| Welcome to Review 556, which has important news on GMO-related developments across the world, including attempts to criminalise seed saving, GMO hype and failures, GM mustard in India, Mexico’s GMO restrictions, resistance to GMOs, patents on seeds, GM microbes, and non-GMO successes. CRIMINALISING SEED SAVING
An excellent in-depth cover article in The Nation shows how Western interests, led by the US and now including the Gates Foundation, have been working for decades to tighten intellectual property laws and criminalise seed saving and sharing on farms throughout Africa. For example, Ghana’s Plant Variety Protection Act — based on the same draft law as the proposed African Union protocol — makes farmers “liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than 5,000 penalty units... or term of imprisonment of not less than ten years and not more than fifteen years”. The aim of the plan is to undermine farmer-managed seed economies and oversee their forced integration into the “value chains” of global agribusiness. These changes threaten the livelihoods of Africa’s small farmers and their genetic heritage, including staple grains, legumes, and other crops their ancestors have been developing since the dawn of agriculture. Since the 1980s, agribusiness, its sponsor governments, and its mega-philanthropy allies have targeted farmer control of seed as though it were a tumour, using national laws and threats to push governments throughout the Global South to introduce patent-protected hybrids and GMOs. The most direct beneficiary of this plan is the four-company oligopoly that controls half the global seed market and 75% of the global agrichemicals market: Bayer (formerly Monsanto), Corteva (formerly DowDuPont), BASF, and Syngenta, a subsidiary of ChemChina. There’s a link to a non-paywalled archived version of this article here. GMO HYPE, SHORTCOMINGS, AND FAILURES Argentine wheat exporters continue to turn their backs on Bioceres and its GMO HB4 wheat bathed in toxic glufosinate. This year, as in 2021 and 2022, they have made clear that they do not export it. The "Argentine Monsanto" put the GMO in flour for domestic consumption. This has led to a warning to avoid Argentine exports of baked goods.
A young researcher studying plant breeding for her PhD at Cornell University has just published a paper in the journal Nature warning GMO promoters not to make overhyped claims about supposed yield gains from GM crops. Merritt Khaipho-Burch is the first author on the new publication, called “Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it”. Khaipho-Burch and co-authors write that despite all the GMO hype, “hardly any findings have translated into yield increases on actual farms”. That raises the question: "Why are such claims being published in the first place?" Over 450,000 hectares in villages along the Punjab, Haryana and Pakistan borders of Rajasthan are under GM Bt cotton cultivation, which is supposed to be resistant to the pink bollworm. However, pink bollworms have been eating into the profits of Bt cotton farmers for the past few years. This year, it has taken a more serious turn. The invasion started early into the cropping cycle this time. Farmers claimed their yields had never been this low and demanded that the government should declare pink bollworm infestation a natural disaster. “Pink bollworm infestation on Bt cotton has affected every village without exception. Full crop loss has been registered in certain areas,” Resham Singh, president of the local Bhartiya Kisan Union (Indian Farmers’ Union) said. In Rajasthan and Haryana, as farmers stare at losses, some say they will give up cotton farming. Gates Foundation-funded researchers are touting a new variety of GM rice as the solution to a bacterial blight threatening rice growers in Tanzania. The disease is new to Africa, at least in this form, and it threatens rice across the continent. The ironies of this situation are many. The blight probably came from China via a Chinese agribusiness that was offering "improved" rice seeds. Meanwhile, solutions to bacterial blights already exist in the form of sustainable agroecology practices but these are being ignored. Prof Steve Long of the University of Illinois says that photosynthesis in current varieties of crops, like wheat and soybeans, has barely improved in decades. He is principal investigator of a project called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (Ripe), which aims to genetically engineer plants to increase their yields by improving their ability to photosynthesise. But Matthew Paul, principal research scientist at Rothamsted Research, suggests that increasing leaves’ photosynthetic ability could result in smaller leaves and that high rates of photosynthesis could mean more water loss, meaning plants would need more irrigation. He adds, “For any GM or gene editing approach to have widespread impact it would need to be reproduced in varieties grown in different regions. Subtleties of expression control and interaction with genetic background of each variety will make this tricky.” GMO