THE ISSUE
FOR THE INDUSTRY
FOR THE CONSUMER
THE CAMPAIGN
GE NEWS ARCHIVE
|
Mothers for Natural LawInternational News on Genetic Engineering in AgricultureBiweekly News 99/10/03Thanks to Dennis Dey, Richard Wolfson, and NLP Wessex for these items.
Articles have been aggressively shortened, except for #10, whose narrative details contribute significantly to its point. ------------------ MICHIGAN SUMMIT ON THE HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS EVERYONE INVITED TO ATTEND Friday, October 8, from 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the Michigan State University Management Education Center in Troy, Michigan. Everyone is invited to attend. The Summit will feature guest speaker Congressman David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), Democratic Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. Other featured speakers will include eminent scientists and physicians, public policy experts, business leaders, farmers, religious and spiritual leaders, and consumers. The panelists will discuss the urgent need to safeguard our food supply from the hazards of genetic engineering. RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION Please call 800-332-0000, ext. 118. This event is sponsored by Mothers for Natural Law of the Natural Law Party. Participation in this summit does not necessarily imply support for the Natural Law Party. This event has been made possible by contributions from Eden Foods and Whole Foods Market. ------------------ http://www.nfpa-food.org/Speech/PublicVoice/sld001.htm National Food Processors Association March 16, 1999 from Food Biotechnology Product Update: Pipeline and Beyond by Jeffrey T. Barach, PhD Approvals Around the World US: 43+ Argentina: 3 Canada: 36+ Australia: 2 Japan: 22+ Brazil: 1 EU: 9 South Africa: 1 Mexico: 3 FDA Clearance of Genetically Improved Crops 1994-1998 Canola, Corn, Cotton, Flax, Papaya, Potato, Radicchio, Soybean, Squash, Sugar Beet, Tomato ------------------ Copyright 1999 AAP Information Services Pty. Ltd. AAP NEWSFEED September 23, 1999, Thursday Health ministers set to approve tough GM food policy SYDNEY, Sept 23 AAP - Health ministers are set to approve a hardline labelling regime for genetically modified food, even if they contain only minute traces of GM ingredients... Citing sources the paper says 10 Australian and New Zealand health ministers have agreed on nearly all points of the policy. ------------------ Policy decision of the Western Australian Farmers Federation "That the Federation oppose the release of 'Genetic Modification' of both livestock and other farm produce and that we continue to promote R&D of those products by natural means." Rural Press Report, September 15, 1999 ------------------ Copyright 1999 The Financial Times Limited Financial Times (London) September 29, 1999, Wednesday LONDON EDITION 1 On-the-spot test kit developed A Scottish laboratory has developed an on-the-spot diagnostic kit that will allow supermarket chains and seed sellers to test whether supplies have been genetically modified without having to send samples off for expensive laboratory analysis. ------------------ Russia open for gene-modified feed imports 07:54 a.m. Sep 21, 1999 Eastern By Aleksandras Budrys MOSCOW, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Russia is open to imports of genetically modified animal feed, to which there are no legal or other barriers, the country's chief veterinarian told Reuters on Tuesday. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. ------------------ Austria Fails to Get EU Backing for Labeling of Modified Feed Brussels, Sept. 27 European Union farm ministers rejected an Austrian proposal to require mandatory labeling of animal feed containing genetically modified ingredients, heading off a potential blow to U.S. biotechnology companies and feed exporters. Austrian Agriculture Minister Wilhelm Molterer, who said labeling is needed now to boost farmers' certainty pending EU legislation on modified feed, failed to get backing for the idea at a meeting of the ministers. Still, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner David Byrne said he'll produce a blueprint for a new law requiring labeling by December... Byrne said he plans to propose a law on feed that ``will provide for labeling of the fact that the product has been obtained by genetic modification techniques.'' The law, which wouldn't likely take effect for at least a year, will apply to any feed containing altered DNA or proteins. The farm ministers, meeting to map out their