The Center for Food Safety (CFS) pushed back today against longtime biotech crop supporter, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, over its announcement that it has invested nearly $2 billion in a campaign to fund the development of genetically engineered (GE) crops in an attempt to address global hunger.  The Gates Foundation has been widely criticized by food security and public interest groups for promoting GE crops in developing countries rather than investing in organic and sustainable local models of agriculture.

“The biotech industry has exploited the image of the world’s poor and hungry to advance a form of agriculture that is expensive, input-intensive, and of little or no relevance to developing country farmers,” said Andrew Kimbrell Executive Director for the Center for Food Safety.  “It’s long past time that the Gates Foundation redirect its investments in biotech companies like Monsanto, and its funding of dead-end GE crop projects, to promote agroecological techniques with a proven record of increasing food production in developing countries.”

Since their introduction in the mid-90s, developers of GE crops have claimed their crops will reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint, provide benefits to farmers and meet the needs of a hungry planet.  Yet across the board GE crops have failed to deliver results.  GE crops have remained an industrial tool dependent upon costly inputs, such as patented seeds and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, that farmers in the most food insecure regions can ill-afford.  For instance, 5 out of every 6 acres of GE crops worldwide are herbicide-resistant varieties designed explicitly to increase dependence on expensive herbicides, and this remains the major R&D focus of the industry.[i]

In contrast, the emerging consensus of international development experts is that real solutions to addressing global hunger must be inexpensive, low-input and utilize local/regional resources as much as possible[ii] – all areas where GE crops fail to deliver.  For instance, the UN and World Bank’s 2008 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which engaged some 400 experts from multiple disciplines, concluded that biotech crops have very little potential to alleviate poverty and hunger.[iii]  Instead, IAASTD recommended support for agroecological approaches and food sovereignty.

In 1998, African scientists at a United Nations conference strongly objected to Monsanto’s promotional GE campaign that used photos of starving African children under the headline “Let the Harvest Begin.” The scientists, who represented many of the nations affected by poverty and hunger, said gene technologies would undermine the nations’ capacities to feed themselves by destroying established diversity, local knowledge and sustainable agricultural systems.^[iv] 

Developing nations also object to seed patents, which give biotech firms the power to criminalize the age-old practice of seed-saving as “patent infringement.”  Thousands of U.S. farmers have been forced to pay Monsanto tens of millions of dollars in damages for the “crime” of saving seed.[v]  Loss of the right to save seed through the introduction of patented GE crops could prove disastrous for the 1.4 billion farmers in developing nations who depend on farm-saved seed.[vi]

It is increasingly understood that poverty, inadequate access to land and food, and unfair trade policies are the major causes of hunger in the world, rather than absolute shortage of food.  Additional factors contributing to food insecurity include declining investments in infrastructure (storage facilities, roads to markets) and increased diversion of food crops for biofuels and animal feed.  The UN World Food Program notes many farmers in developing countries cannot afford seed or other materials for crop production,[vii] so GE seeds, which cost twice to over six times the price of conventional seed, are even less affordable.

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. More information can be found at www.centerforfoodsafety.org

While we are disappointed that AB 88 failed today, we are encouraged by the level of support the bill received in a tough Committee. The bill’s failure in Committee came despite clear consumer demand for labeling of GE fish. As Huffman told TakePart today, “If we had put this bill before the people of California, it would have passed overwhelmingly.”

Thank you all for your tremendous support for this bill! Had it not been for our CFS True Food Network members emailing and calling Committee members, the bill would not have received the support it did. Thank you!

For more information on GE fish, visit CFS’s campaign website http://www.ge-fish.org

For information on federal bills:
The U.S. Senate: S. 230 (ban) and S. 229 (mandatory labeling)
The U.S. House: H.R. 521 (ban) and H.R. 520 (mandatory labeling)

Exposure to 2,4-D has been linked to major health problems that include cancer (especially non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma), lowered sperm counts, liver disease and Parkinson’s disease.  A growing body of evidence from laboratory studies show that 2,4-D causes endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, neurotoxicity and immunosuppression.  Further, industry’s own tests show that 2,4-D is contaminated with dioxins, a group of highly toxic chemical compounds that bioaccumulate, so even a minute amount can accumulate as it goes up the food chain, causing dangerous levels of exposure.  Dioxins in Agent Orange have been linked to many diseases, including birth defects in children of exposed parents; according to EPA, 2,4-D is the seventh largest source of dioxins in the U.S.

