Something doesn’t quite add up about genetically modified (GM) foods.

It looks the same—the bread, pies, sodas, even corn on the cob. So much of what we eat every day looks just like it did 20 years ago. But something profoundly different has happened without our knowledge or consent. And according to leading doctors, what we don’t know may already be hurting us big time.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) publicly condemned genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food supply, saying they posed “a serious health risk.” They called on the US government to implement an immediate moratorium on all genetically modified (GM) foods, and urged physicians to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients.

GM-What?

Genetic engineering is quite distinct from selective breeding because it involves taking genes from a completely different species and inserting them into the DNA of a plant or animal. The long term effects of this for our health and our planet’s biodiversity are unknown.

AAEM, an “Academy of Firsts,” was the first US medical organization to describe or acknowledge Gulf War Syndrome, chemical sensitivity, food allergy/addiction, and a host of other medical issues. But the potential for harm from GMOs dwarfs anything they have identified thus far. It can impact everyone who eats.

More than 70% of the foods on supermarket shelves contain derivatives of the eight GM foods on the market—soy, corn, oil from canola and cottonseed, sugar from sugar beets, Hawaiian papaya, and a small amount of zucchini and crook neck squash. The biotech industry hopes to genetically engineer virtually all remaining vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans (not to mention animals).

The two primary reasons why plants are engineered are to allow them to either drink poison, or produce poison. The poison drinkers are called herbicide tolerant. They’re inserted with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of toxic herbicide. Biotech companies sell the seed and herbicide as a package deal, and US farmers use hundreds of millions of pounds more herbicide because of these types of GM crops. The poison producers are called Bt crops. Inserted genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus Thuringiensis produce an insect-killing pesticide called Bt-toxin in every cell of the plant. Both classes of GM crops are linked to dangerous side effects.

Doctors and Patients: Just Say No to GMOs

“Now that soy is genetically engineered,” warns Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles, “it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.” How dangerous are GM foods? World renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava, PhD, believes they are the major reason for the recent rise in serious illnesses in the US.

The range of what GMOs might do to us is breathtaking. “Several animal studies,” according to the AAEM, reveal a long list of disorders, including: “infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, [faulty] insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.”

“There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects,” says the AAEM position paper. Based on established scientific criteria, “there is causation.”

Difficult to Trace the Damage

Outside the carefully controlled laboratory setting, it is more difficult to confidently assign GMOs as the cause for a particular set of diseases, especially since there are no human clinical trials and no agency that even attempts to monitor GMO-related health problems among the population. “If there are problems,” says biologist David Schubert, PhD, of the Salk Institute, “we will probably never know because the cause will not be traceable and many diseases take a very long time to develop.”

GM crops were widely introduced in 1996. Within nine years, the incidence of people in the US with three or more chronic diseases nearly doubled—from 7% to 13%. Visits to the emergency room due to allergies doubled from 1997 to 2002. And overall food related illnesses doubled from 1994 to 2001, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Obesity, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, and autism are also among the conditions that are skyrocketing in the US.

The Lyme Induced Autism Foundation, a patient advocacy group, is not waiting for studies to prove that GMOs cause or worsen Lyme, autism, and the many other diseases on the rise since gene-spliced foods were introduced. Like AAEM, the LIA Foundation says there is more than enough evidence of harm in animal feeding studies for them to “urge doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets” and for “individuals, especially those with autism, Lyme disease, and associated conditions, to avoid” GM foods.

Another patient group, those suffering from eosinophilia myalgia syndrome (EMS), is more confident about the GMO origins of their particular disease. It was caused by a genetically engineered brand of a food supplement called L-tryptophan in the late 1980s. It killed about 100 Americans and caused 5,000-10,000 people to fall sick or become permanently disabled. The characteristics of EMS made it much easier for authorities to identify the epidemic and its cause. It only affected those who consumed the pills; symptoms came on almost immediately; and its effects were horrific—including unbearable pain and paralysis. There was even a unique, easy-to-measure change in the white blood cell count. But even though EMS was practically screaming to be discovered, it still took the medical community more than four years—and it was almost missed.

“The experiments simply haven’t been done and we now have become the guinea pigs.” David Suzuki, renowned Canadian geneticist.

What if the GMOs throughout our food supply are creating common diseases which come on slowly? It would be nearly impossible to confirm them as the cause. “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients,” says AAEM president Dr. Jennifer Armstrong, “but need to know how to ask the right questions.” The patients at greatest risk are the very young. “Children are the most likely to be adversely effected by toxins and other dietary problems” related to GM foods, says Dr. Schubert. They become “the experimental animals,” our collective canaries in the coal mine.

Warnings by Government Scientists Ignored and Denied

Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had warned about all these problems back in the early 1990s. According to secret documents made public from a lawsuit, the scientific consensus at the agency was that GM foods were inherently dangerous, and might create hard-to-detect allergies, poisons, new “super” diseases, and nutritional problems. They urged their superiors to require rigorous long-term tests. But the White House had ordered the agency to promote biotechnology and the FDA responded by recruiting Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney, to head up the formation of GMO policy. That policy, which is in effect today, denies knowledge of the scientists’ concerns and declares that no safety studies on GMOs are required. It is up to Monsanto and the other biotech companies—who have a long history of lying about the toxicity of their earlier products—to determine if their own foods are safe.

After overseeing GMO policy at the FDA, Mr. Taylor worked on GMO issues at the USDA, and then later became Monsanto’s vice president. In the summer of 2009, he went through the revolving door again. Taylor was appointed by the Obama administration as the de facto US food safety czar at the FDA.

Dangerously Few Studies, Untraceable Diseases

“Where is the scientific evidence showing that GM plants/food are toxicologically safe, as assumed by the biotechnology companies?” This was the concluding question posed in a 2007 review of published scientific literature on the health risks of GM plants, showing that the number of studies and available data are “very scarce.”

“The experiments simply haven’t been done and we now have become the guinea pigs,” says renowned Canadian geneticist David Suzuki. He adds, “Anyone that says, ‘Oh, we know that this is perfectly safe,’ I say is either unbelievably stupid or deliberately lying.”

When consumers realize the dangers of GM foods and that the FDA has abdicated its responsibility to protect us, they usually want to opt out of this massive feeding experiment. In fact, most Americans already say they would avoid GMO brands if given a choice.

It wouldn’t take a majority of us to kick GMOs out of our food supply. Kraft and other food companies wouldn’t wait until half their market share is gone before telling their suppliers to switch to the non-GM corn, soy, etc. By using GM ingredients, they don’t offer customers a single advantage. The food doesn’t taste better, last longer, or have more nutrients. Thus, if even a tiny percentage of US consumers—say 5% or 15 million people—started avoiding GMO brands, the millions in lost sales revenue would likely force brands to remove all GM ingredients, like they already have in Europe.

But the FDA doesn’t want to give us the choice. They ignore the wishes of nine out of ten Americans for mandatory GMO labeling in order to promote the economic interests of just five biotech companies.

The Shocking Evidence of Harm from GMOs

Genetically modified (GM) foods have not been scientifically tested on human beings. (The only published human feeding study had ominous results – see later.) Instead, animals are used as our surrogates, but the few published animal safety studies are generally short-term and superficial. In fact, industry-funded research is widely criticized as designed to avoid finding problems.  They’ve got bad science—down to a science. Even still, the accumulated evidence of harm is compelling people to read ingredient labels and avoid brands with genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Infant Mortality and Reproductive Disorders

When GM soy flour was added to the diets of female rats, most of their babies died within three weeks—compared to only a 10% death rate among mothers fed natural soy. The babies from the GM-fed group were also smaller and later had problems getting pregnant.

When male rats were fed GM soy, their testicles actually changed color—from the normal pink to dark blue. Mice testicles also showed changes, including damaged young sperm cells. And the DNA in mice embryos functioned differently when their parents ate GM soy. Mice fed GM corn had fewer babies, and their children were smaller than normal.

About two dozen US farmers say that thousands of their pigs became sterile after consuming certain GM corn varieties. Some had false pregnancies; others gave birth to bags of water. Cows and bulls also became infertile when fed the same corn. Investigators in the state of Haryana, India, report that most buffalo that ate GM cottonseed had reproductive complications such as premature deliveries, abortions, infertility, and prolapsed uteruses. Many calves died.

In the US population, the incidence of low birth weight babies, infertility, and infant mortality are all escalating.

Food, A Registered Pesticide?

When insects bite genetically modified Bt corn and cotton, they get a mouthful of a built-in toxin, produced by every cell of the plant. The poison splits open their stomach and kills them. The GM plants are registered as pesticides with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Biotech companies claim that Bt-toxin has a history of safe use, since organic farmers and others use Bt bacteria spray for natural insect control. Genetic engineers insert genes from the bacteria into the DNA of the corn and cotton, so the plants themselves do the killing.

They fail to point out that the Bt-toxin produced in GM plants:

• Is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray;
• Is designed to be more toxic;
• Has properties of an allergen; and
• Unlike the spray, cannot be washed off the plant.

But even the less toxic natural bacterial spray is harmful. When dispersed by plane to kill gypsy moths in the Pacific Northwest, about 500 people reported allergy or flu-like symptoms. Some had to go to the emergency room.

Those exact same symptoms are now being reported by farm workers handling Bt cotton grown in India. According to Sunday India, medical records confirm that “victims of itching have increased massively . . . related to Bt cotton farming.”

If GM Crops Kill Animals, How Safe Are They for Us to Eat?

When sheep grazed on Bt cotton plants after harvest, thousands died. Post mortems showed severe irritation and black patches in their intestines and livers. Investigators said preliminary evidence “strongly suggests that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin. . . . most probably Bt-toxin.” In a small feeding study, 100% of sheep fed Bt cotton died within 30 days, while those grazing on natural cotton plants in the adjoining field had no symptoms.

Similarly, buffalo that grazed on natural cotton plants for years without incident are reacting to the Bt variety. In one village, for example, they allowed their 13 buffalo to graze on Bt cotton plants for a single day in January 2008. All died within three days.

Bt corn was also implicated in the deaths of cows in Germany, and horses, buffaloes, and chickens in The Philippines. Even Monsanto’s own 90-day rat feeding study showed evidence of poisoning in major organs due to their Bt corn. And a 2008 Italian government study found that Bt corn provoked immune responses in mice.

GMOs Contain Allergens

Immune system problems in GMO-fed animals are “a consistent feature of all the studies,” according to GM food safety expert Dr. Arpad Pusztai. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine specifically notes an increase in cytokines, “associated with asthma, allergy, and inflammation.” While all three conditions are on the rise in the US, it is the upsurge in food allergies among children that has generated the most alarm nationwide.

There are many reasons why GMOs might be the cause:

• The GM proteins produced in GM soy, corn, and papayas have properties of known allergens. They actually fail the allergy screening protocol recommended by the World Health Organization.
• The process of creating a GMO can introduce new allergens or elevate existing ones. Both GM soy and corn contain new unintended allergenic proteins, and GM soy has as much as seven times higher levels of a natural soy allergen—trypsin inhibitor.
• Herbicide tolerant GM crops have considerably more residues of toxic herbicides, which may provoke reactions.
• Skin prick allergy tests confirm that some people react to GM, but not to non-GM soy.

Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50%. But there are other non-GM foods that are also provoking more allergic responses now than in the past. Research shows, however, that consuming GM foods may still be the culprit by provoking sensitivity to other foods.

