Hi, fellow edible-gardeners, organic and otherwise, and fellow
consumers.

Thought you might be interested in this Newsletter, which I just
received

+++++++++++++++++

To: "listserve"
Subject: [Biodemocracy]BioDemocracy News #42 Global Grassroots:
Gaining Ground
From:
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 18:54:55 -0600


Here is BioDemocracy News #42 of the Organic Consumers Association
which comes out approximately 8 times per year.

To be removed from this list, send any email (from your email
address) - blank or not - to:


BioDemocracy News #42 (Feb. 2003) Global Grassroots: Gaining Ground
by: Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association www.organicconsumers.org

Quotes of the Month:

"The deal would be this: if the Americans would stop lying about us,
we would stop telling the truth about them." European Union
Development Commissioner Poul Nielson, referring to the increasingly
bitter EU/US conflict over genetically engineered food, Reuters,
1/20/03

"There is no need for GM (genetically modified) crops; no one wants
them, not famine-stricken African nations, and very possibly, not even
the biotech corporations themselves, judging from the spectacular
cutbacks and spin-outs of agricultural biotechnology and major
retreats from funding academic research over the past year." Dr. Mae
Wan-Ho, Institute for Science and Society www.i-is.org.uk 1/14/03
___________________________________________
Globalization and Biotech under Fire

On the eve of an increasingly unpopular war, US government policies,
including globalization, genetic engineering, and subsidies to
industrial agriculture, are under fire as never before-from Iowa to
India, from London to Latin America. On New Year's Day, the ninth
anniversary of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, a stone
's throw from the Mexico office of the OCA in Chiapas, 20,000
indigenous protestors are marching through the streets. Wearing masks
and bandanas, armed with machetes, and holding aloft hand-made signs,
Zapatista farmers and rural villagers are rising up in resistance. In
an evening rally, illuminated by the flames from hundreds of torches,
Zapatista leaders denounce NAFTA and rural poverty; as well as
biopiracy, the theft and patenting of native resources and knowledge
by biotech scientists, and transgenic pollution, the contamination of
Mexico's traditional corn varieties by genetically engineered (GE)
corn being dumped on the country by US-based grain giants, Archer
Daniels Midland and Cargill.

A thousand miles to the north, Mexican farmers organize a parallel
protest, blocking the US/Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez. Since the
advent of NAFTA in 1994, the country has been flooded by cheap, US
taxpayer-subsidized grains and foods, including six million tons a
year of GE corn and high-fructose corn sweetener for soft drinks.
Unable to compete with more than $20 billion in annual subsidies to US
agribusiness, most of which goes to large farms, two million Mexican
corn growers, cane-cutters, and indigenous subsistence farmers have
been driven off the land, forced to migrate to the already overcrowded
cities, or to make a long and dangerous journey to the US to find
work. Once self-sufficient in food production, Mexico now spends 78%
of its oil exports to purchase food imports from the US.

Not since the revolution of 1910 has the US's neighbor to the south
experienced such a wave of unrest. In the past two months, hundreds of
thousands of Mexican farmers organized marches, blocked highways, and
seized government installations. In one dramatic protest, a group of
ranchers blocked the streets outside the Congress in Mexico City with
their farm tractors, and then rode up the steps of the building on
horseback. Desperate to defuse the mounting crisis, Mexican President
Vicente Fox has promised to renegotiate the NAFTA agreement, much to
the chagrin of the White House. Similarly hammered by NAFTA and
subsidies to large corporate farms, the National Family Farm Coalition
in the US and the National Farmers Union in Canada have extended their
solidarity, calling for economic justice for farmers, North and South,
a rollback of international trade agreements, and an end to the
dumping of GE corn and other crops on the Mexican and world market. On
Jan. 31 over 100,000 irate farmers marched through the streets of
Mexico City and rallied in front of the National Palace.

