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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] GM-Crops Are A Dead-end
  • Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:14:50 -0600

The Institute of Science in Society Science Society
Sustainability http://www.i-sis.org.uk

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@i-sis.org.uk



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  • [Livingontheland] GM-Crops Are A Dead-end, Tradingpost, 10/18/2004

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