Mice fed Bt-toxin, for example, not only reacted to the Bt itself, they started having immune reactions to foods that were formerly harmless. Similarly, after mice ate GM peas, they started to react to other foods that previously had no impact. In addition, GM soy drastically reduces digestive enzymes in mice. If our ability to breakdown proteins is impaired, we could become allergic to a wide variety of foods.

GMOs and Liver Problems

As a primary detoxifier, the condition of the liver can point to toxins in our diet. The livers of mice and rats fed GM feed had profound changes. Some were smaller and partially atrophied, others were significantly heavier, possibly inflamed, and some showed signs of a toxic insult from eating GM food.

The Worst Finding of All? GMOs Remain Inside Us!

The only published human feeding study revealed what many find to be the most disturbing discovery. The genes inserted into GM crops transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continue to function. This means that long after we stop eating GMOs, we may still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside of us. Although scientists only tested this on soy, if Bt genes from corn chips also transferred, they could transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our lives.

When doctors hear about this evidence, they often respond by citing the huge increase of gastrointestinal problems over the last decade. GM foods might be colonizing the gut flora of North Americans.

Even if GMOs helped combat global hunger, which they don’t, it would be hard to justify putting these high-risk organisms into the food supply in their current state. Especially since GM crops cross-pollinate and contaminate the environment. Their self-propagating genetic pollution may outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste.

Shhhh!  Meet the Scientists Who Dared to Break the Silence on GMOs

Arpad Pusztai

Biologist Arpad Pusztai had more than 300 articles and 12 books to his credit and was the world’s top expert in his field. But when he accidentally discovered that genetically modified (GM) foods are dangerous, he became the biotech industry’s bad-boy poster child, setting an example for other scientists thinking about blowing the whistle.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Pusztai was awarded a $3 million grant by the UK government to design the system for safety testing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). His team included more than 20 scientists working at three facilities, including the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, the top nutritional research lab in the UK, and his employer for the previous 35 years. The results of Pusztai’s work were supposed to become the required testing protocols for all of Europe. But when he fed supposedly harmless GM potatoes to rats, things didn’t go as planned.

Within just 10 days, the animals developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and damaged immune systems. Moreover, the cause was almost certainly side effects from the process of genetic engineering itself. In other words, the GM foods on the market, which are created from the same process, might have similar affects on humans.

With permission from his Director, Pusztai was interviewed on TV and expressed his concerns about GM foods. He became a hero at his Institute—for two days. Then came the phone calls from the pro-GMO Prime Minister’s office to the Institute’s Director. The next morning, Pusztai was fired. He was silenced with threats of a lawsuit, his team was dismantled, and the protocols never implemented. His Institute, the biotech industry, and the UK government, together launched a smear campaign to destroy Pusztai’s reputation.

Eventually, an invitation to speak before Parliament lifted his gag order and his research was published in the prestigious Lancet. No similar in-depth studies have yet tested the GM foods eaten every day by Americans and Canadians.

Irina Ermakova

Irina Ermakova, a senior scientist at the Russian National Academy of Sciences, was shocked to discover that more than half of the baby rats in her experiment died within three weeks. She had fed the mothers GM soy flour purchased at a supermarket. The babies from mothers fed natural non-GMO soy, however, only suffered a 10% death rate. She repeated her experiment three times with similar results.

Dr. Ermakova reported her preliminary findings at a conference in October 2005, asking the scientific community to replicate her study. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Her boss told her to stop doing anymore GM food research. Samples were stolen from her lab, and a paper was even set fire on her desk. One of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying, “Maybe the GM soy will solve the overpopulation problem.”

Of the mostly spurious criticisms leveled at Ermakova, one was significant enough to raise doubts about the cause of the deaths. She did not conduct a biochemical analysis of the feed. Without it, we don’t know if some rogue toxin had contaminated the soy flour. But more recent events suggest that whatever caused the high infant mortality was not unique to her one bag of GM flour. In November 2005, the supplier of rat food to the laboratory where Ermakova worked began using GM soy in the formulation. All the rats were now eating it. After two months, Ermakova asked other scientists about the infant mortality rate in their experiments. It had skyrocketed to over 55%.

It’s been four years since these findings were reported. No one has yet repeated Ermakova’s study, even though it would cost just a few thousand dollars.

Andrés Carrasco

Embryologist Andrés Carrasco told a leading Buenos Aires newspaper about the results of his research into Roundup®, the herbicide sold in conjunction with Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready® crops. Dr. Carrasco, who works in Argentina’s Ministry of Science, said his studies of amphibians suggest that the herbicide could cause defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of fetuses. Moreover, the amount of Roundup® used on GM soy fields was as much as 1,500 times greater than that which created the defects. Tragically, his research had been inspired by the experience of desperate peasant and indigenous communities who were suffering from exposure to toxic herbicides used on the GM soy fields throughout Argentina.

According to an article in Grain, the biotech industry “mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats.” In addition, four men arrived unannounced at his laboratory and were extremely aggressive, attempting to interrogate Carrasco and obtain details of his study. “It was a violent, disproportionate, dirty reaction,” he said. “I hadn’t even discovered anything new, only confirmed conclusions that others had reached.”

Argentina’s Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition calling for a ban on Roundup®, and the Ministry of Defense banned GM soy from its fields.

Terje Traavik

Prominent virologist Terje Traavik presented preliminary data at a February 2004 meeting at the UN Biosafety Protocol Conference, showing that:

• Filipinos living next to a GM cornfield developed serious symptoms while the corn was pollinating;
• Genetic material inserted into GM crops transferred to rat organs after a single meal; and
• Key safety assumptions about genetically engineered viruses were overturned, calling into question the safety of using these viruses in vaccines.

The biotech industry mercilessly attacked Dr. Traavik. Their excuse? He presented unpublished work. But presenting preliminary data at professional conferences is a long tradition in science, something that the biotech industry itself relied on in 1999 to try to counter the evidence that butterflies were endangered by GM corn.

Ironically, three years after attacking Traavik, the same biotech proponents sharply criticized a peer-reviewed publication for not citing unpublished data that had been presented at a conference. The paper shows how the runoff of GM Bt corn into streams can kill the “caddis fly,” which may seriously upset marine ecosystems. The study set off a storm of attacks against its author, ecologist Emma Rosi-Marshall, which Nature described in a September 2009 article as a “hail of abuse.”

Nothing to Hide?

When Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow discovered problematic side effects in GM sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further research by withholding GM seeds and genes. After Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey found significant reductions in cancer-fighting isoflavones in Monsanto’s GM soybeans, the seed seller, Hartz, told them they could no longer provide samples. Research by a plant geneticist at a leading US university was also thwarted when two companies refused him GM corn. In fact, almost no independent studies are conducted that might find problems. According to a scathing opinion piece in an August 2009 Scientific American, “Agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers. . . . Only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal.”

Restricted access is not limited to the US. When a Japanese scientist wanted to conduct animal feeding studies on the GM soybeans under review in Japan, both the government and the bean’s maker DuPont refused to give him any samples. Hungarian Professor Bela Darvas discovered that Monsanto’s GM corn hurt endangered species in his country. Monsanto immediately shut off his supplies. Dr. Darvas later gave a speech on his preliminary findings and discovered that a false and incriminating report about his research was circulating. He traced it to a Monsanto public relations employee, who claimed it mysteriously appeared on her desk—so she faxed it out.

Why is Science and Debate Being Silenced?

The attacks on scientists have taken its toll. There appears to be a de facto ban on scientists asking certain questions and finding certain results.

New Zealand Parliament member Sue Kedgley told a Royal Commission in 2001: “Personally I have been contacted by telephone and e-mail by a number of scientists who have serious concerns about aspects of the research that is taking place . . . and the increasingly close ties that are developing between science and commerce, but who are convinced that if they express these fears publicly, …  or even if they asked the awkward and difficult questions, they will be eased out of their institution.”

University of Minnesota biologist Phil Regal testified before the same Commission, “I think the people who boost genetic engineering are going to have to do a mea culpa and ask for forgiveness, like the Pope did on the inquisition.” Sue Kedgley has a different idea. She recommends we “set up human clinical trials using volunteers of genetic engineering scientists and their families, because I think they are so convinced of the safety of their products, I’m sure they would very readily volunteer to become part of a human clinical trial.”