Read More and TAKE ACTION! >>>

Yesterday afternoon a coalition of 11 food safety, environmental, consumer and fisheries organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) calling for a halt to its approval of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon after learning that the company’s – AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. – research site was contaminated with a new strain of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), the deadly fish flu that is devastating fish stocks around the world.

“This new information calls into question the reliability of AquaBounty’s data and the validity of its claims that their fish are safe for the environment” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “The FDA must respond appropriately and conduct their own environmental impact statement that looks at a broad range of environmental risks from these genetically engineered salmon, including the risk of spreading diseases such as ISA and antibiotic use for other diseases.”

AquaBounty has claimed that the company’s process for raising GE fish is safer than traditional aquaculture.  However, documents that were revealed last week indicate that their production site was found by Canadian Authorities to have been contaminated in Nov. 2009.  This information was hidden from the public and potentially FDA and other Federal agencies consulting on the GE salmon application.  ISA is a deadly disease and is classified as a ‘Listed’ disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) – alongside diseases such as Anthrax, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Foot and mouth disease, rabies, sheep pox, swine fever, avian influenza, West Nile fever, scrapie, fowl cholera, bovine tuberculosis and myxomatosis.

“Infectious Salmon Anaemia threatens wild fisheries around the world and the communities whose livelihood depend on those fish” said Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US. “ISA infections in Chile cost the industry around two billion dollars. A similar infection in Canada and the U.S. could be the last blow to wild Atlantic salmon populations and bring a collapse in wild salmon fisheries.”

The December 19 letter urged FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to release all health data on AquaBounty’s GE salmon and to suspend any approval actions until all the data is disclosed and the public has an opportunity to review the data. Additionally, the coalition asked the FDA to conduct a full environmental impact statement that includes review of the effect of fish diseases, like ISA, on wild fish populations that might come into contact with the AquaBounty fish.  Currently, the FDA has only performed a less comprehensive environmental risk assessment.

This news comes on the heels of a Senate subcommittee hearing held last Thursday on the environmental risks of GE fish, the first hearing of its kind in Congress.

The Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing at 10:30 AM today to discuss the environmental risks of genetically engineered (GE) fish, the first hearing of its kind in Congress.

“Members of Congress have once again raised the stakes in the GE fish debate on Capitol Hill,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety.  “FDA can no longer continue to ignore the environmental risks that GE fish pose.”

Subcommittee Chairman Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), a strong advocate for the responsible management of wild stocks has been a vocal critic of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) failure to adequately address the environmental risks posed by GE fish, most notably the current review of the AquAdvantage Salmon, produced by AquaBounty Technologies, Inc.  If approved, the GE salmon would be the first GE animal approved for human consumption by the FDA.  The company has also developed a genetically engineered trout and tilapia.

Today’s hearing will examine the risks that GE fish pose to wild fish stocks, fisheries, and aquatic ecosystems should these fish escape into wild habitats, including the spread of parasites and disease, increased competition for food and mates and the potential genetic contamination of wild stocks.  Similar concerns have been raised a number of times by Members of Congress, FDA’s Advisory Committee and the scientific community.

“FDA has failed to ask the tough questions about escapes, disease transfer and the full environmental impacts of GE fish,” said Colin O’Neil, Regulatory Policy Analyst for the Center for Food Safety.  “By assuming that escapes won’t happen, FDA is putting our marine ecosystems, our health and our fisheries in harm’s way.”

In a recently released study, Canadian researchers concluded that if GE Atlantic salmon were to escape from captivity they could succeed in breeding and passing their genes into the wild.[i]  Another recent study focuses on developing risk assessment approaches that incorporate the genetic backgrounds and environmental conditions that are likely factors in a real escape of GE fish.[ii]  Yet, data on the GE salmon provided by the company notes that the fish studied were raised at Prince Edward Island, while the actual planned location to raise the fish is in Panama – something FDA properly criticized AquaBounty for.

Earlier this summer, 93 environmental, consumer, health, and animal welfare organizations, along with fishing groups and associations and food companies and businesses, celebrated the passage of the Young-Woolsey amendment that was included in the House-passed Agriculture Appropriations Act of 2012 that would bar the FDA from using funds in the 2012 fiscal year to approve GE salmon.  The Senate measure sponsored by Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) did not reach a vote.

