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WEEKLY WATCH number 146 (13/10/2005)

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all:

An long-overdue attempt to reform USAID programmes for the benefit of their African recipients - which even Dubya has been embarrassed into supporting - is being killed by vested interests within the U.S. (THE AMERICAS).

Bananas are often the unlikely focus of much pro-biotech scaremongering, along the lines that they are in rapid decline and only biotech can save them. The latest incarnation of this myth comes courtesy of our old friend Dr Florence Wambugu and her colleagues at DuPont (AFRICA).

Good news has emerged from Hawaii, where citizen groups have succeeded in stalling the Board of Ag's illegal attempt to allow a biotech company to grow GM algae without a proper environmental assessment (THE AMERICAS).

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

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CONTENTS
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LOBBYWATCH
AFRICA
THE AMERICAS
AUSTRALASIA
EUROPE
THE OTHER TERRORISTS
BIOSAFETY

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LOBBYWATCH
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+ GM CROPS CUT GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, SAYS REPORT
Monsanto has commissioned a report from PG Economics Ltd which purports to show, amongst much else, that GM crops cut greenhouse gas emissions. The report claims, "This reduction results from decreased fuel use, about 475 million gallons in the past nine years, and additional soil carbon sequestration because of reduced plowing or improved conservation tillage associated with biotech crops. In 2004, this reduction was equivalent to eliminating more than 22 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or removing 5 million cars - one-fifth of cars registered in the United Kingdom - from the road for one year."

But reduced plowing or improved conservation tillage - low or no till agriculture - does not require GM crops. Land agent Mark Griffiths quotes the analysis of the US Dept of Agriculture (USDA) own analysis on this: "Using herbicide-tolerant seed did not significantly affect no-till adoption." In fact, from USDA's data it seems to have somewhat stagnated post-GM, whereas many non-GM farmers in other parts of the world adopted no-till to a far greater extent than GM farmers in the U.S..

A paper summarising the new report has been published by the Journal of Agrobiotechnology Management & Economics (aka AgBioForum). Although this is being presented to journalists as a peer reviewed journal, it has CS Prakash on its board and is funded by the Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance whose purpose is "to fund biotechnology research... directed at expanding the volume of profitable businesses in the US food and agricultural sector".
http://www.imba.missouri.edu/

The science in the report is less than impressive. It's not even clear where half of the figures come from. Most of the references are presentations at biotech conferences and unpublished articles and very few appear to have been peer reviewed. Some of the cited papers are from PG Economics Ltd itself whose biotech reports are almost invariably funded by the industry.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5825

+ LMer SPEAKS ON THE GM FOOD DEBATE: WHO WON THE ARGUMENT?
LMer Tony Gilland of the Institute of Ideas held forth on this subject in London this week. The blurb gives his proposition as "consumer and environmental groups have adopted a flippant attitude towards scientific endeavour in general, and GM technology in particular."

Gilland, who has previously claimed, "The farm-scale trials are an unnecessary obstacle to the introduction of this beneficial technology" (particularly, perhaps, as they showed negative effects from GM crops!), seems to be blaming the failure of GM on anything and anybody but the technology itself. For more on Gilland, and his revealing behaviour at another dinner-table debate, see "Inside LM" at
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5824
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=61&page=G

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AFRICA
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+ ZIMBABWE, ZAMBIA STANCE ON GM FOOD HAILED
International scientists, including those from the US, have praised Zimbabwe and Zambia for rejecting GM food donations from the West to feed their rural folk facing food shortages.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5821

+ "SMOKE, MIRRORS AND POVERTY" - BIOTECH'S DECEPTIVE FICTION
GM WATCH readers will be familiar with the role of Monsanto-trained scientist Dr Florence Wambugu in massively hyping the failed GM sweet potato project in Kenya. But she's also been doing a similar job on tissue cultured bananas, a joint project of Wambugu's Africa Harvest and DuPont.

The true extent of Wambugu's deceit was exposed in a paper published last month that totally demolishes the various claims of Wambugu and her collaborators.

In "Smoke, Mirrors and Poverty", Joanna Chataway - a Professor in Biotechnology and Development at the Open University - and James Smith - an African Studies specialist at the University of Edinburgh - analyse Wambugu's project and show how Wambugu has created what the authors term a (fictional) "crisis narrative".

Wambugu does this by:
1. establishing the banana as an important crop in East Africa for rural development, for food security and for income generation.
2. documenting a very serious decline in yield over the past 20 years.
3. attributing the decline to massive levels of infection
4. claiming her tissue culture (TC) bananas project in Kenya has had "incredible" successes in solving this problem: increasing banana productivity from 20 to 45 tons per hectare and tripling incomes for farmers with multiple benefits for their families and society.

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