Failing that, are you willing to continue your participation?

~~~~~~

International bestselling author and independent filmmaker Jeffrey M. Smith is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology and the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of GMOs. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the world’s bestselling book on the subject. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, identifies 65 risks of GMOs and demonstrates how superficial government approvals are not competent to find most of them. Mr. Smith has pioneered the Campaign for Healthier Eating in America, designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection against GMOs and force them out of the food supply.

To find out how to stop eating GMOs, visit: www.nongmoshoppingguide.com (USA) and www.truefood.org.au/truefoodguide (Australia)
Videos:  The Future of Food, The World According to Monsanto

A wise customer wanted to find out if the corn nuts she was eating were from genetically modified (GM) corn. She emailed the company and got a shocking reply. It began:

“Thank you for your contact. We are not aware of any GMO free corn in the U.S. We feel it is a ridiculous concern based on very poor science.”

The email, reproduced at the blog of Kelly the Kitchen Kop, even recommended:

“. . . if these concerns are truly important to you, you may be better served at a health food store.

We appreciate your patronage.

The Customer Support Team,

American Importing Co., Inc.”

Talk about being opinionated and misinformed.

There’s overwhelming evidence showing that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are unsafe. And there are plenty of sources for non-GMO corn.

Did this email get you angry? Are you thinking about flooding the company’s email with hostile missives? I had another idea.

I phoned the company owner.

I figured that although the email’s author was clearly misled, I also knew all about Monsanto and the other devious corporations that dis-informed him—and how they skillfully depict GMO critics as ridiculous and unscientific.

When I got President Andy on the phone and asked if his products were genetically modified (GM), it didn’t take me long to realize that he was almost certainly the author of his company’s tactless email. He launched into a diatribe blasting GMOs as the most misconceived issue in the entire food industry.

As I took notes documenting his string of incorrect statements, (no, there is no GMO wheat yet, same with apples; no there was not a massive death of monarch butterflies in Europe), he heard my keyboard tapping and stopped momentarily to ask who I was. I told him that I was a leading spokesperson on the dangers of GMOs, that I wrote the world’s bestselling book on the subject, and that I was doing a blog based on an email response sent by his customer service.

That didn’t slow him down in the least. Andy continued his rant, which literally went on for 12 minutes. I was impressed.

When he finally ran out of steam, I decided to begin my response by agreeing with him—that we certainly do need to apply real science on this issue. Then I told him the truth.

I told Andy of concerns by FDA scientists that GMOs might create serious, hard-to-detect health hazards, and how Monsanto’s man placed at the top of the agency ignored and covered-up the warnings. As a result, the FDA lets GMOs onto the market without any required safety tests.

I told Andy that I worked with more than 30 scientists to document 65 health risks of GMOs for my book Genetic Roulette, which cites peer-reviewed science, industry research, and medical investigations, among its 1100+ endnotes.

I told Andy about the American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s condemnation of GMOs, and their prescription of non-GMO diets for all patients. And how this renowned physician’s organization linked GMOs to infertility, immune system dysfunction, gastrointestinal problems, organ damage, and disruption of insulin and cholesterol regulation.

And I told Andy how the same corporations that fed him the lie that GMOs are safe, fired and gagged scientists who discovered that they’re not.

Now Andy was impressed.

And he realized he had been duped—that the information given to him and others in the food industry had been “filtered” by those earning profits from GMOs. He said that the science that I presented was not getting to the executives in the food industry, to people like him who want to give customers healthy food.

Andy was again on a roll, but with a different agenda. He now urged me to get in front of the decision makers in the food industry, and he even offered to help make it happen.

I told Andy that I was impressed by his passion, which he had unleashed on me like a fire hose at the beginning of the call. And I knew that once armed with the real evidence against GMOs, he could use that same passion and make a big difference.

Andy committed to order and read Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods. And while waiting for it to arrive, he and his colleagues will review my keynote speech online, Everything You HAVE TO KNOW About Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods.

Before we hung up, Andy thanked me over and over for not being reactive to his initial onslaught, and for staying with him and leading him through the science.

I now have a new friend. And I am reminded again about the importance of educating leaders in the food industry as part of our campaign to rid the food supply of GMOs.

If you know a food company executive, please take the time to send him or her a link to the online video presentation, to the article showing that doctors now prescribe non-GMO diets, and to a summary of the GMO health risks. It’s time well spent.

And if they run a very large food company, please introduce me. I’m on a roll.

Safe eating.

For the first time, a GM multinational has pulled two GM corn varieties from the regulatory and assessment process at the eleventh hour (1), after planning for a future income of several billion dollars per year from global sales (2).  Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for a so-called “second generation GM crop” rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data (3).

Under conditions of great secrecy, Monsanto has informed EFSA that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810.  Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals.  Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006.  The letters cite “decreased commercial value worldwide” and state that the high-lysene varieties “will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future.” (4)  There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either.  In other words, there is a conspiracy of silence involving both the applicants and the regulators.

The two letters sent to EFSA in April requested the return of all dossier material (varietal characterization, experimental protocols, and test results) which was submitted with the applications for cultivation, animal feed and human food (4).  EFSA acceded to this request, making it impossible for any future independent researchers to analyse the Monsanto / Renessen data.  That in itself is profoundly disturbing.

Scientists who have followed these two applications are quite convinced that the “decisions to withdraw” have nothing to do with commercial considerations and everything to do with food safety.  In other words, the varieties are too dangerous to be allowed onto the open market — although they would certainly have been approved by EFSA and most other European regulatory authorities had it not been for the diligence of independent scientists in New Zealand who subjected the application dossiers to very close scrutiny (5).  In the absence of such scrutiny in the United States, the varieties were approved in 2005 for cultivation, animal feed and human food use on the other side of the Atlantic (6). Consents for food and feed use were also given in Japan, Canada, the Philippines, and South Korea.  In  2007 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) approved LY038 for food and feed use in spite of strenuous objections from the Green Party and scientists at Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) who warned that the new corn was not safe for humans when cooked (7).  They also expressed concerns about unpredictable health effects, increased levels of toxins in high-lysene corn, and possible allergies and links to cancer.

It does not appear that the varieties have been grown or “commercialized” anywhere in the world (8), although test plantings probably occurred in the United States.

“Blatant scientific fraud by the applicants”

While  INBI’s detailed and devastating analysis of the applicant’s supporting dossiers was dismissed out of hand by FSANZ, EFSA was forced to take it seriously because of concerns from a large number of European countries including Finland and Malta. The scientific bases of those concerns were highlighted by Jeffrey Smith in his book “Genetic Roulette” and by Prof Jack Heinemann in his book “Hope not Hype” (9). The Monsanto dossiers included rigged research and false assumptions in the reported experiments; a failure to offer any test results based on cooked or processed corn; a failure to test the whole GM plant in feeding trials;  confusing and contradictory characterizations of the GM varieties and proteins; a fraudulent mixing of GM strains during trials; a pooling of crop data so as to mask undesirable effects in experiments; feeding trials too short to reveal true physiological changes in animal tissues; and the choice of an irrelevant, unrelated corn variety as the control group for comparison with the GM lines, with the clear intention of hiding potentially serious differences in composition or side effects on animals(10).  The Codex guidelines for the testing of GM crops were thus comprehensively broken by Monsanto’s subsidiary Renessen, and were not enforced by the regulators in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (11).  All in all, this amounted to blatant scientific fraud by the applicants, and a cynical failure to enforce the rules, and to protect the public, by the regulators.

During the assessments of these two varieties in Europe, many countries used the INBI peer review of the applicant’s dossiers to underpin their concerns, and these widely-expressed concerns forced EFSA to ask the applicants for additional studies and for a clarification of their experimental data (12).  EFSA also asked — for the first time — for adherence to the Codex rules relating to GM and comparator studies.   In the knowledge that their dossiers were now being subjected to an unprecedented level of scrutiny,  Monsanto / Renessen simply decided that they would not cooperate in this process for fear of what might emerge.  So they wrote to EFSA in April (4) to indicate that they were abandoning all plans for the cultivation and commercialization of the two GM crops.

“EFSA has been unfit for purpose”

Commenting for GM-Free Cymru, Dr Brian John said:  ”This is the first time, to our knowledge, that EFSA has sought to enforce the Codex rules relating to the use of isolines in the testing of GM crops, and the first time that it has expressed profound dissatisfaction about the content of an applicant’s dossiers.  It is also the first time that a GM multinational has withdrawn a GM product (or two products) at the eleventh hour.  It was insane in the first place to seek to pass GM maize crops containing Bt toxins and “growth enhancers” straight into the human food chain (13).  In addition, EFSA and the other regulators have been quite irresponsible in the past in assuming that “stacked” events, hybridized from two GM lines, are harmless if the applicant says so, and if the separate lines have been independently approved.  That is simply bad science, since it fails to address the likelihood of synergistic effects and even accumulating toxins in the food chain (14).

“Nonetheless, we applaud the fact that EFSA has asked Monsanto some hard questions in this case, having in the past demonstrated, over and again, that its GMO Panel is simply unfit for purpose (15).   This represents progress.

“We are quite convinced that Monsanto has been fully aware, from the beginning, that line LY038 and line LY038 x MON810 are both dangerous; and yet they persisted with their applications until the extent of their scientific fraud was exposed to the public.  We should not be surprised by this.  The corporation pushes dangerous products onto the food market all the time, and does whatever is necessary to hoodwink the regulators into the belief that all is well (16).  We are convinced that Mansanto has other in-house studies which show that these varieties are unstable, unpredictable and harmful to health. Will we ever get to see these studies?  No way!”

Contact:
Dr Brian John
GM-Free Cymru
Tel: 01239-820470

References:

1. Based on information released under the Freedom of Information legislation.  GM Free Cymru holds a folder containing all the key documents referred to in this Press Notice.  GM crops have been “pulled” or withdrawn before — for example the maize called Chardon LL — but this is the first time this has happened specifically because of a request for new safety data from the regulators.
2. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3020246/Europe-balks-at-GE-corn-in-NZ
   This article highlights the key role played, over several years, by Prof Jack Heinemann and his team at Canterbury University’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety (INBI) in revealing the shortcomings of the Monsanto applications.
3. http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/gmo/db/86.docu.html
   “Second generation” GM crops, including those with supposedly enhanced nutritional value, are likely to be non-uniform and unstable because they have complex introduced traits. If two or more GM lines are hybridized to introduce “stacked” GM traits, the potential dangers become even greater because of synergistic effects. In spite of this, regulators simply assume them to be safe if the parental lines themselves have been approved for cultivation or food or feed use.
   See:  The Problem with Nutritionally Enhanced Plants, by David R. Schubert. Journal of Medicinal Food. December 2008, 11(4): 601-605.
   http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jmf.2008.0094
   http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/problem.htm
   http://www.bioscienceresource.org/docs/BSR-2-BGERvol23.pdf
   Transformation-induced Mutations in Transgenic Plants: Analysis and Biosafety  Implications, by Allison K Wlson, Jonathan R Latham and Ricarda A Steinbrecher.  Bioscience Resource Project.
   The work of these independent scientists on so-called “genome scrambling” reveals how the genetic engineering of crops not only lacks precision but causes large scale genetic rearrangements of host DNA at transgene insertion sites, as well as large numbers of mutations scattered throughout the genome of each new transgenic plant. The significance of all this genetic damage is that the food safety of edible crops relies crucially on genetic stability.