LABELLING The Center for Food Safety has filed a legal appeal against the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in response to its GMO labelling rules that do not mandate universal, clear on-package food labelling and allow unlabelled hidden GMOs to proliferate in US foods. Despite a victorious 2022 district court ruling in CFS’s original lawsuit against USDA, which found it unlawful to use inaccessible digital QR codes on food products instead of clear, accessible labelling, the court refused to vacate USDA’s decision allowing this practice — denying consumers the right to know what’s in their food. CFS’s appeal also challenges the district court’s 2022 decision allowing the USDA loophole which excludes “highly refined” products from mandatory GMO disclosures unless the GM material is “detectable”. GM MUSTARD IN INDIA The central government has tried to wriggle out of its oral commitment to the Supreme Court to put the environmental release of GM mustard (DMH-11) on hold, saying the mustard sowing season is approaching. But the court refused to accept the government’s request. “If we discharge you, then what remains in the matter? You cannot be allowed to release it into the environment... The environmental harm cannot be reversed,” the judges said. A crucial hearing in India's Supreme Court that will determine the fate of GMOs entering the food chain has been put off until 12 October. It is expected to be the final hearing on the environmental release of GM herbicide-tolerant mustard. Though the matter of environmental release is still before the court, the GM mustard hybrid DMH-11 and its parental lines developed by the University of Delhi for 2022-23 was released last year for tests in eight government-controlled locations in North India. The coalition for a GM-Free India has urged the Supreme Court (SC) to pass orders that ensure implementation of the key unanimous recommendations of the SC’s Technical Expert Committee (TEC) of five independent experts. The Coalition pointed out that the TEC has recommended a complete ban on herbicide-tolerant crops in India, given the multiple adverse impacts that such crops would have on India’s agriculture. GM mustard is a herbicide-tolerant crop. A coalition of activists has urged the Supreme Court to impose a permanent ban on GM mustard and pointed to a conflict of interest, obfuscation of facts, unscientific statements and “outright lies” in the central government’s submission in defence of the GM crop. The coalition also said the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee violated both the Supreme Court and Central Information Commission orders directing all biosafety data to be published on its website. In addition, activists pointed to the bypassing of the state governments’ right to consultation. Their concerns are also reported on by the Times of India and The New Indian Express. See also the excellent column by Kavitha Kuruganti in the Deccan Herald. Sources have told Business Standard, an Indian English-language daily paper, that the GM mustard (DMH-11) is “not performing as expected” in some of the government-sanctioned crop trials at different locations across India, where it has been compared with six non-GM varieties to test its yield and other characteristics. As well as a “sub-par yield”, the sources said its weight is lower too – only 3.5 grams per 1,000 seeds as against 5-5.5 grams for a non-GM hybrid widely used by farmers across India. Low weight seeds make mechanised harvesting difficult, as they tend to blow away when harvested. UK GMO DEREGULATION Update on UK GMO deregulation GMWatch and other concerned groups and individuals are still engaging with the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) to provide input on its proposals for the regulatory oversight of new GMOs. The FSA is determined to avoid demanding labelling in the face of farm ministry DEFRA’s declaration that this must not happen. The FSA’s proposals for risk assessment are extremely weak and ensure that traceability, in case something goes wrong with a new GMO, won’t happen. Enforcement of FSA’s proposals depends on civil law and does not provide protection or certainty. As a food safety expert on the FSA board said at a recent board meeting: “If I were designing a system where I wanted to ensure there would be no enforcement, this is what I would design.” His concerns, along with others raised at the board meeting, were ignored. You can read questions to the FSA board from Claire Robinson of GMWatch, Pat Thomas of Beyond GM, Prof Erik Millstone of the University of Sussex, and others here. GMO CONTAMINATION A new study has identified the presence of up to seven transgenic genes in single seeds of traditional or “creole” corn from more than 1,000 samples collected in 10% of the towns in Brazil’s Caatinga. The results indicate cross-contamination in the fields. It is estimated that pollen from transgenic corn can travel up to 3 km, contaminating nearby traditional corn crops. The loss of agricultural biodiversity due to contamination by transgenic plants leaves