The Subcommittee hearing comes just three months after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it had awarded a $494,162 grant to AquaBounty to research technologies that would render fish sterile to decrease the risk of gene flow from transgenic tilapia.

“Today’s hearing further highlights the scientific unknowns at play and makes you look back at the USDA grant and why the USDA is in the business of funding this company to research something it has already assured the FDA it can do,” added O’Neil.

Citing risk to the environment, consumer backlash and the potential for economic impact, a number of fishing associations as well as salmon farming companies have already voiced their opposition to the use of transgenic salmon including Marine Harvest ASA, the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, International Salmon Farmers Association, the Irish Salmon Growers Association, the New Brunswick Salmon Growers’ Association, Alaska Trollers Association, the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, the Massachusetts Fishermen Partnership, Inc., Cooke Aquaculture, Inc., Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, Scottish Salmon Producers Organization, California Fisheries Network, SalmonAid, North Atlantic Marine Alliance, the Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance, and many others.

Click here to watch the hearing (archived version)

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The Center for Food Safety is a national, non-profit, membership organization founded in 1997 to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS currently represents nearly 200,000 members across the nation. To learn more, please visit: www.ge-fish.org

After an intensive public trial covering a range of human rights violations, jurors issued a scathing verdict to the six largest pesticide and biotechnology corporations, urging governments, especially the US, Switzerland and Germany, to take action to prevent further harms.

“The trial shed light on widespread and systematic human rights violations by the world’s six largest pesticide corporations,” said Kathryn Gilje, co-director of Pesticide Action Network North America, and who reported live from the trial. “The existing justice system has failed to provide adequate protections for our health, our food and farmers’ livelihoods. Pesticide corporations will continue to go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for their human rights violations until we create a strong system of accountability.”

The verdict was handed down to the six largest pesticide corporations – Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF, Dow and Dupont – collectively known as the “Big 6”, for their human rights violations, including internationally recognized rights to life, livelihood and health. The agrichemical industry is valued at over $42 billion and operates with impunity while over 355,000 people die from pesticide poisoning each year, and hundreds of thousands more are made ill. In addition, pesticide corporations have put livelihoods and jobs in jeopardy, including, farmers, beekeepers and lobstermen.

“Pesticide corporations have gotten away with human rights violations for far too long,” said Paige Tomaselli, staff attorney from the Center for Food Safety, and a prosecutor at the trial. “We have brought them to this international court to shine a spotlight on their brazen violations of rights to live, health and livelihood.”

Over the past few days, witnesses from across the globe, including the United States, shared their stories of the harms of pesticides and biotechnology. Their stories, available on YouTube, in addition to a 230-page legal indictment, document violations of human rights to life, health and livelihood.

“The right to care for and work the land is basic and fundamental,” said David Runyon, a 900-acre Indiana farmer. “Monsanto and Co. have undermined my ability to provide for my family and prosper as a farmer. And the Big 6 have overstepped any system of justice and need to be held to account for their activities.”

Runyon is one of over fifteen witnesses to testify at the trial in Bangalore, India. He and his wife Dawn almost lost the family farm when pesticide and genetic engineering giant Monsanto found contamination of seeds on their property. The company threatened to sue Runyon unless he paid them for genetically modified seeds, seeds that had been carried by the wind from a neighboring farm.

The verdict also names three particular nations as culpable alongside the corporations. Their preliminary findings state, “The United States, Switzerland and Germany [home states for the pesticide corporations] have failed to comply with their internationally accepted responsibility to promote and protect human rights…The three States, where six corporations are registered and headquartered, have failed to adequately regulate, monitor and discipline these entities by national laws and policy.”

The trial began on the anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, in which over 20,000 people have died after an explosion at a Dow Chemical facility. And it concluded before International Human Rights Day. The trial was hosted by the Pesticide Action Network International, a network of over 600 participating nongovernmental organizations, institutions, and individuals in over 90 countries working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives.

The Permanent People’s Tribunal was founded in Italy in 1979 as a people’s court to raise awareness of massive human rights violations in the absence of another international justice system. The PPT draws its authority from the people while remaining rooted in the rigors of a conventional court format. Citing relevant international human rights laws, precedents and documents such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights in its findings, the Tribunal examines and passes judgment on complaints of human rights violations brought by victims and their representative groups.

