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Subject: [Biodemocracy]BioDemocracy News #43 Genetically Modified

BioDemocracy News #43 (August 2003) Genetically Modified Democracy
Quarterly News By: Ronnie Cummins
Organic Consumers Association
www.organicconsumers.org
Quotes of the Month:

"In summary, the risk to Monsanto's shareholders from the company's genetic
engineering business are substantial. the company faces business constraints
in the form of market rejection by consumers, producers, and farmers;
significant legislative hurdles to commercialization; uncertainty in the
face of human health and environmental impacts stemming from the company's
products; and finally, significant risk exposure from potential
contamination of the human food chain by unapproved genetically engineered
traits." Monsanto & Genetic Engineering: Risks for Investors
A report prepared by Strategic Value Advisors (April 2003)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/mons...down041903.cfm

"Let's go eat some genetically modified food for lunch,"

George Bush, at a meeting with EU officials in Washington, June 25, 2003

_______________________________________________
Genetically Modified Democracy: Corralling the Critics

Running full speed to catch up with several thousand non-violent protestors
on "L" Street in Sacramento, I'm just a few yards ahead of a advancing
phalanx of Darth Vader look-alike cops, who are brandishing stun guns and
riot batons. As a booming voice announces via bullhorn "Leave the area
immediately or you will all be arrested," it's pretty clear that the White
House's biotech bullying has reached a new level of desperation. Here at
the June 23-25 USDA summit conference on biotechnology in Sacramento, (sort
of a warm-up event for the September WTO Ministerial Meeting in Cancun),
even the police horses are decked out with ankle guards and head visors,
backed up by heavily-armed motorcycle cops, armored personnel carriers, and
an army of 2,000 riot police-dispatched to "protect" 500 international
agricultural delegates from America's Frankenfood critics.

As a government official from Africa remarks, "I've never seen such a
display of police force, other than in Communist states." Rounding a street
corner, out of breath, I watch a beefy policeman charge into a young woman
and knock her to the ground, apparently for the crime of standing too close
to a Starbucks cafi with a protest sign. Welcome to the post 9/11 Republic
of Genetically Modified Democracy. For more on the Sacramento protests see
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/global_ag_usda.cfm

Global Bee Swarm: Driving Monsanto & Bush to Desperation

A thousand bee stings from global Civil Society have put Monsanto and the
other Gene Giants on virtual life-support. Overseas markets for genetically
engineered (GE) seeds and crops are closing down, protests are continuing,
scientific evidence of risk is mounting, and regulations and labeling
requirements are tightening. As Mexico-based biotech analyst Silvia Ribeiro
from ETC Group stated at a teach-in in Sacramento, "Five Gene Giants
(Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Bayer, and Dow) selling four GE seed crops
(soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton), to farmers in three countries (U.S.,
Canada, and Argentina) with two agricultural traits (herbicide-resistant and
Bt pesticide-spliced) have one goal: control of the global food system." The
good news, reported daily on the Organic Consumers Association website,
www.organicconsumers.org, and in previous issues of BioDemocracy News and
Organic Bytes, is that the biotech industry's Master Plan for global
domination seems to be failing. Even with George Bush leading the charge,
even with intimidation and bullying reaching new levels of desperation, the
Biotech Express has derailed.

Once mighty Monsanto-whose GE seeds account for a full 91% of all global
Frankencrops-is in critical condition. The company's stock values have
fallen by 50%, reflecting a loss of $1.7 billion on $4.7 billion in sales
last year. As revealed in recent news stories, and a crucial investment
report published in April 2003, by Strategic Value Advisors, Monsanto and
the agbiotech industry's mounting vulnerabilities include:

7 Global markets for GE seeds and grains are shrinking, due to
consumer resistance and mounting export and labeling restrictions. Global
sales of GE seeds have leveled off at $4.5 billion, while organic ($23
billion) and non-GE food sales are booming. U.S. and Canadian farmers have
literally lost billions of dollars in export sales of GE-tainted corn,
soybeans, and canola. Even in the U.S., consumer concerns are mounting. An
ABC News poll released July 15, found that the majority of U.S. consumers
(55%) are now opposed to GE foods, while 92% support mandatory labeling.

