to produce the corn, we are starting initial experiments in mice to show that the vaccine might induce an immune response,” Mr. Bosworth said.

Mr. Harris said the team still needs more answers. “The big question is whether or not these genes will work when given orally through corn,” he added. “That is the thing we’ve still got to determine.”

Stability and safety are several advantages to the corn vaccine. Once the corn with the vaccine is grown, it can be stored for long-term without losing its potency, researchers claim. If a swine flu virus breaks out, the corn could be shipped to the location to try to vaccinate animals and humans in the area quickly. Because corn grain is used as food and feed, there is no need for extensive vaccine purification, which can be an expensive process.

Food Safety Bill Advocates Expect Funding Fight

2011-01-04T06:55:00.002-05:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Jan 04, 2011

President Obama is expected to sign a sweeping food safety bill into law today, marking the end of a lengthy legislative drama and turning the focus to whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will get the additional funding needed to implement the bill.

On the heels of a Tea Party-fueled midterm election, House Republicans have pledged to use their new majority to rein in federal spending and decrease the size of the bureaucracy--a tough environment for any government agency seeking greater resources. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a fiscal conservative who will chair the subcommittee that oversees FDA's budget, recently raised serious questions about the justification for the new food safety bill's price tag. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new provisions will cost $1.4 billion over five years.

"I would not identify it as something that will necessarily be zeroed out, but it is quite possible it will be scaled back if it is significant overreach," Kingston told the Washington Post in late December. "We still have a food supply that's 99.99 percent safe. No one wants anybody to get sick, and we should always strive to make sure food is safe. But the case for a $1.4 billion expenditure isn't there."

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg told reporters on a White House media call Monday that she remains "optimistic" that the agency will be able to move forward and implement the bill, but declined to say whether the entire CBO estimate would be critical to carrying out all of the new responsibilities. Those tasks include mandatory recall authority, increased inspection frequencies of high-risk facilities, and enforcing new requirements that growers and food facilities have food safety plans and that foreign facilities importing food to the U.S. must meet the same standards.

Shifting the federal food safety system, which haphazardly oversees a now global food system, from a reactive to a preventive system that enforces food safety regulations and inspects food facilities more than once a decade is no small feat.

"This is a major, historic piece of legislation ... and it's really Congress asking us to build a whole new system for food safety with all of the elements that you've been hearing about, some of those elements we've already been working on and will be able to put in place fairly quickly with existing resources. Other components will require additional resources, dollar and human resources," said Hamburg. "We will be working closely with Congress and key stakeholders to try to really specify some of those needs."

"Obviously the money that we have available in the annual budget cycle ... ultimately impacts the way we are able to implement the bill," said Hamburg, adding that FDA has been "very fortunate" to receive recent budget increases in recent years despite tough budgetary conditions.

When asked about Kingston's comments about justifying the cost of implementing the bill, Hamburg said that shifting the food safety system toward being preventive was "the appropriate way to go" and that the cost of not implementing the reforms would be "simply unacceptable."

"We are very fortunate that we do have one of the safest food supplies in the world, however, every day we see preventable illness. We see unnecessary hospitalization and too many people have died from foodborne disease that could have been prevented," said Hamburg. "We are committed to taking on these new responsibilities and mandates given to us by Congress and we will work closely with Congress to implement this as efficiently and effectively as possible."

Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, also on the media briefing, called on Congress to fund the bill.

"The change won't happen overnight and it's still essential that Congress provide sufficient funding for these improvements to take shape," she said. "Thanks to the legislation, we can seriously begin building the 21st century food safety system that we desperately need."

Advocates for the new law, including consumer lobbyists and the leading food industry groups, are gearing up to fight for the funding.

"FDA is going to need the resources to enable this landmark new law to fulfill its promise. The costs of not implementing this new law are staggering," said Erik Olson, director of food initiatives for the Pew Health Group, citing a study last year that estimates the total health care costs for foodborne illness at $152 billion annually.

"Those costs dwarf any costs of implementing costs for this legislation," added Olson. "That doesn't even consider the costs to industry of these recalls. A single company announced, back in 2009, that the peanut recall alone cost them $60-70 million. This will save a great deal of money for consumers and industry."

Olson said consumer, industry, public health, and foodborne illness victim lobbying groups are all set to "vigorously" make the case for funding the new provisions. "This is money that is extremely well spent. It's wise to spend money in order to save money in the long run. We will be seeking to make the case to Congress that it is important to public health."

Pam Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a strong supporter of the bill, said the food industry "has long recognized that strong government oversight is a critical and necessary part of our nation's food safety net" and pledged GMA's continued support for successfully implementing the new law.

Bailey said that the food sector expects the reforms will prevent contamination and "raise the bar for the entire industry."

President Obama is expected to sign the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act into law today when he returns from a family vacation in Hawaii. The signing will likely be low key. As of publication time, the signing was not on the president's official schedule and White House aides have indicated there will not be a formal bill signing ceremony.

House passes food safety bill to send to Obama

2010-12-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

By the CNN Wire Staff

December 21, 2010 -- Updated 2247 GMT (0647 HKT)

Washington (CNN) -- A major food safety bill that passed the House and Senate earlier this year before stalling because of a procedural problem won final approval Tuesday and now goes to President Barack Obama to be signed into law.

The bill, designed to increase government inspections of the food supply in the wake of recent deadly foodborne disease outbreaks, originally passed with wide support in both chambers after originating in the Senate. However, it needed approval again because it violated a constitutional requirement that bills that raise revenue be initiated in the House.
The Senate passed its version of the Food Safety Modernization Act on Sunday, and the House voted 215-144 for final approval on Tuesday in one of the final sessions of the lame-duck Congress.

The bill, which represents the most sweeping overhaul of the food safety system since 1938, allows for greater governmental regulation of the U.S. food system -- currently in the national spotlight for numerous egg and produce recalls.

Among its provisions, the bill gives the federal Food and Drug Administration the authority to issue direct recalls of foods that are suspected to be tainted, rather than relying on individual producers to issue recalls voluntarily.

Currently, the FDA can negotiate with companies, but has no power to enact a mandatory recall.

It also requires food producers to develop written food safety plans, accessible by the government in case of emergency.

Under the measure, the secretary of Health and Human Services would be required to create a food tracing system that would quickly focus on the source of contamination should an outbreak occur. It also requires food importers to verify the safety of all imported foods to make sure they are in accordance with U.S. food safety guidelines.

In the Senate version, an amendment sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana exempted relatively small-scale producers that sell most of their food directly to consumers within their state or within a 275-mile radius of where it was produced.

Tester had called his amendment a "win for anyone who eats food," noting the local food processors still would be responsible for demonstrating that they had identified potential hazards and were implementing preventive controls to address the hazards, or demonstrating to the FDA that they were in compliance with state or local food safety laws.

Back from the Dead: Food Safety Bill Passes Senate in Unexpected Last-Minute Move

2010-12-20T08:27:00.000-05:00

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:

In an unexpected move, the Senate today passed a sweeping food safety bill by unanimous consent, sending the bill back for a vote in the House before it will move on to President Obama’s desk.

“Very very important for our country,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this evening on the Senate floor. “Perfect legislation? No. But a broad broad step in the right direction. We haven’t done anything in this regard for more than a hundred years for our country. With all the changes in processing food, it’s so very important. I’ve spoken to the Speaker tonight and this will pass the House when they come back Monday night or Tuesday.”

The surprising development is only the latest bizarre twist for the measure. Just a few days ago the food safety bill was seen as dead on Capitol Hill, but the Senate this weekend modified it to resolve a revenue technicality and managed to pass it.

That revenue issue is key in the long bizarre story of the bill.

In July 2009 the House first passed the bill, aiming to prevent massive outbreaks of tainted food by giving the Food and Drug Administration the authority to order mandatory recalls and require more frequent inspections of high-risk food processing plants.

But the bill then languished in the Senate for 15 months in the face of opposition from Republicans who objected to it adding around $1.5 billion to the deficit.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., argued that the bill needed to be fully paid for and do a better job of addressing regulatory failures. However, in November the Senate finally passed the food safety bill.

Except for one problem.

A tax provision included in the Senate bill violated the revenue rule, so instead of getting sent to President Obama’s desk, the bill remained stuck in Congress.