Brazil vulnerable to climate change and food insecurity. Family farmer Paulo Alexandre da Silva sends his corn for analysis every year. It remains free of GM contamination – but it’s not been easy, he says. Paulo Silva created the Community Seed Bank to safeguard the species of creole corn that remain pure. The idea is that local farmers will plant only seeds from the bank. But the immediate need to plant and a lack of resources oftentimes forces families to plant seeds distributed by government agencies or to buy their seeds from warehouses that don’t provide seed origin. Silva says these are the main gateways by which transgenics enter the community. The new study, in Portuguese, is here. The results of the Brazilian study on GMO contamination of traditional corn (above) confirm the findings of CO-EXTRA, the largest EU-funded research project on GM and non-GM supply chain traceability and coexistence. Viable pollen from corn was found to spread over distances of at least 3 km. Dissemination via honeybees (e.g. up to 13 km for rapeseed) was not considered in CO-EXTRA. As a result of CO-EXTRA’s findings, the researchers advised that coexistence of GM and non-GM crops might only be possible by using very long isolation distances or by dedicating separate production areas to GM or non-GM crops. That would necessitate hard political decisions to be made instead of relying on “flexible coexistence” (negotiations of practices between neighbouring farmers). However, even if such hard-line methods were employed, CO-EXTRA found that “The models or scenarios in most studies cannot guarantee that conventional or organic farming can be sustained in the vicinity of GM crops. Such a project seems difficult as regards society as it may lead to repeated tensions, conflicts and dissension, including between neighbouring farmers who have not made the same choice of crop” (Glon, E (2013), see reference below). For further information, see the following chapters of the book, Genetically Modified and Non-Genetically Modified Food Supply Chains: Co-existence and traceability: Brunet Y et al (2013), Long-distance pollen flow in large fragmented landscapes; and Glon E (2013), A geographical approach to the European policy for the co-existence of GMO and non-GMO crops. MEXICO’S GMO RESTRICTIONS Ever since Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued his initial 2020 decree restricting GM corn and glyphosate imports and uses, US commodity and agribusiness groups have been sounding alarms about the economic damages the measures would cause. And the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai has asserted, “Mexico’s policies threaten to disrupt billions of dollars in agricultural trade.” But there is no credible evidence to support that claim, says Tim Wise, Senior Research Fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, in an article in the Mexican press. In GMWatch’s view these baseless alarmist claims are being made to justify trade threats in order not just to try and bully Mexico into compliance, but to send a message to other countries who might be tempted to follow Mexico’s example. And as the US group Farm Action has pointed out, they also prevent markets from adjusting to rising demand from Mexico for non-GM corn. Most economic costs can be easily avoided if markets get the clear signals they need to adjust. That would also give US consumers something polls say they have wanted for years: A wider selection of non-GM foods. Canada will back the US in the trade row with Mexico over GM corn, its trade minister announced. Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said Ottawa would participate “as a third party in the dispute settlement proceedings initiated by the United States”. She said Canada shares US concerns that Mexico is breaching the terms of the North American trade pact. “Canada believes that the measures taken by Mexico are not scientifically supported and have the potential to unnecessarily disrupt trade in the North American market,” she said. GM corn is not safe for human consumption and threatens biodiversity in Mexico, several scientists have said. They made their statements as Mexico fights a bitter trade dispute with the US and Canada over the importation of GM corn. “Just as the tobacco industry fabricated scientific evidence that smoking tobacco was not a health risk, science financed by private capital has fabricated evidence that the sowing and consumption of GM corn does not present a human or ecological health risk,” said Antonio Turrent Fernández, a researcher with Mexico’s National Institute for Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research. This was made possible, he said, by the chronic, subclinical nature of the harm of tobacco use, and he claimed that the same is happening with GM corn. Researchers at a Mexican agricultural university have showed their progress in producing non-GM yellow corn seeds to help replace imported GM grain from the US. Experts at the Autonomous University of Chapingo unveiled advances in developing seeds for planting to offset corn imports as