Further south, in Brazil and Ecuador, new Presidents have been swept
into office, riding a wave of anti-globalization and a demand for
peace and economic justice. In Brazil left-wing President Lula da
Silva has made "Zero Hunger" and food security his number one
priority, at the same time pledging to maintain Brazil's moratorium on
GE soybeans. Brazil's exports of GE-free soybeans have doubled to $7.6
billion over the last four years, while US soybean exports (75% of
which are GE) have declined by 30%. In a national survey in July 2001,
67% of Brazilians said that transgenic crops should continue to be
banned.

Manifesting the growing power of the global grassroots, from Jan.
23-28 over 100,000 farmer, labor, consumer, and environmental,
activists gathered in Porto Alegre, Brazil for the third annual World
Social Forum-denouncing war, corporate globalization, and food
insecurity, under the overall theme, "Another World is Possible."
Among the notable street demonstrations in Porto Alegre was a Jan. 27
protest at Monsanto's headquarters, where Greenpeace activists scaled
the building and hung a banner denouncing Frankencrops.

The economic crisis in Latin America has grown worse. Besides reducing
consumer-buying power by 30% in 2002, Argentina's economic
strangulation by the International Monetary Fund has reduced the
ability of Argentina's farmers to buy GE Roundup Ready soybeans-a
significant factor in Monsanto's recent economic downturn. One of the
few glimmers of hope in the Argentina rural economy is the increasing
demand overseas for non-GM corn and grass-fed beef. Meanwhile in
Venezuela, increasing poverty, capital flight, empty supermarket
shelves (50% of the nation's food is imported), and a business-led
sabotage of the oil industry, have brought the country to the verge of
civil war.

In Colombia, the collapse of world coffee prices and a generalized
agricultural crisis have increased poverty and hunger, driving many
desperate farmers to grow drug crops, fueling an ever more violent
civil war. Seemingly drunk with power, emboldened by what it believes
is the popularity of its "war on drugs and terrorism," the Bush
administration has moved aggressively into Colombia. US troops are now
directly involved in counter-insurgency operations, guarding oil
pipelines and working hand in hand with the Colombian army and
right-wing death squads. Among the tactics being employed by the US
are the indiscriminate aerial spraying of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide
over vast areas of the Colombian countryside, poisoning rural
communities and destroying food crops, as well as coca and poppy
fields. US biowar proponents are advocating the aerial spraying of an
even more dangerous herbicide, genetically engineered fusarium
bacteria. www.organicconsumers.org/ge/GEherbicide.cfm

Biotech Bullying Backfires

Across the globe, as reported in BioDemocracy News, and updated daily
on OCA's website www.organicconsumersw.org, an enormous "food fight"
has intensified. While developing nations sound the alarm over hunger,
food dependency and declining biodiversity, and resent the recent
dumping of GE-tainted corn on impoverished nations; in the
industrialized world, consumer concerns over food safety, nutrition,
and environmental sustainability have reached an all-time high. Both
North and South there is an increasing distrust of "industrial food"
and GMOs (genetically modified organisms), and a growing appetite for
organic products. While industrial food revenues are flat, growing
1-2% a year, organic sales are booming, with yearly growth rates of
20-25%. By the year 2020, at current rates of growth, most food sold
at the grocery store retail level in the US, Canada, and the EU will
be organic. Farmers in 110 nations will produce more than $25 billion
worth of organic foods and fiber in 2003.

Worldwide sales of transgenic crops have stalled at $4.25 billion a
year, with only four countries, for all practical purposes, producing
GMOs on a commercial scale (US-corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola;
Canada-corn, soybeans, canola; Argentina-soybeans only; and
China-cotton only). As Greenpeace organizer Jeanne Merrill told the
Associated Press (1/16/03) "The reality is that the biotechnology
revolution has not happened. The majority of these crops are going
into animal feed. Farmers are rejecting biotech food crops."