The Senate then put the food safety bill into the massive $1.1 trillion year-end omnibus bill, giving supporters of the measure renewed hope that it might still get passed after all.

But no.

Last Thursday, Reid, in the face of widespread GOP opposition, decided to scrap the omnibus bill in favor of a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government into early 2011.

At that point the food safety bill was considered dead. Until Sunday’s surprising development in the Senate, that is.

In Lame Duck Flux, Food Safety Bill All But Dead

2010-12-18T18:10:00.000-05:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Dec 18, 2010

Saturday morning update: Asked about the status of the food safety bill during a morning press conference covered by C-Span, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said: "The good news is it is not dead, the conversation is still alive on the floor of the Senate today."

Durbin said he is hopeful the measure can be included in "the wrap up" of the lame duck session.

Someone asked if he knew a Republican co-sponsor was saying it was dead, and Durbin replied: "I would have said the same thing an hour ago."

----------------

Friday the House and Senate approved a measure to keep the government bills paid through Tuesday, as Democrats and Republicans scrambled to come to a deal for a longer-term stop gap measure.

As the budget situation becomes more contentious, major food safety legislation, which was attached to spending measures that failed to come to fruition last week, seems all but dead.

"It's not going anywhere. It's dead," Sen. Tom Coburn, the bill's most outspoken opponent, told ABC News Friday.

A spokesman from Coburn's office confirmed to Food Safety News that the senator would object to attaching the "so-called food safety bill" to the continuing resolution. Coburn's opposition forced Senate Democrats to file cloture to advance the bill in November.

Key Democrats maintain they will work to include the bill--which easily passed the House and Senate, but got caught in a constitutional glitch--in the final agreement.

"We are working with our Republican colleagues to include this in the continuing resolution," a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) told Food Safety News via email.

A spokeswoman from Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin's (D-IA) office reiterated that Democrats had not ceded defeat yet.

"Chairman Harkin is making every effort to ensure that the bipartisan food safety bill is included in legislation that will be voted on before the end of the year," spokeswoman Justine Sessions said in an email. "We'll be able to send it to the President unless a Senator raises an objection to overhauling our food safety system for the first time in 70 years."

"This bill, which will create stronger protections against contaminated foods for American families, enjoys strong bipartisan support, and we hope that politics will not get in the way of good policy," added Sessions

Purdue Scientists Develop a Nanoparticle with Antimicrobial Ability against Listeria

2010-12-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

A team of scientists from Purdue University developed a nanoparticle which is important in lengthening the shelf life of foods susceptible to Listeria monocytogenes. The nanoparticle was derived by altering the surface of phytoglycogen, a carbohydrate found in sweet corn. Several forms of that nanoparticle have the ability to attract and release nisin, a food-based antimicrobial agent, that fights Listeria which is present in meats, dairy, and vegetables and can cause harmful effects to pregnant women, infants, adults, and those with weak immune systems.

"People have been using nisin for a number of years, but the problem has been that it is depleted quickly in a food system," said Arun Bhunia, a Purdue professor of food science who co-authored a paper with Yao on the findings in the early online version of the Journal of Controlled Release. "This nanoparticle is an improved way to deliver the antimicrobial properties of nisin for extended use."

Read more at http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/101207YaoNisin.html.

Vatican scientists see “moral imperative” in GMO

2010-12-09T07:51:00.000-05:00

(3 December 2010 GMO Compass) In a statement released at the end of November 2010, forty international scientists including seven Vatican advisors have called for the relaxation of “excessive, unscientific regulations” applied to genetically modified (GM) crops. The foundation of the statement lies in a week-long closed meeting held in May 2009 at the Vatican.

The scientists were brought together by Ingo Potrykus, one of the 80 members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The retired Professor of Plant Sciences at the Federal Institute of Technology (FIT) in Zurich developed what is known as ‘golden rice’, a bioengineered grain with enhanced levels of vitamin A to combat the childhood blindness that poses a problem in some developing countries in Asia.

Although an official endorsement of the statement has not been released, the Academy already had expressed provisional support for GM crops ten years ago and the seven Academy members present at the meeting included Chancellor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo.

The statement consists of 31 articles. Citing the development of crops for “the public good”, its authors referred to the potential of newly-developed plants to reduce malnutrition and poverty while enhancing food security. Other advantages of GM crops would include increased independence from pesticides and herbicides as well as the development of new tools against global warming and other types of environmental damage linked to agriculture.

The scientists cited the “magnitude of challenges facing the world’s poor and undernourished” as “a matter of urgency” while pointing to current projects developing genetically improved tropical crops that will be “of direct benefit to the poor”. In the light of these considerations and of scientific findings, one may derive “...a moral imperative to make the benefits of GE [i.e. genetically engineered] technology available on a larger scale to poor and vulnerable populations”.

Specific routes to this goal would include a reassessment of the ten-year-old Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety that addresses potential environmental risks to regulate the movement of GM organisms between countries. According to the scientists, the risks in question have failed to materialise and the protocol contains regulatory hurdles that hinder the development of crops by anyone other than large multinational firms.

Dr Potrykus uses his own experience with golden rice as an example and states, “It took 10 years longer and $20 million more than a normal variety ... future use of [such] technology for the poor totally depends on reform of regulation.”

House Passes Food Bill as Part of Spending Bill

2010-12-09T07:45:00.003-05:00

Late Wednesday the House of Representatives passed on a 212-206 vote, a continuing resolution to fund the government through September 2011. Attached to the bill was the FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act, which would give the Food and Drug Administration more authority. The language of the food safety rider is nearly identical to the bill passed last week by the Senate. However that bill was deemed unconstitutional due to a fee included in it as any taxes or fees must originate in the House.

The controversial Tester-Hagan amendment, a provision added to the Senate bill to exempt small farms and producers under certain conditions, is part of the legislation going back to the Senate for consideration. It appears that the small farm exemptions will be a part of the legislation if it becomes law this year. United Fresh Senior Vice President Robert Guenther issued a statement expressing disappointment that the provision was included.

"The statutory enactment of non science-based exemptions would limit FDA's ability to assure consumers that all foods they purchase, whether at grocery stores, restaurants, farm markets, or elsewhere, have met the same food safety standards," Guenther said. "We fear that this profound error will come back to haunt the Congress, public health agencies, consumers and even those who thought they would benefit from food safety exemptions. While the food safety bill will do much good, it is highly regrettable that the House leadership failed to exercise its responsibility to engage with the Senate in a conference to fix these provisions."

According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate will take up the bill in the next day or two.

Senate Passes Historic Food Safety Bill, Now What?

2010-12-01T10:29:00.000-05:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Dec 01, 2010

Senate Approves Food Safety Bill 73-25, But Road Ahead Looks Rocky:

In a rare demonstration of bipartisanship, the Senate passed the most sweeping food safety reform bill in seven decades Tuesday morning. Despite high tempers in the wake of a contentious cycle, the upper chamber voted 73-25 vote to approve S. 510, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill that would increase the Food and Drug Administration's fractured oversight of an increasingly globalized food supply.

Though the bill's passage--lauded by the major food industry, consumer, and public health groups--follows a similar measure that passed the House with bipartisan support in July 2009, the road ahead for comprehensive food safety reform is uncertain. With the clock running on the lame duck session, most advocates for the bill want to see the House take up the Senate version as soon as possible to get the legislation to President Obama's desk.

In a statement yesterday, Obama called on the House to act quickly on the legislation. "I urge the House--which has previously passed legislation demonstrating its strong commitment to making our food supply safer--to act quickly on this critical bill, and I applaud the work that was done to ensure its broad bipartisan passage in the Senate."

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), a key proponent of the measure in the Senate, indicated before Thanksgiving that key leaders in the House agreed to take up the Senate version, but it is not clear that is the game plan for House leadership. The House version of the bill requires far more frequent inspections, augments the cost of the bill with a flat $500 fee for each food facility, and does not contain a hard-fought amendment to exempt small farms and food producers from certain new regulations.

House lawmakers who worked tirelessly to get bipartisan support for their version in 2009 have been noncommittal about adopting the Senate version.

"The Senate bill makes improvements to FDA's existing authorities to ensure the safety of the American food supply just as the House bill does," Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who has been working on food safety legislation for years, told Food Safety News yesterday. "I commend my colleagues for their hard work over the past year and four months. However, there are some remaining concerns with the final Senate legislation, but the Senate bill is a still a giant leap forward toward ensuring the safety of the American food supply."

