UN agricultural experts say GMOs not the way to go to feed the hungry

[JohnyCanuck]

Nevertheless, the US State Department continues to act as agri-industry's muscle to impose patented GM seeds on reluctant third world nations.

Wikileaks Memos Reveal U.S. Gov't Pushing Gene-Altered Crops Worldwide

THE DETAILS: In one cable, an unnamed State Department official tells a Pakistan finance minister, who notes that drought and water issues remain a primary barrier to increasing the country's agricultural capacity, that "the integration of genetically modified seeds is critical to increasing agricultural productivity." The official then requested "enhanced U.S.–Pakistan collaboration" on biotechnology research.

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WHAT IT MEANS: Biotech firms like Monsanto are trying to get their products into as many corners of the globe as possible and are using politicians to pave the way. That's probably not surprising to many people, and it's certainly nothing new for Michael Hansen, PhD, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Consumers Union (which publishes Consumer Reports), who's been following international food politics for quite some time. "We've been fighting the State Department for years over this," he says. For 18 years, the State Department and its colleagues in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's foreign agriculture service have been trying to weaken international regulations on the labeling of genetically modified foods, particularly in the European Union, which has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on GMOs, he says. And now, they've turned their attention to Africa. "Africa is seen as a continent that's been left behind and needs help—it's good PR stuff for them," he says. "But Africa doesn't particularly want it."

snip

For instance, in the cable involving the Pakistani official, "the U.S. rep gives completely unscientific and misleading information," he says. "No drought-tolerant GM crop has ever been commercialized." That's likely because the few drought-tolerant crops that have been tested don't actually perform well in any conditions but droughts, says Hansen. "Under drought conditions, GMO crops do increase yields, but under normal water conditions, it yields less," he says, which makes GMOs an even harder sell in African nations, where droughts are common and food security is on rocky ground as it is.

As biotech companies are pouring millions of dollars into the development of drought-tolerant crops, nonprofit sustainable-agriculture groups are showing that native varieties of GM crops are a much better solution. Hansen says that CIMMYT, a Mexican nonprofit whose name translates to the International Center for the Improvement of Corn and Wheat, has released 50 native varieties of corn that produce 25 to 50 percent higher yields under drought conditions than GMOs. Other groups, including the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization have recently come out saying that the solution to world hunger isn't greater reliance on GMOs but on biodiversity and sustainable agriculture systems. "But the private sector is never going to put money in that because there's no way to privatize it," Hansen says. "You can't patent a crop rotation." (my emphasis /JC)


http://www.rodale.com/genetically-modified-organisms-foods-0?page=0%2C0

[amborin]

1. check out MoJo on this week's USAD's decision to greenlight Monsanto thu sematics

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Yes I saw that post.

Not that surprising given the history of the incestuous relationships and revolving doors that have existed between government regulators and the golden boy of agri-business and patented seeds, Monsanto.

Notable Quotes

"In this area, the U.S. government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do" - Dr. Henry Miller, in charge of biotechnology issues for the Food and Drug Administration from 1979 to 1994 <72>

"It was an outcome that would be repeated, again and again, through three administrations. What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto -- and, by extension, the biotechnology industry -- got. If the company's strategy demanded regulations, rules favored by the industry were adopted. And when the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self-policing. Even longtime Washington hands said that the control this nascent industry exerted over its own regulatory destiny -- through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Agriculture Department and ultimately the Food and Drug Administration -- was astonishing". - from the New York Times article Redesigning Nature

"For years, these guys said PCBs were safe, too. But there's obviously a corporate culture of deceiving the public." Mike Casey of the Environmental Working Group

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Labeling_Issues%2C_Revolving_Doors%2C_rBGH%2C_Bribery_and_Monsanto

Google "Monsanto PCBs" to learn just how much the greedy fucks at Monsanto really give a shit about the environment.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. kick n/t

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Monsanto and Gates Foundation Push GE Crops on Africa

Skimming the Agricultural Development section of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation web site is a feel-good experience: African farmers smile in a bright slide show of images amid descriptions of the foundation's fight against poverty and hunger. But biosafety activists in South Africa are calling a program funded by the Gates Foundation a "Trojan horse" to open the door for private agribusiness and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, including a drought-resistant corn that Monsanto hopes to have approved in the United States and abroad.

snip

The African Centre for Biosafety and its allies often point to a report recently released by IAASTD, a research group supported by the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization, and others. IAASTD found that industrial agriculture has been successful in its goal of increasing crop yields worldwide, but has caused environmental degradation and deforestation that disproportionately affects small farmers and poorer nations. Widespread use of pesticides and fertilizer, for instance, cause dead zones in coastal areas. Massive irrigation projects now account for 70 percent of water withdrawal globally and approximately 1.6 billion people live in water-scarce basins.

Increasing crop yields is the bottom line for groups like the Gates Foundation, but the IAASTD recommends that sustainability should be the goal. The report does not rule out biotechnology, but suggests high-tech agriculture is just one tool in the toolbox. The report promotes "agroecology," which seeks to replace the chemical and biochemical inputs of industrial agriculture with resources found in the natural environment.

snip

"Today's scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live - especially in unfavorable environments," said Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report. "Malawi, a country that launched a massive chemical fertilizer subsidy program a few years ago, is now implementing agroecology, benefiting more than 1.3 million of the poorest people, with maize yields increasing from 1 ton per hectare to 2 to 3 tons per hectare."

http://www.truth-out.org/second-green-revolutionaries-gates-foundation-and-monsanto-push-ge-crops-africa/1310411034

[SpiralHawk]

5. Notable

The onslaught of genetically mutant food-like substances -- being rammed down the planetary throat surreptitiously.

A fundamental VIOLATION of human beings' free will.

What up with that?