7 New labeling and traceability laws are slowly but surely closing
down the market for the last billion dollars of US GE-derived soybeans (down
from $3.2 billion several years ago) exported every year as animal feed to
Europe. Brazil, with a ban on GMOs (genetically modified organisms), has now
replaced the U.S. as the largest exporter of soybeans in the world.
According to the May 2003 trade publication, The Non-GMO Source, Brazil will
export $7.9 billion of soybeans this year, while the U.S. will export "less
than $7 billion."

7 The international Biosafety Protocol, which requires the labeling
of seeds and "prior consent" from countries importing GMOs, will come into
force in September, despite objections from Monsanto and the Bush
administration. Meanwhile the WTO's food standards body, the Codex
Alimentarius, has ruled that countries may legally require their own
additional safety testing and mandatory labeling for GMOs, including animal
feeds, which currently account for more than 80% of the world's GE crops.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/un_ge_standards.cfm

7 Monsanto's only real commercial markets for GE seeds (the U.S.,
Canada, Argentina, and China) are quickly becoming saturated. A full 80% of
U.S. and 90% of Argentina's soybeans are already GE. One-third of U.S. corn
is GE, but this is mainly because Monsanto has been selling Bt and
Roundup-Ready corn seeds at bargain basement prices, a practice which it can
no longer afford. Two-thirds of US cotton is already GE. Canada's Roundup
Ready canola acreage has shrunk from 14 million acres to 9 million acres. No
other countries in the world are likely to plant GE crops on a major
commercial scale in the near future. A mounting number of developing nations
are not even willing to take GE-tainted corn and soya in food aid shipments.

7 Monsanto and the industry's main future crops and projected profits
are in serious jeopardy. GE wheat, rice, trees, and biopharm drugs are
facing unprecedented opposition, not only from overseas buyers, but also
from U.S. and Canadian farmers. Even major trade associations such as the
National Food Processors Association and the Grocery Manufacturers of
America, and food giants such as General Mills and Frito-Lay, have told
Monsanto to back off on GE wheat and biopharm crops. "To the extent that
consumers want choice, they want to choose non-biotech,'' said Karil
Kochenderfer, the biotechnology coordinator for the Grocery Manufacturers of
America, which represents food companies such as Kraft and General Mills.

7 While Monsanto and the biotech industry continue to lie and paint a
rosy future for GMOs in the media, it is a crime, under U.S. law, for them
to deliberately lie to investors. Thus in their most recent 10K report to
investors, Monsanto admits that genetic drift from biotech and biopharm
crops is unavoidable, that potential financial liabilities are
unpredictable, and that no new countries will be planting their GE seeds in
the near future.

7 Monsanto's monopoly patent on glyphosate, the active ingredient in
Roundup, the top-selling herbicide in the world, traditional source of
almost half of the company's profits, has expired. Now Monsanto's
competitors, such as Syngenta (formerly Novartis), are selling glyphosate as
well, at reduced prices, slicing away at Monsanto's life support. In
Australia, Monsanto has stopped selling glyphosate altogether, with
lower-priced Chinese imports taking over the market. Monsanto has also
admitted to investors that its sales of Roundup will continue to decline,
from its current global market share of 77% to the low 60's by 2005.
Meanwhile the price per gallon Monsanto receives for Roundup is expected to
drop from $23 to $14-15 per gallon by 2005.

7 As discussed in previous issues of BioDemocracy News, weeds such as
marestail (horsetail), rye grass, and hemp grass are starting to develop
resistance to glyphosate, a literal death sentence for Roundup-Ready crops,
which comprise 71% of the world's GMOs. In Arkansas, a full 20% of the state
's 2.9 million acres of Roundup Ready soybeans and cotton are sprouting
herbicide-resistant marestail weeds.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/070903_ge_food.cfm

Biotech Bullying: Bound to Backfire

Unable to protect itself from the mounting bee swarm of its critics or bring
new patented crops to market in the overwhelming majority of the countries
of the world, Monsanto and the biotech industry have turned to the White
House, the courts, the police, and the WTO in desperation. Among the most
recent desperate tactics of the industry-all of which are likely to
backfire-are the following:

