Showing posts with label Genetically Modified foods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genetically Modified foods. Show all posts
Friday, October 23, 2026
Wednesday, March 22, 2023
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Seeds of Death: Unveiling The Lies of GMO's - Full Movie
PRNfm
Published on May 23, 2013
The world's leading Scientists, Physicians, Attorneys, Politicians and Environmental Activists expose the corruption and dangers surrounding the widespread use of Genetically Modified Organisms in the new feature length documentary, "Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs".
Senior Executive Producer / Writer / Director: Gary Null PhD
Executive Producer/Writer/Co-Director: Richard Polonetsky
Producers: Paola Bossola, Richard Gale, James Spruill, Patrick Thompson, Valerie Van Cleve
Editors: James Spruill, Patrick Thompson, Richie Williamson, Nick Palm
Music: Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com), Armando Guarnera
Graphics: Jay Graygor
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Friday, May 03, 2013
Is The Food We Eat Killing Us?
The Economic Collapse
Wed, 09 May 2012 20:33 CDT
© The Economic Collapse
Are we digging our own graves with our teeth? Is the food that we eat every day slowly killing us? When I was growing up, I just assumed that everything in the grocery store was perfectly safe and perfectly healthy. I just assumed that the government and the big corporations were watching out for us and that they would never allow something harmful to be sold in the stores. Boy, was I wrong! Today, the average American diet is extremely unhealthy.
Most of the foods that we all love to eat are absolutely packed with things that will damage our health. Many of the ingredients that make our foods "taste good" such as fat, salt and sugar can be extremely damaging in large amounts. On top of that, most processed foods are absolutely loaded with chemicals and preservatives. The next time you go to the grocery store, just start turning over packages and read the "ingredients" that are being put into our food.
If you have never done this before, you will be absolutely amazed. In many of our most common foods there are "ingredients" that I cannot even pronounce. Sadly, most Americans have no idea that eating a steady diet of these processed foods will likely leave them massively overweight, very sick and much closer to death.
Eating healthy takes more time, more effort and more money than eating poorly does.
Unfortunately, most Americans are content to chow down on foods that are quick to make and that taste good.
In particular, Americans are absolutely addicted to foods that are loaded with sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
When you start looking at food product labels, you will find that either sugar or high fructose corn syrup is in almost everything.
For example, I was absolutely amazed when I learned that most bread sold in our grocery stores contains high fructose corn syrup.
Why in the world would they need to put that into our bread?
Today, Americans are consuming far more sugar and high fructose corn syrup than ever before, and this has many health professionals very alarmed. The following is an excerpt from an article on the website of the Mayo Clinic....
Most of the foods that we all love to eat are absolutely packed with things that will damage our health. Many of the ingredients that make our foods "taste good" such as fat, salt and sugar can be extremely damaging in large amounts. On top of that, most processed foods are absolutely loaded with chemicals and preservatives. The next time you go to the grocery store, just start turning over packages and read the "ingredients" that are being put into our food.
If you have never done this before, you will be absolutely amazed. In many of our most common foods there are "ingredients" that I cannot even pronounce. Sadly, most Americans have no idea that eating a steady diet of these processed foods will likely leave them massively overweight, very sick and much closer to death.
Eating healthy takes more time, more effort and more money than eating poorly does.
Unfortunately, most Americans are content to chow down on foods that are quick to make and that taste good.
In particular, Americans are absolutely addicted to foods that are loaded with sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
When you start looking at food product labels, you will find that either sugar or high fructose corn syrup is in almost everything.
For example, I was absolutely amazed when I learned that most bread sold in our grocery stores contains high fructose corn syrup.
Why in the world would they need to put that into our bread?
Today, Americans are consuming far more sugar and high fructose corn syrup than ever before, and this has many health professionals very alarmed. The following is an excerpt from an article on the website of the Mayo Clinic....