"I look forward to discussing the Senate bill with my House colleagues and determining what the appropriate next steps should be to ensure that we provide the greatest protections for American's consumers," added Dingell.

To add to the uncertainty in the House, large produce industry groups, including the United Fresh Produce Association and the Produce Marking Association, are working feverishly to convince lawmakers that the final legislation should not include the small farm exemptions, which were recently adopted into the Senate bill at the urging of Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT and Kay Hagan (D-NC).

The Tester-Hagan amendment intends to protect small farmers and the burgeoning local food movement from cumbersome regulation. The larger produce industry, which is in favor of broad safety requirements to help prevent dangerous and economically damaging foodborne illness outbreaks, has remained squarely against any blanket exemptions based solely on farm size or geography.

"We're pushing for a conference and for the removal of the Tester amendment. We think there is time to do conference," Robert Guenther, executive vice president of public policy at United Fresh, told Food Safety News yesterday. "[The amendment] fundamentally undermines the entire legislation, the rest of the bill is science- and risk-based."

Guenther said the industry would continue to push against the amendment, which he called "arbitrary" and "politically expedient."

Though disagreements remain, the prospect of a conference committee to iron out key differences is seriously in question with so many competing items on the Congressional agenda--including the Bush-era tax cuts and the defense reauthorization bill, which includes a provision to repeal the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Casting further doubt on the bill's chances at becoming law before the new year, Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported late last night predicted the food safety bill will likely be sent back to the Senate because Democrats violated Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, which clearly states that revenue-raising provisions originate in the House.

According to Roll Call, Section 107 of S. 510, which allows for the collection of fees, has "ruffled the features of Ways and Means Democrats" who are expected to use a procedure known inside the beltway as "blue slipping" to block the legislation.

"We understand there is a blue slip problem, and we expect the House to assert its rights under the Constitution to be the place where revenue bills begin," a GOP aide told the paper.

If the House blue slips the bill, Senate Democrats would have to use precious floor time to go back through procedural votes to re-introduce an amended version of the bill because Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) would, as he did earlier this year, object to a unanimous consent agreement to limit debate on the bill.

Sen. Coburn remains the most outspoken opponent of the legislation, arguing that it does not address systemic problems with federal food safety oversight and is too costly. Coburn introduced a substitute bill on Tuesday that failed in a 36-62 vote.

Tester’s amendment for family-scale producers now part of Food Safety Bill

2010-11-19T15:37:00.000-05:00

Thursday, November 18, 2010

(U.S. SENATE) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester has reached an agreement with consumer groups and the bipartisan authors of the Senate’s Food Safety Bill to include his amendment to protect family-scale food producers from expensive federal paperwork and unnecessary new regulations.

“This important legislation is shaping up to be a much better bill with the inclusion of my amendment for family-scale producers, and it protects the jobs of family farmers and ranchers and processers,” Tester said today during a speech to the Senate. “It really is time to get this bill passed and strengthen food safety for all Americans.”

Under Tester’s amendment, food producers who sell their goods directly to consumers and have less than $500,000 in annual sales would not be subject to the onerous new requirements designed for industrial-scale food producers. Family-scale producers would, however, continue to be overseen by local and state food safety and health agencies.

Negotiators have agreed on the following minor revisions to include Tester’s amendment in the Food Safety Bill:

New language that gives U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authority to withdraw an exemption from a farm or facility that has been associated with a food-borne illness outbreak.
The distance from a facility or farm that is eligible to be a local “qualified end-user” has been reduced from 400 miles to 275 miles, or within the same state.

Tester says his amendment is a major victory for family agriculture, safer food, and for the local food movement.

“We deal with consolidation in our energy sector, we deal with consolidation in our banking sector,” Tester said. “We have consolidation in our food industry too. The fact is we need to not encourage that consolidation. I think if we can get more locally grown food—if we can get producers to connect up the consumers eyeball to eyeball—that’s a positive thing. And I don’t want to diminish their ability to do this.”

Although Tester is himself a family-scale grain farmer, Tester’s own farm does not qualify under the amendment because he does not sell grain directly to consumers.

The Senate is currently debating the Food Safety Bill. A final vote on the bill, including Tester’s amendment, could happen as early as today.

RESOURCES

Tester’s Food Safety Bill resource page is now available online at: http://tester.senate.gov/foodsafety
A summary of Tester’s revised amendment is online HERE
The latest version of Tester’s amendment is online HERE
A YouTube video of Tester’s Senate floor speech is online HERE

Why the Tester Amendment?
“[Family-scale producers] are small. There’s a pride of ownership there that is real. They raise food; they don’t raise a commodity as happens when these operations get bigger and bigger. And there is a direct customer relationship with that customer or that farmer that means a lot. And if a mistake is made, which rarely happens, it doesn’t impact hundreds of thousands of people. We know exactly where the problem was. And we know exactly how to fix it.” –Senator Jon Tester

Food and Ag Groups Rally Against Tester Amendment

2010-11-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

Food Safety News

by Helena Bottemiller | Nov 16, 2010

As the Senate gears up to vote on a motion to limit debate and move the pending food safety bill forward on Wednesday, interest groups are kicking into high gear to lobby for and against key amendments.

Monday a group of 30 meat, pet food, and fresh produce industry groups sent a letter to the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman and ranking members, Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Michael Enzi (R-WY), respectively, urging key staff and lawmakers working on the bill to oppose a measure to exempt small farms and producers from the crux of the legislation.

"We believe an operation's size, the growing practices used, or its proximity to customers does not determine whether the food offered is safe," read the letter, which was signed by the American Meat Institute, the United Fresh Produce Association, and the United Egg Producers.

"What matters is that the operation implements prudent product safety practices, whether the product is purchased at a roadside stand, a farmers' market, or a large supermarket," continues the letter. "We support FDA food safety programs developed through a scientific, risk-based approach and that benefit public health."

As the food safety bill, which would increase the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's authority and mandate over the food supply, has languished, an amendment by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), now also backed by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), has gained widespread support. The measure would ease the regulatory burden on small farmers and producers.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and several other sustainable ag groups have been issuing a last round of action alerts to rally support for the Tester amendment.

"The bill takes important steps to improve corporate food safety rules but it is not appropriate for small farms and processors that sell to restaurants, food coops, groceries, schools, wholesalers and at farm stands and farmers markets," said NSAC in its alert late last week.

NSAC asked its supporters to call Senators in support of the Tester provision to prevent "one-size-fits-all" regulations from being created.

Though the details are still being worked out, insiders expect the Tester amendment to garner enough support to be added to the bill. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, also known as S. 510, is also expected to pass, with bipartisan support, this week.

__

To read more on the debate over small farm and producer exemptions, see Debate Over Small Farm Exemptions Rolls On, October 26, 2010.

Biotechnology in fruit and vegetables: a lot of research, few approvals

2010-11-07T14:12:00.001-05:00

(GMO Compass 23 October 2010) A multitude of plants bearing fruit and vegetables is the subject of research world-wide. Many plants developed in this manner with new traits have been tested successfully in greenhouses and in field trials. However, few endeavours currently are made towards the commercial use of such types of fruit and vegetables, as indicated by a study published in the current issue of the professional journal Nature Biotechnology.

To date, the commercial use of plants with new, biotechnologically-conferred traits has been restricted world-wide to soybeans, maize, rapeseed, cotton and, for the past four years, sugar beets.

For other cultivated plants – yielding fruit, vegetables, nuts and flowers – genetically modified (GM) varieties have not yet reached the market. Exceptions are the virus-resistant papayas that have been farmed on Hawaii for years and which in the meanwhile occupy 90 per cent of local fields and the GM squash (similar to zucchini) grown regionally in the USA, as well as GM carnations.

Fruits, vegetables and other ‘specialties’ are all of great significance in agriculture. However, new varieties with traits achieved through biotechnological processes have played no role to date. The reasons for this have been investigated in a study by Jamie Miller and Kent Bradford, two scientists at the University of California (Davis, USA). To do so, they assessed publications in scientific magazines and field trials with GM plants in 24 countries during a time period of almost six years (January 2003 to October 2008).