A summary of the trial, including summaries of cases against the Big 6, can be found at www.panna.org/PPT.

The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is an initiative intended to be on the California ballot in November 2012, pending securing enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot. The Act would simply require that food sold in
retail outlets be labeled if it is genetically engineered, or if it contains genetically
engineered ingredients.

“Genetic engineering adds completely new elements into our food. Because the FDA has failed to require labeling of GMO food, this initiative closes a critical loophole in food labeling law. It will allow Californians to choose what they buy and eat and will allow health professionals to track any potential adverse health impacts of these foods.” said Andy Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “Genetically engineering food can cause unintended consequences and because there have been no long term studies, we are unsure of how GMOs may affect our health.”

CFS believes that consumers have a right to know what’s in the food we eat and feed our children, including whether food is genetically engineered. We all should be able to make informed choices, and have the ability to choose whether to buy genetically engineered food or not.

Stay tuned to CFS’s websites for more information on this issue in the coming weeks!

In response to Monsanto’s release of the company’s first genetically engineered sweet corn for human consumption, a coalition has collected more than 264,000 petition signatures from consumers who refuse to purchase the corn and are asking retailers and food processors to reject it. Today the coalition, including the Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, CREDO Action, Food Democracy Now!, and Food & Water Watch, announced that they have delivered the signed petition to 10 of the top national retail grocery stores including Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway, and top canned and frozen corn processors including Bird’s Eye and Del Monte.

Two major national food companies, General Mills and Trader Joe’s, have already indicated that they will not be using the Monsanto GE sweet corn in their products, according to replies the companies sent to a request from the Center for Environmental Health.

“The overwhelming number of people who have signed this petition once again reiterates the fact that consumers don’t want genetically engineered food on their plates,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “Consumers should be outraged that as early as next year, GE sweet corn in cans, frozen and fresh off the cob could show up in grocery stores across the country and we will have no way of telling it apart from other corn.”

“These grocery and food processing companies are the last link in the chain before this corn reaches consumers and they have a financial incentive to keep this unlabeled GE sweet corn off their shelves because their customers won’t buy it,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of The Center for Food Safety. “Two major food companies have already said they will reject this risky new corn. If they can do it, so can these other companies.”

In August, Monsanto announced that its Roundup Ready GE sweet corn – as opposed to corn that has been used primarily in animal feed and highly processed foods since 1994 – would be available for the fall planting season. Although the sweet corn is the first GE vegetable of this type to be commercialized by Monsanto, it received swift approval from the USDA since the agency does no independent testing of GE crops and the seed’s three distinct traits were previously approved, each separately, in 2005 and 2008. The three traits are corn borer resistance, rootworm resistance and tolerance for glyphosate – the primary ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.

“It’s not surprising that the company responsible for producing nearly 90 percent of all GE seeds around the world now wants to sell its toxic crops directly to consumers, but it is clearly very scary to a lot of people” said Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager at CREDO Action. “We had an overwhelming response from over 160,000 CREDO Action members. It’s shocking that, absent sufficient study of GMO corn, government regulators could be so cavalier in the approval of a product that raises significant concerns for so many people.”

“Monsanto continues to produce genetically engineered food that Americans have no interest in eating,” said David Murphy, Founder, Food Democracy Now! “It’s clear, with the increasing approvals of these untested products, that President Obama needs to live up to his campaign promise to label foods that have been genetically modified, because, as he said to farmers in Iowa, ‘Americans should know what they’re buying.’”

Monsanto is aiming to grow its GE Sweet Corn on 250,000 acres next year, which is roughly 40 percent of the sweet corn market. They believe the corn will be used primarily in frozen and canned corn products, but could also be sold as fresh corn on the cob through retailers.

“Consumers deserve to know what’s in their food, especially when there is a pesticide in every bite,” said Charles Margulis of the Center for Environmental Health. “This whole, unprocessed corn has been spliced with genes that produce a risky, untested insecticide. Parents should be informed when food on supermarket shelves has been genetically altered.”

The potential health and environmental risks associated with GE crops include increased food allergies and unknown long term health effects in humans; the rise of superweeds that have become resistant to GE-affiliated herbicides; the ethical and economic concerns involved with the patenting of life and corporate consolidation of the seed supply; and the contamination of organic and non-GE crops and through cross-pollination and seed dispersal.

