[Pil-pc-oceania] Monsanto GM vs Rural Farmers

Wed May 23 12:45:30 EST 2007

Hi Bill

If a product on the shelves in Australia contains GM corn, by law it 
should be stated on the label, but you might need to take your 
magnifying glass with you to the supermarket so you can read the fine 
print.  This is not the case in the US where as far as I am aware it is 
open slather for the corporations and there are no labelling laws.  GM 
corn from the US has been brought into the country for use in chicken 
feed but a successful campaign by Greenpeace a while ago managed to 
convince major poultry suppliers here that the couple of cents per bird 
they were saving by feeding their chooks GM corn was not worth the bad 
press.

To answer your question though, I don't think we can ever be sure we 
will know without testing everything for GM contamination.  It's 
already out of the labs, on the supermarket shelves and breeding in the 
fields, possibly at a secret site near you.  GM food ingredients under 
a certain percentage of the total product do not need to be labelled.  
I could not figure out what percentage that is without spending hours at
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/foodmatters/gmfoods/
and/or downloading millions of megs of PDF documents.  However I did 
read what I consider is a false and misleading description on that web 
page of what GM foods actually are.  What they don't say in my opinion 
is just as misleading as what they do, for example "[genetic] 
modifications usually involve changing one gene of the 30,000 - 50,000 
or so genes that make up an organism".  As far as I am aware the 
technology itself does not allow genetic engineers to splice and 
translocate only 1 gene.  The genes are translocated across the natural 
species barrier via an assortment of genetically modified viruses 
and/or bacteria called "carriers" in a sort of shotgun effect into the 
target organism.  GM is nothing like the horticultural selection and 
crossing of seeds with desirable characteristics over thousands of 
years that has brought us the amazing variety of good-looking "hybrid" 
plants that we enjoy today.  I am a horticulturist by trade and know 
very little about genetics but my immediate thoughts were "that's bs" 
and further "I don't trust the information on this site".  GM crops are 
not hybrid plants which is what the web page seems to imply.  It's one 
thing to translate the jargon of complex sciences like chemical or 
genetic engineering into layman's language that everyone can understand 
but quite another for a presumably well-informed government agency to 
use that simplified language to mislead the public. Somebody please 
convince me I'm mistaken about this.

I think we can only be guided by our own common sense and by 
independent bodies such as the Australian Consumers Association who we 
feel are doing good work, who are doing the research and following up 
with the hard yards to make people aware.  Greenpeace's True Food Guide 
covers a majority of processed foods and rates brands according to the 
manufacturer's policy on genetic modification.  At 
http://sites.greenpeace.org.au/truefood/guide2.html you can download, 
search or browse the latest guide and make up your own shopping list of 
the brands you choose to support.

One ingredient to watch out for is something called "vegetable oil", 
it's often listed as an ingredient in margarine.  If you see for 
example "Magic Miracle Marg with Mustard Oil" [the key word is "with"] 
check the list of ingredients and you will find it contains maybe 10 or 
15% mustard [trade name "Canola"] oil but the bulk of it [the first 
ingredient listed] is often the mysterious and ubiquitous "vegetable 
oil".  That could also mean cottonseed oil because strictly speaking 
cotton is vegetation even though it's not normally edible vegetation.  
I've never seen actual "cottonseed oil" for sale even though it is an 
approved "food".  Cotton is sprayed something like 12 times a year with 
a variety of lethal "i-cides" and the introduction of GM cotton has 
only reduced that to something like 10 times a year.   I wouldn't touch 
cottonseed oil with a barge pole let alone eat it, whether GM or not, 
even though the food standards website referred to above would have us 
believe it is safe.  You might be able to run a diesel vehicle on it, 
maybe, but I certainly wouldn't feed it to my kids.

As at December 2006 Food Standards Australia & New Zealand [FSANZ], our 
statutory body responsible for food safety, had approved 31 different 
GM "foods" including corn, cottonseed, Canola, soybeans, sugar beet, 
potato and wheat with a significant percentage being modified for 
glyphosate tolerance.  Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the 
trade-marked chemical known as Roundup marketed by Monsanto.  "Modified 
for glyphosate tolerance" means the same as Monsanto's trade name of 
"Roundup Ready" [RR] seeds and refers to the ability of the plant to 
tolerate high concentrations of the broad-spectrum herbicide glyphosate 
in its tissues.  Please note that "Canola" is a PVR marketing name for 
a plant, it is not a true plant species and not a "food" that you would 
eat a lot of.  The plant it was derived from is in the mustard family, 
the same plant family that brought us mustard gas.

In addition to the Genethics network mentioned by Deb Guildner, good 
information about GM can be found at:

http://www.gmwatch.org - Browse the Biotech Brigade, a global directory 
on the deceptive PR push behind GM foods, starring Monsanto but 
featuring at least one .org.au that accepts funding from Monsanto.  
Read George Monbiot's opinion of gmwatch.org at 
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=51&page=1 [copy and paste into 
your browser if this goes to 2 lines]

http:// www.grain.org contains info mainly about the big 5 GM crops 
[rice, corn, cotton, Canola and soybeans] with an emphasis on rice at 
the moment.  One previously experimental variety of rice destined for 
pharmaceutical use contains human genes and was just approved for 
release last week in the US.

The Institute of Science in Society http:// www.i-sis.org.uk has a good 
news story on their front page now about a coalition of independent 
scientists who will present comprehensive evidence to the European 
Parliament on 12 June 2007 for a European and worldwide ban on the 
release of GM crops.

Robyn

On Sunday, May 20, 2007, at 11:03 pm, 
pil-pc-oceania-request at lists.permacultureinternational.org/Bill Pilgrim 
wrote:

> Can anyone tell me if the talk about GM Corn on the shelves in 
> Australia has any substance, regarding the fact that it was supposed 
> to be Toxic to rats.  This whole GM stuff is going to make us ill one 
> way or another.  If I know a product is GM then I will never buy it 
> again, but can we be sure we will always know?  I'm so old now that it 
> will probably not make a lot of difference, but I detest the thought 
> that I may, in some way support the production of the stuff
> Bill Pilgrim

CONTACT DETAILS:

Robyn Williamson
PDC, Urban Horticulturist
Local Seed Network Coordinator
NORTH WESTERN SYDNEY COMMUNITY SEED SAVERS
mobile:  0409 151 435
ph/fx:  (612) 9629 3560
http://www.seedsavers.net
http://www.communityfoods.org.au
http://www.communitygarden.org.au
http://www.bidjiwongcommunitynursery.org.au
http://www.permaculturesydneybasin.org.au

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