World-wide, 313 publications were registered on research projects with fruit, vegetables and other plant types. According to Miller and Bradford, a majority of cases indicated that the particular approach to the transfer of a new trait functioned in principle. In addition to the USA, the list compiled by the scientists cites publications from research groups from Europe, India, Japan, China, Brazil, South Korea, Israel, Tunisia and many other countries. During the time period under scrutiny, more than 800 field trials with such plants were conducted in the USA alone.

According to the study, "biotechnological plant research" addressed 77 ‘specialty types’ and transferred 206 various individual traits. The majority of these were farm-related traits (known as ‘input traits’), such as resistance to diseases or to pests but also such as an enhanced tolerance of drought, salt or heat stress. Increasingly, research projects aim towards modified product characteristics (‘output traits’) of nutrient composition or of enrichment with compounds beneficial to health.

However, this multifaceted and ‘successful’ research does not lead to commercial applications. According to Miller and Bradford, the ‘bottleneck’ is formed by the approval procedures to which all GM plants are subject world-wide and that have become more elaborate and demanding in the past years. Approvals for GM fruits and vegetables – such as tomatoes – mostly lie more than ten years in the past and new applications have not been submitted.

From the point of view of companies, new GM varieties of fruit and vegetables hardly are financially attractive. In addition to the costs associated with research, GM plants – in contrast to new breeds produced through other methods – are subject to costs incurred by the approval procedure. Miller and Bradford indicate a cost of as much as 15 million dollars for each new GM plant (event). A further consideration is that the market for such plant varieties as a rule is significantly smaller than is the case for field produce such as maize or soy.

A secondary risk for companies is consumer acceptance of food from GM plants. Such acceptance is difficult to anticipate and the rejection of such food is very pronounced in some regions. Collectively, reliable experience hardly exists with regard to consumer reaction towards GM varieties of fruit and vegetables.

In the opinion of both Californian scientists, the market introduction of such varieties will remain financially risky as long as their possible advantages are not more highly considered during approval.

U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patents

2010-11-01T19:32:00.001-04:00

ANDREW POLLACK
New York Times, October 29, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/30drug.html?_r=1&hp

Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry.

The new position was declared in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Department of Justice late Friday in a case involving two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer.

"We acknowledge that this conclusion is contrary to the longstanding practice of the Patent and Trademark Office, as well as the practice of the National Institutes of Health and other government agencies that have in the past sought and obtained patents for isolated genomic DNA," the brief said.

It is not clear if the position in the legal brief, which appears to have been the result of discussions among various government agencies, will be put into effect by the Patent Office.

If it were, it is likely to draw protests from some biotechnology companies that say such patents are vital to the development of diagnostic tests, drugs and the emerging field of personalized medicine, in which drugs are tailored for individual patients based on their genes.

"It's major when the United States, in a filing, reverses decades of policies on an issue that everyone has been focused on for so long," said Edward Reines, a patent attorney who represents biotechnology companies.

The issue of gene patents has long been a controversial and emotional one. Opponents say that genes are products of nature, not inventions, and should be the common heritage of mankind. They say that locking up basic genetic information in patents actually impedes medical progress. Proponents say genes isolated from the body are chemicals that are different from those found in the body and therefore are eligible for patents.

The Patent and Trademark Office has sided with the proponents and has issued thousands of patents on genes of various organisms, including on an estimated 20 percent of human genes.

But in its brief, the government said it now believed that the mere isolation of a gene, without further alteration or manipulation, does not change its nature.

"The chemical structure of native human genes is a product of nature, and it is no less a product of nature when that structure is 'isolated' from its natural environment than are cotton fibers that have been separated from cotton seeds or coal that has been extracted from the earth,” the brief said.

However, the government suggested such a change would have limited impact on the biotechnology industry because man-made manipulations of DNA, like methods to create genetically modified crops or gene therapies, could still be patented. Dr. James P. Evans, a professor of genetics and medicine at the University of North Carolina, who headed a government advisory task force on gene patents, called the government’s brief “a bit of a landmark, kind of a line in the sand.”

He said that although gene patents had been issued for decades, the patentability of genes had never been examined in court.

That changed when the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation organized various individuals, medical researchers and societies to file a lawsuit challenging patents held by Myriad Genetics and the University of Utah Research Foundation. The patents cover two genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, and the over $3,000 analysis Myriad performs on the genes to see if women carry mutations that predispose them to breast and ovarian cancers.

In a surprise ruling in March, Judge Robert W. Sweet of the United States District Court in Manhattan ruled the patents invalid. He said that genes were important for the information they convey, and in that sense, an isolated gene was not really different from a gene in the body. The government said that that ruling prompted it to re-evaluate its policy.

Myriad and the University of Utah have appealed.

Saying that the questions in the case were "of great importance to the national economy, to medical science and to the public health," the Justice Department filed an amicus brief that sided with neither party. While the government took the plaintiffs' side on the issue of isolated DNA, it sided with Myriad on patentability of manipulated DNA.

Myriad and the plaintiffs did not comment on the government's brief by deadline for this article.

Mr. Reines, the attorney, who is with the firm of Weil Gotshal & Manges and is not involved in the main part of the Myriad case, said he thought the Patent Office opposed the new position but was overruled by other agencies. A hint is that no lawyer from the Patent Office was listed on the brief.

Machines of war - Blackwater, Monsanto, Gates

2010-10-19T20:05:00.000-04:00

Silvia Ribeiro and La Jornada, Pravda Ru
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=625026
Monday, 18 October 2010 21:17
A report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation (Blackwater's Black Ops, 9/15/2010) revealed that [Monsanto bought the services of] the largest mercenary army in the world, Blackwater (now called Xe Services) ... Blackwater was renamed in 2009 after becoming famous in the world with numerous reports of abuses in Iraq, including massacres of civilians. It remains the largest private contractor of the U.S. Department of State "security services," that practices state terrorism by giving the government the opportunity to deny it.

Many military and former CIA officers work for Blackwater or related companies created to divert attention from their bad reputation and make more profit selling their nefarious services-ranging from information and intelligence to infiltration, political lobbying and paramilitary training - for other governments, banks and multinational corporations. According to Scahill, business with multinationals, like Monsanto, Chevron, and financial giants such as Barclays and Deutsche Bank, are channeled through two companies owned by Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater: Total Intelligence Solutions and Terrorism Research Center. These officers and directors share Blackwater.

One of them, Cofer Black, known for his brutality as one of the directors of the CIA, was the one who made contact with Monsanto in 2008 as director of Total Intelligence, entering into the contract with the company to spy on and infiltrate organizations of animal rights activists, anti-GM and other dirty activities of the biotech giant.

Contacted by Scahill, the Monsanto executive Kevin Wilson declined to comment, but later confirmed to The Nation that they had hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and 2009, according to Monsanto only to keep track of "public disclosure" of its opponents. He also said that Total Intelligence was a "totally separate entity from Blackwater."

However, Scahill has copies of emails from Cofer Black after the meeting with Wilson for Monsanto, where he explains to other former CIA agents, using their Blackwater e-mails, that the discussion with Wilson was that Total Intelligence had become "Monsanto's intelligence arm," spying on activists and other actions, including "our people to legally integrate these groups." Total Intelligence Monsanto paid $ 127,000 in 2008 and $ 105,000 in 2009.

No wonder that a company engaged in the "science of death" as Monsanto, which has been dedicated from the outset to produce toxic poisons spilling from Agent Orange to PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), pesticides, hormones and genetically modified seeds, is associated with another company of thugs.

Almost simultaneously with the publication of this article in The Nation, the Via Campesina reported the purchase of 500,000 shares of Monsanto, for more than $23 million by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which with this action completed the outing of the mask of "philanthropy." Another association that is not surprising.

It is a marriage between the two most brutal monopolies in the history of industrialism: Bill Gates controls more than 90 percent of the market share of proprietary computing and Monsanto about 90 percent of the global transgenic seed market and most global commercial seed. There does not exist in any other industrial sector monopolies so vast, whose very existence is a negation of the vaunted principle of "market competition" of capitalism. Both Gates and Monsanto are very aggressive in defending their ill-gotten monopolies.

Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really "donating" anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their "donations" finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. What a coincidence, former Secretary of Health Julio Frenk and Ernesto Zedillo are advisers of the Foundation.

Like Monsanto, Gates is also engaged in trying to destroy rural farming worldwide, mainly through the "Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa" (AGRA). It works as a Trojan horse to deprive poor African farmers of their traditional seeds, replacing them with the seeds of their companies first, finally by genetically modified (GM). To this end, the Foundation hired Robert Horsch in 2006, the director of Monsanto. Now Gates, airing major profits, went straight to the source.

