WEEKLY WATCH number 195 (4/10/2006) | |
from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor Dear all: The biotech industry has been claiming that GM has saved US farmers from drought, which is surprising considering that there are no drought-resistant GM crops available. What is less surprising is that this claim appears to be based on no evidence at all -- just the opinion of a single representative of a company punting biotech seeds! (THE AMERICAS) Claire [email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------ GM RICE CONTAMINATION SCANDAL ------------------------------------------------------------ + RUSSIA: U.S. RICE IMPORTS SUSPENDED + CROP CIRCLES APPEAR ON THREE CONTINENTS + SCIENTISTS AND OTHERS PROTEST + GENEWATCH COMMENT ON CONTAMINATION There are now 132 [GM contamination] incidents on the register and they show GM contamination can arise at every stage of development - from the laboratory, to the field, to the plate. It shows that the controls in place are prone to failure and human error is increasingly being shown to take place - people seem unable or unwilling to take the precautions required by the law or commercial demands. For many in the biotech industry, the fuss caused by GM contamination episodes, such as those from LL601RICE and Bt10 maize, is excessive because they do not believe there is a risk to human health or the environment. Because the full details of these GM crops are not in the public domain, an independent assessment of claims of safety is not possible. Whether these particular GMOs are harmful or not, their presence in the food chain demonstrates the inability of the industry to maintain separation between GM and non-GM lines. ------------------------------------------------------------ + MOST FARMER SUICIDES RELATE TO GM COTTON - TIMES OF INDIA Most suicide cases relate to those farming families which have run up huge debts because of the high cost in using the expensive genetically-modified cotton seeds, which have to be bought every year. GM Watch comment: + INDIA'S AG MINISTER PAWAR UNLEASHES CORPORATIONS, IGNORES VICTIMS The critical role played by Bt cotton in the plague of suicides affecting India's debt-burdened farmers, has been identified repeatedly in articles from the New York Times to the Times of India. And the award-winning Rural Affairs editor of The Hindu, P Sainath, has described the promoting of Bt cotton in the dry and un-irrigated cotton-belt of Maharashtra as "murderous". If so, India's Minister for Agriculture might be considered one of the murderers because Pawar was personally involved in promoting Bt cotton in Maharashtra, according to Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), a local pressure group for farmers. VJAS spokesman, Kishor Tiwari, also says that one of the brands of Bt seeds on sale - "Ajit Bt" - is actually owned by Pawar's nephew, Ajit Pawar. Pawar's associates in the state government have also had a big hand in pushing Bt cotton. And despite the resulting carnage, Pawar's GM promotionals are still in full swing. He recently boasted to a corporate-backed conference on ag biotech that besides Bt cotton, there are lots more transgenic crops in India's "pi |