   http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GE-maize.php
4. These letters are available as PDFs on request.
   Brussels, 30 April 2009, from Renessen Europe SPRL
   Re: Application for authorisation of genetically modified LY038 maize submitted IIIlder
   Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 – Withdrawal of Application EFSA-GMO-NL-2006-31
   Brussels, 30 April 2009, from Renessen Europe SPRL
   Re: Application for authorisation of genetically modified LY038 x MON810 maize submitted IIIlder
   Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 – Withdrawal of Application EFSA-GMO-NL-2006-32
5. Submissions to FSANZ from INBI relating to the dossier for LY038:
   Cretenet, M., Goven, J., Heinemann, J.A., Moore, B. and Rodriguez-Beltran, C.
   2006. Submission on the DAR for Application A549 Food Derived from High-Lysine
   Corm LY038: to permit the use in food of high-lysine corn. http://www.inbi.canterbury.ac.nz
6. Lucas,D. Petition for determination of nonregulated status for lysine maize LY038 — USDA/APHIS 2004 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/aphisdocs/04_22901p.pdf
   Agbios database for LY038 and LY038 + MON810.  Site currently designated as high risk.
   http://www.biosafety-info.net/bioart.php?bid=358
   High lysine corn (LY038) deregulated in the US, but safety still in doubt
   Why Not Transgenic High Lysine Maize by Professor Joe Cummins, ISIS Report 23/11/05
   http://www.i-sis.org.uk/highlysinemaize.php
7. http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/nz-must-withdraw-approval-ge-food
8. http://www.biotradestatus.com/default.cfm
9. Jeffrey Smith:  ”Genetic Roulette”, pp 102-105 and Part 3, p 194
   http://www.seedsofdeception.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=892
   Jack Heinemann: “Hope not Hype”, see Chapter 4
   https://sites.google.com/site/therightbiotechnology/
10. Submission on APPLICATION A549 FOOD DERIVED FROM HIGH LYSINE CORN LY038: to permit the use in food of high lysine corn —– Submitted to Food Standards Australia/New Zealand (FSANZ)
    by  New Zealand Institute of Gene Ecology
    January 22, 2005
11. Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. Codex Alimentarius Commission. Procedural Manual. 12th ed.
    Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations : World Health Organization, 2001. Available
    online http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y2200E/y2200e00.htm. Access date 31 May 2006.
12. Letter from EFSA to Monsanto / Renessen — Ref:  Ref. PB/AC/ mt (2009) 3826240 and the Member States’ comments submitted during  the three-month consultation period on this application.
13. http://www.biosafety-info.net/bioart.php?bid=358
14. SMARTSTAX APPROVAL IGNORED RISKS
    http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=…artstax-approval-ignored-risks
    http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18717.cfm
    http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Seeds.htm
    Austrian Federal Department for Health:  ”A stacked organism has to be regarded as a new event, even if no new modifications have been introduced. The gene?cassette combination is new and only minor conclusions could be drawn from the assessment of the parental lines, since unexpected effects (e.g. synergistic effects of the newly introduced proteins) cannot automatically be excluded. Furthermore, it should not be neglected that two of the parental lines, GM maize MON89034 and GM maize MON88017, have not yet gained authorisation within the European Union.”
    http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/11359-smartstax-in-europe
15. http://www.gmfreecymru.org/open_letters/Open_letter10Dec2007.htm
    OPEN LETTER,  ”EFSA is not fit for purpose “
    From GM-Free Cymru to Catherine Geslain-Laneelle Executive Director, EFSA Parma Italy, 10th December 2007
16. http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/quotes.html
    More evidence of Scientific Malpractice in GM assessment process
    Under wraps
    NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY, VOLUME 27, NUMBER 10, October 2009 http://www.emilywaltz.com/Biotech_crop_research_restrictions_Oct_2009.pdf
    The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science – Part 2: Academic Capitalism and the Loss of Scientific Integrity
    by Don Lotter Int. Jrnl. of Soc. of Agr. & Food, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 50–68
    http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/academic_capitalism.html
    Exposed: Monsanto’s fraudulent safety tests for GM Soy
    http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/exposed.htm
    Abuse of the Scientific Method Seen in Monsanto Aspartame Research
    http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/
    Criminal Investigation of Monsanto Corporation – Cover-up of Dioxin Contamination in Products – Falsification of Dioxin Health Studies.
    http://www.purefood.org/dioxcov.html

A fully referenced version of this report has been submitted to Shri Jairam Ramesh, Environment Minister of India, urging him to stop growing Bt cotton and other GM crops in India; it is posted on ISIS members’ website (details here) and can be downloaded here.

The Bt cotton killing fields

As the cotton growing season drew to a close in the state of Andhra Pradesh, farmer suicides once again became almost daily occurrences.  Officially, the total number of suicides within a six-week period between July and August 2009 stood at 15, but opposition parties and farmers’ groups said the true total was more than 150 [1]. Opposition leader N. Chandrababu claimed in a speech that he had the names and addresses of 165 farmers who ended their lives because of the distress caused by the drought.

By November, similar reports were coming from another cotton growing state Maharashtra. Farmers of Katpur village in Amravati district sowed Bt cotton four years ago. Instead of the promised miracle yields, huge debts have driven many to suicide, and cattle were reported dying after feeding on the plants [2] (see [3] Mass Deaths in Sheep Grazing on Bt Cotton, SiS 30).

One ray of hope was that the 5000-odd farmers of the Maharashtra village have decided to shun Bt cotton, and are now growing soybean instead. Some have also taken to organic farming.

“We were cheated by the seed companies. We did not get the yield promised by them, not even half of it. And the expenditure involved was so high that we incurred huge debts. We have heard that the government is now planning commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal. But we do not want Bt seeds of any crop anymore,” said farmer Sahebrao Yawiliker.

Successive studies in Maharashtra have concluded that indebtedness was a major cause of suicides among farmers [4].

Within a week, two farmers in neighbouring villages in Wardha district killed themselves. Their Bt cotton crops were devastated by lalya, a disease that caused the cotton plants to redden and wilt [5]. The first farmer, 55 year old Laxman Chelpelviar in Mukutban,  consumed the pesticide Endoulfan when the first picking from his six-acre farm returned a mere five quintals and an income of Rs15 000, way below his expenses of Rs50 000.  The second farmer, 45 year old Daulat Majure in Jhamkola, was discovered by his mother hanging dead from the ceiling. The cotton yield from his seven-acre farm was a miserable one quintal, worth Rs3 000.

Agricultural scientists said lalya points to a lack of micronutrients and moisture content in the soil. Lalya develops with pest attacks, moisture stress and lack of micronutrients in the soil. The plant’s chlorophyll decreases with nitrogen deficiency, resulting in another pigment, anthocyanin, which turns the foliage red. If reddening starts before boll formation, it results in a 25 percent drop in yield, said a scientist from the Central Institute of Cotton Research at Nagpur, who wished to remain anonymous. “Lalya is here to stay.” He declared.

According to the agricultural scientists, the disease has its roots in the American Bt technology that India imported. Almost all of the 500-plus Bt seed varieties sold in India in 2009 are of the same parentage, the American variety Coker312 Bt cotton, a top CICR scientist said. They are F1 hybrids, crossed with Indian varieties.

Coker-312 (initially from Monsanto) showed high susceptibility to attacks by sucking pests like jassids and thrips. The thrips disperse within plant cells, while jassids suck the sap as they multiply under a leaf’s surface, forcing the plant to draw more nutrients from the soil, aggravating the soil’s nutritional deficiency.

Another characteristic of Bt cotton that depletes the soil is that the bolls come to fruition simultaneously, draining the soil all at once. In a region like Vidarbha, plants wilt in two or three days. “It is like drawing blood from anemic woman.”

 “If such a technology mismatch continues, soil health and farmers’ economy will take a further hit,” a top ICAR scientist with years of experience in cotton research was reported saying [5]. “The state needs to take up soil and water conservation efforts on a war footing in Vidarbha.”

India has about ten million ha under hybrids and Bt cotton, much high than in China (6.3 m ha), US (3.8 m ha) and Pakistan (3.1 m ha). Unlike India, 79 other countries use self-seeding and non-Bt hybrids.

The cotton crisis and successive crop failures due to declining soil health goes hand in hand with the imported GM (genetic modification) technology, which is energy and input intensive, the report [5] concluded.

Other effects of Bt cotton the Indian scientists could have mentioned are the resurgence of secondary pests and especially the new exotic mealy bug pest introduced with the Bt cotton, as well as the reduced yields of other crops on land cultivated with Bt cotton [6] (see Mealy Bug Plagues Bt Cotton Fields in India and Pakistan, SiS 45).

A recent scientific study carried out by Delhi-based Navdanya compared the soil of fields where Bt-cotton had been planted for three years with adjoining fields planted with non GM cotton or other crops [7]. The regions covered included Nagpur, Amravati and Wardha of Vidharbha, which account for the highest Bt cotton planting in India, and the highest rate of farmer suicides (4 000 per year).

In three years, Bt-cotton was found to reduce the population of Actinomycetes bacteria by 17 percent. Actinomycetes bacteria are vital for breaking down cellulose and creating humus.

Bacteria overall were reduced by 14 percent, while the total microbial biomass was reduced by 8.9 percent. Vital soil enzymes, which make nutrients available to plants, have also been drastically reduced. Acid phosphatase which contributes to the uptake of phosphates was lowered by 26.6 percent. Nitrogenase enzymes, which help fix nitrogen, were diminished by 22.6 percent. The study concluded [7] that a decade of planting with GM cotton, or any GM crop with Bt genes could lead to total destruction of soil organisms, “leaving dead soil unable to produce food.”

After some respite in the post loan-waiver year of 2008, farmer suicides have begun to climb again [5]. The number of suicides in the six worst-affected western Vidarbha districts in 2009 was approaching 900. November saw 24 famers take their own lives in Yavatmal alone.

“Crop survival this year is only 44 percent in some blocks,” said Sanjay Desmukh, Yavatmal collector. “Rains have been scanty.”

Official records underestimate the real extent of suicides

According to Indian government records, 182 936 farmers committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 [8]. Nearly two-thirds occurred in five states, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, with one-third of the country’s population. The count has been rising even as the numbers of farmers are diminishing. As many as 8 million quit farming between 1991 and 2001, and the rate of quitting has only risen since.

These official figures tend to be huge underestimates. The records are collated by the National Criminal Records Bureau, a wing of the Ministry of home Affairs; but the numbers reported to the Bureau by the states are often massaged downwards. For example, women farmers are not normally accepted as farmers, as by custom, land is never in their names, although they do the bulk of the work in agriculture.

P. Sainath, the rural affairs editor of The Hindu and author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought, refers to the suicides as “the largest sustained wave of such deaths recorded in history”, and attributes it to India’s “embrace of the brave new world of neoliberalism.”

The rate of farmers’ suicides has worsened particularly after 2002 (the year GM crops were introduced to India, although Sainath does not say so). Between 1997 and 2001, the number of suicides was 78 737, or 15 747 a year on average. Between 2002 and 2006, the number was 87 567, or 17 513 a year on average.

Indebtedness the cause

Those who have taken their lives were deep in debt (as successive studies in Maharashtra confirmed [4]).  Peasant households in debt nearly doubled in the first decade of the neoliberal “economic reforms” [8], from 26 percent of farm households to 48.6 percent, according to the National Sample Survey data. But in the worst affected states, the rate of indebtedness is far higher. For example, 82 percent of all farm households in Andhra Pradesh were in debt by 2001-02.

Furthermore, those who killed themselves were overwhelmingly cash crop farmers growing cotton, coffee, sugarcane, groundnut, pepper, and vanilla. Suicides were fewer among those that grow food crops such as rice, wheat, maize and pulses.

Giant seed companies have been displacing cheap hybrids and far cheaper and hardier traditional varieties with their own products. A cotton farmer buying Monsanto’s GM cotton would be paying far more for seed. Local varieties and hybrids were squeezed out with enthusiastic state support.

In 1991, farmers could buy a kilogram of local seed for as little as Rs7 or Rs9 in today’s worst affected region of Vidarbha. By 2003, they would pay Rs350 (US$7) for a 450 gram bag of hybrid seed. By 2004, Monsanto’s partners in India were marketing a 450 grams bag of Bt cotton seed for between Rs1 650 and Rs1 800 ($33 to $36). This price was brought down by government intervention overnight in Andhra Pradesh, where the government changed after the 2004 elections. The price dropped to around Rs900 ($18), still many times higher than 1991 or even 2003.

Health and food costs sky-rocketed while farmers’ income crashed, and so did the price they got for their cash crops, thanks to subsidies to corporate and rich farmers in the US and EU. These subsidies on cotton alone destroyed cotton farmers not only in India but in African nations such as Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali and Chad.

As costs rose, credit dried up and debt went out of control, and the tides of suicides washed over India.