7 Bush's WTO Challenge. After years of threats, the Bush
administration filed a formal complaint May 13 with the World Trade
Organization to force the European Union, under the threat of a billion
dollars in fines, to accept GE crops and imports. Unfortunately for Bush and
the Gene Giants, this move has done nothing but create more anger in the EU,
with supermarkets, food manufacturers, farmers, and consumer groups vowing
that they will never accept Frankenfoods, no matter what the WTO says.
Responding to the Bush move, the European Union passed in July new strict
labeling and traceability requirements for GE food, cooking oil, and animal
feed. This will result in a major decrease in GMO animal feed exports from
North America to the EU.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/e...ops_canada.cfm

7 As Jeremy Rifkin put it, "US strong-arming cannot make Europeans
eat genetically modified food. A European GM food boycott will only expose
the underlying weakness of globalization and the existing trade protocols
that accompany it. In the unfolding struggle between global commercial power
and local cultural resistance, the GM food fight might turn out to be the
test case that forces us to rethink the very basis of the globalization
process." (The Guardian U.K. June 2, 2003)

7 Buying off Tony Blair. As if UK Prime Minister Tony Blair didn't
already have enough problems, due to his politically disastrous support for
Bush's Iraq invasion, Blair's continued support for GE crops has angered
British consumers and farmers even more. The Daily Mail, a major British
newspaper, reported on July 7, that a call from the White House to Tony
Blair in August 1998 likely precipitated the firing of the world's
preeminent GE food safety researcher, Dr. Arpad Pusztai. Pusztai had
discovered, in a government-financed study at the Rowett Institute in
Scotland, that genetically engineered potatoes damaged the immune system and
vital organs of laboratory animals.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/070903_ge.cfm

7 Since then Pusztai has continued his research:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gmo_lab_studies.cfm

7 Desperate to stifle dissent, even inside his own Cabinet, Blair
fired his popular Environmental Minister, Michael Meacher, in June. Meacher,
in response, urged the UK government to maintain a moratorium on GE foods,
stating, "There could be risk to the immune system. There could be risk to
sexual development in young children or babies from GM-based soya infant
feed. There have been no tests. That is an enormous gap and I think a
scandalous omission in making the decision about whether or not these are
safe to eat." http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/062403_uk_ge.cfm

7 Pushing for Commercialization of GE Wheat, Rice, and Fish.
Desperate to keep their stock values from collapsing, Monsanto and the other
biotech companies still maintain they will get permission from the U.S. and
other governments to commercialize new food crops and fish. They may indeed
prevail in getting the Bush administration to approve commercialization of
these crops, but if they do they will alienate-not only consumers and
environmental activists-but major food companies, supermarket chains,
farmers, fishing communities, and overseas buyers.

7 Even the Canadian Wheat Board, the largest purchaser of wheat in
the world, threatened in May to sue Monsanto, if they move forward on GE
wheat. Similarly, major international buyers of North American wheat and
rice have threatened to boycott billions of dollars of U.S. and Canadian
exports. In the words of the largest wheat importer in Italy, Antonio
Costato of Grandi Molini Italiani SpA, "The European milling industry will
simply not buy one more kilo of any U.S. wheat if the U.S. approves GMO
wheat crops." http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071403_ge_wheat.cfm

7 GE Pharm Crops. Even more foolhardy than trying to force-feed
unwilling consumers GE wheat and rice are the "pharm" crops-whereby
pharmaceutical drugs or industrial chemicals are being gene-spliced into
corn and other farm crops, in effect turning plants or animals into
"bioreactors." There have already been 300 secret field trials of these
pharm crops in the U.S. by Monsanto and other companies, 2/3 of them
utilizing corn, a crop noted for spreading its pollen (and genetic
characteristics) far and wide. In March the OCA joined the Center for Food
Safety and other groups to file a legal petition to stop the planting of
biopharm crops. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/0...otech_usda.cfm

7 As Monsanto admitted to investors in its most recent 10k report,
biopharm crops will likely spread their pollen and seeds into the
environment, resulting in more Starlink-type food recalls. As Frank Dixon,
Managing Director at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors put it "The risk of
heavy financial losses due to genetic pollution or technology failure
coupled with sustained market rejection of GE foods makes Monsanto a poor
investment." As reported previously, the USDA has already admitted that
there have been two cases of pharm crops (pig vaccine, and also possibly an
experimental AIDS drug) getting into animal feed. Even major food
manufacturers and supermarket chains, formerly supporters of agbiotech, are
up in arms about pharm crops.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071203_biotech.cfm