In 2002 there was essentially no increase worldwide in the commercial
plantings of the four major GE crops, soybeans, corn, canola, and
cotton- with the sole exception of GE cotton in China and India. And
even the expansion of Bt-spliced or herbicide-resistant cotton is
likely to be short-lived, with reports from the fields of pest
resistance and declining yields. In order to speed up the demise of Bt
cotton, as well as to fight sweatshops and increase the market demand
for organic cotton and sustainable fibers, the OCA is launching a
major new campaign called Clothes for a Change. Among other tactics,
this campaign will pressure leading brand name companies such as Gap,
Levi's, Ralph Lauren, Nike, and Wal-Mart to go "sweatshop-free," to
stop using GE cotton in their garments, and to blend in organic and
sustainable fibers instead. For more information see
www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/

The Bush administration's bullying tactics on GMOs have backfired
badly. US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick's belligerent threats
to file a WTO challenge against the EU for its moratorium on GE crops
have simply hardened European attitudes toward Frankenfoods and
increased global market demand for organic and non-GMO crops.
Similarly Washington's denunciations of African leaders for "starving
their people" by refusing shipments of US food aid contaminated by
genetic engineering, have angered Africans who believe that America is
trying to shove unwanted GMOs down their throats. Charges by US trade
officials that Europe had manipulated gullible Africans into believing
that GMOs were unsafe prompted a blunt response from EU Development
Director Poul Nielson on Jan. 20 that the US "was lying."

Compounding White House and biotech industry woes, the GMO-tainted
food aid controversy has spread to Asia, with India recently refusing
part of a $100 million shipment of GE-tainted corn and soy from the
US. At the same time Japanese importers once again rejected a shipment
of US corn, contaminated with the banned StarLink variety. USDA
officials said they were "surprised" by the news, since they believed
all remaining StarLink corn was destroyed last year. On 1/18 the
Brazilian government impounded a GM corn shipment from the US,
demanding that it be returned or incinerated. Meanwhile protesters
pulled up GM crops and took to the streets in the Philippines after
the government bowed to US pressure and approved Bt corn. In
Australia, shipments of US GM corn were confronted by protests in
Melbourne, Brisbane, and Newcastle.

On the eve of an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, anti-US
sentiments are rising. Mounting anger toward the US overseas, combined
with Bush administration bullying on trade and GMOs, may well deliver
a fatal blow to the Gene Giants, already on life-support after several
years of setbacks.

The View from Porto Aleg Another World Is Possible

Before reviewing several recent major developments on the biotech
front, let's step back for a moment and look at the "Big Picture" of
agriculture, food security, war, and peace, as articulated at the
recent World Social Forum in Brazil. Several of us from the OCA were
fortunate enough to be delegates at this annual gathering, which is
attempting to unite activists worldwide, creating a global grassroots
alternative to the elite-based WTO and the World Economic Forum. Among
the major concerns of global civil society, as expressed in Porto
Alegre are the following:

.. Genetic engineering and industrial agriculture pose a mortal threat
to public health, the environment, and the economic survival of the
world's 2.4 billion farmers and rural villagers, 1.4 billion of whom
are "seed savers."

.. Even as GE crops and foods are finally driven off the market,
chemical and energy-intensive industrialized agriculture and
globalized food production and distribution still pose a mortal threat
to public health and the environment and the survival of rural
communities worldwide.

.. Organic and sustainable agricultural practices (coupled with
sustainable practices in energy, transportation, water, housing,
health, education, and industrial production) are the only road to
health, sustainability, peace, and justice. Nutritious and safe
food-preferably organic food--and a clean environment are among people
's basic human rights. Organic production systems must embody the
principles of Fair Trade and social justice.

.. A thousand billionaires and multi-billionaires, along with a
thousand large transnational corporations, are poisoning the planet
and our bodies and undermining democracy. This global elite's
stranglehold over our politics, commerce, media, and culture-including
our choices regarding food, fiber, and health care-must be broken and
replaced by a system of participatory democracy and sustainable
development.

.. We'll never stop having wars, we'll never stop the proliferation of
nuclear bombs and biowarfare weapons, we'll never stop having
dictators like Saddam Hussein, and dangerous demagogues like George
Bush as leaders, until we decide that it's a priority to feed, house,
and clothe the world's 830 million starving people. In addition we
must provide employment and living wage jobs for all, especially the
2.8 billion people currently struggling to survive on less than $2 a
day. And finally we must make it a global priority to allow the world'
s 2.4 billion farmers and rural villagers to remain on the land,
producing the world's food and fiber, safely, sustainably, and
equitably.

