| | 17/January/20
| | India’s intelligence agencies investigate corporate backers of group distributing illegal seeds A “GMO disinformation layer cake” is what the investigative journalist Paul Thacker calls much of the narrative used to promote GMOs. And he cites GMO cheerleader Mark Lynas’s promotion of the “farmers’ collective called Shetkari Sanghatana” as a classic example. Shetkari Sanghatana, which has been publicly distributing illegal GMO seeds in India, is far from being the kind of “grassroots” Indian farmers union, or “collective”, that Lynas has claimed. It is an extremist fringe group led from the top by the free market fundamentalists behind India’s ultra-libertarian Swatantra Bharat Pakash party. It also has a history of working with biotech industry PR people. Now India’s intelligence agencies are investigating the support they believe Shetkari Sanghatana is getting from “some international seed companies”, as well as a global investment firm that is also said to be pressurising the Modi government to legalise the seeds. GMWatch Save the planet — by destroying farming? Many have responded to George Monbiot's embrace of farm-free food by trying to marshal a bunch of “killer” facts to prove him wrong. But Pat Thomas of Beyond GM writes, "A more constructive activity would be to try and understand the landscape from which his claims have emerged, and who else is paying attention to them, and challenge that instead. The bigger context is important here. We exist in world of aggressive tech start-ups and prophesying tech think-tanks like RethinkX, whose recent report, 'Rethinking Food and Agriculture 2020-2030 – The Second Domestication of Plants and Animals, the Disruption of the Cow, and the Collapse of Industrial Livestock Farming', suggests that new technology and a radical new business model that envisions 'food-as-software' are driving the most consequential disruption of food and agriculture in 10,000 years." Organic Consumers Association Monsanto loses effort to head off St Louis trial that starts next week Monsanto’s owner Bayer has failed in efforts to head off a Missouri trial over claims brought by cancer patients that Monsanto’s herbicide caused their diseases and Monsanto hid the risks. St Louis City Judge Elizabeth Byrne Hogan ruled that the company wasn’t entitled to summary judgment in the case of Wade v. Monsanto, which is scheduled to go to trial Tuesday. Hogan further frustrated Monsanto by ordering that the trial could be audio and video recorded and broadcast to the public. Lawyers for Monsanto had argued that the trial should not be broadcast because the publicity could endanger witnesses and former Monsanto executives. US Right to Know Ghana: Peasant farmers, others welcome govt’s promise not to introduce GMOs The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) and three other agro-based interest groups have welcomed government’s decision not to introduce GMOs in Ghana. PFAG said in a statement that efforts to impose GMOs on Ghanaian farmers and consumers have come to an end following a pronouncement on January 14, 2020. Myjoyonline.com DONATE TO GMWATCH __________________________________________________________ Website: http://www.gmwatch.org
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