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Since my last post, I've been looking to see if there has been any public outrage over the obvious dangers of eating GMO foods and that we are slowly being poisioned by them. I haven't found any yet but I have found proof of super weeds that can no longer be killed by Round Up- they have become resistant to it and farmers must now use even more lethal herbicides which in turn are more dangerous to the environment; the first genetically engineered animal, to help feed the masses, that is currently waiting for approval is Atlantic Salmon; and the W.T.O. has voided Europe's ban on GMO's, under pressure from guess who- the U.S. Below are just some of the articles related to the information above.
‘Superweed’ explosion threatens Monsanto heartlands “Superweeds” are plaguing high-tech Monsanto crops in southern US states, driving farmers to use more herbicides, return to conventional crops or even abandon their farms.
By Clea CAULCUTT
The gospel of high-tech genetically modified (GM) crops is not sounding quite so sweet in the land of the converted. A new pest, the evil pigweed, is hitting headlines and chomping its way across Sun Belt states, threatening to transform cotton and soybean plots into weed battlefields.
In late 2004, “superweeds” that resisted Monsanto’s iconic “Roundup” herbicide, popped up in GM crops in the county of Macon, Georgia. Monsanto, the US multinational biotech corporation, is the world’s leading producer of Roundup, as well as genetically engineered seeds. Company figures show that nine out of 10 US farmers produce Roundup Ready seeds for their soybean crops.
Superweeds have since alarmingly appeared in other parts of Georgia, as well as South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, according to media reports. Roundup contains the active ingredient glyphosate, which is the most used herbicide in the USA.
How has this happened? Farmers over-relied on Monsanto’s revolutionary and controversial combination of a single “round up” herbicide and a high-tech seed with a built-in resistance to glyphosate, scientists say.
Today, 100,000 acres in Georgia are severely infested with pigweed and 29 counties have now confirmed resistance to glyphosate, according to weed specialist Stanley Culpepper from the University of Georgia.
“Farmers are taking this threat very seriously. It took us two years to make them understand how serious it was. But once they understood, they started taking a very aggressive approach to the weed,” Culpepper told FRANCE 24.
“Just to illustrate how aggressive we are, last year we hand-weeded 45% of our severely infested fields,” said Culpepper, adding that the fight involved “spending a lot of money.”
In 2007, 10,000 acres of land were abandoned in Macon country, the epicentre of the superweed explosion, North Carolina State University’s Alan York told local media.
The perfect weed
Had Monsanto wanted to design a deadlier weed, they probably could not have done better. Resistant pigweed is the most feared superweed, alongside horseweed, ragweed and waterhemp.
“Palmer pigweed is the one pest you don’t want, it is so dominating,” says Culpepper. Pigweed can produce 10,000 seeds at a time, is drought-resistant, and has very diverse genetics. It can grow to three metres high and easily smother young cotton plants.
Today, farmers are struggling to find an effective herbicide they can safely use over cotton plants.
Controversial solutions
In an interview with FRANCE 24, Monsanto’s technical development manager, Rick Cole, said he believed superweeds were manageable. “The problem of weeds that have developed a resistance to Roundup crops is real and [Monsanto] doesn’t deny that, however the problem is manageable,” he said.
Cole encourages farmers to alternate crops and use different makes of herbicides.
Indeed, according to Monsanto press releases, company sales representatives are encouraging farmers to mix glyphosate and older herbicides such as 2,4-D, a herbicide which was banned in Sweden, Denmark and Norway over its links to cancer, reproductive harm and mental impairment. 2,4-D is also well-known for being a component of Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide which was used in chemical warfare in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Questioned on the environmental impact and toxicity of such mixtures, Monsanto’s public affairs director, Janice Person, said that “they didn’t recommend any mixtures that were not approved by the EPA,” she said, referring to the US federal Environmental Protection Agency.
According to the UK-based Soil Association, which campaigns for and certifies organic food, Monsanto was well aware of the risk of superweeds as early as 2001 and took out a patent on mixtures of glyphosate and herbicide targeting glyphosate-resistant weeds.
