EU Faces Deadline on GM Food Ban. The Parasite Crops.

"People who campaign against GM crops are committing a crime against humanity". Not my words. This seems to be the latest ludicrous claim of the GM protagonists in their attempts to conquer the European market. 'Ludicrous' because in view of the problems caused by GM's, described only briefly below, it would be far more accurate to describe the GM corporates as committing a crime against humanity:-

• the contamination of non gm crops and wild plants by gm varieties.



• resistance to pesticides and herbicides of insects and weeds.



• continuous use of herbicides with herbicide tolerant crops leads to serious ecological problems.



• some herbicides effect non target species in the soil such as beneficial predators-spiders, mites, beetles, earthworms, and microfauna and aquatic organisms including fish.



• large scale soyabean monocultures have rendered Amazonian soils unusable. In Bolivia in many areas soils are compacted and suffering severe degradation. In Argentina intensive soybean cultivation has led to soil nutrient depletion.



• The obliteration of traditional crops and horticulture by corporate farming has led to detrimental health effects on local communities, caused by vitamin deficiencies. Eg. monocultural rice, or maize growth (in Latin America) for export as cattle feed is a prime cause of vitamin A deficiency which leads to blindness.



• there are serious legal consequences for farmers regarding contracts that control farming methods and future use, seed purity and its saving for home use, food contamination, the intrusion into non gm crops and wild plants of gm varieties, and the difficulty in obtaining insurance cover should any harm result.


• (The following extract is from "GM soya Disaster in Latin America" by Prof. Walter A Pengue, Univ.of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Prof.Miguel A. Altieri, Univ. of California, Berkley.)....

...."In Brazil soybean cultivation displaces eleven agricultural workers for every one who finds employment in the sector"........."In Argentina.....in 1998 there were 422000 farms in Argentina while in 2002 there were only 318,000, a reduction of a quarter. In one decade soybean area increased 126% at the expense of dairy, maize, wheat and fruit production............For the biotech industry huge increases in the soybean area cultivated and a more than doubling of yields per unit area are an economic and agronomic success. For the country, that means more imports of basic foods, therefore loss of food sovereignty, and for poor small and consumers increased food prices and more hunger.

This brings us back to the GM corporate pronouncement that "anti-GM campaigners are committing a crime against humanity"....a claim made no doubt to deflect from their own blatant exploitation of farmers and consumers.

It isn't just that GM crops act parasitically on the soil and wildlife and the environment. GM's are a parasite on the health and livlihoods of farmers and local populations in many parts of the world. At the most extreme there are suicides among Indian farmers, resulting from the increased seed costs and reduced yields.

Thankfully some communities, eg in Ethiopia have been able to resist the domineering influence of the corporates. They tried growing imported seeds and noticed the detrimental health effects on children. They also recognized that it was easier to mill and cook wheat which was grown from their indigenous seed varieties. The effect on digestion was also noticed to be better after consuming the traditional varieties. And last but not least the crop yields were higher! Happily farmers and local communities are collaborating with their seed scientists to return to growing and improving their traditional seed varieties.

In his article "Feeding People is Easy" Colin Tudge concludes....."In reality then our food problems are of two kinds. The first is to grow food well, get it to people and then cook it properly. That should be straight forward. Far, far harder is to circumvent the corporates and their attendant governments. New Labour has applied the same general strategy to food as to all things: to sell off the assets to the highest bidders and to hand the reins and profits to the corporates, which in this case means Tesco, Monsanto and the makers of agrochemicals. The aim is not to grow good food but to maximize cash. That in all ways is immensely destructive. In short the great threat to humanity comes from our own leaders. Now that really is a problem".

In 1998 the EU introduced a moratorium on new biotech authorizations that lasted six years, due to continuing concerns about GM crops.In November 2007, the World Trade Organization gave the EU an extra two months to comply with its ruling for the EU to end restrictions of imports of genetically modified food. The United States, Argentina and Canada argue that their farmers lost money because of GM bans, and they are now threatening to call for WTO sanctions against the EU.

French anti-globalisation activist, Jose Bove, who was convicted of destroying GM crops in southern France has gone on hunger strike to demand a year long embargo.

Organic Farming-Small Farms versus Large Farms.

"Food, Trade And US Power Politics In Latin America." Toni Solo. 2004.

He quotes a statement by Columbian Senator Jorge Robledo Castillo:"A nation whose food supply was located somewhere else in the world stands to lose if for some reason it cannot be made available for domestic consumption......"

Toni Solo points out that "people at all levels across Latin America see this very clearly. A spokesperson for the Movement of Landless Workers in Brazil, states, "The principal base for forging a free, sovereign people is that it has the conditions to produce its own food. If a country becomes dependent on another in order to feed its people it becomes a dependent nation politically, economically, and ideologically."

Solo continues.........."Within the broader concern in Latin America about food sovereignty, anxiety about genetically manipulated foods is acute. Writers like Elizabeth Bravo of Equador's Accion Ecologica, have analized what the FTAA would mean in terms of the ability of the US multinationals like Monsanto and Dupont to penalise local agriculture by enforcing Intellectual Property Rights on plants and seeds through patents and related ownership rights. She argues this will introduce monopoly rights into the food production system, limit the free movement of seeds, increase erosion of genetic resources and force farmers to pay royalties on the seed they use, thus generally increasing food prices.

She goes on to point out that, "even without broaching the the ethical monstrosity of patenting life forms, these attempts to prioratise the agenda of the agribusiness multinationals will lead to monocultivation and eliminate small farmers. Latin America agriculture will become more insecure the more it comes to rely on foreign, especially United States, technology. Looking further afield, one has only to consider a country like Honduras to see where the "free trade" model leads: abject dependency, widespread poverty, massive unemployment"

No Synthetic Fertilizers, No Pesticides in Cuban Organic Agriculture.

There is an interesting article by Megan Quinn called 'The Power of Community:How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.' It features on the website of Global Public Media.
I'll just quote a little bit about farming in Cuba, but her article is well worth reading for other aspects of cuban life.

....."Havana, Cuba--At the Organiponico de Alamar, a neighborhood agriculture project, a workers collective runs a large urban farm, a produce market and a restuarant. Hand tools and human labour replace oil-driven machinary. Worm cultivation and composting create productive soil. Drip irrigation conserves water, and the diverse, multi-hued produce provides the community with a rainbow of healthy foods.
In other Havana neighborhoods, lacking enough land for such large projects, residents have installed raised garden beds on parking lots and planted vegetable gardens on their patios and roof tops.
Since the early 1990's an urban agriculture movement has swept through Cuba, putting this capital city of 2.2 million on a path toward sustainability.
A small group of Australians assisted in this grass-roots effort, coming to this Caribbean island nation in 1993 to teach permaculture, a system based on sustainable agriculture which uses far less energy.
This need to bring agriculture into the city began with the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of more than 50% of Cuba's oil imports, much of its food and a percent of its trade economy.Transportation halted, people went hungry and the average Cuban lost 30 pounds.....
....Cubans are also replacing petroleum-fed machinary with oxen, and their urban agriculture reduces food transportation distances. Today an estimated 50% of Havana's vegetables come from inside the city, while in other Cuban towns and cities urban gardens produce from 80% to more than 100% of what they need......"

Please read the rest of the article, it's interesting.