Biopharm Blunders-Another Nail in the Coffin for Agbiotech

"We're very sorry for the mishap." Anthony Laos, CEO of the biopharm
corporation, ProdiGene.

Among the most hazardous and unpredictable new products in the biotech
pipeline are the so-called "pharm" crops. These are crops, most often
corn or tobacco, that are gene-spliced to produce powerful
pharmaceutical drugs and industrial chemicals. Drug and chemical
companies are excited about biopharming, since using plants or animals
as "bioreactors" can reduce their manufacturing costs. The downside is
that these mutant bioreactors will undoubtedly pollute the environment
and contaminate the food chain.

*******Over the past few years more than 300 fields of biopharm crops
have been planted in the US--in secret locations, in the open
environment.Approximately 200 of these experiments have been conducted
with corn,notorious for spreading its wind-blown pollen to surrounding
fields.Although no pharm crops have been approved for commercial
production, regulations and enforcement of test plots are notoriously
lax.Biopharm companies are not even required to give the USDA the
exact gene sequences of the experimental crops, making it impossible
to verify whether or not particular pharm crops have contaminated the
food chain. As Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth put it, ""If the
USDA continues to allow biopharm food crops to be planted, someone is
going to get prescription drugs or industrial chemicals in their corn
flakes." Recent events suggest that this contamination is already
taking place.******

(Polar emphasis added)

In Nov. 2002 the USDA was forced to admit that at least two
experimental corn crops in Nebraska and Iowa, grown by ProdiGene, had
already polluted the environment. Not only had a least one, and
possibly both, of the mutant corn crops pollinated, thereby spreading
their mutant genes into the air, but several hundred "volunteer"
ProdiGene corn plants had sprung up the following year, contaminating
over 500,000 bushels of soybeans in Nebraska, and 150 acres of corn in
Iowa. ProdiGene at first tried to deny there was a problem, but then
issued an apology. The USDA imposed $3 million in penalties on
ProdiGene, but brushed off demands by OCA's public interest coalition,
Genetically Engineered Food Alert www.gefoodalert.org for a complete
moratorium on biopharm experiments.

According to USDA records, and an FDA memo posted on the OCA website,
ProdiGene holds permits to grow corn which has been genetically
engineered to express a pig vaccine, as well as corn gene-spliced to
produce a controversial AIDS drug called HIV glycoprotein gp120, a
blood-clotting agent (aprotinin). ProdiGene, under pressure, admitted
that some of the plants cited in their violation were designed to
express a pig vaccine, but a November FDA memo strongly suggests that
it was the AIDS drug or some other human drug-not the pig virus-that
was being grown by ProdiGene in Nebraska. See:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefo...engineered.cfm

ProdiGene's biopharm blunder was the most serious biotech scandal
since the StarLink controversy in 2000, when a likely allergenic
variety of feed corn contaminated the US food chain and generated
major controversy in the press, both in the US and worldwide. For the
first time since the advent of GE foods and crops in 1994, major US
grocery store chains, represented by the Grocery Manufacturers of
America, and food corporations, represented by the National Food
Processors Association, clashed with the USDA and the biotech
industry, demanding that biopharm companies stop experimenting with
food and animal feed crops such as corn. Even the Biotechnology
Industry Organization (BIO), the trade association for medical and
agbiotech companies, briefly called in October for a moratorium on
biopharm experiments in the Midwestern corn belt, no doubt having been
tipped off that the ProdiGene scandal was about to erupt. However BIO
reversed itself shortly thereafter, caving in to pressure from biotech
and agribusiness lobbyists.