Mexico battles with the US, its top trading partner, over its plan to limit use of GM corn. Three-meter-high corn stalks rose from the soil across a field at Chapingo, early signs of a potential future alternative for food producers like Kellogg and Mexican brand Maseca, researchers said. The fields were generating new hybrid seed varieties to be tested in 2024 with release for planting in 2025. The project aims in two years to develop enough non-GM seed varieties to replace about 6 million of the 18 million metric tons of corn that the country imports from the US annually. RESISTANCE TO GMOs The Coalition for a GM-Free India (CGMFI), an informal network of organisations and individuals comprising farmers, consumers and environmental activists, has urged Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister to strongly oppose and halt any attempt of the central government to carry out the open-air release of GMOs. The CGMFI said the central government is trying a new tactic to bypass the state governments and even changing the name of GMO crop trials in order to push them into the states. It is doing this by introducing “notified field trial sites" (NFTS): “Since states are not allowing field trials to take place, some sites have been shortlisted by ICAR and labelled as notified field trial sites (NFTS). In these sites, trials are being proposed without the need for consulting state governments. Hence, Tamil Nadu should reject proposals for NFTS sites.” A cross-section of residents from Uganda's oil-rich Albertine region have petitioned African heads of state to ban GMOs across the continent to save Africa's crops and animals from extinction. Norway’s Consumer Council, the supermarket chain Coop Norge, the Norwegian Rural Women’s Association and the Norwegian Nature Conservation Association are all demanding that animals given GMO feed must be labelled so that consumers can make informed choices. GMO TREES Genetically engineered varieties of eucalyptus trees are poised to exacerbate a new wave of ecological and social destruction. Brazil has approved seven varieties of GM trees. Current plantations rob regions of water, destroy wildlife habitat, and transform large swaths of land within the Cerrado — an expansive, biodiverse tropical biome situated in eastern Brazil – into unnatural, destructive monoculture farms: row upon row of non-native eucalyptus trees without vegetation in their understory. Many traditional communities and Indigenous people have opposed the spread of these plantations in the country. Varieties of GM eucalyptus are pesticide-resistant and are likely to increase the use of toxic chemicals such as Roundup. Other engineered traits, such as increased growth rates, could make the trees more profitable for the pulp and paper industry but significantly more harmful to the environment. PATENTS ON SEEDS The European Patent Office (EPO) has rejected an opposition filed against a BASF patent on watermelons with bushy growth habit. No Patents on Seeds! filed the notice of opposition because the patent is not inventive and patents on conventionally bred plant varieties are prohibited. The bushy growth of the plants was a random occurrence and, according to the patent description, the plants were simply a discovery in a home garden. Their advantage: less land is needed for cultivation. The EPO granted the patent in 2021 as the patent holder had applied an additional well established method to reduce the number of kernels. Clearly, neither the applied method nor the detection of the bushy growth habit is based on an invention. Christoph Then of No Patents on Seeds! said: “The EPO decision is in direct contradiction to the law and to the basic principles of the patent system. No one can claim an invention if a discovery is combined with well known methods and the results are not surprising. The prohibitions in regard to patentability of conventional bred plants are severely violated. This decision is setting an extreme precedent in regard to life patents.” GM MICROBES Biologicals are farm inputs that come from living organisms like plants and bacteria rather than from fossil fuels, the source of nearly all modern pesticides and fertilisers, explains an article by Kendra Klein for Food Tank. To make “biologicals”, companies are genetically engineering microscopic living creatures in the soil, like bacteria and fungi, to enhance their ability to kill pests or to generate nutrients like nitrogen. A report from Friends of the Earth explores the potential implications of this novel use of genetic engineering, something that is different from the GM crops that have been the centre of debate for decades. Microbes can share genetic material with each other far more readily than crops and can travel great distances on the wind. The genetic modifications released inside GM microbes could move across species and geographic boundaries with unforeseen and potentially irreparable consequences. The scale of release is also far larger, and the odds of containment far smaller. An application of GM bacteria could release 3 trillion