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THE WEEKLY WATCH number 57 (30/1/2004)

from Claire Robinson, WEEKLY WATCH editor
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Dear all

Welcome to WW57 bringing you all the latest news in brief on the GM issue in the week the biotech industry suffered a devastating blow to its PR claims over feeding the world.

The Kenyan press has just reported that Monsanto's showcase project in Africa - the virus resistant GM sweet potato - has proved a total failure.

The project was originally launched by the US's special envoy to the UN, who came to Kenya specially for the occasion. It has managed to generate literally thousands of column inches of hype in the world's media, much of it spun by Monsanto's Kenyan figurehead for the project, Dr Florence Wambugu.

Wambugu appeared on American TV, authored pieces for the journal Nature and the New York Times, and was even declared one of the 15 people who are reinventing the future - all on the strength of the claimed success of the project in Kenya. She claimed in article after article that the GM sweet potato yielded far in excess of the typical non-GM sweet potato and that it demonstrated how GM was the answer to Africa's economic and social despair.

The figures variously given in media pieces about the project suggested yield gains of between 60 to 400%! But now Kenyan scientists, who have been running trials on the crop, have finally reported that, far from yielding spectacularly more, Monsanto's crop actually yields less than conventional sweet potatoes. It has also been found susceptible to viral damage - the very thing it was designed to stop.

While Monsanto/Wambugu's reinvention of the future via genetic engineering turns out to be a myth, a poorly resourced conventional breeding programme in Uganda has resulted in a highly popular virus-resistant sweet potato that is roughly doubling yields.

In other words, the industry's GM myth-making is both distracting attention and swallowing scarce resources that could be far better directed to bringing real change for some of the world's poorest farmers (SETBACKS).

Claire    [email protected]
http://www.gmwatch.org/

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CONTENTS
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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
SUBSCRIPTIONS

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SETBACKS TO THE GM LOBBY
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+ GM SWEET POTATO FAILS MISERABLY IN KENYA
Trials to develop a virus resistant sweet potato in Kenya through GM have failed. The trials of the GM sweet potato were launched by US special envoy, Dr Andrew Young. But investigations by Kari's Biotechnology Centre say the technology has failed to produce a virus resistant strain.

The project with the help of its highly vocal figurehead, Florence Wambugu, has generated headlines and claims in the world's media, such as:
*MILLIONS SERVED; FLORENCE WAMBUGU FEEDS COUNTRY WITH FOOD OTHERS HAVE THE LUXURY TO AVOID
*Transgenic Sweet Potato Could End Kenyan Famine
*Dr. Wambugu's modified sweet potato... can increase yields from four tonnes per hectare to 10 tonnes.
*Genetically modified crops are the key to eradicating poverty and hunger in the Third World

However, the report by researchers Dr Francis Nang'ayo and Dr Ben Odhiambo says,"There is no demonstrated advantage arising from genetic transformation using the initial gene construct". According to a piece on the report in the Kenyan press, however, it is clear from the report that during the trials non-GM crops used as controls yielded far more tuber than the GM crop. http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Supplements/horizon/current/story290120041.htm

"The transgenic material did not quite withstand virus challenge in the field," says the report, suggesting that the gene expression was inadequate or it failed to address the diversity of virus in the region or that the gene construct was simply inappropriate.

The Kari results confirm the findings of the report "Genetically Modified Crops and Sustainable Poverty Alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of Current Evidence", by Aaron deGrassi, of the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK, which had warned of the multiple shortcomings of the GM sweet potato and suggested it was actually a PR tool rather than a genuine attempt to assist poor farmers.

DeGrassi's study also pointed out that the GM sweet potato was being hyped on the basis of lies about the yield of non-GM equivalents, underestimating them by massive amounts to create an illusion of stagnation. He also pointed to the contrasting success of a conventional breeding project which produced a new, high-yielding virus resistant variety in just a few years at a small cost that raised yields by roughly 100%. This gives the lie to the claim that 'Conventional breeding research had proved powerless to develop varieties resistant to these viruses'.

DeGrassi's study also concluded that GM does not address the real causes of poverty and hunger in Africa.

Monsanto, USAID and ISAAA have poured millions into the project which, with its results kept secret till now, has been a huge success for them in PR terms and in terms of encouraging Kenya and others to think of GM as the solution to Africa's agricultural problems.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=131
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=2481

For more on the failure of the project:
http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Supplements/horizon/current/story290120041.htm

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