To add to the farmers’ plight, the unsustainable farming practices are coming home to roost. More than 1 500 farmers in the state of Chhattisgarh committed suicide, driven into debt by crop failures due to falling water levels, which dropped from 40 feet to below 250 feet in just the past few years [9].

More “sinister” GM crops

But there is yet a more “sinister reason” for the mass suicides: GM crops, notably Bt cotton. Millions of Indian farmers had been promised undreamt of harvests by switching to planting GM seeds. They borrowed money to buy the exorbitant seeds, only to find their crops failing miserably, leaving them with spiralling debt from which the only exit is suicide. British journalist Andrew Malone writing for the Mail [10] reported an estimated 125 000 farmers had taken their own lives directly as the result of GM crops; the crisis being branded “GM genocide” by campaigners. It is perpetrated by powerful GM lobbyists and prominent politicians all over the world who persist in claiming that GM crops have transformed Indian agriculture and producing greater yields than ever before. 

Malone described how he travelled to Maharashtra in the suicide belt to find out for himself who is telling the truth. There he witnessed the cremation of the body of the farmer in a cracked barren field near his home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India.

Death by insecticide

“As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandauka had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India’s economic boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low.” Malone wrote.

Shankara drank insecticide to end his life 24 hours earlier. He was in debt for two years’ earnings and could see no other way out of his despair.

“There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on – they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless – as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting.”

Neighbours gathered to pray outside the family home. Nirmala Mandaukar told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. “He was a loving and caring man,” she said, weeping.

Shankara’s crop, Bt cotton, had failed twice. Like millions of other Indian farmers, he switched from traditional seeds to GM seeds, beguiled by the promise of bumper harvests and future riches. He borrowed money to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with mounting debts and no income.      

 “Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonizing deaths. Most swallow insecticide – a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops.” Malone wrote. “Pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and ‘agrarian distress’ that is the real reason for the horrific toll. But as I discovered during a four-day journey through the epicentre of the disaster, that is not the full story.”

In one village, he found 18 farmers had committed suicide after being “sucked” into GM debt.  Village after village, families told how they had fallen into debt on being persuaded to buy GM seeds. Famers paid £10 for 100 g of GM seeds, a thousand times the cost of traditional seeds. The GM salesmen and government officials promised farmers that these were ‘magic seed’ that yield better crops without parasites and insects.

Far from being magic seeds, the GM crops were devastated by bollworms. They also required double the amount of water.

When rains failed for the past two years, many GM crops simply withered and died.

In the past when crops failed, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year. But with GM hybrid seeds, they have been unable to do that.

Suresh Bhalasa was another farmer cremated the same week, leaving a wife and two children. His family had no doubt that their troubles began the moment they were encouraged to buy Monsanto’s Bt cotton.

“We are ruined now,” said the 38-year-old widow. “We bought 100 grams of Bt cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to the field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.”

Monsanto admitted that soaring debt was a “factor in this tragedy,” but said that cotton production had doubled in the past seven years. A spokesman blamed other reasons for the recent crisis, such as “untimely rain” or drought, and that suicides have always been part of the rural Indian life.

Malone’s findings on GM cotton and farmers suicides confirm what we reported in 2006 [11] (Indian Cotton Farmers Betrayed, SiS 29); when organic cotton was already providing farmers a lifeline [12] (Message from Andra Predesh:Return to organic cotton & avoid the Bt cotton trap, SiS 29; see also [13] Stem Farmers’ Suicides with Organic Farming, SiS 32).

Yield ‘jump’ due to Bt cotton?

However, the findings by journalists and activists on the ground were contradicted by a discussion paper [14] of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research). The CGIAR describes itself [15] as a “strategic partnership” of 64 members supporting 15 international centres working in collaboration with many hundred of government and civil society organizations as well as private businesses around the world.

Based on the analysis of information from a variety of official and unofficial sources, published and unpublished studies, the IFPRI paper [14] concluded that “there is no evidence of a “resurgence” of farmer suicides in India in the last five years, and that Bt cotton technology has been “very effective overall in India.”

It stated that Bt cotton is “neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the occurrence of farmer suicides.” Nevertheless, “in specific regions and years, where Bt cotton may have indirectly contributed to farmer indebtedness, leading to suicides, its failure was mainly the result of the context or environment in which it was planted.”

These conclusions absolve Bt cotton from having played any part in the farmers suicides, laying practically all the blame on inappropriate rainfall and drought, with no mention of the exorbitant price of GM seeds compared with traditional seeds; nor of failed harvests or of increased pesticide use.

Actually, the data presented showed that the two states with the largest planted areas of Bt cotton, Maharashtra (1 840 000 ha) and Andhra Pradesh (830 000) in 2006 (Table 7 of IFPRI paper) were also the ones with the highest suicide rates that year.

The following year’s harvest in Maharashtra was no better despite the hype of a ‘bumper crop’ by the state government suspected of intending to boost the image of Bt cotton and to depress the price [16]. Farmers were reporting huge losses. One Bt cotton farmer harvested 80 quintals (1 quintal = 100 kg) in 45 acres and expected to harvest a further 80 quintals at most. As cotton seed is about one-third lint, the actual lint yield was less than 12 kg/acre or 32.5 kg/ha. The state had projected a total production of 7 000 000 bales (1 bale = 170kg), but the Divisional Commissioner of Amravati said it would not exceed 4 000 000 bales. In the end, the official record on the Indian Government’s Cotton Corporation of India database was 5 000 000 bales [17].

The most dubious claim in the IFPRI paper [14] was in a graph showing that the average yield of cotton for all India shot up from about 300 kg/ha to 500 kg/ha in the five years after Bt cotton was introduced in 2002, an increase attributed largely to Bt cotton. But when the average cotton yields by region were plotted, no such jump was evident; and even less so when the average yields by states were plotted (see Figure 1). Maharashtra, the state with the largest area of Bt cotton, had the lowest yields.

Without a proper statistical analysis, it is impossible to tell if the trend before and after the introduction of Bt is different; furthermore, there is no evidence Bt cotton is responsible for any yield ‘jump’.

The official Indian Government data [17] do not present yields from Bt cotton separately from those of non-Bt cotton. The IFPRI paper [14] provided some information on the number of hectares planted with Bt cotton in its Table 7 for the years 2002 to 2006. In 2004, 500 000 ha were planted with Bt, representing 5.69 percent of the total8 786 000 ha of cotton land. If Bt cotton were solely responsible for the increase in yield to 470 kg/ha reported that year, the 5.69 percent of land planted with Bt cotton would have had to yield a miraculous 2 460.5 kg/ha, because the extrapolated yield without Bt cotton, according to the old curve would have been only 350 kg/ha.

Clearly other factors were responsible for the increase in yield that apply to cotton crops in general, Bt and non-Bt, as was pointed out by a researcher of the Coalition for a GM-Free India [18]: an enormous increase in irrigation, good rainfall (for rain fed crops), increase in use of fertilizers and hybrid seeds (including Bt hybrids with indigenous varieties) and lack of pests.

But are the reported increases in yields reliable?

Figure 1  Yield jump due to Bt cotton. Top, average cotton yields for all India 1980-2007; middle, average cotton yields for different regions 1975-2007; bottom, average cotton yields for states, 1975-2007 (redrawn from [14])

Questionable reliability of data

The reliability of the Indian Government’s database [17] is open to question. For example, the production of the whole of India for 2008 was recorded at 31 500 000 bales, giving an average yield of 567 kg/ha. But according to the later estimate by American agencies, the 2008 production was 23 000 000 bales [18], or an average yield of only 414 kg/ha. Data from other countries such as the United States and China also showed that yields of cotton have stagnated since the introduction of Bt cotton.

Massive failures of Bt cotton crops in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra were widely reported in the first year of introduction [19-22] (Bt cotton fails in India, Science in Society 16). The Khargone district in Madhya Pradesh facing a severe drought reported 100 percent Bt cotton failures compared with 20 percent failures of non-Bt cotton. The Vidarbha cotton belt in the adjoining state of Maharashtra reported more than 30 000 ha damaged by root rot with over 70 percent of the crop areas affected. Farmers in both areas were demanding compensation.

In 2005, in advance of a deadline for a decision on license renewal, Greenpeace India and the Sarvodaya Youth Organization released two versions of a report on Bt cotton prepared by the Joint Director of Agriculture of Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh (AP).  The data in the original report, commissioned under a memorandum of understanding between the AP government and Monsanto-Mahyco, revealed a comprehensive failure of Bt cotton in AP.  The second visibly tampered-with version exaggerated the yields, thereby substantially reducing Monsanto’s compensation to farmers [23] (India’s Bt Cotton Fraud, SiS 26).

Local scientists and farmers accused the State Agriculture Department scientists of “fudging data” on Bt cotton performance [24]. “For example, 4 is made into 14 quintals yield, and figures are similarly concocted to show reduced pesticide use.”

Monsanto commissioned a study using a market research agency for the 2004 season (see below), which claimed that Bt cotton yield was up by 58 percent on a country wide basis, resulting in a 60 percent increase in farmers’ incomes; and in Andhra Pradesh, a 46 percent yield increase and a 65 percent reduction in pesticide costs gave a 42 percent increase in income to farmers. Every one of those claims was directly contradicted by independent research on the ground [25].

A notorious paper by Martin Qaim (University of Bonn) and David Zilberman (University of California, Berkeley) was published in the top journal Science, claiming outstanding (80 percent) yield increases from Monsanto’s GM cotton; and projected the results as relevant to farmers throughout the developing world [26]. The paper drew a storm of protest, as it derived all its data from Monsanto, and its findings were completely at odds with the reports coming from Indian farmers. Dr. Devinder Sharma, a food policy expert, called Qaim and Zilberman’s paper a “scientific fairytale” [27].

These Bt fantasies were contradicted by independent studies.

Independent studies contradict claims of Bt yield jump

Agricultural scientists Dr Abdul Qayum and Kiran Sakkhari conducted an independent study on Bt cotton on a season-long basis for three years in 87 villages of the major cotton growing districts of AP – Warangal, Nalgonda, Adilabad and Kurnool – and found against Bt cotton on all counts [28].

· Bollgard (Monsanto’s Bt cotton) failed miserably for small farmers in terms of yields; non-Bt cotton  surpassed Bt in yield bynearly 30 percentwith 10 percent less expense

· Bollgard did not significantly reduce pesticide use; over the three years, Bt farmers spent Rs 2 571 on pesticides on average, while the non-Bt farmers spent Rs2 766

· Bollgard did not bring profit to farmers; over the three years, the non-Bt farmers earned on average 60 percent more than Bt farmers

· Bollgard did not reduce the cost of cultivation; on an average, the Bt farmers had incurred 12 percent more costs than non-Bt farmers

· Bollgard did not result in a healthier environment; researchers found a special kind of root rot spread by Bollgard cotton, infecting the soil so that other crops would not grow.

Another report, The story of Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh:  Erratic processes and results [29] published by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), documented the controversial events surrounding the failures of Bt cotton during its first three years of commercial cultivation in Andhra Pradesh.

In the first year (2002-2003), the popular non-Bt hybrid yielded on average 276 kg/ha compared with 180 kg/ha from Bt-cotton (an increase of 53 percent). The average net return for non-Bt farmers was Rs2 147 compared with Rs518 for Bt farmers, an increase of 314 percent. Some 71 percent of farmers on Bt cotton suffered a net loss compared with only 18 percent of farmers who planted non-Bt cotton. Similar surveys carried out in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh by New Delhi based Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology confirmed the dismal results of Bt cotton; farmers who planted Bt cotton suffered a net loss of Rs 3 300 per acre, whereas those growing non Bt hybrids and desi varieties (indigenous non Bt cotton) gained Rs10 750 and Rs 8 250 respectively. These trends were confirmed in a third study by non-government organization, Gene Campaign.

Monsanto-Mahyco, however, conducted its own survey, which presented positive findings for Bt cotton.

In the second year (2003-2004), Monsanto-Mahyco commissioned a survey by a market research agency A C Nielson, which came up with the appropriately positive report. However, a season-long monitoring by Deccan Development Society, Permaculture Association of India and Andhra Pradesh Coalition in Defence of Diversity (APCIDD) returned quite different findings. It showed that Bt crops did not significantly reduce the cost of pesticides, they required more insecticide sprays for controlling sucking pests than non-Bt crops, and Bt crops led to a 9 percent reduction in yield and less net profit for farmers (see Table 1).