genetically modified organisms every half an acre – that’s about how many GM corn plants there are in the entire US. Organic Farmers & Growers (OF&G) is urging farmers to heed warnings from a new Friends of the Earth report (see above). “Genetically engineered soil microbes: Risks and concerns” highlights the threat posed by introducing bacteria-based biological products. The passing of the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023 earlier this year in England gave a green light to pesticide and biotech companies to develop and release GM microbes, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi found in soil, with the claim of enhancing agricultural capabilities. OF&G’s chief executive, Roger Kerr, believes the emergence of a GM approach that alters essential biology raises huge practical and ethical concerns under the guise of what he describes as “regenerative greenwashing”. He said, “We’re all now well versed in the damage caused by traditional pesticides and fertilisers that were marketed as ‘completely safe’. The same level of corporate involvement in promoting these so called ‘precision-bred organisms’ (PBOs) is frankly terrifying.” HUMAN GENOME PROJECT Billions were sunk into the Human Genome Project and the promise of precision treatments personalised to the individual. After spending 13 years and $2.7bn, the Human Genome Project announced in 2003 that it had successfully mapped our DNA, paving the way for a new era of medicine that would deliver “the right treatment, for the right patient, at the right time”. But some doctors and academics say that too much emphasis is placed on our genes, and not enough on environment and lifestyle. That’s the argument of a new book, Tyranny of the Gene: Personalized Medicine and Its Threat to Public Health, by Prof James Tabery, a philosopher of science and bioethics at the University of Utah. “There’s this paradox where the more we learn about the human genome, the less we should expect it to actually have significant impacts for most patients,” Tabery says. “And yet we’re increasingly accelerating towards it, even though there’s plenty of information to suggest that if we really wanted to combat common diseases, we should be focusing on environmental causes.” NON-GMO SUCCESSES, GMO-FREE
The German federally owned Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) has bred a fungus-resistant apple that has now been approved as a variety. The new variety Pia41 resists scab fungi that have already broken through the resistance of other varieties. The breeding success was achieved without genetic modification, through conventional crossing. Meanwhile the genetic engineers are not making any progress. As early as 2011, researchers at the Dutch University of Wageningen began field trials with apples of the Gala variety, into which they had incorporated the Rvi6 gene. According to the genetic engineering-friendly platform transgen.de, the trials ran until 2021. It doesn’t say why they were stopped after that and the plants were never marketed, but it seems obvious: Conventionally bred scab-resistant varieties had long since been cultivated and the fungus was already able to overcome the Rvi6 gene. This is why there are currently no GM scab-resistant apples on the market. The Global Justice Ecology Project, which campaigns against GM American chestnut trees, joined Lois and Denis Melican of the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation in early September to plant blight-resistant wild American chestnuts. The ACCF has been breeding naturally blight-resistant wild American chestnuts for more than 60 years. The ACCF rejects the effort to genetically engineer blight resistance into American chestnuts, pointing to their work to breed wild American chestnuts with natural blight resistance. They also point out that GM American chestnuts could contaminate and displace wild American chestnuts. Researchers from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and their partners from Peru and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Agriculture have bred a new potato variety that resists frost. The researchers spent several years evaluating potato species from the US Potato Genebank (USPG) for frost tolerance, ultimately selecting Solanum acaule and Solanum commersonii, both wild potatoes native to South America, because they showed the greatest ability to tolerate frost. The team combined these two species and evaluated the hybrids, selecting some parents that both withstood snap frosts and developed tolerance to much colder frosts. After years of testing and selecting among thousands of offspring, they picked one that was worthy of being a new cultivar and named it “Wiñay”. 