A sample of the cover letter sent to the food companies can be found at http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/sweet-corn-cover-letter.pdf

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The Center for Environmental Health has a fifteen-year track record of protecting communities from the health impacts of toxic pollution and has uncovered lead and other toxic health threats to children from wood playground structures, toys, vinyl baby bibs and lunchboxes, and many other products. CEH also works with major industries and leaders in green business to promote healthier alternatives to toxic products and practices. In 2010 the San Francisco Business Times bestowed its annual “Green Champion” award to CEH for its work to improve health and the environment in the Bay Area and beyond.

The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership organization, founded in 1997, that works to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. CFS has nearly 200,000 members across the country. On the web at www.centerforfoodsafety.org and www.truefoodnow.org

CREDO Action has 2.2 million members across the U.S. who fight for progressive change and raise money for organizations like Food Democracy Now and Rainforest Action Network.  Since 1985, CREDO and its membership have donated over $65 million to progressive causes. www.credoaction.org

Food Democracy Now! is a grassroots movement of more than 250,000 American farmers and citizens dedicated to reforming U.S. food and agricultural policy to improve farmer competition in the marketplace, protect our environment and promote organic and sustainable food for all. www.fooddemocracynow.org

Food & Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control. www.foodandwaterwatch.org

A new report highlights scientific research and empirical experiences from around the globe demonstrating that genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops have failed to deliver on its advertised promises.

Advocates of GMOs claim that biotechnology increases yields, reduces chemical usage, controls crop pests and weeds, and delivers “climate ready” traits such as drought-tolerance. However, the on-the-ground experience in many countries discloses that this technology has failed on all fronts.

For example, GMO proponents often hail the success of GM cotton in South Africa’s Makhatini Flats. But after initial, highly visible headlines of success, this report reveals a different story. Instead of thriving crops and increased farmer incomes, after five years, the majority of farmers growing GM cotton are in debt due to the high costs of seed, chemical, and other farm inputs. Concurrently, the volatility of the cotton market means that farmers cannot rely on predictable, steady incomes. The essays contained in this Global Citizens Report confirm that such experiences are repeated in many countries and regions. The story of Indian farmer indebtedness and over 250,000 suicides further emphasizes the tragic costs of this failed GM technology. (The essay from India thoroughly reviews this tragedy.)

Super Weeds, Super Problems

Farmers and agronomists throughout the world are alarmed by the growing epidemic of weeds developing a resistance to the herbicide, glyphosate, used on GM crops. These “superweeds” have evolved resistance to glyphosate as a result of the intensive use of this herbicide. From November 2007 to January 2011, infested acreage in the U.S. has more than quintupled, from 2.4 to 12.6 million acres. In Brazil, researchers have reported that nine species have developed tolerance to glyphosate.

And now super pests are also becoming a major hazard. Rootworms are developing a resistance to GM corn in Iowa and Illinois. And, Monsanto, the undisputed leader in GM seed and crop technology and ownership, has, after several years, finally acknowledged that a bollworm pest has developed resistance to its Bt cotton in India.

Another common story detailed in this Global Citizens Report describes how GM technology is pushed by intensive lobbying and marketing efforts, “revolving door” influences, and funding of research and educational institutes. As noted in the report from the U.S., the leading proponent of GM crops—top food and agricultural biotechnology firms spent more than $547 million lobbying Congress between 1999 and 2009. The report from Argentina documents that representatives from biotechnology corporations—Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, and Pioneer—sit on a prominent national panel that directly advises the government agency that approves field trials and commercialization of GM crops. 

Finally, the report documents increasing scientific evidence and warnings from scientists that GMOs may be harmful to human health, ecosystems and also have failed to increase food production. It highlights that, in contrast to GM seeds and crops, agroecological farming systems are proving to be the real answer to food insecurity. A recent study by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food reported that agroecological systems doubled crop yields over a period of three to 10 years in field tests conducted in 20 African countries. The report also cites numerous other studies confirming high yields and reduced chemical use in other regions of the world due to agroecological farming methods.

Owning at least 90 percent of GM seeds and crops, Monsanto is viewed as the leader in promoting this technology and thus its role is particularly highlighted in these voices from the planet reports.

The report will be launched around the world during 2011 and 2012, beginning with a launch in San Francisco on October 13.

Read the Report