from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

Good news: Monsanto appears to have given up on GM wheat. (COMPANY NEWS)

A new report overturns claims that GM crops are good for the environment, and more research from the United States confirms serious weed problems caused by GM herbicide-resistant crops. (ENVIRONMENT: NEW RESEARCH AND REPORT)

In India its emerging that agents are being paid to encourage farmers to cultivate Bt cotton. Local people are being offered cash incentives to whip up enthusiasm and help boost Monsanto's flagging sales. Local scientists and farmers also confirm that agriculture department scientists are massaging data on Bt cotton's performance by increasing yield figures and showing reduced pesticide use. (ASIA)

Claire [email protected]
www.gmwatch.org / www.lobbywatch.org

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CONTENTS
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ASIA
LOBBYWATCH
AFRICA
LOBBYWATCH UK
THE AMERICAS
MIDDLE EAST
FOOD SAFETY
ENVIRONMENT: NEW RESEARCH AND REPORT
GM TREES
COMPANY NEWS
WORLDWIDE ACTION
Q & A

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ASIA
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+ NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT BT COTTON IN INDIA
A report from Gene Campaign says that in Andhra Pradesh, India, farmers have suffered heavy losses with Mahyco-Monsanto's MECH-12 and MECH-184 varieties. The reasons for this are low yield, premature falling of the cotton bolls and wilt leading to drying up of the roots. The varieties were found to be largely ineffective against the bollworm they are designed to resist. The cotton fibre is also of poor quality and fetches a lower price in the market.

EXCERPTS: The situation with Bt cotton is getting worse every year. Illegal varieties have spread at a fast rate and there is no response from the regulatory agencies... Farmers have suffered heavy losses [with Monsanto varieties]...

Local scientists and farmers confirm the observation that the State Agriculture department scientists who are collecting data on Bt cotton performance, are fudging data to show better performance. For example, 4 is made into 14 quintals yield and figures are similarly concocted to show reduced pesticide use.

Cotton traders observe that all Bt varieties have poorer quality fibre compared to non-Bt varieties.

...there are agents operating in villages, who encourage farmers to cultivate Bt. cotton. These agents are local people who are offered cash incentives by seed agents to promote the Monsanto cotton but usually do not grow it themselves... These agents spread rumors that the Monsanto seeds are in great demand... The local scientists say this is to boost the flagging sales of the Monsanto varieties.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4994

+ GOLDEN RICE IS A TECHNICAL FAILURE OBSCURING REAL SOLUTIONS
"The GE industry is using hungry children in India as their expense account to open up Indian markets to GE foods -- an untested, potentially dangerous and irresponsible act." - Divya Raghunandan

Five years after the hype on the so called "Golden Rice" started, Greenpeace claims that this project is a technical failure, not suited to overcome malnutrition and worse, is drawing funding and attention away from the real solutions to combat vitamin A deficiency (VAD). Greenpeace expects that industry scientists will shortly release new propaganda on Golden Rice, misleading the public again on real solutions for VAD.

"GE rice could, if introduced on a large scale, exacerbate malnutrition and undermine food security because it encourages a diet based on a single industrial staple food rather than upon the reintroduction of the many vitamin-rich food plants with high nutritional value that are cheap and already available." - Professor Klaus Becker, University of Hohenheim, Germany
FOR MORE ON GOLDEN RICE INCLUDING LINKS TO A SERIES OF REPORTS
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4995

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ BLACKWASHING MONSANTO
A new article from GM Watch founder, Jonathan Matthews, exposes how Bush and Monsanto are manufacturing black support for GMOs.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4987

+ NEW SEARCHABLE DATABASE ON THE REVOLVING DOOR AND BIOTECH
The Edmonds Institute has announced its "New Revolving Door", a searchable database about people who have worked in/for both government and industry, with emphasis on those connected to the biotechnology industry.
http://www.edmonds-institute.org/newdoor.html
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4983

+ REUTERS CHIEF IS GM ENTHUSIAST
Recently, we reported on the extraordinary surge in pro-GM stories produced by news agency Reuters.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4928
Could this occurrence be in any way connected with Reuters' recent appointment (October 2004) of a new chairman, Niall FitzGerald?

Prior to joining Reuters, FitzGerald was joint director and CEO of food giant Unilever in which capacity he told a conference of food executives that the time had come to reignite the debate in Britain over the acceptability of GM food ­and to win it. Marketing Week described FitzGerald's intervention as "part of a strategy by the food industry to 'soften up' public opinion in advance of a concerted effort to reintroduce genetically modified organisms, and their derivatives, to the human food chain". On another occasion Fitzgerald complained that Europe had given into "phantom fears" about GM and bought into "Frankenstein food scare tactics". He identified alarmist and hysterical reporting as one of the sourcs of the problem. Unilever under Fitzgerald did direct business with Monsanto which purchased Unilever's cereals division.
http://www.about.reuters.com/investors/corpinfo/board.asp
http://ngin.tripod.com/290102b.htm
http://www.lifesciencesnetwork.com/files/news-detail.asp?NewsID=7364

+ ALEX AVERY CLAIMS BENBROOK HAS BLOOD ON HIS HANDS
Alex Avery has been busy building on smears started by ex-Syngenta man, Willie DeGreef about critics of GM "whispering" their malign messages in the ears of African policy makers, leading them to reject GM food aid. DeGreef told a U.S. Grains Council meeting that he would like to identify who was responsible for such "crimes against humanity."

Now corporate attack dog Alex Avery has claimed on pro-GM listserv AgBioView that "if there is blood on someone's hands, [Dr Charles] Benbrook's are certainly more than a little red, as is the entire organic farming community."

Chuck Benbrook is a leading US agronomist and former Executive Director of the Board on Agriculture for the US National Academy of Sciences. Dr Benbrook had the temerity to tell Zambian scientists that Zambia's food crisis was being exploited by those seeking to score "political points" on behalf of biotech and that there was actually no shortage of non-GM foods which could be offered to Zambia.

Alex Avery works for his dad at the right-wing industry-funded Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, of which Dennis Avery is the director. Like his dad, Alex Avery is an ardent supporter of GM crops, pesticides, irradiation, factory farming and free trade. Organic farming is the Averys' principal bugbear. In order to attack it they have produced wild accusations and daft statistics, leading to claims of "killer organic foods"!
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=4993

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