Blackwater, Monsanto and Gates are three sides of the same figure: the war machine on the planet and most people who inhabit it, are peasants, indigenous communities, people who want to share information and knowledge or any other who does not want to be in the aegis of profit and the destructiveness of capitalism.

* The author is a researcher at ETC Group
Translated from the Spanish version by:
Lisa Karpova, Pravda.Ru

NY Rep wants 50% discount for fresh produce bought with food stamps

2010-10-19T19:50:00.000-04:00

By Stephen C. Webster
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has an interesting idea: instead of paying the poor to buy cheap, processed foods that make them sick, offer a discount -- and thereby more food -- if they purchase fresh produce.

It's an innovation to welfare that does much more than maintain the status quo. The congressman argues that his program could even result in a significant savings on the total amount Americans spend annually on health care.

Under legislation Rep. Weiner has proposed, food stamp recipients would get a 50 percent discount for every government dollar they spend on fresh fruit and vegetables. Grocers who sell produce to food stamp recipients would still get the full sticker price.

The congressman hopes his bill would lead to more adults choosing to eat healthier foods from local sources, instead of centering their diets around mass-produced, processed food products that tend to be cheaper and more readily available.

With more than 72 million Americans currently considered obese, the proposed front-end investment of nearly $2.6 billion seems modest when compared to the government's annual obesity-related health costs, estimated to be approaching $168 billion a year. A media advisory from Weiner's office estimated that the initial investment in the program represents about 3.8 percent of the total spent on food stamps in 2009.

“We think this is a good way to incentivize good behavior and also to save tax payers a lot of money because obese citizens wind up costing the treasury an enormous amount,” the congressman told CBS New York.

Weiner's move follows a proposal by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who asked the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to forbid the use of food stamps to purchase sugary sodas in New York, as part of what he called an "experiment". The mayor's suggestion, while seemingly well-meaning, was largely viewed as unworkable in that the USDA does not have the authority to change federal law, which is rather particular about how to define "food" -- and soda is not omitted.

According to The New York Times, the law permits that food stamps be used to purchase "any food or food product for home consumption except alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and hot foods or hot food products ready for immediate consumption."

The USDA also rejected a similar proposal from Minnesota in 2004, the Times noted.
Weiner's proposal, on the other hand, seems like it would have a better chance at accomplishing its goals, but only if Democrats can get it through Congress.

"On average, persons who are obese have medical costs that are $1,429 more than persons of normal weight," Rep. Weiner's office said in its advisory. "According to the [National Institutes of Health], American life expectance will drop by as much as 5 years unless aggressive efforts are made to slow rising rates of obesity."

A recent Colombia University study placed life expectancy in the US at 49th when compared to other industrialized nations. The study's authors posited that high rates of obesity, smoking, homicides and traffic fatalities may have contributed to the decline.

"We know Americans will make healthy food decisions when they have the means to do so," Rep. Weiner said. "This program will help curb obesity, cut health costs and provided much needed financial relief to 41 million Americans."

It's Alive! Reid Files Cloture on Food Safety Bill

2010-09-30T20:39:00.003-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Sep 30, 2010

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the food safety bill late yesterday, a move that will ready the measure for a vote after the midterm election, an aide told Food Safety News.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act has stalled in recent weeks despite heightened concerns about food safety following a nationwide outbreak of Salmonella linked to eggs. The bill, which has had bipartisan support, would, among other things, give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration greater authority to test food, enhance its ability to trace outbreaks and empower it to order recalls of contaminated food.

Now the languishing measure may be one of the first bills up for consideration in November when Congress reconvenes after the election, although it will compete with a variety of high profile issues, including a defense authorization bill and whether to extend the Bush tax cuts.

Majority leadership tried twice last week asked for unanimous consent to bring the bill to the floor for consideration. Both times Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) objected, citing the bill's price tag and a number of other concerns.

Filing cloture begins the process of moving the bill to the floor under restricted debate, removing the possibility of a filibuster and circumventing Coburn's objection to bringing the bill to the floor. The procedure requires 60 votes.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) recently told reporters he believes he has over 90 votes for the bill. It is likely that the amendments allowed to be offered will remain the same.

Carol Tucker-Foreman, food policy fellow at Consumer Federation of America, says the bill will pass "if it can just get to the floor," but expressed caution in assuming there would be a lame duck session vote, because as many as 20 bills may be competing for consideration in the very short time period.

"If [Republicans] win control of the Senate or even make big inroads on the [Democrat] majority [in the election], they'll be reluctant to pass any bill that they think could be 'improved' next year by a Republican-controlled Congress," explained Tucker-Foreman in an email response to Food Safety News. "However, S 510 may be the least objectionable."

Though several news outlets have pronounced the food safety bill dead, Tucker-Foreman disagrees. "It's an important public health bill--and we'll work hard to get it considered during the lame duck session," she said.

October Newsletter

2010-09-28T23:07:00.000-04:00

Berea Gardens Agriculture Ministries

October Newsletter

The heat of summer has finally passed and the incredible beauty of the Appalachian Fall is upon us. This is the time of year we love most here, and the gardens love it too. The transition to our fall crops is complete and we have a beautiful array of plants growing wonderfuly without the stress from weeds and pests that are so troublesome during the hotter months. Broccoli, cauliflower, beets, spinach, carrots, lettuce, and a wide array of other vegetables are looking beautiful and will provide for a nice harvest over the coming months. Our greenhouses will allow us to grow many things right through the winter.

We have had a wonderful season at or Farmer's Market and have made many warm friends from the local folks that we have met. The season ends the last week in October, but for us it will also be a new beginning. Our vison of opening a bulk food store to serve our community is close to reality. Betty Nicholson, a dear friend from Hartland and recently from Black Hills Health & Education Center, has joined us to take charge of starting up and operating the store. We look forward to meeting some of the needs in our area, as well as having an opportunity for health education and a way of providing practical advice and products for healthy eating. The store will also give us a year-round venue for marketing the produce from the farm. In time, we hope to be able to offer an online version of the store that can serve a wider region with bulk beans, grains, nuts and a variety of other products. Please pray for this venture and our ability to use it as a means to further other aspects of health and lifestyle education that will benefit our community.

Our Agriculture Training Program has had a good season and dozens of people took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about this important skill. Many of our attendees have sent comments that their gardening success has been enhanced by what they learned here. We still have openings for the October 11 session, and if you desire to participate you may find information on the Berea Gardens Website.

True Education Conference Series Scheduled for November 26-28

The annual True Education Series hosted by Bob Jorgensen is coming again to Berea Gardens at the end of November. Please plan now to join us from November 26-28 for a wonderful opportunity to fellowship and share more about true Christian education. Speakers this year will include Pastor Dave Westbrook, author of "Out of the Cities and Director of Back to Enoch Ministires, Elvin Easton of The Living Choice in the Dominican Republic, and others. Bob Jorgensen of Medical Missionary Press will host the series. Bob has made a very thorough study of the principles of True Education and the implementation of these principles in Adventist history. I will be sending updated information as the total speaker schedule is selected.

Agriculture Training Week
Nov. 29 - Dec. 2
The week following the True Education Conference will be an opportunity to get some practical agriculture training. From Monday, November 29 to December 2 class sessions will be held on developing land for growing crops, soil chemistry and fertility, plant pathology and pests, hazards of modern commercial agriculture and regulatory compliance issues for small market growerrs as well as round table discussions with the 'experts' speaking at the weekend conference.

Agriculture Conference December 3-5

The first conference for many of the Adventist educators and promoters of agriculture is an opportunity to meet and talk with those that are actively engaged in this work; the A,B, and C of education. Speakers include Bob Jorgensen, Jerry Travers, Brad Neely, John Dysinger, Elvin Easton, Bob Gregory and others. Topics will cover cutting edge trends in the understanding of healthful agricultural production.

Please plan now to join us. Further announcements and details about speakers and accomodations will be coming to you soon.

Tester Offers Hope on S. 510, Help for Small Farms

2010-09-28T08:26:00.000-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller Sep 27, 2010

Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) says he expects the Senate to approve his amendment aimed at lessening the impact of the pending food safety bill on small-scale food producers. While the fate and immediate timeline for the legislation remains highly uncertain, Tester's office released an updated version of his amendment late last week.