100% of the corn planted in Mexico City is free of GMOs. They know it’s GMO-free because they screen it to ensure the seeds don’t have any trace of GMOs. During Mexico’s National Corn Day, protesters proclaimed: “We are from corn, not GMOs!” Mexico has more than 300 varieties of corn derived from 64 native races. During Mexico’s National Corn Day, a letter was delivered to the US ambassador saying that instead of trying to make Mexico accept GMO corn, “Your government would do well to encourage the production of non-GMO corn, which could improve the health of its own population.” The activities and standards of the GMO-free soy industry organisation Donau Soja contribute to all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to a new report by the Donau Soja organisation together with the independent Swiss institute, Sustainable Food Systems (SFS). In the last eleven years, European farmers produced more than four million tonnes of sustainable soy according to the Donau Soja/Europe Soya standards. In GMWatch’s view, this finding is interesting in light of the European Commission's claim that it wants to deregulate new GM crops on the basis that they could contribute to sustainability. GREEN REVOLUTION Amid multiple challenges to food security, some organisations are renewing calls for a second Green Revolution, echoing the introduction in the 1960s and 1970s of supposedly high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice into developing countries, along with synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. Those efforts centred on India and other Asian countries; today, advocates focus on sub-Saharan Africa, where the original Green Revolution regime never took hold. But Glenn Davis Stone writes that anyone concerned with food production should be careful what they wish for. In recent years, a wave of new analysis has spurred a critical rethinking of what Green Revolution-style farming really means for food supplies and self-sufficiency – and it has shown the claims made for it are completely false. As Stone explains in his book, The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World, the Green Revolution does hold lessons for food production today – but not the ones that are commonly heard.
M. S. Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India, recently died at the age of 98. An agronomist, agricultural scientist and plant geneticist, Swaminathan played a key role in introducing hybrid high yielding varieties of wheat and rice to India and in encouraging farmers to adopt high-input, chemical-dependent practices. The mainstream narrative is that Swaminathan’s collaborative scientific efforts with Norman Borlaug helped save India from famine in the 1960s. However, there is another side to the story of the Green Revolution, which seldom emerges in the mainstream. Farmer Bhaskar Save wrote an open letter to Swaminathan accusing him of flinging open “the floodgates of toxic ‘agro’ chemicals – ravaging the lands and lives of many millions of Indian farmers over the past 50 years.” Save added, “More than any other individual in our long history, it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every year.” Interestingly, Swaminathan came out against GMOs in India, questioning their efficacy. Swaminathan’s stand on GM crops flew in the face of those who suggested he was acting as an agent for corporate interests in driving the Green Revolution, writes Ranjit Devraj in an interesting article for SciDev.net: “He dared say out loud that the planting of GM crops destroyed soil micronutrients and depleted water resources, adding to the woes of India’s smallholder farmers already hard put to buy GM seeds at each replanting. His own prescription was for an ‘Evergreen Revolution’ that combined eco-agriculture and green technology enterprises to put money in the hands of rural communities and ensure food availability. Hunger in India, he said boldly, was owing to a lack of purchasing power rather than any lack of food.” Devraj warns that with Swaminathan gone there are few powerful voices left to speak against the “second green revolution”, which is “designed to facilitate the fully-fledged corporatisation of agriculture supported by the state and its research arm, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), now helping to develop 13 different GM crops, including rice and wheat.” SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE With an aim to make rural areas self-sustaining and society healthy, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Manipur has started promoting Natural Farming with an emphasis on rural development in the State. Dr Tensubam Basanta Singh of ICAR, Manipur said that he sees Natural Farming as a saviour of society from the effects of consuming vegetables and crops that are grown using high quantities of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Although there are no concrete regulations for Natural Farming, it does not encourage using chemical fertilisers, pesticides, heavy machinery or even hybrid seeds. This farming method emphasises cultivating crops, vegetables and fruits using manures, manual labour and pesticides extracted from plants like neem, tobacco leaves, artemisia, and garlic, he said. .................................................................. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible by readers’ donations. Please support our work with a one-off or regular donation. Thank you! |