More Frankenpharm horror stories loom on the horizon. Pressed as to
whether or not other biopharm violations have occurred, USDA
bureaucrats have been evasive, admitting there have been other
"infractions," but claiming nothing else has occurred on the scale of
ProdiGene. Although US Senator Richard Durbin from Illinois has
formally requested a full accounting of biopharm violations, the USDA
has dragged its heels. Meanwhile biopharm's mad scientists are
preparing to move their operations overseas, to the developing world,
where they hope to be able to pay farmers a pittance, operate in total
secrecy, and pollute the environment and food chain with impunity. On
their website www.molecularfarming.com the biopharm industry have put
out a call to farmers worldwide, especially in the Third World, to
make good money and serve a noble cause by getting in on the ground
floor of what they call a "future $50 billion a year, industry". But
as Monsanto can attest, outsourcing genetic pollution and treating
people as human guinea pigs does not always work out as planned.

Monsanto Meltdown

Despite heavy advertising and PR greenwash, despite a cozy
relationship with the White House, Monsanto's image, profits, and
credibility have plunged. Its aggressive bullying on Frankenfoods, its
patents on the Terminator gene, its attempt to buy out seed companies
and monopolize seed stocks, and its persecution of hundreds of North
American farmers for the "crime" of seed-saving, has made Monsanto one
of the most hated corporations on Earth.

Monsanto will likely soon be broken up, with its parts sold off to the
highest bidder. The New York Times reported 1/14/03, that "With its
stock price low, Monsanto is considered a takeover target. by
investment banks. and could be bought and sold off in pieces." On
December 19, Monsanto shocked the biotech industry by forcing the
resignation of its CEO, Hendrik Verfaillie, a 26-year veteran with the
company. The sudden move came as Monsanto reported losses of $1.75
billion for the first three quarters of 2002, despite cutbacks,
including layoffs for 700 employees. Monsanto's stock has fallen
nearly 50% since January 2001.

But Monsanto is not the only Gene Giant downsizing. Last year, biotech
giant Syngenta closed down its plant genome lab in San Diego,
terminated its controversial research partnership with the University
of California in Berkeley, pulled out of its planned collaboration
with the Indira Gandhi rice research institute in India, and canceled
its contract with the John Innes Center in the UK

Major transnational corporations in the food and life sciences sector
are unlikely to shed any tears over Monsanto's demise. It's no secret
on Wall Street that Monsanto, in its present form, has become a major
liability for transnational food corporations and the
biotech/pharmaceutical giants, who are much more concerned with the
potential for hundreds of billions of dollars in sales from biotech
drugs, nutraceutical foods, and nanotechnology, than the declining
fortunes of agbiotech crops, whose total sales in 2002 were $4.25
billion.

One of the major reasons for Monsanto's decline, besides the growing
worldwide opposition to its GE crops, is the growing resistance of
weeds to Monsanto's flagship product, Roundup herbicide. Roundup, up
until now the top-selling weed killer in the world, making up 50% of
Monsanto's sales and 70% of their profits, has recently begun to lose
its effectiveness against major crop weeds such as mare's-tail,
waterhemp, and ryegrass. GE Roundup-resistant soybeans presently
account for more than 75% of all the soybeans planted in the United
States and Argentina, as well as the majority of rapeseed or canola in
Canada. According to a recent report by Syngenta, herbicide-resistant
superweeds will soon reduce the economic value of farmland on which
Roundup Ready soybeans are grown by 17%. Forty-six percent of farmers
surveyed in Syngenta's study said that weed resistance to glyphosate,
the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, is now their
top concern. http://www.organicconsumers.org/mons...ndup011403.cfm


According to industry experts, Monsanto has no alternative in the
pipeline once glyphosate starts to fail. Syngenta, which also sells
herbicides containing glyphosate, has criticized Monsanto for
encouraging its customers to overuse the relatively cheap herbicide,
as well as for not warning farmers to avoid mono-cropping, growing the
same Roundup Ready crops, year after year, on the same plots of land.