In the third year, the areas planted with Bt expanded again, to six times the previous year, as conditional approval was granted by the GEAC for commercial release for RCH2 Bt, a Bt hybrid with an indigenous variety of Rasi Seeds, for South and Central India.

Mass Bt crop failures were detected early in the season in Warangal district. The government had sent out 50 teams of experts to visit the fields and compile a report, but no information was forthcoming. By November 2004, the agricultural officials in Warangal admitted that out of 20 000 ha of Bt cotton grown in the district 65 percent was damaged by wilt, where the flowers, bolls, and the plants dried up resulting in very low yields. In contrast, only 15 percent of the non-Bt crops were damaged.

Qayum and Sakhari continued a fourth successive year of study on Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh for the APCIDD, the Deccan Development Society and the Permaculture Association of India [30]. They compared the performance of Bt cotton with non-Bt cotton, and organic (NPM, non-pesticide management) cotton and the corresponding economic returns to farmers.

The previous report [29] from 2002-2005 covered the Bt cotton hybrids MCH162 and MCH184 introduced by Mahyco-Monsanto. These hybrids were found to have “failed miserably” as small farmers could neither reduce pesticide use nor cost of cultivation, and some diseases similar to Rhizotaria root rot and bacterial leaf blight had widely spread first in Bt hybrid cotton, which later infected the non-Bt hybrids. As a result of the report and extended agitation by farmers in the region, GEAC and the Government of Andhra Pradesh imposed a ban on the cultivation of Mahyco-Monsanto hybrids in the state during 2005-2006.

Between 2004 and 2006, a number of new hybrids were released for cultivation in Andhra Pradesh. These include RCH 20, ProAgro368, Bunny and Mallika, in addition to Rasi’s RCH-2. So the study for 2005-2006 analysed the performance of all the Bt hybrids in nine villages in three districts, Warangal, Adilabad and Nalgonda [30].

The results showed that NPM cotton and non-Bt cotton cost less than Bt cotton by 22.83 percent and 16.66 percent respectively and resulted in better net economic return by 35.35 percent and 8.81 percent respectively. There were only slight differences in yields with Bt cotton hybrids ahead of non-Bt and NPM cotton by 6.09 and 6.6 percent respectively. The greatest savings were in the cost of seeds. Bt-hybrid seeds cost Rs1 750 per acre compared with Rs481.8 for non-Bt hybrid seeds, and Rs473.7 NPM-hybrid seeds.

Incidentally, the average yield over the five years 2002-2006 for Andhra Pradesh according to state record was 328 kg/ha [30]. But the figures from the government database [17] gave an average of 485 over the same period, an inflation of 48 percent.

While the incidence of American bollworm – the pest that Bt cotton protects against – was low throughout the study area irrespective of whether Bt, non-Bt or NPM cotton was grown, other important pests, the sucking pests, were rampant. The incidence was higher in Bt cotton fields and extended to longer duration, so Bt farmers had to spray once or twice more than non-Bt farmers, while NPM farmers did not have to use insecticides at all. These findings confirmed results obtained earlier, which we reported in detail [31] (Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India, SiS 27).

In 2007, a study on Bt cotton in Vidarbha documented that it has failed in the region [32]. Suman Suhai, director of Gene Campaign, told The Hindu that despite knowing that Bt cotton would not work in rain fed areas, the government had introduced it in Vidarbha, and as a result the high input costs of Bt cotton had increased indebtedness in an area already heavily indebted. The study showed that 70 percent of small farmers had already lost their landholdings as collateral for loans that they could never repay.

Suhai said seed dealers encouraged farmers to buy far more fertilizer and pesticide than was needed, raising their input costs. They promised farmers 12 to 15 quintals per acre when the actual harvest was in the range of three to 5 quintals per acre. At the same time cotton price came down with the import of Chinese cotton. On average, farmers who adopted Bt cotton lost Rs1 725 per acre.

The study further revealed that many farmers adopted Bt cotton because they believed it was a “government seed”, instead of being privately produced and marketed. They also adopted it because the government was activity promoting it. Local officials like the Agriculture Commissioner of Amravati were aware of the failures of Bt cotton, but the state agriculture department continued to promote it.

The study also collected evidence of other effects of Bt cotton on plants and animals: cattle deaths in areas where they grazed in harvested Bt cotton fields [3]. Women working in cotton fields had complained of rashes (see [33] (More Illnesses Linked to Bt Crops, SiS 30), and mango trees that were not flowering. But the government has turned a deaf ear to those reports to this day.

Vandana Shiva has roundly condemned the IFPRI paper in her critique [34], exposing all its false claims. More recent field studies in Vidarbha carried out by her organization Navdanya showed a 13-fold increase in pesticide use by farmers since Bt cotton was introduced in 2004.

A 2008 survey comparing Bt cotton with organic cotton showed that organic producers earned on average Rs6 287/acre, nearly ten times as much as the Rs714/acre income of Bt cotton farmers.

These problems with Bt cotton are not unique to India. We reviewed GM cotton failures around the world at the beginning of 2005 [35] (GM Cotton Fiascos Around the World, SiS 26), notably Indonesia, China, and The United States.  

Independent study in US confirms Bt cotton failures

A 4-year study [36] by researchers at the University of Georgia and the US Department of Agriculture confirms that the use of GM cotton did not provide increased return to farmers in the United States. On the contrary, it may decrease income by up to 40 percent [37] (Transgenic Cotton Offers No Advantage, SiS 38).

The researchers grew a number of different cultivars of cotton at two locations in the state of Georgia. The transgenic varieties consisted of two main traits, herbicide tolerance and Bt biopesticides, alone and variously combined (stacked); they were

1. Bollgard (B), expressing the Bt toxin Cry1Ac from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis to control the cotton bollworm
2. Bollgard II (B2) expressing two different Bt toxins, Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab, to delay the evolution of pest resistance
3. Roundup Ready (RR), tolerant to glyphosate herbicide;
4. Bollgard/Roundup Ready (BR)
5. BollgardII/Roundup Ready (B2R)
6. Liberty Link (LL), tolerant to herbicide glufosinate

Five different non-transgenic cotton cultivars were also grown. Each cultivar, whether transgenic or not, was managed to maximise profit, as consistent with practices recommended by the University of Georgia.

The results showed that “no transgenic technology system produced significantly greater returns than a non-transgenic system in any year or location.” The returns are dominated by yields, and could be reduced by 30-40 percent. In 2004 at one of the two locations, the non-transgenic variety produced a return of $1274.81 per ha compared with $858.73 for BR, $737.41 for B2R, and $876.14 for LL.

The researchers remarked that the high investment for transgenic crops before any yield is realised is a predicament for growers, one shared by farmers in India and elsewhere.

It is a pity that the researchers have not included organically managed cotton in their study, because it is clearly a much better option.

Bt cotton does not protect against cotton bollworms as intended and worse

Bt cotton is supposed to protect against cotton bollworms on account of one or more genes coding for a family of proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis that are specifically toxic to them.

However, farmers have found that Bt cotton did not always live up to expectations. In the first year of its introduction in India, Bt cotton crops in the Bhavanagar, Surendranagar, and Rajkot districts of Gujarat were reported to be attacked by bollworm [38].

By 2005, scientific studies from several countries backed up farmers’ experience. Scientists in India, China and the United States found that the levels of Bt toxin produced by Bt crops vary substantially in different parts of the plant and in the course of the growing season, and are often insufficient to kill the targeted pests. This could lead to greater use of pesticides, and accelerate the evolution of pest resistance to the Bt toxin [39] (Scientists Confirm Failures of Bt-Crops, SiS 28).

Scientists at the Central Institute of Cotton Research found that the amount of Cry1Ac protein varied across the Bt varieties and between different plant parts [40]. The leaves had the highest levels; whereas the levels in the boll-rind, square bud and ovary of flowers were clearly inadequate to fully protect the fruiting parts producing the cotton bolls. Increasing numbers of armyworm (Helicopverpa armigera) larvae survived as toxin levels dropped below 1.8 mg/g wet weight of the plant parts. Thus, a critical level of 1.9 mg/g was needed to kill all the pests. Regardless of plant varieties, the level of toxin decreased with the age of the plant, though the decrease was more rapid in some hybrids than in others. By 110 days, Cry1Ac expression decreased to less than 0.47mg/g in all Bt hybrids.

In a separate study, scientists at the same institute tested the susceptibility of an insect pest from different regions in India to Bt toxin [41]. The LC₅₀ – the concentration killing 50 percent of the larvae – of Cry1Ac ranged from 0.006 to 0.105 mg/ml. There was a 17.5 fold overall variability in susceptibility among the districts. The highest variability of 17.5 fold was recorded from districts of South India. The variability in pest susceptibility, like the variable expression of the Cry1A proteins in Bt crops, will reduce the efficacy of Bt pest control.

At the Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing researcher found that the toxin content in the Bt cotton varieties changed significantly over time, depending on the part of the plant, the growth stage and the variety. Generally, the toxin protein was expressed at high levels during the early stages of growth, declined in mid-season, and rebounded late in the season. In line with the study in India, the scientists found that the toxin content in leaf, square, petal and stamens were generally much high than those in the ovule and the boll [42].

From the beginning, scientists have predicted another problem, that the bollworm would develop resistance to Bt toxin, and hence a general recommendation was that 20 percent of the land should be set aside for planting non-Bt crops to act as ‘refugia’ to slow the development of Bt resistance; and the pro-GM lobby has been congratulating itself at how Bt resistance has not developed [43]. But as pointed out by Prof. Joe Cummins of ISIS [44] (No Bt Resistance? SiS 20), the ‘refugia’ were fictitious; as the US Department of Agriculture had recommended insecticide sprays on both non-Bt crops in the refugia and Bt crops.

But by 2005, Bt resistance in bollworms had indeed emerged in Australia [39]. A population of the Australian cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera – the most important agricultural pest in Australia as well as China, India and Africa – has developed resistance to Cry1Ac at 275-times the level that would have killed the non-resistant insect [45]. Some 70 percent of the resistant larvae were able to survive on Bt cotton expressing Cry1Ac (Ingard), which has been grown in Australia since 1996.

A new variety of Bt cotton containing both Cry1Ac and Cry2Ab was commercially released in late 2003. Resistance monitoring in Australia and China had suggested that pest susceptibility to Cry1Ac was declining in the field. In 2001, a strain of cotton bollworm was isolated from the survivors in the New South Wales and Queensland monitoring programme that appeared to be resistant to Cry1Ac. The researchers have now confirmed the findings [45, 46], and attributed the high level of resistance to a 3- to 12-fold over-expression of an enzyme, serine protease, which binds avidly to Cry1Ac toxin, preventing it from acting, and possibly, detoxifying it by breaking it down.

Another problem more serious than Bt resistance in the targeted pest is the emergence of secondary pests. And this has happened first in China and then in India and Pakistan [6].

China was initially held up as the success story on Bt cotton [39]. It first granted permission to Monsanto to grow the crop in 1997, and for the first several years reported great reductions in the use of pesticides. Early warnings appeared in a study published in 2002 by researchers at an institute funded by China’s Environmental Protection Agency. It found that although Bt cotton was effective in controlling bollworm, it had adverse impacts on the bollworm’s natural enemies and was not effective in controlling many secondary pests. A second study published in October 2004 found that Bt cotton did not reduce the total numbers of insecticide sprays because additional sprays were needed against sucking pests.  A study of 481 Chinese farmers by researchers at the Cornell University released in 2006 reported that after seven years, populations of other insects such as mirids have increased so much that farmers have had to spray their crops up to 20 times a growing season [47].

One of the researchers, Per Pinstrup-Anderson, well known for supporting GM and professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell said: “These results should send a very strong signal to researchers and government that they need to come up with remedial actions for the Bt-cotton farmers. Otherwise farmers will stop using Bt cotton, and that would be very unfortunate.”

The study found that farmers in the survey who had planted Bt cotton were doing well initially, and by year three, cut pesticides by 70 percent and earned 36 percent more than farmers planting non-Bt cotton. By 2004, however, they had to spray just as much, resulting in a net average income eight percent less than conventional cotton farmers because Bt seed costs three times as much as conventional seed.

The other researchers were Shenghui Wang, Cornell Ph.D. now an economist at the World Bank, and Cornell professor David R. Just. They stress that secondary pest problems could become a major threat in countries where Bt cotton has been widely planted.

Undaunted, the supporters of GM continue their positive spin. In the abstract of a paper published in  Science in 2008 [48] the authors wrote: “Our data suggest that Bt cotton not only controls H. armigera on transgenic cotton designed to resist this pest but also may reduce its presence on other host crops and may decrease the need for insecticide sprays in general.”