“The patent will enable the company to profit from a problem that its products had created in the first place,” says a 2002 Soil Association report.
Returning to conventional crops
In the face of the weed explosion in cotton and soybean crops, some farmers are even considering moving back to non-GM seeds. “It’s good for us to go back, people have overdone the Roundup seeds,” Alan Rowland, a soybean seed producer based in Dudley, Missouri, told FRANCE 24. He used to sell 80% Monsanto “Roundup Ready” soybeans and now has gone back to traditional crops, in a market overwhelmingly dominated by Monsanto.
According to a number of agricultural specialists, farmers are considering moving back to conventional crops. But it’s all down to economics, they say. GM crops are becoming expensive, growers say.
While farmers and specialists are reluctant to blame Monsanto, Rowland says he’s started to “see people rebelling against the higher costs.”
(Note- Agent Orange is also a product of Monsanto.)
Genetically Altered Salmon Get Closer to the Table
By ANDREW POLL
The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
AquaBounty, developer of the AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon, would sell fish eggs to fish farms, not salmon to supermarkets.
The developer of the salmon has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
Some consumer and environmental groups are likely to raise objections to approval. Even within the F.D.A., there has been a debate about whether the salmon should be labeled as genetically engineered (genetically engineered crops are not labeled).
The salmon’s approval would help open a path for companies and academic scientists developing other genetically engineered animals, like cattle resistant to mad cow disease or pigs that could supply healthier bacon. Next in line behind the salmon for possible approval would probably be the “enviropig,” developed at a Canadian university, which has less phosphorus pollution in its manure.
The salmon was developed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies and would be raised in fish farms. It is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon.
Normally, salmon do not make growth hormone in cold weather. But the pout’s on-switch keeps production of the hormone going year round. The result is salmon that can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years, though the company says the modified salmon will not end up any bigger than a conventional fish.
“You don’t get salmon the size of the Hindenburg,” said Ronald L. Stotish, the chief executive of AquaBounty. “You can get to those target weights in a shorter time.”
AquaBounty, which is based in Waltham, Mass., and publicly traded in London, said last week that the F.D.A. had signed off on five of the seven sets of data required to demonstrate that the fish was safe for consumption and for the environment. It said it demonstrated, for instance, that the inserted gene did not change through multiple generations and that the genetic engineering did not harm the animals.
“Perhaps in the next few months, we expect to see a final approval,” Mr. Stotish said.
But the company has been overly optimistic before.
He said it would take two or three years after approval for the salmon to reach supermarkets.
The F.D.A. confirmed it was reviewing the salmon but, because of confidentiality rules, would not comment further.
Under a policy announced in 2008, the F.D.A. is regulating genetically engineered animals as if they were veterinary drugs and using the rules for those drugs. And applications for approval of new drugs must be kept confidential by the agency.
Critics say the drug evaluation process does not allow full assessment of the possible environmental impacts of genetically altered animals and also blocks public input.
“There is no opportunity for anyone from the outside to see the data or criticize it,” said Margaret Mellon, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. When consumer groups were invited to discuss biotechnology policy with top F.D.A. officials last month, Ms. Mellon said she warned the officials that approval of the salmon would generate “a firestorm of negative response.”
How consumers will react is not entirely clear. Some public opinion surveys have shown that Americans are more wary about genetically engineered animals than about the genetically engineered crops now used in a huge number of foods. But other polls suggest that many Americans would accept the animals if they offered environmental or nutritional benefits.
Mr. Stotish said the benefit of the fast-growing salmon would be to help supply the world’s food needs using fewer resources.
Government officials and industry executives say the F.D.A. is moving cautiously on the salmon. “It’s going to be a P. R. issue,” said one government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue.
Some of these government officials and executives said that F.D.A. officials had discussed internally whether the salmon could be labeled to give consumers the choice of avoiding them.
The government has in the past opposed mandatory labeling of foods from genetically engineered crops and animals merely because genetic engineering was used. Foods must be labeled, it says, only if they are different in their nutritional properties or other characteristics.