"While I agree that we need to have better regulations for these multistate, huge corporations that take food off fields, throw it all together and distribute it to many states, I think the state and local entities can do a much better job (regulating) the people who are direct-marketing food," Sen. Tester, a third-generation farmer, told reporters during a visit to PEAS Farm in Missoula, Montana Friday.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and other groups continue to lobby for the Tester amendment, which would exempt certain food facilities and farms with under $500,000 in gross annual sales from preventative control plan requirements and exempt direct-market farmers from the coming produce safety regulations. The measure, co-sponsored by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC), has been the subject of intense negotiations, but was ultimately not included in the final manager's package for the bill.

Carol Tucker-Foreman, a fellow at the Consumer Federation of America's Food Polity Institute, told Food Safety News in August that she was surprised some of Tester's language wasn't included. Tucker-Foreman believes at least portions of the amendment will ultimately be added to the Senate bill.

"People don't want to hurt small farmers and farmers markets, but they also don't want to keep getting sick," said Tucker-Foreman in an interview with Food Safety News after the manager's amendment was released. "If you put aside the rants, the language of the bill will be there. They are really taking the middle course here."

If the Tester amendment is added, NSAC says it will support the Senate bill. "However, we strongly oppose the companion House measure, and stand ready to defend the Senate bill in conference with the House should that prove necessary," the group said in a statement.

The latest version of Tester's amendment was released Friday, the measure still charges local and state food safety and health agencies to oversee small-scale producers. According to his office, the measure would apply to producers that:

-Have annual sales of less than $500,000, and sell the majority of their product directly to consumers, restaurants and retailers within the same state--or within 400 miles, or that

-Fall within the Food and Drug Administration's category of "very small business"

Tester addressed reporters along with Josh Slotnick, who operates PEAS Farm. Slotnick said his farm lacks the resources to meet the would-be requirements in the food safety bill, stressing the need for Tester's amendment.

According to a release from Tester's office, Paul Hubbard, a consumer advocate with the Community Food Agriculture Coalition, also strongly supports Tester's amendment.

"Jon understands that a one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter approach to food safety just won't work," Hubbard said. "We appreciate his work to boost food safety in a common sense way that will keep small family farms and ranches in business for future generations."

"The folks with me here today know firsthand that foodborne illnesses don't come from family agriculture," said Tester. "As we do the vital work to make sure the food on our kitchen tables is safe, we've also got to make sure we don't treat small producers the same way we treat big corporate farms. That's exactly what my amendment will fix."

Tester's amendment is supported by more than 150 local, state, and national food organizations, including NSAC. Consumer and industry groups in Washington, DC argue that the amendment would leave large loopholes in a food safety bill they've been fighting for over a year.

The unanimous consent agreement offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last week would allow Tester to bring his amendment to the floor during debate. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) remains opposed to the UC proposal, creating a roadblock for the bill unless Reid decides to take the time to invoke cloture.

Tester offered a hint of optimism for the legislation, which has been pronounced dead by several media outlets.

"He's showed some leanings toward pulling his hold on the bill this last week, so we're hopeful that will happen soon at this point," said Tester.

Monsanto and Blackwater's black ops

2010-09-18T23:01:00.000-04:00

NOTE: Internal company documents show Monsanto paid a Blackwater entity (Total Intelligence) over $200,000 to scan "activist blogs and websites", and suggest the issue of infiltration also arose.
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Blackwater's Black Ops
Jeremy Scahill
The Nation, September 15 2010
http://www.thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops?page=0,0

Over the past several years, entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation. Officials from Total Intelligence, TRC and Blackwater (which now calls itself Xe Services) did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the "intel arm" of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

Governmental recipients of intelligence services and counterterrorism training from Prince's companies include the Kingdom of Jordan, the Canadian military and the Netherlands police, as well as several US military bases, including Fort Bragg, home of the elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), and Fort Huachuca, where military interrogators are trained, according to the documents. In addition, Blackwater worked through the companies for the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the US European Command.

On September 3 the New York Times reported that Blackwater had "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq." The documents obtained by The Nation reveal previously unreported details of several such companies and open a rare window into the sensitive intelligence and security operations Blackwater performs for a range of powerful corporations and government agencies. The new evidence also sheds light on the key roles of several former top CIA officials who went on to work for Blackwater.

The coordinator of Blackwater's covert CIA business, former CIA paramilitary officer Enrique "Ric" Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their "deniability" as a "big plus" for potential Blackwater customers, according to company documents. The CIA has long used proxy forces to carry out extralegal actions or to shield US government involvement in unsavory operations from scrutiny. In some cases, these "deniable" foreign forces don't even know who they are working for. Prado and Prince built up a network of such foreigners while Blackwater was at the center of the CIA's assassination program, beginning in 2004. They trained special missions units at one of Prince's properties in Virginia with the intent of hunting terrorism suspects globally, often working with foreign operatives. A former senior CIA official said the benefit of using Blackwater's foreign operatives in CIA operations was that "you wouldn't want to have American fingerprints on it."

While the network was originally established for use in CIA operations, documents show that Prado viewed it as potentially valuable to other government agencies. In an e-mail in October 2007 with the subject line "Possible Opportunity in DEA—Read and Delete," Prado wrote to a Total Intelligence executive with a pitch for the Drug Enforcement Administration. That executive was an eighteen-year DEA veteran with extensive government connections who had recently joined the firm. Prado explained that Blackwater had developed "a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations." He added, "These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer 'play' on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus."

The executive wrote back and suggested there "may be an interest" in those services. The executive suggested that "one of the best places to start may be the Special Operations Division, (SOD) which is located in Chantilly, VA," telling Prado the name of the special agent in charge. The SOD is a secretive joint command within the Justice Department, run by the DEA. It serves as the command-and-control center for some of the most sensitive counternarcotics and law enforcement operations conducted by federal forces. The executive also told Prado that US attachés in Mexico; Bogotá, Colombia; and Bangkok, Thailand, would potentially be interested in Prado's network. Whether this network was activated, and for what customers, cannot be confirmed. A former Blackwater employee who worked on the company's CIA program declined to comment on Prado's work for the company, citing its classified status.

In November 2007 officials from Prince's companies developed a pricing structure for security and intelligence services for private companies and wealthy individuals. One official wrote that Prado had the capacity to "develop infrastructures" and "conduct ground-truth and security activities." According to the pricing chart, potential customers could hire Prado and other Blackwater officials to operate in the United States and globally: in Latin America, North Africa, francophone countries, the Middle East, Europe, China, Russia, Japan, and Central and Southeast Asia. A four-man team headed by Prado for countersurveillance in the United States cost $33,600 weekly, while "safehouses" could be established for $250,000, plus operational costs. Identical services were offered globally. For $5,000 a day, clients could hire Prado or former senior CIA officials Cofer Black and Robert Richer for "representation" to national "decision-makers." Before joining Blackwater, Black, a twenty-eight-year CIA veteran, ran the agency's counterterrorism center, while Richer was the agency's deputy director of operations. (Neither Black nor Richer currently works for the company.)

As Blackwater became embroiled in controversy following the Nisour Square massacre, Prado set up his own company, Constellation Consulting Group (CCG), apparently taking some of Blackwater's covert CIA work with him, though he maintained close ties to his former employer. In an e-mail to a Total Intelligence executive in February 2008, Prado wrote that he "recently had major success in developing capabilities in Mali [Africa] that are of extreme interest to our major sponsor and which will soon launch a substantial effort via my small shop." He requested Total Intelligence's help in analyzing the "North Mali/Niger terrorist problem."

In October 2009 Blackwater executives faced a crisis when they could not account for their government-issued Secure Telephone Unit, which is used by the CIA, the National Security Agency and other military and intelligence services for secure communications. A flurry of e-mails were sent around as personnel from various Blackwater entities tried to locate the device. One former Blackwater official wrote that because he had left the company it was "not really my problem," while another declared, "I have no 'dog in this fight.'" Eventually, Prado stepped in, e-mailing the Blackwater officials to "pass my number" to the "OGA POC," meaning the Other Government Agency (parlance for CIA) Point of Contact.