7 Propaganda Barrage. Desperate for acceptance, Monsanto and the
biotech lobby have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on
advertising and public relations, with repeated (and now thoroughly
discredited) claims that Frankencrops will reduce pesticide use, feed the
world's hungry, and produce healthier food. But even in the heartland of
biotech, a recent ABC News poll found that 62% of American women would not
feed GE food to their children.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071703_ge.cfm

7 After threatening and harassing thousands of seed savers, and
taking legal action against 400 North American farmers, most of whom have
been forced to pay damages for the "crime" of seed saving, Monsanto will
soon "face the consequences" in Canada's Supreme Court, where its highly
publicized case against Saskatchewan canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, comes
up for a hearing in early 2004. Either Schmeiser will win the case (with the
court ruling that Monsanto does not own the Roundup Ready seeds found on
Schmeiser's farm), which means that Monsanto will lose their patent on
Roundup Ready canola, and millions of dollars in annual royalties; or else
Monsanto will win (with the Court ruling that Monsanto owns the mutant seed,
wherever it turns up), which will expose the company to millions of dollars
in lawsuits from farmers who have suffered GMO pollution of their crops.
Either way Monsanto is damned.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071603_ge.cfm

7 Apparently convinced that bullying is still a viable tactic,
Monsanto in July sued a Portland, Maine dairy, Oakhurst, for the "crime" of
telling its customers that its cows weren't injected with Monsanto's
controversial Bovine Growth Hormone. BGH is banned in every industrialized
country in the world, except for the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil. The FDA,
always Monsanto's handmaiden in regulatory matters, told Cheese Market News
July 11 that the FDA is considering sending "warning letters" to dairies
making rBGH-free or hormone-free claims. In recent months a Monsanto-funded
front group, the Center for Consumer Freedom, has launched a smear campaign
against organic dairies, including Organic Valley Co-op, claiming they are
defrauding consumers by making rBGH-free claims.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/orga...umer_group.cfm

http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/071303_rbgh.cfm

7 Unable to sell GE corn and soybeans to many of its domestic or
overseas customers, the biotech industry has enlisted the Bush
administration to force GE-tainted grain on countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America receiving food aid. This has now backfired into a major public
relations disaster for the Bush administration, with recipient nations
rejecting the Frankencrops, and scientists pointing out that the GE-tainted
corn shipments do pose potentially serious health and environmental risks.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/071403_ge_africa.cfm

7 U.S. bullying reached a new ethical low point in May, when a "sense
of the Congress" resolution attached to an AIDS Prevention bill called for a
cutoff of AIDS prevention funds for countries which refuse to accept America
's GMO crops. The move has disgusted public health officials and enraged
AIDS activists worldwide. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/aids.cfm

Triumph of the Bees: Lessons for Civil Society

The biotech monster is mortally wounded, and now cornered. This is the
fundamental reason why we are seeing such desperate moves by Monsanto, the
idiot savants of biopharming, and the Bush/Blair Axis. We the "bees" of
global Civil Society-everyone from the ordinary organic consumer, to
international heroes like Percy Schmeiser, Vandana Shiva, Jose Bove, Michael
Hansen, Ignacio Chapella, Tewolde Egziabher, Jane Akre, and Arpad
Pusztai-should all be congratulated on a monumental victory. This is the
first time in modern history that a new and unsustainable technology,
supported by many, if not most, major corporations and governments, is being
stopped dead in its tracks. This is the first, but certainly not the last,
swarm of the bees.