Some research studies have linked consumption of large amounts of any type of added sugar - not just high-fructose corn syrup - to such health problems as weight gain, dental cavities, poor nutrition, and increased triglyceride levels, which can boost your heart attack risk.But it is not just sweeteners that are a concern.
There are great concerns about much of the meat that we eat as well.
Today, we grow animals much larger than we used to, but it comes at a price.
For example, we pump our cows full of growth hormones and they stand around in piles of their own manure until it is time for them to die.
If many Americans were aware of where the "cheap beef" in their grocery stores really comes from they might just change their eating habits.
Another dramatic change that has happened to our food supply in recent decades has been the rise of genetically modified crops.
In this area, there has been nothing short of a revolution.
In 1996, only about 2% of all soybeans in the United States were genetically modified. Today, about 90% of all soybeans in the United States are genetically modified.
At this point, approximately 70% of all processed foods in our grocery stores contain at least one ingredient that has been genetically modified.
This is one reason why so many Americans have shifted to an organic diet. Nobody really knows what the long-term health effects of eating all of this genetically-modified food will be on all of us.
But there are some things that we do know.
For example, if you drink large amounts of soda every day you are going to gain weight and you are likely to damage your health.
Sadly, even though we know this, the average American still consumes over 600 12-ounce servings of soda per year.
Is it any wonder that we have an obesity epidemic in America?
As I wrote about the other day, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.
In fact, the United States has a higher percentage of obese people than any other major industrialized nation does.
All of this obesity helps to explain the dramatic rise that we have seen in diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes in recent years.
Did you know that people living in the United States are three times more likely to have diabetes than people living in the United Kingdom?
It is not a mystery why this is happening.
It is because of our unhealthy diets.
The food we eat is killing us.
We are a nation that is becoming a little less healthy every single day, and this is causing healthcare costs to completely spiral out of control.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
That is an incredible rise.
And health care costs have been rising much faster than the overall rate of inflation.
For example, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States over the past decade.
As Americans get sicker, health care will continue to be a "growth industry".
When we all get sick, what do the doctors do?
They put us all on prescription drugs.
According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans that report that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last 30 days has risen to almost 50 percent.
In fact, 31 percent of Americans say that they have taken at least two prescription drugs within the last 30 days and 11 percent have taken at least five prescription drugs within the last 30 days.
But what happens when you take prescription drugs?
Well, most of them have nasty little side effects that cause even more health problems.
You know, there is something to be said for going back to a much more natural approach to health. For example, a recent study found that Amish children have very low levels of asthma and allergies. The following is from a recent Reuters article....
Amish children raised on rural farms in northern Indiana suffer from asthma and allergies less often even than Swiss farm kids, a group known to be relatively free from allergies, according to a new study.
"The rates are very, very low," said Dr. Mark Holbreich, the study's lead author. "So there's something that we feel is even more protective in the Amish" than in European farming communities.
What it is about growing up on farms -- and Amish farms in particular -- that seems to prevent allergies remains unclear.Could the Amish teach the rest of us a thing or two about staying healthy?
That is something to think about.
Another aspect of all this is the packaging that our food comes in.
Chemicals from the packaging our food comes in can often get into our food and have serious health effects as an article by Emily Barrettrecently described....
Increasingly, evidence shows that the plastics and wrappers used for packaging can inadvertently leach unwanted chemicals into food. Several recent studies found high levels of bisphenol A - an environmental chemical that can disrupt hormonal processes - in canned foods and in packaged foods for people and pets.
Now, another study suggests that the problems go far beyond just one culprit or one health effect. Among the many toxic chemicals that can migrate from packaging into food are the endocrine disrupting phthalates and organotins and the carcinogen benzophenone. These compounds are heavily used in food packaging and have known health effects, yet are not routinely tested or regulated in food, according to the paper's author Jane Muncke.*
Although some regulations exist to guarantee safe food packaging, the current system does not address concerns posed by endocrine disrupting chemicals, Muncke explains.* The associated health effects of exposure to hormone altering compounds are many and varied, including immune disfunction, metabolic disorders (diabetes, thyroid) and reproductive problems.But our story is still not over.
