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from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Welcome to WW58 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue.

There are welcome signs that the people outside the government/industry clique are becoming increasingly immune to spin and lies - from irate demonstrators throwing whitewash at the railings of Blair's residence in the wake of the Hutton Report, to a refreshingly honest report in New Scientist on the failure of the Monsanto/Wambugu GM sweet potato project in Kenya (see lead article in HIGHLIGHTS).

The shameless Dr Wambugu, however, hasn't woken up to this global shift in attitude, and continues to hype GM as offering higher yields - the exact opposite of what her GM sweet potato produced! Dr Wambugu once remarked, "I appreciate ethical concerns, but anything that doesn't feed our children is unethical." Well, the Monsanto/Wambugu GM project has demonstrated that it won't feed Africa's children so it is unethical. And nor can Africa's children live off all the lies and spin with which the project was promoted.

A test case for independent thought on the part of the American public is coming up this March in Mendocino County, California. Voters will decide whether to support a ballot measure to ban the cultivation of GM crops in the county, which has a strong organic sector.

Will industry succeed in its efforts to spin the public into rejecting the GM ban by throwing record amounts of dollars at the problem? A similar battle fought in Oregon was won by industry after its multi-million dollar campaign convinced voters that GM labelling would be "costly"... let's hope the people of Mendocino County are made of sterner stuff.

Claire    [email protected]
www.ngin.org.uk

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CONTENTS
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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
THE MONTH'S TOP STORIES
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
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+ NEW SCIENTIST REPORTS ON FAILURE OF GM SWEET POTATO IN KENYA
The following article from the New Scientist covers a story first broken in Europe by GM WATCH: http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2481

Monsanto's showcase project in Africa flops New Scientist, Vol 181 No. 2433, 7 February 2004 A showcase project to develop a genetically modified crop for Africa has failed.

Three years of field trials have shown that GM sweet potatoes modified to resist a virus were no less vulnerable than ordinary varieties, and sometimes their yield was lower, according to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.  Embarrassingly, in Uganda conventional breeding has produced a high-yielding variety more quickly and more cheaply.

The GM project has cost Monsanto, the World Bank and the US government an estimated $6 million over the past decade.  It has been held up worldwide as an example of how GM crops will help revolutionise farming in Africa.  One of the project members, Kenyan biotechnologist Florence Wambugu (see New Scientist, 27 May 2000, p 40), toured the world promoting the work.

Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, says the researchers went wrong by concentrating on resistance to an American strain of the virus.  In any case, the virus is only a small factor limiting production in Kenya, he says. "There was too much rhetoric and not enough good research."

Monsanto says it plans to develop further varieties. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2561

For how the Monsanto project was promoted through a massive campaign of hype and disinformation: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131

+ WAMBUGU STILL WAMBUZLING
Even as the Wambugu/Monsanto GM sweet potato project in Kenya is shown to have utterly failed, yielding less than conventional sweet potatoes, Florence Wambugu is quoted in the Kenyan press extolling the virtues of GM crops for, er... raising yields!  

An article in the East African Standard says, "Kenya's own scientist and pioneer in the science of GM foods, Dr Florence Wambugu, argues that GM foods are good for Africa because Africa's priority is food security and anything that will increase crop yields should be greatly encouraged." http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2543

We'd better greatly encourage non-GM farming then, not least as a conventional breeding programme in Uganda has resulted in a virus resistant sweet potato that roughly doubles yields.

+ MONSANTO PULLS OUT OF ZIMBABWE
Monsanto has pulled out of Zimbabwe by selling its business to a local consortium, citing the country's unstable economic environment, according to company officials in South Africa. http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2543

+ GM COTTON TO INVADE WEST AFRICA
The world's biggest agrochemical companies and the US government are rushing to introduce GM crops into West Africa, starting with cotton. A new report from GRAIN shows that Monsanto, Syngenta and Dow AgroSciences, supported by USAID, are finalising plans with the Malian government to convert the West African country's cotton crop to transgenic varieties over the next five years. Cotton is Mali's number one export. Yet local farmers and the general public are in the dark about this.

"Bt cotton is the biotech industry's trojan horse for bringing patented GM crops into West Africa," says Jeanne Zoundjihzkpon of GRAIN in Benin. "The infrastructure for cotton is well established and they want to take advantage of this. But cotton is a critical crop for the region. It is shameful for public researchers to play with the livelihoods of their people, when the technologies they are bringing in o