In the full paper, however, the authors reported that mirids, podsucking bugs that used to be controlled by spraying and by competition with the bollworm, have now become key pests of cotton in China. They conclude their paper with the statement: “Therefore, despite its value, Bt cotton should be considered only one component in the overall management of insect pests in the diversified cropping systems common throughout China.”

Grassroots researcher Ram Kalaspurker based in Yavatmal, Maharashtra in India, was among the first to document (with video and photography) the emergence of secondary pests and even a totally new exotic pest, giant mealy bugs that have infested Bt cotton plants, and spreading to near-by plants [49] (Deadly gift from Monsanto to India, SiS 38). The problem is so serious that a special combined session of entomology and pathology groups was convened in the entomology panel meeting on 10 April 2008. It stated [50] “All the participant entomologists were unanimous in expressing their concern on the emergence of new insect pests over the past 4 years, particularly after the introduction of Bt-cotton. Severe infestation of mealy bugs, mirid bugs and thrips was recorded in several parts of the country. Mealy bugs in Gujarat and mirid bugs in Karnataka were reported to have caused significant economic damage.”  An arsenal of deadly insecticides has been suggested by some entomologists to deal with these secondary pests as well as with resistant bollworms.

Scientific consensus for organic non-GM agriculture

There is a developing scientific consensus that organic non-GM agriculture and localized food (and energy) systems are what the world needs for food security that would also save the climate [51] (Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free , ISIS publication).

Prince Charles was so distressed by the plight of the suicide farmers that he set up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation [52] to help those affected, and to promote organic Indian crops instead of GM crops.

Bt cotton has been an unmitigated disaster for India in exacerbated farmers suicides. But the ecological and agronomic nightmare is still unfolding, in plagues of secondary and novel pests, pest resistance, novel diseases, and worst of all, soils so depleted in nutrients and essential microorganisms that they will no longer support the growth of any crop.  

There is no doubt that those who insist on promoting GM crops for farmers in India and elsewhere in the developing world [53] (Beware the New “Doubly Green Revolution”, SiS 37) are perpetrating a crime against humanity.

A recent study took data from ‘independent research’ conducted on behalf of Monsanto, and came to quite different conclusions than those of the Agri-giant.

French and European health authorities read Monsanto’s conclusions and gave the green light for the commercialisation of three new GMO strains. But, after some legal wrangling, French scientists secured the data from the aforementioned research and did their own statistical analysis – coming to quite different conclusions to Monsanto.

A study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences demonstrates the toxicity of three genetically modified corn varieties from the American seed company Monsanto, the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (Criigen, based in Caen), which participated in that study, announced Friday, December 11.

"For the first time in the world, we’ve proven that GMO are neither sufficiently healthy nor proper to be commercialized. [...] Each time, for all three GMOs, the kidneys and liver, which are the main organs that react to a chemical food poisoning, had problems," indicated Gilles-Eric Séralini, an expert member of the Commission for Biotechnology Reevaluation, created by the EU in 2008.

Caen and Rouen University researchers, as well as Criigen researchers, based their analyses on the data supplied by Monsanto to health authorities to obtain the green light for commercialization, but they draw different conclusions after new statistical calculations. According to Professor Séralini, the health authorities based themselves on a reading of the conclusions Monsanto has presented and not on conclusions drawn from the totality of the data. The researchers were able to obtain complete documentation following a legal decision.

"Monsanto’s tests, effected over 90 days, are obviously not of sufficient duration to be able to say whether chronic illnesses are caused. That’s why we ask for tests over a period of at least two years," explained one researcher. Consequently, the scientists demand a "firm prohibition" on the importation and cultivation of these GMOs.

These three GMOs (MON810, MON863 and NK603) "are approved for human and animal consumption in the EU and especially the United States," notes Professor Séralini. "MON810 is the only one of the three grown in certain EU countries (especially Spain); the others are imported," he adds…. – Sott.net

For more narration on this tale, see this HuffPost article.

Moral of the story: Don’t trust corporations to work in your interests when it’s clear that to do so would compromise their ability to make money. Instead, consider what you can do to dismantle them so they can no longer gamble with our lives. See video below as well, and join The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America:

Further Reading:

• Everything You HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods
• Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food
• The World According to Monsanto
• Bayer Admits it is Unable to Control Spread of GMOs
• The Global Spread of GMO Crops
• GM Crops – Failure to Yield Report
• Monsanto Runs Into Wall. Yes!!
• The Food Crisis Spurs Gene Patenting Race
• Pay Monsanto, or Starve
• The Failures of Genetically Modified Crops Continue
• Calling Five Percent of US Residents to Action on GMOs

Whilst a food crisis certainly threatens, adding to the crisis by planting GMOs all over ‘Ol Blighty would less than help.

For those not aware of the importance of battling GMOs every step of the way, I embed the clip below. Jeffrey Smith is the tireless foe of all things GM. He has accumulated considerable knowledge of the topic and works hard to spread this knowledge in every way possible. I would certainly recommend his books for a more detailed examination, but the video presentation here is an excellent intro to the topic to get you up to speed.

If you prefer to watch on YouTube, you can do so via these links:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7
• Part 8

Not long ago I was standing in a bookshop, minding my own business, when a book title leapt out in front of me. The book was "History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them". It documents the sorry tales of dozens of people throughout history who, with the best of intentions, made some fascinatingly terrible choices.

I scanned the book’s contents page, purposefully, looking for a specific name – that of the recently deceased, Iowa born agronomist, Norman Borlaug. I failed to find him amongst all the unfortunates chosen for inclusion, but then I really didn’t expect to. My lack of surprise was not because I didn’t think he was deserving – I would likely have put him at top of the list myself – but because, in general, the human race is largely ignorant of the grave implications of his work. This ignorance is made glaringly obvious when you consider he is widely celebrated as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. He even received a Nobel Peace Prize, amongst several other awards, for his disaster of a contribution to mankind.

Mr. Borlaug is father of the very inappropriately named ‘Green Revolution’ – the post World War II industrialisation of agriculture. He is credited with saving millions of people from starvation after World War II. And, credit where credit is due – he probably did. He hybridised seed strains to develop high yield varieties, which in and of itself might not have been such a bad thing. But Borlaug’s work didn’t stop there. The outcome was the creation of a colour-by-numbers, fossil fuel-, chemical- and irrigation-dependent approach to agriculture that saw large scale monocrops become the system of choice worldwide and gave birth to the ‘get big or get out’ agricultural policies of the 1970s. The resulting reductionist bid to deal with, and capitalise on, all the symptoms of this unnatural shift then gave birth to that ultimate method of social control and profiteering – genetic engineering.

The industrialisation of our food supply means that our current production is extremely oil intensive. It has been calculated that, on average, it takes ten calories of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of food in our current setup. Some food has an even more ridiculous ratio – like corn-fed feedlot beef which consumes about 55 fossil fuel calories to one calorie of meat. We are effectively eating oil.

This is of course an insane state of affairs. As oil production wanes this puts us in an extremely vulnerable position. If our current system remains unchanged, we face acute food shortages in the near future, and that’s without even taking into account the major crop failures we’re getting now as a result of climate change. It is precisely why in 2008, when oil prices tripled in a matter of months, people began to riot worldwide as they got priced out of the ability to eat. The recession has somewhat alleviated this problem, but it won’t be long before crisis strikes again and becomes a permanent condition for humanity.

Big Agribusiness not only uses a disproportional amount of oil, they also empty our soils of life and organic matter (primarily carbon) – destroying the natural soil fertility that would make their fertiliser-in-a-bottle products obsolete and thus also making agriculture the largest contributor to climate change. Same goes for water. Agriculture, as implemented today, is by far the largest consumer and contaminator of water of all industries. Its runoff is also responsible for large and growing ocean dead zones in coastal areas around the world. It is also the biggest driver of deforestation and the main culprit for the mass extinctions and biodiversity loss currently underway.

Not only did the Green Revolution make our entire food system wholly dependent on finite resources, and make it function in such a way that it undermines them all, it also shifted demographics (his work has fueled a population boom whilst transitioning much of the world’s population off the land, where they could have been small scale stewards of it, into city dwellings) to such an extent that we may well see widespread starvation as peak oil issues become more pronounced, and widespread revolution and bloodshed if we can’t find a way to peacefully re-ruralise the world so we can get back to a sustainable footing.

In short: we’ve been subsidising our food supply over the last sixty years by stealing energy, soil, water and health from the future. But, now, the future is here. In saving millions, Borlaug could well have consigned many more millions, or even billions, of us to death. He has left us with quite a legacy – the enormous challenge of having to find a way to rapidly but peacefully reverse his life’s work.

If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year [2010], throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food [in 2010]…. – 2010 Food Crisis for Dummies

The food crisis he’s talking about is not constrained to just the two-thirds world countries…

Thanks Norman. We know you meant well…. Pity you couldn’t have hung around long enough to see it all play out.

Beginning a Detour Around Catastrophe?

In light of these realities, I like to find hope where I can. Realising the implications of the thoughts above, some local initiatives are looking at ways to reduce this outright vulnerability. And now, finally, at least on the surface, it looks like the UK government may be beginning to take this issue a little more seriously as well.

Plans to boost food production in Britain and reduce its impact on the environment have been unveiled.

The government’s 20-year food strategy includes making land available for people to grow their own food and more healthy cooking courses.

… The Tories said ministers "belatedly" recognised the need for food security after a decade of declining production.

Environment Secretary Mr Benn unveiled the government’s Food 2030 plan at the Oxford Farming Conference and said a rising population and climate change meant food could not be taken for granted.

… The government also wants less food waste, more food bought in season to reduce environmental impact and to encourage people to buy sustainably-farmed food. – BBC

There are some excellent signals in the Food 2030 report – like a push for more land for communities to grow their own food on, and training thousands more teachers and students in how to grow their own (the ‘Growing Schools‘ program). I really wish I could end this article right here – on this positive note. Unfortunately I can’t. Industry lobbyists are clearly working behind the scenes to ensure this crisis will not only maintain their current level of profits, but also increase them.

The food strategy, set to be launched on Tuesday by Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, will encourage consumers to throw less food away and to adopt leaner and healthier diets. It will promote higher crop yields, urge food producers to reduce the impact they have on the environment, and recommend a move towards accepting GM crops in order to create a "sustainable and secure food system for 2030". – Telegraph

GM crops for more security? How, exactly, does that work in light of this, this, this, this and this? And how can the words ‘GM crops’ and ‘healthier diets’ coexist in the same paragraph? (See this, this and this for example.)

Furthermore:

… the report will pledge that the UK will keep lobbying to create a more liberalised global food market. – Telegraph

A "more liberalised global food market" will bring profits to a few commodity brokers, but will also continue dismantling the food economy in ‘developing’ countries – whilst we have the deluded belief we’re helping ‘the poor’ to raise their standard of living to something resembling ours (a dangerous ambition). It will continue to pit low wage workers in these countries against local farmers in the North, undercutting and disincentivising them. In both the South and the North, we need more farmers – millions more – not less.

The campaign group Sustain said the report avoided tough issues…. "The government’s food vision is hardly worthy of the name. The document proposes a series of minor tweaks to our fundamentally unsustainable food system."- Guardian