After we are done with our food we throw the packaging in the garbage and most Americans never even think about where it eventually ends up.
Unfortunately, much of it ends up out in the ocean.
In the Pacific Ocean today, there is a toxic stew of plastic and garbage about twice the size of the continental United States that is known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".
According to a BBC report, there are now 100 times more small plastic fragments in the northeast Pacific Ocean than 40 years ago.
But most of us never even stop and think about how the food we eat is destroying our bodies and the world around us.
Most of us just go through our daily lives assuming that somehow everything is going to be okay.
But the truth is that our food is causing major problems.
Sadly, with each passing year the federal government and the big corporations get even more control over our system of food distribution.
Hopefully more Americans will wake up and will start rejecting the "food" that the system wants to cram down our throats.
We all need to start making better choices.
Growing a garden, eating organic foods and supporting local farmers are some good places to start.
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Sunday, April 01, 2012
What is Genetically Modified Food?
Uploaded by AbbyMediaRoots on Dec 16, 2009
For a transcript of this video along with resources and other information please visit http://www.MEDIAROOTS.org
Take Action:
http://www.nongmoproject.org/
http://truefoodnow.org/
http://www.organicconsumers.org/action.cfm
http://www.saynotogmos.org/
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
The fight over the future of food
A worker collects rice at a plantation in Belcreda Gambolo, 30 km (20 miles) southwest of Milan in northern Italy November 6, 2009.REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
By Claudia Parsons, Russell Blinch and Svetlana Kovalyova
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN (Reuters) - At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.
Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.
Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key player in the fight against hunger.
The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the future of food.
Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.
The food fight takes place at a time when experts on both sides agree on one thing -- the number of empty bellies around the world will only grow unless there is major intervention now.
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050.
International leaders are gathering in Rome next week for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's World Summit on Food Security and will hear competing arguments over how best to tackle the problem. One of the fiercest disputes will be over the relative importance of science versus social and economic reforms to empower small farmers to grow more with existing technology.
"LISTEN TO NATURE"
Much of Europe has moved away from an agricultural system of small farms to mass commercial farming, but Italy still retains a base of family farmers who produce everything from olives to mozzarella cheese.
Oglio is one of them. A charismatic 40-year-old, he dropped out of an agricultural school after growing disillusioned with the farming methods being taught there. Today, he lets nature run its course as he grows cereals and legumes on his small family farm in Belcreda di Gambolo, about 20 miles southwest of Milan.
He does not use any chemical, or even natural fertilizers or pesticides. He does not weed his fields. "All you need to do is observe nature, listen to it, do what nature suggests and it will take care of everything," he said.
His fields, in a low-lying plain that has a long history of growing rice used for risotto, replicate patterns found in nature. For example, clover and millet grow together, feeding each other with necessary minerals.
Oglio said his farm is eco-sustainable. He has slashed operating costs by eliminating expensive commercial products like herbicides and by reducing the use of agricultural machinery to a minimum. Such cheap and low-maintenance farming could be adopted in Africa and other regions hit by poverty and hunger, he said.
"Natural farming will not save the world. But it can feed poor families," he said.
But it's unlikely it can do so on the scale that most experts believe is necessary. And therein lies the rub. Affluent consumers may prefer the Oglios of the world to the Monsantos, but their skittishness about high-tech agriculture is making it more difficult to grapple with the mounting crisis over the lack of food.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
The last time the world faced such dire predictions of famine was before the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when countries like India and China transformed their agricultural systems to become self-sufficient in food. They did so by harnessing plant-breeding technology to raise yields on rice, wheat and other staple crops.