What relationship Prado's CCG has with the CIA is not known. An early version of his company's website boasted that "CCG professionals have already conducted operations on five continents, and have proven their ability to meet the most demanding client needs" and that the company has the "ability to manage highly-classified contracts." CCG, the site said, "is uniquely positioned to deliver services that no other company can, and can deliver results in the most remote areas with little or no outside support." Among the services advertised were "Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence (human and electronic), Unconventional Military Operations, Counterdrug Operations, Aviation Services, Competitive Intelligence, Denied Area Access...and Paramilitary Training."

The Nation has previously reported on Blackwater's work for the CIA and JSOC in Pakistan. New documents reveal a history of activity relating to Pakistan by Blackwater. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto worked with the company when she returned to Pakistan to campaign for the 2008 elections, according to the documents. In October 2007, when media reports emerged that Bhutto had hired "American security," senior Blackwater official Robert Richer wrote to company executives, "We need to watch this carefully from a number of angles. If our name surfaces, the Pakistani press reaction will be very important. How that plays through the Muslim world will also need tracking." Richer wrote that "we should be prepared to [sic] a communique from an affiliate of Al-Qaida if our name surfaces (BW). That will impact the security profile." Clearly a word is missing in the e-mail or there is a typo that leaves unclear what Richer meant when he mentioned the Al Qaeda communiqué. Bhutto was assassinated two months later. Blackwater officials subsequently scheduled a meeting with her family representatives in Washington, in January 2008.

Through Total Intelligence and the Terrorism Research Center, Blackwater also did business with a range of multinational corporations. According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world's largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto's security manager for global issues.

After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson "understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name.... Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for." Black added that Total Intelligence "would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto." Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater "could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally." Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto's "generous protection budget" but would eventually become a line item in the company's annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.

Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto's Wilson initially said, "I'm not going to discuss it with you." In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating "there was no such discussion." He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto "with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites." Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was "a completely separate entity from Blackwater."

Monsanto was hardly the only powerful corporation to enlist the services of Blackwater's constellation of companies. The Walt Disney Company hired Total Intelligence and TRC to do a "threat assessment" for potential film shoot locations in Morocco, with former CIA officials Black and Richer reaching out to their former Moroccan intel counterparts for information. The job provided a "good chance to impress Disney," one company executive wrote. How impressed Disney was is not clear; in 2009 the company paid Total Intelligence just $24,000.

Total Intelligence and TRC also provided intelligence assessments on China to Deutsche Bank. "The Chinese technical counterintelligence threat is one of the highest in the world," a TRC analyst wrote, adding, "Many four and five star hotel rooms and restaurants are live-monitored with both audio and video" by Chinese intelligence. He also said that computers, PDAs and other electronic devices left unattended in hotel rooms could be cloned. Cellphones using the Chinese networks, the analyst wrote, could have their microphones remotely activated, meaning they could operate as permanent listening devices. He concluded that Deutsche Bank reps should "bring no electronic equipment into China." Warning of the use of female Chinese agents, the analyst wrote, "If you don't have women coming onto you all the time at home, then you should be suspicious if they start coming onto you when you arrive in China." For these and other services, the bank paid Total Intelligence $70,000 in 2009.

TRC also did background checks on Libyan and Saudi businessmen for British banking giant Barclays. In February 2008 a TRC executive e-mailed Prado and Richer revealing that Barclays asked TRC and Total Intelligence for background research on the top executives from the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) and their potential "associations/connections with the Royal family and connections with Osama bin Ladin." In his report, Richer wrote that SBG's chair, Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, "is well and favorably known to both arab and western intelligence service[s]" for cooperating in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Another SBG executive, Sheikh Saleh bin Laden, is described by Richer as "a very savvy businessman" who is "committed to operating with full transparency to Saudi's security services" and is considered "the most vehement within the extended BL family in terms of criticizing UBL's actions and beliefs."

In August Blackwater and the State Department reached a $42 million settlement for hundreds of violations of US export control regulations. Among the violations cited was the unauthorized export of technical data to the Canadian military. Meanwhile, Blackwater's dealings with Jordanian officials are the subject of a federal criminal prosecution of five former top Blackwater executives. The Jordanian government paid Total Intelligence more than $1.6 million in 2009.

Some of the training Blackwater provided to Canadian military forces was in Blackwater/TRC's "Mirror Image" course, where trainees live as a mock Al Qaeda cell in an effort to understand the mindset and culture of insurgents. Company literature describes it as "a classroom and field training program designed to simulate terrorist recruitment, training, techniques and operational tactics." Documents show that in March 2009 Blackwater/TRC spent $6,500 purchasing local tribal clothing in Afghanistan as well as assorted "propaganda materials—posters, Pakistan Urdu maps, etc." for Mirror Image, and another $9,500 on similar materials this past January in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

According to internal documents, in 2009 alone the Canadian military paid Blackwater more than $1.6 million through TRC. A Canadian military official praised the program in a letter to the center, saying it provided "unique and valid cultural awareness and mission specific deployment training for our soldiers in Afghanistan," adding that it was "a very effective and operationally current training program that is beneficial to our mission."

This past summer Erik Prince put Blackwater up for sale and moved to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. But he doesn't seem to be leaving the shadowy world of security and intelligence. He says he moved to Abu Dhabi because of its "great proximity to potential opportunities across the entire Middle East, and great logistics," adding that it has "a friendly business climate, low to no taxes, free trade and no out of control trial lawyers or labor unions. It's pro-business and opportunity." It also has no extradition treaty with the United States.

USDA to Hold Public Meeting on Codex Standards

2010-08-23T16:46:00.002-04:00

by Helena Bottemiller | Aug 19, 2010

USDA to Hold Public Meeting on Codex Committee on Processed Fruits and Vegetables

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Food Safety yesterday announced a public meeting to receive comments on a draft U.S. position for the 25th session of the Codex Committee on Processed Fruits and Vegetables, the group responsible for setting worldwide standards for a variety of processed fruits and vegetables.

The Committee is scheduled to meet in Denpasar, Indonesia October 25-29 to hash out global standards for everything from dried fruits and veggies to canned peas and beans and jams and jellies. According to the USDA, revising standards for quick frozen fruits and vegetables is a top agenda item for the meeting.

The public meeting to provide information and accept comments on the U.S. draft position is scheduled for Monday, August 30, 2010, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., in Room 2068, USDA, South Building, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC. To participate through teleconference, dial (888) 996-4918, and enter the passcode 63757.

A complete agenda and documents relating to the Committee meeting will be available on the Codex Alimentarius Website at www.codexalimentarius.net/current.asp.

Individuals are invited to submit written comments electronically, indicating they apply to the 25th session of the Codex Committee on Processed Fruits and Vegetables, to uscodex@fsis.usda.gov.

For further information about the public meeting, contact Doreen Chen-Moulec at (202) 720-4063 or Doreen.Chen-Moulec@fsis.usda.gov.

FEDERAL COURT RESCINDS USDA APPROVAL OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUGAR BEETS

2010-08-15T08:04:00.000-04:00

MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Associated Press, 14 August 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ggF-I0WscO7Ejo_-2GgVKjVFe7XQD9HJFJ8O0

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge has revoked the government's approval of genetically altered sugar beets until regulators complete a more thorough review of how the scientifically engineered crops affect other food.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White Friday means sugar beet growers won't be able to use the modified seeds after harvesting the biotechnology beets already planted on more than 1 million acres spanning 10 states from Michigan to Oregon. All the seed comes from Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Additional planting won't be allowed until the U.S. Department of Agriculture submits an environmental impact statement. That sort of extensive examination can take two or three years.

White declined a request to issue an injunction that would have imposed a permanent ban on the biotech beets, which Monsanto Co. developed to resist its popular weed killer, Roundup Ready. Farmers have embraced the technology as a way to lower their costs on labor, fuel and equipment.

The Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance and Sierra Club have been trying to uproot the biotech beets since filing a 2008 lawsuit.

Andrew Kimbrell, the Center for Food Safety's executive director, hailed Friday's decision as a major victory in the fight against genetically engineered crops and chided the Agriculture Department for approving the genetically engineered seeds without a full environmental review.

"Hopefully, the agency will learn that their mandate is to protect farmers, consumers and the environment and not the bottom line of corporations such as Monsanto," Kimbrell said in a statement.

Attempts to reach the Agriculture Department for comment Saturday were unsuccessful. Monsanto, based in St. Louis, referred requests for comment to the America Sugarbeet Growers Association, which pointed to a Saturday statement from the Sugar Industry Biotech Council.

