FWD: BioDemocracy News

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

___________________________________________
Globalization and Biotech Under Fire

On the eve of an increasingly unpopular war,
US-sponsored 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
Organic Consumers Association 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 genetically engineered 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
genetically
engineered 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.

Symbolizing the growing power of the global
grassroots, on Jan. 23-28
over 100,000 farmer, labor, consumer, and
environmental, activists from
around the world gathered in Porto Alegre, Brazil for
the 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 Monsanto's 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, 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,
in turn 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 military 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 basically
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, 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
as well, 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 US GM
corn shipment,
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 launching 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 Alegre: 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
Organic Consumers
Association were fortunate enough to be delegates at
this annual
gathering, which is attempting to network and 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 genetically engineered crops and foods are
finally
driven off the market, chemical and energy-intensive
industrialized
agriculture and globalized food production and
distribution, as
practiced by corporate agribusiness, 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
over food, fiber, and health care-must be broken and
replaced by
democratic 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;
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 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.

In Nov. 2002 the USDA was forced to admit that at
least two experimental
biopharm corn crops in Nebraska and Iowa, grown by
ProdiGene, a biopharm
company based in Texas, 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, among others, 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:
www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/121002_genetically_engineered.cfm

ProdiGene's biopharm blunder, the most serious biotech
scandal since the
StarLink controversy in 2000, when a likely allergenic
variety of feed
corn contaminated the US food chain, 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, comprising
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.
www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/roundup011403.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 allowing
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' proprietary broad-spectrum weed killers,
which in turn
creates pressure for 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, 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,"
which makes Frankenfoods and crops look relatively
benign in comparison.
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.
www.organicconsumers.org/ge/pigfertility012703.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 Organic Consumers Association has made a
commitment to double the
size of our 500,000 member network over the next 12
months, and to get
more "political" by helping grassroots activists pass
laws and legally
binding initiatives at the local, county, 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 laws against
sweatshops,
Frankenfoods, irradiated food, and slave labor coffee
and chocolate,
send an email to [email protected] 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.
Stay tuned to BioDemocracy News and
www.organicconsumers.org for the
latest news and Action Alerts.

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


End of BioDemocracy News #42

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