Through massive state investment in hybrid rice, China, the world's most populous country, raised its yields from two tons per hectare in the 1960s to more than 10 tons per hectare by 2004. Chinese scientists seek further gains -- 13.5 tons per hectare by 2015, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which cites China's rice program as one of the true success stories in agricultural development in a study out this week (November 12) called "Millions Fed."
To be sure, the Green Revolution had its downsides -- environmental damage, to name one. In India, for example, water tables are drying up and the soil has been degraded by pesticide and fertilizers. The movement also contributed to the rise of big commercial farms at the expense of small holders, fueling resentment from its early days at what critics see as the "corporatization" of food.
But millions of people were saved from starvation, and the movement's architect, Norman Borlaug, received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
With their populations soaring, however, India and China -- not to mention most of Africa -- still face challenges, especially as climate change exacerbates environmental problems that have already slowed growth in food production.
IFPRI, part of a global network of agricultural research centers, said last month lower yields due to climate change would cut "calorie availability" for the average consumer in a developing country in 2050 by 7 percent, compared with 2000.
Higher temperatures reduce crop yields while encouraging pests and plant diseases. For almost all crops, South Asia would experience the largest declines in yields. IFPRI said rice output in the region would be 14 percent lower than if there were no climate change.
"India sorely needs another Green Revolution," said Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, joint managing director of Bajaj Hinduthan, India's top sugar producer, which is importing raw sugar after a drought hit the domestic cane crop.
But a second green revolution would face a strong counterinsurgency, even in a place like India that benefited so profoundly from the first one.
"The point is that chemicals destroy the sustainability of productivity in the long run ... Yes, a second green revolution is indeed very essential -- the very need of the hour. But it should not be the same kind of green revolution that the first was," said P.C. Kesavan, a fellow at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, set up by the father of India's Green Revolution.
Economists and scientists in India are demanding a raft of policy initiatives, including allowing genetic engineering, which its proponents argue does the same job as traditional plant hybridization, only quicker and more efficiently.
India has so far allowed GM seeds only for cotton, which has boosted productivity, but suggestions of allowing such seeds for edible crops have always evoked strong protests.
CRADLE OF CORN
It's a similar story in Mexico, where Borlaug started his pioneering research in the 1940s at the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program. Mexico issued permits last month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically modified corn.
Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla, a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest of the world.
Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many developing countries -- balancing consumer fears with the need to grow more food.
"We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us it's not just a question of food, but about conserving our traditions," said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern mountains of Guerrero state.
"With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn, white corn," Tlacotempa said. "Above all, we will be condemned to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It's not sustainable. It's a real risk for the wellbeing of these communities."
At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops' greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.
Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico, said the country now imports about half of the corn it consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it was vital to raise production using all tools available.
"It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we need to start testing those and deploying those," he said.
"GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we need to be able to use those tools," Lumpkin said. "If we could deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why should they be handicapped?"
RICH CONSUMERS RESIST GM
Monsanto launched the world's first genetically modified crop in 1996 and GM crops are now grown in countries ranging from Australia to South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil.
Up to 85 percent of the massive U.S. corn crop is genetically engineered, as well as up 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton, according to U.S. data.
As ingrained as GM crops may seem, a backlash against the technology appears to be growing.
Opposition to genetic modification of seeds has long been strongest in Europe. The European Union severely restricts use of GM seeds on its territory, as well as imports of products containing GM-derived food. Individual countries including Germany ban even GM seeds that are authorized, such as an insect-resistant maize type, MON 810, developed by Monsanto.
Now consumer resistance to what British tabloids long ago dubbed "Frankenfood" is taking root in the United States too.
With North America's industrial farming system, consumers who buy packaged goods from grocery stores are likely eating GM products without even knowing it, according to environmental group the Center for Food Safety. The group, which was involved in a successful court battle to stop introduction of Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa seed, also contends that up to 70 percent of soda, soup, crackers and other processed goods sold under major household brands are GM derived.