In the statement, the sugar beet council said it intends to help the Agriculture Department come up with "interim measures" that would allow continued production of the genetically altered seeds while regulators conduct their environmental review.

If a temporary solution isn't found, the planting restrictions are likely to cause major headaches for sugar beet growers and food processors.

The genetically altered sugar beets provide about one-half of the U.S. sugar supply and some farmers have warned there aren't enough conventional seeds and herbicide to fill the void. The scientific seeds account for about 95 percent of the current sugar beet crop in the U.S.

"The value of sugar beet crops is critically important to rural communities and their economies," the Sugar Industry Biotech Council said Saturday.

White expressed little sympathy for any disruption his decision might cause. He noted in his 10-page ruling that regulators had time to prepare for the disruption because he had already overturned the deregulation of the genetically altered beets in a decision issued last September.

The Agriculture Department "has already had more than sufficient time to take interim measures, but failed to act expediently," White wrote.

Organic farmers, food safety advocates and conservation groups contend genetically altered crops such as the sugar beets could share their genes with conventionally grown food, such as chard and table beets.

Those arguments helped persuade another federal judge in San Francisco to stop the planting of genetically altered alfalfa seeds in 2007 pending a full environmental review that still hasn't been completed.

Monsanto took that case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June overturned an injunction against the company's sale of the modified seeds.

Alarming effects in GM wheat

2010-08-04T22:47:00.002-04:00

Genetically engineered wheat shows unexpected ecological behaviour
Testbiotech, 26 July 2010
http://www.testbiotech.org/en/node/406

*Testbiotech calls for new concept in risk assessment

Munich - Recent research by Swiss scientists has shown some alarming effects in genetically engineered wheat. The wheat grew normally and had better resistance to a certain fungal disease in the greenhouse, but the metabolism of the plants went out of control after being exposed to environmental conditions. The plants were severely affected by the extremely toxic fungal disease (ergot disease) and yield was lowered by up to 50 percent. Testbiotech is calling for genetically engineered plants to undergo comprehensive 'stress tests' before they are released into the environment.

„The results from Switzerland show a huge gap in the risk assessment of genetically engineered plants. So far, we don't know enough about how these plants behave under certain environmental conditions such as climate change. The technically inserted gene sequences are not under the control of the plants' genome regulation. Their stability needs to be tested systematically under various conditions,” says Christoph Then from the German expert group Testbiotech.

The observed effects are a general problem in genetically engineered plants. It is known that the regulation of a plants' genome can be disturbed by the invasive methods involved in genetic engineering. If these plants are exposed to environmental stress factors, their regulation can derail. Possible negative impacts can be a higher content of toxic or anti-nutritious compounds, a higher infestation of pests or loss of yield. So far very little has been published on the interrelation of environmental factors and possible unintended effects in genetically engineered plants.

Testbiotech does not agree with the Swiss researchers who are arguing for experimental field trials to explore the plants' reaction. As Christoph Then explains: ”Field trials are not appropriate for systematic testing of the plants' reaction to defined environmental conditions. There are too many random factors, depending on certain circumstances. The change of extreme climatic conditions can be simulated much better under greenhouse conditions than by just growing the plants on some field sites.” These tests should be mandatory for the risk assessment of genetically engineered plants. The expert group first defined their concept of what they call a 'crash test' in a publication in October 2009.

Publication Zeller S.et al (2010). Transgene × Environment Interactions in Genetically Modified Wheat: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011405

Report of Testbiotech about risk assessment and concept of 'Crash-Test': http://www.testbiotech.org/node/96
Contact:

For further questions please contact Christoph Then: 0151 54638040

Institute for Independent Impact Assessment in Biotechnology
Frohschammerstr. 14,
80807 München
Fon: +49 (0)89-358 99 92 76
Fax: +49 (0)89-359 66 22
info@testbiotech.org
www.testbiotech.org

Crops Absorb Pharmaceuticals From Treated Sewage

2010-08-04T22:46:00.002-04:00

By Rachel A. Zurer
C & EN, August 2, 2010
Straight to the Source

Environmental Pollutants: Soybeans can accumulate drugs and personal care products commonly found in wastewater and solid waste.

Each year, U.S. farmers fertilize their fields with millions of tons of treated sewage and irrigate with billions of gallons of recycled water. Through this treated waste, an array of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) make their way unregulated from consumers' homes into farm fields. Now researchers find that at least one crop, soybeans, can readily absorb these chemicals, which raises concerns about the possible effects on people and animals that consume the PPCP-containing plants (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es1011115).

Researchers have previously shown that food crops take up veterinary medicines from manure fertilizer and some cabbage species absorb human pharmaceuticals when grown in hydroponic conditions. But environmental scientist Chenxi Wu and colleagues at the University of Toledo in Ohio wanted to determine if a major food crop could absorb common PPCPs under more realistic agricultural conditions, such as plants grown in soil. If the chemicals do find their way into the crops under real-life conditions, they could be toxic to the plants, Wu says. "Or they could accumulate through the food chain, and eventually end up in human consumers," he adds.

In a greenhouse experiment, the scientists focused on soybeans, the second most-widely grown crop in the U.S. Half the plants grew in PPCP-tainted soil, to simulate fertilization with treated solid waste, while the researchers irrigated the other half with chemical-spiked water, to replicate wastewater irrigation. They laced water and soil with three pharmaceuticals-carbamazepine, diphenhydramine, and fluoxetine-and two antimicrobial compounds found in personal care products-triclosan and triclocarban.

>>> Read the Full Article

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Senate Panel OKs Harsher Penalties for Unsafe Food

Latter-Day Luther Nails Troubling Thesis to GM Farm & Food Citadels

ORGANIC FARMERS AND SEED SELLERS SUE MONSANTO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM PATENTS ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED SEED

Dark side of giving: The rise of philanthro-capitalism

Scientists Discover New Route for GM-gene 'Escape'

ISIS Report 02/03/11

Gene “escape” a misnomer for horizontal gene transfer

Plant wounds hotspots for gene trafficking

Experiments confirmed their suspicion in full

Implications on risk assessments of GMOs still understated

The risks are far greater than admitted

Agrobacterium vector a vehicle for facilitated horizontal gene transfer [8, 9]

Agrobacterium transfers genes into human cells

To conclude

References

Genetically-Modified Maize Threatens Crunchy Snack Chips

Researcher: Glyphosate (Roundup) or Roundup Ready Crops May Cause Animal Miscarriages

Genetic Engineering: Scientists warn of link between dangerous new pathogen and Monsanto’s Roundup

USDA Approves Corn Amylase Trait

Plants Cloned as Seeds

Mexico freeze kills 80-100 pct of crops; US food prices to soar

Devastating freeze in Mexico is worst freeze in over 50 years

The OrganicGate Scandal

Team Organic will Never Surrender to Monsanto: Now We Continue the Fight, Together

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now?

The New GMO Swine Flu CornFlakes

Food Safety Bill Advocates Expect Funding Fight

House passes food safety bill to send to Obama

Back from the Dead: Food Safety Bill Passes Senate in Unexpected Last-Minute Move

In Lame Duck Flux, Food Safety Bill All But Dead

Purdue Scientists Develop a Nanoparticle with Antimicrobial Ability against Listeria

Vatican scientists see “moral imperative” in GMO

House Passes Food Bill as Part of Spending Bill

Senate Passes Historic Food Safety Bill, Now What?

Tester’s amendment for family-scale producers now part of Food Safety Bill

Food and Ag Groups Rally Against Tester Amendment

Biotechnology in fruit and vegetables: a lot of research, few approvals

U.S. Says Genes Should Not Be Eligible for Patents

Machines of war - Blackwater, Monsanto, Gates

NY Rep wants 50% discount for fresh produce bought with food stamps

It's Alive! Reid Files Cloture on Food Safety Bill

October Newsletter

Tester Offers Hope on S. 510, Help for Small Farms

Monsanto and Blackwater's black ops

USDA to Hold Public Meeting on Codex Standards

FEDERAL COURT RESCINDS USDA APPROVAL OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUGAR BEETS

Alarming effects in GM wheat

Crops Absorb Pharmaceuticals From Treated Sewage

08/17/2011 9:57:17 AM
Andy Nelson