Leading scientific critics such as Dr. Michael Hansen and Dr. Charles
Benbrook have warned for years that weeds would inevitably develop
resistance to GMOs. The reason for this is that GE herbicide-resistant
plant varieties are designed to be able to survive heavy doses of the
companies' broad-spectrum weed killers, which in turn cause resistant
strains of these weeds to survive and eventually predominate. Similar
warnings have been leveled at the use of Bt-spliced crops, which are
engineered to express high doses of a soil bacteria called Bt. Now
that Bt crops such as cotton and corn have been commercialized on
millions of acres, major insect pests such as bollworms, bud worms,
beetles, and corn borers are also expected to become resistant to Bt
over the next 5-10 years.

The shaky bottom line for agbiotech is that almost 100% of all
Frankencrops today, the so-called "first generation" GE crops, are
either herbicide-resistant or Bt-spliced. Once these genetically
engineered traits lose their effectiveness, which is now happening,
the first generation of biotech crops will be dead, period. Here's a
toast to the speedy breakup and demise of Monsanto and the other Gene
Giants. RIP. In future issues of BioDemocracy News we'll look at the
so-called second, third, and fourth generation of Frankenfoods and
crops, including the absolutely frightening advent of nanotechnology,
or "atomtechnology." See www.etcgroup.org

Poisoning Pigs and Humans

In July 2002 a number of hog farms in Iowa reported that pigs were
suffering extraordinary rates of reproductive failure-outward signs of
pregnancy but no births.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/p...lity012703.cfm
What the farms had in common was feeding their pigs Bt corn (or corn
which was both Bt-spliced and Roundup resistant), which turned out to
have a high level of fusarium mold. When one of the farmers switched
back to non-GE corn, the reproductive problems disappeared. A memo by
USDA researcher Dr. Mark Rasmussen dated 8/5/02 stated, "A possible
cause of the problem may be the presence of an unanticipated
biologically active, chemical compound in the corn." Previous research
at Baylor University in Texas found similar problems in rats exposed
to "chipped corncob bedding" made from Bt corn. As indicated in
previous issues of BioDemocracy News, it is likely that human guinea
pigs (i.e. the general public), as well as pigs, are now suffering
from allergic reactions as well as damage to their immune systems and
guts from ingesting Bt corn. A number of scientists believe that the
Iowa incident may be the result of a sort of toxic synergy between Bt
corn and Roundup Ready soybeans. More on this in an upcoming issue.

The Next Step

The OCA has made a commitment to double the size of our 500,000-member
network over the next 12 months, and to step up the pressure by
helping grassroots activists pass laws that alter public policy at the
local and state levels. This is in addition to carrying on our
marketplace pressure campaigns against Starbucks and supermarket
chains and stepping up our public education efforts. If you are
willing to help us with network building in your local area, or work
with us to pass pro-organic legislation against sweatshops,
Frankenfoods, irradiated food, or slave labor coffee and chocolate,
send an email to . In your email, please
include your telephone number and street address so we can have the
appropriate OCA regional field organizer get back in touch with you.

And last, but not least, if you want to get involved in the growing
anti-war movement and put pressure on the US Congress, you should
consider joining one of the most exciting and powerful new internet
networks in the world www.moveon.org

For a weekly expose of Bush administration lies and propaganda on the
war, biotech, the environment, and other issues check out
www.prwatch.org published by OCA policy board member John Stauber.
To sign up for PR Watch's free weekly email report go to:
http://www.prwatch.org/cmd/subscribe/sotd.html

Stay tuned to BioDemocracy News and www.organicconsumers.org for the
latest news and Action Alerts.

End of BioDemocracy News #42__________________________________


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--
Polar

On Wed, 12 Feb 2003 10:10:34 -0800, Polar
wrote:


Hi, fellow edible-gardeners, organic and otherwise, and fellow
consumers.

Thought you might be interested in this Newsletter, which I just
received

+++++++++++++++++
Huge Snip


_______________________________________________
Biodemocracy mailing list

http://listsrv.organicconsumers.org/...o/biodemocracy


Let 'em eat sand.

"Rick" wrote in message +++++++++++++++++
Huge Snip


_______________________________________________
Biodemocracy mailing list

http://listsrv.organicconsumers.org/...o/biodemocracy


Let 'em eat sand.

Or you could pack it