"There really is no human health analysis of GM crops," said William Freese, science policy analyst for the center. "It's a real result of the policy that our government has put in place, which is basically a presumption of innocence."
A banner issue for U.S. anti-GM crusaders is genetically engineered growth hormones for dairy cows, known as rBGH. Introduced in the United States in 1994, rBGH is a drug to extend milk production after a cow gives birth. It was developed by Monsanto but recently sold to Eli Lilly and Co.
Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of hospitals and other health groups, believes the drug is dangerous because it increases the likelihood of infection in the cow's udder, which leads to greater antibiotic use in the animals. That contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans, they argue.
Other critics say it may be linked to cancer in humans, despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals.
Proponents have won over a string of big names to reject the drug, including the big yogurt makers Yoplait and Dannon, and have also lobbied coffee chain Starbucks to oppose rBGH.
A Starbucks spokesman said the firm's entire core dairy supply comes from suppliers that do not use the hormone.
"Our core products, coffee and tea, are not genetically modified," the spokesman said in a statement. "We have no plans to purchase coffee or tea that is derived from GM sources, now or in the future."
The industry notes that GM research is supported by a number of august groups, including the Royal Society of Britain and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Keywords: FOOD/
"IDEOLOGICAL WEDGE"
For those seeking to end global hunger, rather than just satisfy rich consumers' craving for cappuccino, Africa presents the greatest challenges.
Monsanto, together with corporate rivals, is working with poor countries and charitable groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife.
At the annual World Food Prize forum last month, Gates warned that the fight to end hunger was being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops should not be used in Africa. He said it was vital to help small farmers there boost production by all means, including GM crops, fertilizer and chemicals.
"This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said at the forum for the prize, which was created by Borlaug, who died in September at the age of 95.
"Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment," Gates said. "They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it."
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, who has worked for the IFPRI thinktank on food for 22 years, summed it up like this: "I'm a Kenyan. I resent very much people telling us in Africa 'OK, this biotechnology is not good for you.' Well, we have different problems than you do, and if it helps us to solve a problem, we should try it."
Yet, even in Africa, there is suspicion of GM technology. Many countries there, such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania, do not allow GM seeds.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a Kenya-based group set up in 2006 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation, targets its programs specifically at small-scale farmers.
Three-quarters of the world's poorest billion people live in rural areas, dependent on farming for their livelihoods.
AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems uses conventional breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans, rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests. The goal is to develop and release more than 1,000 improved crop varieties over the next 10 years.
"We've adopted a small grant mechanism that gets money out to plant breeders on the ground, so that they can, over a period of years, and selections and lots of consultations with local farmers, and access to the world's gene banks, come up with something that's truly novel, much higher yielding and resistant to local diseases and with the taste and texture that local people want," said Joseph DeVries, director of PASS.
"To leap to the GM model at this stage, just seems like it's ignoring a lot of the things that make sense locally, that people can do locally without it," he said.
Kostas Stamoulis, director of the FAO's Agricultural Development Economics Division, said only a few food crops are in wide use in genetically modified forms, and most are not well adapted to the varied and often extreme environmental conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa has eight or more staple crops that are grown in a wide variety of climates and conditions, making it far more of a challenge than in Asia, where single staple crops, such as rice, are grown in relatively homogenous conditions over wide areas. Stamoulis emphasized the need for all kinds of technology, including traditional plant breeding.
He said there should be a balance between "people that, in my view, make the extraordinarily dangerous proposition that you can feed the world with organics, which is absolutely crazy, and those who are fanatic about GMOs without looking at the full balance of options."
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
The FAO said last month the world needs to invest $83 billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion people in 2050.
To achieve that, both public and private investment on a grand scale is needed, but the trend on the public side has been discouraging. Official development assistance to agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005, dropping from 17 percent of total aid to 3.8 percent over that period. It now stands at about 5 percent, the FAO said.