It would seem difficult for the government to change that policy. And experts say the administration may not have the legal authority to do so.
One possibility could be voluntary labeling by those who sell the fish.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the principal deputy commissioner of the F.D.A., said in a statement: “Labeling is one of many issues involved with the review of genetically engineered animals for use in food. As has been publicly reported, the AquAdvantage Salmon is under review by the agency, and as we move forward, we will share information with the public.”
Mr. Stotish of AquaBounty said his company was not against voluntary labeling, but the matter was not in its hands because it would only be selling fish eggs to fish farms, not grown salmon to the supermarket.
He said the company had submitted data to the F.D.A. showing that its salmon was indistinguishable from nonengineered Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients.
“Our fish is identical in every measurable way to the traditional food Atlantic salmon,” Mr. Stotish said. “If there’s no material difference, then it would be misleading to require labeling.”
Virtually all Atlantic salmon now comes from fish farms, not the wild.
The F.D.A. must also decide on the environmental risks from the salmon. Some experts have speculated that fast-growing fish could out-compete wild fish for food or mates.
Mr. Stotish said the salmon would be grown only in inland tanks or other contained facilities, not in ocean pens where they might escape into the wild. And the fish would all be female and sterile, making it impossible for them to mate.
The F.D.A. is expected to hold a public meeting of an advisory committee before deciding whether to approve the salmon. Typically at such advisory committee meetings, much of the data in support of the drug application is made public and there is some time allotted for public comment.
But Gregory Jaffe, biotechnology project director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said such meetings often do not give the public enough time to analyze the data.
Europe’s New Approach to Biotech Food
Jacques Brinon/Associated Press
By JAMES KANTER
Published: July 7, 2010
BRUSSELS — After decades of pushing nations to surrender more power to Brussels, the European Union is about to throw in the towel on one highly contentious issue: genetically modified foods.
On Tuesday, the European Commission will formally propose giving back to national and local governments the freedom to decide whether to grow crops that many Europeans still call Frankenfoods.
The new policy is aimed at overcoming a stalemate that has severely curtailed the market for biotech seeds in Europe for years. Only two crops, produced by Monsanto and B.A.S.F., are sold for cultivation here.
The new flexibility is supposed to open up markets in countries like the Netherlands, where governments are broadly favorable toward growing and trading biotech products, while countries like Austria, where the products are unpopular, can maintain a ban.
But far from celebrating, the growing global industry, as well as some farmers themselves, is extremely wary of the new approach.
“So many different authorities suddenly doing so many different things risks sending a message to successful growers in Africa and Asia that authorities are unsure how to deal with biotech,” said Nathalie Moll, the secretary general of EuropaBio, an industry group.
She said it also remained to be seen whether the proposals would conform with World Trade Organization rules.
The United States and the Union are still trying to resolve a dispute over genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.’s, and related issues after the W.T.O. ruled, in 2006, against Europe’s de facto ban. Washington could still retaliate in that case.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative declined to comment on the new approach but said it would be on the agenda at a meeting with E.U. officials this month.
Despite “some progress” in recent months, the United States “still has a number of concerns,” said Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. trade representative. They include “a substantial backlog of pending biotech applications, and bans adopted by individual E.U. member states on biotech products approved at the E.U. level.”
The reality remains that the European Union still produces few genetically modified crops.
The United States, Brazil, Argentina, India and Canada are the top five producers in terms of land under cultivation. The European Union, with 27 member nations, is the 14th largest, just after Burkina Faso.
A key factor behind the proposed change in Europe is a growing frustration in Brussels with the current system, under which meetings between government officials and ministers routinely end in deadlock. That forces unelected officials at the European Commission to make the final decision on authorizing biotech products — and to take the heat.
The commission has found itself repeatedly pressured on one side by the United States and the W.T.O. to follow the recommendations of its own scientific authorities and enforce the use of approved products and on the other by countries like Austria and environmental groups that believe the E.U. authorities are too eager to promote newfangled technologies.
Under the new proposals, the commission would continue to make the approvals itself but leave it to members and local and regional authorities to decide what they want to grow at home.