objectives for the round of global trade talks to begin in Seattle in November, were bullish about the need to push the EU approach to food safety at the talks. The EU ``should seek solutions which assure consumers that the WTO will not be used to force onto the market products about whose safety there are legitimate concerns,'' they said in a draft of the meeting's conclusions. ------------------ Copyright 1999 AAP Information Services Pty. Ltd. AAP NEWSFEED September 30, 1999, Thursday Fears over GM pollen found in beehives By Amanda Brown LONDON, Sept 29 PA - Scientists have found genetically modified pollen in beehives nearly 5km from an official trial site, Friends of the Earth said today. These are the first published monitoring results of GM pollen from a farm-scale trial site and show GM pollen travelling further than ever previously detected. It also reveals the scale of the threat the trials pose to non-GM and organic farmers, beekeepers and the wider environment, said Friends of the Earth. The errant pollen was found during a GM monitoring and analysis program organised by Friends of the Earth and BBC's Newsnight around Model Farm near Watlington, Oxfordshire. The monitoring was carried out during June and July 1999 by the National Pollen Research Unit at University College Worcester and a bee specialist. The GM analysis was carried out by the Federal Environment Agency in Austria. The government's rules for farm-scale trials require only a 50-metre separation between GM crops and other fields... The latest study looked at pollen carried by bees and in the air. It showed that all six beehives monitored, which were located between 500 metres and 4.5km from the GM oil seed rape crop, were found to contain GM pollen. Airborne GM pollen was found up to 475 metres from the trial site. ------------------ An ACRES, USA Special Report 18 September 1999 Darwin's Tree is Upside-Down from When The Corn Hits The Fan By Steven Sprinkel, Yankton. South Dakota, EEUU Well, the humans will eat this stuff, but the animals won't. Evolution seems to have come full circle. Unlike a film character played by Sean Connery a few years ago, who " won't eat anything that I can not identify," modern developed-world consumers have no idea what they are eating because it is delivered on the run in processed form. Cooking is a lost art. Grazing, however, remains unchanged, and I have heard more than enough stories about how the animals wont go for the GMO. Why, you can put your cattle out into GMO corn stubble and they just won't touch it. Oh, they'll bite that new brome down to the ground, but they won't eat the GMO corn stubble. After four months of retrieving anecdotes from Kansas to Wisconsin, I think its high time to sample the producer community more thoroughly to see how many stories there are out there. About the hogs that wouldn't eat the ration when the GMO crops were included. About the farmer who said "Well, if you want your cattle to go off their feed, just switch them out to a GMO silage." About the farmer who said that his cattle broke through an old fence and ate down the non-GMO hybrids but wouldn't touch the Round-up ready corn, and as a matter of fact "They had to walk through the GMOs to get to the Pioneer 3477 on the other side." About the cattleman who saw the weight-gain of his cattle fall off when he switched over to GMO sources. About the organic farmer with a terrible deer problem on his soybeans, and when he drives out at night there are forty of them mowing down his tofu beans while across the road there isn't one doe eating on the Round-up Readies. About the raccoons romping by the dozen in the organic corn, while down the road there isn't one ear that's been touched in the Bt fields. Even the mice will move on down the line if given an alternative to these " crops". What is it that they know instinctively that most of us ignore? I have been traveling around with a bag of contaminated cob corn on the floor of my vehicle, and I have begun to think of it as if it was a bag of plutonium. My truck should probably be de-contaminated by a Haz-Mat facility. I should probably be put under observation to see what the affect of so much exposure to glyphos and Bt pollen has done to me. I'll bet my blood will kill mosquitoes now. ------------------ Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Online CBC News Online Bruno, Sask. 9/29/99 Percy versus Monsanto Martin O'Malley Driving east from Saskatoon, heading to the Manitoba border, the sign on Highway 5 said "Bruno, 6K." That was the