Yet, the payoff from agricultural investment, particularly by governments, can be seen in Brazil, a case study in how the Green Revolution transformed a developing country.
Within a few decades it developed from a producer of a handful of cash crops into one of the world's largest producers of food stuffs, with an agriculture business worth nearly 300 billion reais ($172 billion) in annual sales.
Brazil began its Green Revolution in the mid-1970s, with the creation of the government farm research firm Embrapa, which resulted in increased diversification and productivity of crops as well as the expansion of cropland.
Each year Embrapa measures the return to society from research in agriculture. Latest figures show that each dollar spent on agriculture research generates a return of $13.50.
Last year's food crisis, when fears of food shortages gripped grain markets -- sending wheat and rice prices soaring to record highs and sparking hoarding and riots -- was a wake-up call, one that experts hope will translate into sustained investment.
The unrest was a powerful reminder of the risks of food insecurity and helped spur the world's richest nations to promise to spend $20 billion over three years to help small, subsistence farmers improve their productivity.
U.S. President Barack Obama has launched a $3.5 billion hunger and food security initiative focused on agriculture.
Back on the farm in Italy, Oglio said an operation like his can be run on a shoe-string budget, without the sort of subsidies that prop up agriculture, even in the wealthy European Union.
The 87-acre (35-hectare) farm that his parents used to run in a conventional way was on the edge of bankruptcy 20 years ago, burdened by high operating costs and competition in the changing economy of Europe.
With his back-to-nature methods, Oglio turned the farm around and now makes profits.
But that is a very European story. His customers, he admits, are willing to pay more for his healthful products because many of them are environmentalists.
The world's poorest people -- 1 billion of them -- may not have the luxury of making that choice.
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN (Reuters) - At first glance, Giuseppe Oglio's farm near Milan looks like it's suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.
Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming techniques -- chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery -- in favor of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological, he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be replicated in starving regions of the globe.
Nearly 5,000 miles away, in laboratories in St. Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world's biggest seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.
Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key player in the fight against hunger.
The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the future of food.
Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a divisive question that pits environmentalists against anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and rich countries against poor.
The food fight takes place at a time when experts on both sides agree on one thing -- the number of empty bellies around the world will only grow unless there is major intervention now.
A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050.
International leaders are gathering in Rome next week for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's World Summit on Food Security and will hear competing arguments over how best to tackle the problem. One of the fiercest disputes will be over the relative importance of science versus social and economic reforms to empower small farmers to grow more with existing technology.
"LISTEN TO NATURE"
Much of Europe has moved away from an agricultural system of small farms to mass commercial farming, but Italy still retains a base of family farmers who produce everything from olives to mozzarella cheese.
Oglio is one of them. A charismatic 40-year-old, he dropped out of an agricultural school after growing disillusioned with the farming methods being taught there. Today, he lets nature run its course as he grows cereals and legumes on his small family farm in Belcreda di Gambolo, about 20 miles southwest of Milan.
He does not use any chemical, or even natural fertilizers or pesticides. He does not weed his fields. "All you need to do is observe nature, listen to it, do what nature suggests and it will take care of everything," he said.
His fields, in a low-lying plain that has a long history of growing rice used for risotto, replicate patterns found in nature. For example, clover and millet grow together, feeding each other with necessary minerals.
Oglio said his farm is eco-sustainable. He has slashed operating costs by eliminating expensive commercial products like herbicides and by reducing the use of agricultural machinery to a minimum. Such cheap and low-maintenance farming could be adopted in Africa and other regions hit by poverty and hunger, he said.
"Natural farming will not save the world. But it can feed poor families," he said.
But it's unlikely it can do so on the scale that most experts believe is necessary. And therein lies the rub. Affluent consumers may prefer the Oglios of the world to the Monsantos, but their skittishness about high-tech agriculture is making it more difficult to grapple with the mounting crisis over the lack of food.