Borlaug’s ’strategy’ was to keep perservering down the Road of Vulnerability, perpetually and furiously trying to stay one step ahead of all the problems the industrial system creates – fossil fuel consumption, soil and water loss and contamination, plant disease and pest attack, etc. This culminates in the need to forever tweak plant characteristics through chemicals and genetic engineering.

Defenders of the green revolution, such as Borlaug, place their hopes on the promise of a never-ending cycle of innovation. We’ll keep redesigning plants into organisms that yield ever greater bounty, while consuming fewer nutrients, staying one step ahead of the grim reaper, for as long as necessary. Science will save us.

But what if scientists poured as much energy into studying how to improve organic farming methods as they did into recombinant DNA? The authors of "Organic agriculture and the global food supply" believe that current organic farming yields could be greatly increased, if we knew more about how to build ecologically balanced agricultural systems. But such research hasn’t been the priority of either academia or government. It’s time for that to change. It’s time to show organic farmers the money. – Salon.com

Biodiverse systems are proven to be more productive. A progressive, staged reversion to small scale polycultures will restore soil, water, personal and even climate health – making risky genetic engineering redundant. Such a reversion is a win-win-win situation.

What will stop such a reversion happening is the perceived need to persevere with a profit and competition-based economy and a lack of education in genuinely holistic agricultural, biological science. Industry will fight us every step of the way. The perversion of the market system is that, up until a tipping point that leads to complete social collapse at least, the greater the suffering the more profit there is to make. These companies are incentivised to ensure their products are continually required. (The corporate dissatisfaction with Michelle Obama’s organic garden is a case in point.) Hence my continual cry that we need to change society at a wholly foundational level. The ‘free’ market economy, even if it were truly free, would not enable us to buy our way out of this mess.

The longer we avoid the need to decentralise and relocalise our food systems, the greater the crisis. While we study options for systemic change, duplicating landshare initiatives like this is a great way to get started at a grass roots level, and Michael Pollan’s one and a half hour presentation below begins to tackle the political policy changes we need to push for to get things moving in the right direction.

The good news is there is a growing food revolution. We just need to ensure our politicians allow it to flourish and don’t give in to the greenwashing demands of Big Agribusiness. The ‘Food 2030′ announcement risks leading the world’s citizenry to assume something tangible is actually being done to address this painfully sharp edge of the biggest convergence of crises in human history, when it really is just a little medicine mixed with a large dose of placebo.

One way or another, we’re beginning to see the end of the industrial agriculture era. Our task is ensuring it gets replaced as rapidly and painlessly as possible with relocalised, resilient systems.

What do you think? Are we facing crisis? If so, what should we be doing about it?

Michael Pollan: Deep Agriculture
Duration: 1:26:14
Click on ‘Watch Full Program’ link at bottom right of video screen

GM Rice protest in India

We all know about Big Biotech suing over their ‘rights’ to intellectual copyright. Being little more than a decade since Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) started commercial-scale release, these companies have become powerful and arrogant in double-quick time as they’ve sought to make us all captive customers to their unnecessary and unwanted ‘products’. But, increasingly, farmers are deciding not to put up with their bullying and negligence any longer.

Today’s good news:

Greenpeace welcomes the United States federal jury ruling on 4 December 2009 that Bayer CropScience LP must pay $2 million US dollars to two Missouri farmers after their rice crop was contaminated with an experimental variety of rice that the company was testing in 2006.

This verdict confirms that the responsibility for the consequences of GE (genetic engineering) contamination rests with the company that releases GE crops.

Bayer has admitted it has been unable to control the spread of its genetically-engineered organisms despite ‘the best practices [to stop contamination]‘(1). It shows that all outdoors field trials or commercial growing of GE crops must be stopped before our crops are irreversibly contaminated.

A report prepared for Greenpeace International concluded that the total costs incurred throughout the world as a result of the contamination are estimated to range from $741 million to $1.285 billion US dollars.(2) The verdict indicates that Bayer is liable for what could turn out to be a large proportion of these costs, as it awards damages in the first two of more than 1,000 currently pending lawsuits. The decision must be used to support all claims for losses incurred by other US farmers whose crops have suffered from GE contamination. – GM Watch

This court case, with hopefully many more awards to farmers to come yet (bankrupt the bastards, I say), is about the GM rice Liberty Link 601 or LL601, which was discovered in farmers’ fields in 2006 through the keen observations of U.S. farmers and subsequent testing. First discovered in January of that year, tests of neighbouring farmers lead to the discovery that this rice had already been unknowingly cultivated across several U.S. states, and worse, it was then found on dinner tables and on fields in more than thirty countries worldwide. (See page 10 of Greenpeace’s ‘Risky Business’ PDF for more details on the dates and locations of its spread around the globe.)

Greenpeace activists dressed to symbolize the "bul-ul", a traditional
Ifugaorice guardian, carried out a protest at the Department of
Agriculture in Quezon City, Philippines

This contamination caused an almost overnight collapse of the U.S. rice export market in 2006, bankrupting farmers and causing everyone to question any biotech company’s ability to stop cross-contamination of GMOs, as well as the ability of the USDA to monitor and regulate the release of biotechnology since despite months of investigations they failed to trace the source of the contamination.

And the clincher? This rice had never ever been approved for commercial release (i.e. had not been through any kind of food safety tests). It escaped from test plots from Bayer’s field trials. The rice had actually been trialled years earlier, between 1998 and 2001. Contamination obviously occurred at the time, and the rice steadily progressed long after the rice variety had been abandoned by Bayer.

The Bayer response at the time was twofold:

1. Blame God – I kid you not.
2. Try to get it retroactively approved, pronto.

LL601 was engineered similar to Monsanto’s ’roundup ready’ varieties of crops – in this case to withstand a proprietary Bayer glufosinate-ammonium herbicide. Such ‘technologies’ are behind a dramatic increase in herbicide usage, as the herbicide resistant trait transfers via pollen (called ‘horizontal gene transfer‘) into neighbouring ‘weeds’, thus creating superweeds. Read Who Benefits from GM Crops? – the Rise in Pesticide Use (PDF) for more details.

People have been safely ‘engineering’ plants for millennia, without the need to bypass plants’ natural defenses to bombard their cells with genes from entirely unrelated species. GM crops have failed to deliver on their promises, and are an expensive distraction from the faster, localised natural plant breeding techniques that can quickly optimise plants for specific locales.

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

… The Nebraska study suggested that two factors are at work. First, it takes time to modify a plant and, while this is being done, better conventional ones are being developed. This is acknowledged even by the fervently pro-GM US Department of Agriculture, which has admitted that the time lag could lead to a “decrease” in yields.

But the fact that GM crops did worse than their near-identical non-GM counterparts suggest that a second factor is also at work, and that the very process of modification depresses productivity. The new Kansas study both confirms this and suggests how it is happening. — Independent

On ethical grounds alone, even putting aside all the health and environmental implications (which are potentially enormous given the ability of unapproved varieties spreading around the world before they’re even discovered), all genetically modified organisms should be destroyed – as it is impossible to stop their spread. If a farmer decides to use them, he is effectively making the decision that all other farmers will grow it too. This is morally untenable.

If a fraction of the money going into Big Biotech’s pockets were used to finance small research stations studying permaculture worldwide – naturally productive systems and function-stacking to optimise production sustainably – we’d see healthy, locally appropriate solutions getting rolled out, and right at a time when we truly need it.

Incidentally, as the events in Europe at the turn of the millennium have showed us, where supermarket chains suddenly dropped their GM product lines, it doesn’t actually take too much to stop GMO sales if just a few of us put our minds to it….

Switzerland is often portrayed as a clean, green, intelligent, peace-loving nation. Dramatic landscapes apparently have beautiful, golden, braided-haired women prancing about innocently picking flowers from hillsides dripping in milk, honey and chocolate.

But, the beauty of globalisation and the international food swap model is that the darker side of modern industry can be hidden away on the other side of the world. Embarrassing, incriminating activities can be kept separate from oompa loompaville, away from prying eyes and swept into the remotest places – where there are virgin soils still to be found and gorged upon, where environmental regulations are weak or nonexistent and where legal protection for indigenous people are disincentivised in the quest for profit and ‘development’.

The Swiss company Syngenta – one of the world’s largest transnational agribusiness corporations, one well-known for its production of agrochemicals and GM seeds – however, has still managed to attract attention to itself even in far away Brazil. Like with other agribusiness companies we could mention, competitiveness is key to success, and externalising costs – at any cost – is one of the best ways to achieve this.

I won’t give you a long treatise on the document embedded here, but leave you to peruse yourself. In it you will find details about illegal GMO and chemical polluting and the persecution and murder of the local people who were inconveniently protesting against the same. Syngenta stands accused of violating Brazil’s Federal Constitution, their environmental laws, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other national and international laws.

Further Reading:

• Food Miles, or Fair Miles?

from truefood.org.au

A coalition of groups including Greenpeace, the Food Intolerance Network and Friends of the Earth has welcomed the announcement of an independent review into food labelling.

The review was announced at the Food Regulation Ministerial Council meeting in Brisbane last Friday. The groups say Australian food labelling is much weaker than in European countries and that consumers have a right to meaningful information about the foods they are eating.
Take Action: make a submission to the review

Alarmingly, the Government is only allowing four weeks for public submissions. If you want better food labelling, you can email a personal submission by November 20th 2009 to FoodLabellingReview@health.gov.au

The review will be chaired by former Federal Health Minister Neal Blewett and its terms of reference can be found here.

Your submission does not have to be long – a few sentences will do. Here are some possible points you could include:

• The Federal Government has still to implement the ALP policy supporting the comprehensive labelling of GE food.
• The labelling of GE food in Australia is extremely limited and excludes some of the most basic and universally used ingredients. Under Australian labelling laws, only foods where GE proteins or DNA can be detected need to be labelled. Highly processed products, such GE canola oil and products from animals fed GE feed, escape labelling.
• Independent polling last year shows that 90% of all Australians want all GE derived foods labelled and that the majority of consumers are less likely to buy food they know contains GE ingredients.
• Consumers want GE foods labelled for a range of environmental, health and ethical reasons and should have the right to avoid GE food if they want to.
• In Europe, all GE food and feed ingredients, including highly processed derivatives such as sugar, refined oil and starch must now be labelled. The European labelling regime resulted in only a negligible cost increase for industry and no additional costs for consumers. There is no reason why Australia can’t adopt the same standards.

For more information on the need for comprehensive GE labelling see our Eating in the Dark report.

It’s time for better labelling

Consumers in Europe are provided with easy to understand front of pack nutritional labelling and are told whether their food contains additives or products derived from genetically engineered crops. The European Parliament has backed the mandatory labelling of all food derived from nanotechnology. Meanwhile Australian consumers are left effectively eating in the dark.

A Newspoll survey last year showed that 90 per cent of Australians want all ingredients derived from genetically engineered crops to be labelled. Yet the vast majority of GE ingredients are currently exempt from labelling. Consumers have a fundamental right to know what is in their food and how it is produced.

Georgia Miller from Friends of the Earth, who is campaigning for the comprehensive labelling of foods containing manufactured nanoparticles, says, "Our current labelling laws are inadequate and do not give consumers the information they need to make informed choices about the food they eat."

Dr Howard Dengate from the Food Intolerance Network says Australian consumers should enjoy the same protection as consumers in the European Union. "All food additives and active ingredients should be clearly labelled. Artificial food colourings that may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children should carry the same mandatory warnings as the EU."

Individuals and organizations have less than a month to send in their submissions to the review. Given the importance and complexities of the issues involved, the groups believe that the one month public submission period should be extended. Consumers have waited a long time for the opportunity to input into such a review, and one month doesn’t allow full community participation.