The reason we're winning this bee swarm is because we've finally started to
educate, communicate, and mobilize on a global basis, across class and
ethnic divides, in thousands of communities, reaching out to hundreds of
millions, in fact billions, of ordinary consumers and farmers. We've stuck
to the truth and our basic moral principles. We've placed our trust in the
basic common sense and decency of everyday people, while our adversaries
have resorted to lies, half-truths, and slick propaganda. We've realized, as
an enormous and diverse global Civil Society, that we don't have to agree on
every detail, tactic, and nuance-as long as we share an over-arching
vision-in this case, healthy food, healthy farming communities, and
biodiversity. Another reason we're winning this battle is because we've
stubbornly persisted, for 10 long years (Monsanto's recombinant Bovine
Growth Hormone was approved for commercialization in the U.S. in 1993), even
in the face of overwhelming odds, ridicule, and intimidation. In many cases
we've risked arrest, our jobs, and reputations. And finally, we've learned,
North and South, East and West, to use our incredibly potent market power,
the power of our consumer dollars, to vote against Frankenfoods and crops,
and instead to cast our votes for healthy food, Fair Trade, family-sized
farms, humane treatment of farm animals, and a sustainable future.

Of course, as a BioDemocracy News subscriber, a scientist recently warned
me, "Techies like Monsanto never die. They come back again and again."
Constant vigilance will be required, even as this first generation of 135
million acres of herbicide-resistant and pesticide-spliced crops shrivels up
on the vine. We must focus our next collective bee swarm on the key threats
that loom ahead-the WTO and the next generation of Frankencrops, genetically
engineered wheat, rice, trees, and biopharm crops-and make certain these
mutants are destroyed. But first and foremost, we must grasp the fact that
we are global, vast, and strong, and that is why we are winning. This is the
good news. Spread this buzz near and far.

And by the way if you want to join in on the next bee swarm, you are invited
to join yours truly, Ronnie Cummins, Michael Hansen, and the OCA on an
escorted delegation to the WTO teach-ins and protests in Cancun Mexico
September 4-11. http://www.organicconsumers.org/wto_cancun.htm

Beyond the Frankenfoods Threat

The bad news is that the unsustainable, energy-intensive, petroleum-based
practices of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture and long-distance
food transportation are major contributing factors to global warming and
climate disruption. Even without genetic engineering-now supercharged by
NAFTA and the WTO-industrial agriculture poses a mortal threat to public
health, biodiversity, and the environment. Almost a quarter of all
greenhouse gases in the global North are generated by industrial
agricultu pesticide and nitrate fertilizer production, food processing,
food packaging, food waste in landfills, and long-distance food
transportation.

Beating back Monsanto and genetic engineering must embolden us to phase-out,
as soon as possible, industrial agriculture in general, and convert the U.S.
and global economy to a sustainable economy based upon natural biological
systems, solar power, wind, and hydrogen, instead of fossil fuels and
nuclear energy. If current trends of global warming persist, sustainable
agriculture, in fact all agriculture, will become problematic by the end of
this century, and perhaps as soon as the year 2050. A number of scientists
now believe that rapidly accumulating changes in the composition of the
atmosphere could trigger a catastrophic "die off" of most living organisms
by the year 2100, similar to what happened in the last catastrophic
extinction of species 250 million years ago.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/climate_change.cfm

And of course the second bit of bad news is that non-genetically engineered,
organic food is not going to taste that good in a fascist state. If
corporations and military contractors are allowed to pollute at will in
waterways such as the Colorado River basin, it won't just be California
organic produce such as lettuce that tests positive for deadly chemical
compounds such as perchlorate, a residue from rocket fuel.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Toxi...ic_lettuce.cfm

If the chemical and petroleum industries, the Pentagon, and dioxin-spewing
incinerators are allowed to continue venting their poisons, eventually
organic food, and even mothers' breast milk, will become toxic. If schools
and cities are starved for funds they'll never make the transition to
organic foods and fibers. If citizens and especially the poor remain
economically stressed and impoverished, they'll have little choice but to
continue buying cheap, junk food. If the corporate assault on organic
standards and organic companies continues, and if mainstream food
corporations are allowed to take over the organic industry, then it won't be
long before the "organic" label becomes meaningless.

In other words, we, the worker bees, have got our work cut out for us. Stay
tuned to OCA's website and Organic Bytes for news and alerts on the next
moves of the Predators and swarm of the bees. In the meantime enjoy yourself
and count the blessings of an emerging and powerful global Civil Society
that may indeed save the world. Peace and Justice. Bon Appetit.

***End of BioDemocracy News #43***

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