road to Percy Schmeiser's place, but I decided t'hell with it, Percy's been done. Watched the documentary on him on CBC-TV's The National. Soon he'll be on CBC-TV's The Fifth Estate. And television crews are coming to Bruno from Japan, Germany, and England. Even the Bloc Quebecois is sending a representative from Quebec to meet with Percy Schmeiser and discuss his quixotic battle with Monsanto, a David and Goliath affair if ever there was one. A year ago, Monsanto put the squeeze on Percy for illegally growing Monsanto's special, genetically modified canola, called "Roundup Ready." Monsanto launched a lawsuit against the 68-year-old farmer, who has been farming in this part of Saskatchewan for 40 years. Now Percy's fighting back, having launched his own $10 million lawsuit against Monsanto, accusing the biochemical giant of contaminating his farm. It works this way. Monsanto sells its special genetically modified canola seeds to farmers, but the farmers are not allowed to use the Monsanto seeds from one crop to grow another crop, which is what farmers traditionally do. They must buy new seeds from Monsanto every year. The selling point for Monsanto's canola is that it can survive Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, which kills other plants without killing Monsanto's genetically modified canola. Monsanto now has a new breed of canola called "Terminator," which produces sterile seeds that can't reproduce. Somehow, Monsanto discovered there was Monsanto canola growing on Percy's 1,400-acre spread, so they decided to get tough and make an example of him. Boy, did the folks at Monsanto pick the wrong guy. They probably didn't know much about him, like his having been a popular local mayor and an MLA in the Saskatchewan legislature. I'm sure they didn't know about Percy's three attempts to climb Mount Everest, getting "only" 23,000 feet up. Fifteen kilometres beyond the road to Bruno, I did a U-turn on Highway 5 and headed back. I had to at least say hello to Percy Schmeiser. When would I be in the neighbourhood again? Stopped at a farm implement dealership on the edge of town to ask directions. "Hullo!" I shouted inside the open but empty dealership. "Hullo!" came a distant reply, whereupon a tall man in jeans appeared from a corner office. "Where would I find Percy Schmeiser?" I asked. "I'm Percy Schmeiser," said Percy Schmeiser. When I told him what I knew about Roundup Ready genetically modified canola, he ushered me outside his dealership, walked to a hydro line, knelt down and showed me a growth of canary-yellow canola. "This is it," he said, then he took me to the north side of the building where another shoot of Roundup Ready genetically modified canola was growing next to the building in the shade. "All over the place," he said. "It blows in the wind, cross-pollinates." He knelt down and pulled off one of the flowers, popping open a pod of canola, displaying the freckle-sized, black seeds. "Little plant like this makes a minimum 4,000 seeds...maybe 10,000 seeds," he said. "Now they're not saying I stole their seed," Percy said. "Now they're saying it doesn't matter how the (Monsanto canola) gets into a farmer's field. Doesn't matter if it's blown onto the field or if it's by cross-pollination. They say it's their patent and if they find it on your field they'll take your crop, they'll sue you, they'll fine you." He looks out the window of his cluttered office, across to the railway tracks, deep in thought - looking for a metaphor, as I soon learn. "What if a farmer has a scrub bull?" Percy asked. "And his neighbour's got a herd of purebred registered cows? Through negligence, the bull gets over the fence and impregnates his neighbour's cows. Now the guy with the scrub bull says those calves are his. The cows too! Same thing, eh?" Percy says he has spent $35,000 in legal fees going up against Monsanto. There was a mediation hearing on the case in August but it didn't resolve anything, so Percy and Monsanto are due to meet in court next June 6. Now a multi-billion antitrust suit has been filed in a U.S. Federal Court against Monsanto and other agribusiness companies. Monsanto dearly would love to extricate itself from this mess. The David that is Percy Schmeiser has become a royal pain in the ass to the Goliath that is Monsanto. ------------------ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is compiled for educational use only. |
 |
To subscribe, send a blank email to ge-news-subscribe@egroups.com
Mothers for Natural Law
< Previous | Back to News Index | Next > |