Bracing for Demographic Winter: The ”Overpopulation Crisis”

A new round of calls for punishing austerity and depopulation strategies have sprung up in the wake of a Royal Society report ringing the alarm on the so-called overpopulation crisis. The report, entitled ”People and the Planet” was published on April 26th and followed up by a flurry of articles by the usual suspects dutifully parroting the society’s dire warnings about the future of humanity in a crowding world. Paul Ehrlich was even trotted out to chastise the Society for not going far enough in their report, instead intimating that 5 billion people would have to disappear from the face of the earth for the population to be at a ”sustainable” level.

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30694

GMO News From Around The World

CBAN’s last update was to announce the end of the GM pig! (www.cban.ca/enviropig) It has been a few weeks without the CBAN e-news so here is a dense edition as a lot has happened in Canada and around the world!

CANADA

Calgary-based company SemBioSys which was trying to produce insulin, a human heart drug, and growth hormone for shrimp feed, in genetically engineered safflowers is going out of business. SemBioSys was supported by many grants from the University of Calgary.

CBAN clarifies why the GM pig called ”Enviropig” was unncessary:

CBAN presented to the UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food this week. You can view CBAN’s remarks here: The United Nations has never sent their Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to a wealthy nation before. Usually, Olivier de Schutter, the Special Rapporteur, visits developing countries. But Mr. De Schutter touches down in Canada, where he will investigate our food system. He will visit Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and the Island Lakes Region from May 6-16th. The Special Rapporteur’s meetings will include civil society groups concerned with the right to food across Canada, as well as with Aboriginal peoples who are particularly affected by the issue. He will be investigating issues of access to food for marginalized groups – in a press release, he said, ”Challenges remain to ensure that food is adequate, accessible and affordable for marginalized groups, be they poor urban populations or Aboriginal peoples”.

CBAN has written an update on Golden Rice (GM Vitamin A rice) is posted as a letter to the editor of the Ontario Farmer, from CBAN :

UNITED STATES

A California initiative to require labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients appeared headed for the ballot in November after organizers said they had gathered nearly 1 million signatures in favor of the measure.

A provision that would have required the labeling of GM foods sold in the state of Connecticut has been removed from the state’s draft Genetically Engineered Foods bill, this opinion piece reports. Connecticut Representative Richard Roy, co-chair of the Environment Committee and the original sponsor of the bill, said, “The labeling provision was eliminated from the bill due to fears that it opened the state up to a lawsuit. The attorneys for the leadership and Governor’s office felt that the Constitutional Rights of Monsanto gave them the power to successfully sue the state. Their main duty was to protect the welfare of the state.”

Dow Chemical company could win regulatory approval in the U.S. for corn that is genetically engineered to be resistant to the pesticide 2,4-D. This product is a response to the problem of weeds that have become resistant to glyphosate (Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide) due to the use of GM Roundup Ready crops. Herbicide tolerant weeds are making the use of Monsanto’s Roundup useless for weed control. The US Department of Agriculture has received over 365,000 public comments opposing approval of 2,4-D-resistant, genetically engineered corn and 152 Farm, Fisheries, Public Health, Consumer, and Environmental Groups sent Secretary Vilsack a joint letter on the potential threats to human health. Opposition is also coming from conventional vegetable farmers who are concerned that pesticide drift of 2,4-D will damage their crops. They have formed the Save Our Crops Coalition http://saveourcrops.org/

GM Mosquito release in Florida is on hold indefinitely. http://www.keysnet.com/2012/05/05/444881/expect-mosquito-control-out-in.html

NEW ZEALAND

Nearly 400 genetically engineered pine trees were destroyed during the April 7 weekend break-in at a one-hectare plantation in New Zealand run by the crown research institute called Scion. Scion had planted 375 genetically engineered radiata pines last year to test herbicide resistance and study reproductive development and says they will re-plant.

Genetically modified crop trials have failed to take off in New Zealand for reasons other than the strict legal barriers blamed by developers, the Sustainability Council says. The research group said it had been convenient for developers to condemn the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act for their lack of GM trial success. However, the think tank found that the drop in the number of GM field trials was mainly due to other factors, such as loss of funding and technical difficulties. Sustainability Council executive director Simon Terry said state-funded research and development programmes had once promised to bring GM fruit, vegetables, pasture grasses and livestock to New Zealand fields and tables. Since the 1980s, tens of millions of dollars of public science funding had gone into developing GM organisms. ”Yet despite promises of major economic returns and imminent or certain commercialisation, not a single GM crop variety has reached the market or is likely to do so within the next decade,” he said.

