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Teddy Goldsmith, founding editor of the Ecologist, gives us the bottom line: 
"Industrial agriculture depends heavily on oil and water, both rapidly 
running out, and GM crops will intensify that dependence. There will be no 
way to feed the world other than sustainable agriculture, which will also 
ameliorate the worse excesses of climate change."

ISIS Press Release 18/10/04
GM-Crops Are A Dead-end
**********************

Europe Must Invest in Sustainable Agriculture Now

Scientific evidence has turned decisively against genetically modified (GM) 
crops and in favour of non-GM sustainable agriculture; that's the conclusion 
of the Independent Science Panel (ISP) report [1] presented in three 
languages (English, French and Spanish) at the European Parliament today [2].

French farmer José Bové, representing Confédération Paysanne and European 
Farmers Coordination, Michael Meacher, Member of Parliament, UK, Prinz Felix 
of Löwenstein, President of the federation of organic food producers in 
Germany, and Jill Evans, MEP Wales, are among those joining the scientists to 
demand that Europe keep its GM-Free status by banning all GM crop releases, 
and invest instead in non-GM sustainable agriculture. They reject the 
European Commission-sponsored paper, "Plants for the future" [3], which is 
promoting plant biotechnology for Europe.

"That's a serious mistake," says Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, director of the Institute of 
Science in Society, who initiated the ISP. The biotech industry is showing 
all the signs of collapse, "because it has got ther science wrong."

"When genetic engineering started in the mid 1970s, scientists thought the 
genome was static and genes determined the characteristics of organisms in 
linear causal chains," Ho says. "It turns out that the genome is constantly 
in conversation with the environment and changing both the expression and 
structure of genes. It is this 'fluid genome' that unsettles genetic 
modification, and creates the dangers of uncontrollable gene transfer and 
recombination." GM is a scientific and financial dead-end, according to Ho, 
and we should draw the curtain over it.

That's not happening because, says José Bové, "Public research has been taken 
over by the corporations. Many academic scientists are no longer doing 
research that benefits the public." Bové has been up-rooting GM crops in 
protest, and serving prison sentences.

"A major challenge for politicians in Europe is to guarantee there will be an 
agriculture free from GMOs in the long term," Prinz Felix of Löwenstein 
remarks. "The costs for that should be borne by those who are making it 
necessary to use GMOs at all."

Sue Edwards, director of the Institute of Sustainable Development in 
Ethiopia, has helped introduce the traditional Indian pit-composting method 
to the northern state of Tigray, which has increased crop yields two to 
three-fold, outperforming chemical fertilizers. The project has proven so 
successful that the Ethiopian government is adopting organic agriculture as 
one of its strategies for food security. "Working with nature is the best way 
to produce healthy environments that give people healthy and fulfilling 
lives; and at the same time to protect and increase biodiversity," Edwards 
explains.

Dr. Bob Orskov of the International Feed Resources Unit, Aberdeen, Scotland, 
concurs: "In general, multiple cropping, including agroforestry, is a better 
option than conventional monoculture in increasing crop yield, soil fertility 
and biodiversity; especially for Third World countries."

Teddy Goldsmith, founding editor of the Ecologist, gives us the bottom line: 
"Industrial agriculture depends heavily on oil and water, both rapidly 
running out, and GM crops will intensify that dependence. There will be no 
way to feed the world other than sustainable agriculture, which will also 
ameliorate the worse excesses of climate change."

Notes to Editors

The ISP - launched 10 May 2003 at a public conference in London attended by 
then environment minister Michael Meacher and 200 other participants - 
consists of 26 prominent scientists from eight countries spanning the 
disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany, chemical 
medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, 
nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology. As their 
contribution to the global GM debate, the ISP has published its report, The 
Case for a GM Free Sustainable World , a complete dossier of evidence on the 
known problems and hazards of GM crops and the proven successes and benefits 
of sustainable agriculture.
"Keep Europe GM-Free!" Science for a GM-Free Sustainable Europe. ISP Briefing 
at the European Parliament, Brussels, 20 October 2004 www.indsp.org
"Plants for the future": a 2025 vision for European plant biotechnology, News 
alert 24 June 2004, 
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/press/2004/pr2406-2en.cfm

For more information contact Lim Li Ching

Tel: 44-(0)20-8643-0681

e-mail: ching AT i-sis.org.uk



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