But whether the new rules will win the necessary approval from E.U. governments and the European Parliament still is unclear.
In an unlikely alliance, the Austrian and Dutch governments first made the proposal back in 2008.
The Dutch were eager to ease tensions over biotech crops with the United States and other trading partners, and to ensure continuing imports of animal feeds that contain biotech products.
Animal farming is a big part of the economy in the Netherlands, which, in turn, is a major exporter of meat and dairy products. Dutch researchers also are involved in developing biotech products.
The Austrians supported the changes as a way to keep its national ban on growing any such crops without facing regular challenges from the E.U. authorities.
Other countries, though, have expressed concern about setting a precedent that could undermine European integration. The crisis this year over how to supervise the finances of the 16 nations that use the euro already has highlighted the limits to European cooperation.
“If the agricultural policy is common, why wouldn’t the policy of cultivation of G.M.O.’s be?” asked Elena Espinosa, the Spanish environment minister. Spain grew 80 percent of the biotech corn, designed to resist a pest called the corn borer, produced in Europe last year.
In addition, Belgium, which has just taken over the rotating E.U. presidency, is concerned that a ban by a single country could put the entire bloc in danger of facing retaliatory trade sanctions.
Even farmers that favor biotech crops are concerned that the commission is offloading a problem on them — and that the issue could become even more politicized than it is now.
“The Welsh and the Scots are vehemently opposed to genetically modified crops,” said Philip Lodge, who would like to farm biotech sugar beets in Yorkshire, in northern England. “With these conflicts of interest so close to home, I just don’t see how I’ll be able to grow G.M. in practice.”
Other farmers warned that the Union risked stirring up new confrontations with activists, who in the past have destroyed crops planted in trial fields.
“The prospect terrorizes me,” said Jerome Hue, who farms in Carcans, France. “If every locality can ban G.M.O.’s, I don’t see how we will be allowed to grow the crops anywhere in France anymore.”
Mr. Hue grew corn produced by Monsanto before the French government imposed a national ban in 2008. France has said it would consider lifting that ban once the European authorities have assessed new evidence about the effects of G.M. crops on the environment.
Mr. Hue said anti-biotech activists could erect beehives at the edges of some farmers’ fields to put pressure on the authorities to impose new bans if the honey picked up traces of the modified genes.
But commission officials and some other member states like the Netherlands say the new policy points the way to managing an increasingly unwieldy group of 27 countries.
Last week, in the latest example of the persistent differences, countries failed for a third time to break a deadlock over whether to allow imports of six varieties of bioengineered corn for food and feed made by Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, Pioneer and Syngenta.
That leaves the decision up to the E.U. health commissioner, John Dalli, who is expected to approve the products in coming months. He caused a furor among environmentalists in March when he approved cultivation of a biotech potato by B.A.S.F. — the first such approval in more than a decade in Europe.
In the European Parliament, among those reviewing the proposed new rules will be José Bové, a French sheep farmer who captured worldwide attention a decade ago for ransacking a McDonald’s restaurant to protest the influence of multinational corporations. Since then he has served time in a French prison for damaging biotech crops.
He is now a deputy chairman of the agriculture committee at the European Parliament, where he was elected as a member of the Green party.
E.P.A. Fines Monsanto $2.5 Million
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 8, 2010
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Monsanto Company agreed to pay the Environmental Protection Agency a $2.5 million penalty for selling mislabeled bags of genetically engineered seed.
The E.P.A. said it was the largest fine ever imposed under a law that regulates pesticides and fungicides.
From 2002 to 2007, Monsanto improperly sold its Bollgard and Bollgard II cotton seeds in 10 Texas counties where the seeds were banned, according to the E.P.A. The cotton seeds are regulated as pesticides because they kill insects, and the seeds were banned in parts of Texas to avoid growing pest resistance to them. The ban has since been lifted.
Monsanto informed the E.P.A. it was selling seeds in the 10 Texas counties, even though the company was supposed to label the seeds as banned in those areas, the E.P.A. said.
Monsanto later changed its cotton seed labels to reflect the ban.
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