AFRICA

Zambia’s ruling party has reiterated opposition to the introduction of GM crops. Patriotic Front Secretary General Wynter Kabimba says the Government views GMOs as a foreign solution that only benefit multinational corporations. In 2002 Zambia rejected food aid that included GM corn. http://www.greens.org/s-r/32/32-06.html

Zimbabwe will not allow GM seeds into the country since they pose a risk to national food security, a Cabinet minister has said. Agriculture Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made said local scientists develop seeds that are suitable for the country’s soils and not harmful to the health of the people. ”Our scientists have over the years developed seeds that are in balance with our climate and soil. These GMOs will bring various conditions and complications to the environment and people’s health,” he said. http://allafrica.com/stories/201202280259.html

ASIA

Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives announced that Monsanto will not be allowed to carry out a pilot GM corn project in Nepal.

India’s National Biodiversity Authority, the country’s biodiversity-preservation watchdog, has decided to prosecute Monsanto for allegedly using (genetically engineering) Indian brinjal (eggplant) varieties without permission, in violation of India’s biodiversity law.

BRAZIL

A court in Brazil’s southern‐most state of Rio Grande do Sul issued a preliminary injunction on April 4 that suspends Monsanto’s collection of royalties on genetically modified soybean seeds. Judge Giovanni Conti further ruled that Monsanto would have to reimburse farmers for license fees that have been paid on GM soybean seeds since 2003/04. The ruling was in response to a class action lawsuit filed in 2009 by the farmers associations of Passo Fundo, Santiago, and Sertão. The farmers associations did not question Monsanto’s ability to charge a royalty on its patented GM seeds, but they objected to restrictions on the practice of saving and replanting seeds gathered from the patented GM plants. Judge Conti ruled that the practice violates the Brazilian Cultivars Act.

SCIENCE

A new study has found that GM insecticide resistant (Bt) corn can be harmful to the overall health of soil ecosystems. Genetically modified corn has been linked to a decrease in a subterranean fungus that forms a symbiotic bond with plant roots, allowing them to draw in more nutrients and water from the surrounding soil in exchange for carbon. Researchers at Portland State University conducted a study to examine the effects of corn genetically engineered with the bacteria-derived insecticidal toxin, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, on growth of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). AMF is important for the overall health and fertility of soil ecosystems, and was found to form less bonds with the roots of Bt corn than with non-Bt corn.Researchers at Portland State University in the U.S. have found in a greenhouse study that helpful and ubiquitous subterranean fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form fewer bonds with the roots of Bt corn than with non-Bt corn. Their research has been published in the American Journal of Botany. The microscopic fungus AMF forms a symbiotic bond with plant roots, allowing them to draw in more nutrients and water from the surrounding soil in exchange for carbon. But, the researchers found, such bonds were less likely to be formed with Bt corn, which are genetically modified (GM) to produce a Bt toxin that repels insects. ”Because these fungi rely on a plant host for nutrition and reproduction, they may be sensitive to genetic changes within a plant, such as insect-resistant Bt corn,” Tanya Cheeke, a PhD student in biology at Portland State, told the American Journal of Botany. The research was part of Cheeke’s dissertation research, which she conducted in collaboration with colleagues. ”What makes our study unique is that we evaluated AMF colonization in 14 different lines of Bt and non-Bt corn under consistent experimental conditions in a greenhouse using locally collected agricultural field soil as the AMF inoculum,” Cheeke said. She noted that plants grown in the same soil where Bt corn had been grown previously did not experience a reduction in bonds with AMF. According to Cheeke, 88 percent of corn planted in the U.S. in 2011 was Bt.

Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator
Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN)
Collaborative Campaigning for Food Sovereignty and Environmental Justice
Suite 206, 180 Metcalfe Street
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2P 1P5
Phone: 613 241 2267 ext. 25
Fax: 613 241 2506
coordinator@cban.ca
http://www.cban.ca

How about a little Oscar Wilde…

Oscar Wilde: The Soul of Man Under Socialism:

http://roarmag.org/2012/05/oscar-wilde-the-soul-of-man-under-socialism-anarchism/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+roarmag+%28Reflections+on+a+Revolution%29&hl=en