LEARNING FROM THE PAST
The last time the world faced such dire predictions of famine was before the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, when countries like India and China transformed their agricultural systems to become self-sufficient in food. They did so by harnessing plant-breeding technology to raise yields on rice, wheat and other staple crops.
Through massive state investment in hybrid rice, China, the world's most populous country, raised its yields from two tons per hectare in the 1960s to more than 10 tons per hectare by 2004. Chinese scientists seek further gains -- 13.5 tons per hectare by 2015, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which cites China's rice program as one of the true success stories in agricultural development in a study out this week (November 12) called "Millions Fed."
To be sure, the Green Revolution had its downsides -- environmental damage, to name one. In India, for example, water tables are drying up and the soil has been degraded by pesticide and fertilizers. The movement also contributed to the rise of big commercial farms at the expense of small holders, fueling resentment from its early days at what critics see as the "corporatization" of food.
But millions of people were saved from starvation, and the movement's architect, Norman Borlaug, received the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.
With their populations soaring, however, India and China -- not to mention most of Africa -- still face challenges, especially as climate change exacerbates environmental problems that have already slowed growth in food production.
IFPRI, part of a global network of agricultural research centers, said last month lower yields due to climate change would cut "calorie availability" for the average consumer in a developing country in 2050 by 7 percent, compared with 2000.
Higher temperatures reduce crop yields while encouraging pests and plant diseases. For almost all crops, South Asia would experience the largest declines in yields. IFPRI said rice output in the region would be 14 percent lower than if there were no climate change.
"India sorely needs another Green Revolution," said Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, joint managing director of Bajaj Hinduthan, India's top sugar producer, which is importing raw sugar after a drought hit the domestic cane crop.
But a second green revolution would face a strong counterinsurgency, even in a place like India that benefited so profoundly from the first one.
"The point is that chemicals destroy the sustainability of productivity in the long run ... Yes, a second green revolution is indeed very essential -- the very need of the hour. But it should not be the same kind of green revolution that the first was," said P.C. Kesavan, a fellow at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, set up by the father of India's Green Revolution.
Economists and scientists in India are demanding a raft of policy initiatives, including allowing genetic engineering, which its proponents argue does the same job as traditional plant hybridization, only quicker and more efficiently.
India has so far allowed GM seeds only for cotton, which has boosted productivity, but suggestions of allowing such seeds for edible crops have always evoked strong protests.
CRADLE OF CORN
It's a similar story in Mexico, where Borlaug started his pioneering research in the 1940s at the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program. Mexico issued permits last month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically modified corn.
Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla, a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest of the world.
Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many developing countries -- balancing consumer fears with the need to grow more food.
"We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us it's not just a question of food, but about conserving our traditions," said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern mountains of Guerrero state.
"With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn, white corn," Tlacotempa said. "Above all, we will be condemned to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It's not sustainable. It's a real risk for the wellbeing of these communities."
At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops' greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.
Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico, said the country now imports about half of the corn it consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it was vital to raise production using all tools available.
"It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we need to start testing those and deploying those," he said.
"GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we need to be able to use those tools," Lumpkin said. "If we could deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why should they be handicapped?"
RICH CONSUMERS RESIST GM
Monsanto launched the world's first genetically modified crop in 1996 and GM crops are now grown in countries ranging from Australia to South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil.
Up to 85 percent of the massive U.S. corn crop is genetically engineered, as well as up 91 percent of soybeans and 88 percent of cotton, according to U.S. data.
As ingrained as GM crops may seem, a backlash against the technology appears to be growing.
Opposition to genetic modification of seeds has long been strongest in Europe. The European Union severely restricts use of GM seeds on its territory, as well as imports of products containing GM-derived food. Individual countries including Germany ban even GM seeds that are authorized, such as an insect-resistant maize type, MON 810, developed by Monsanto.
Now consumer resistance to what British tabloids long ago dubbed "Frankenfood" is taking root in the United States too.
With North America's industrial farming system, consumers who buy packaged goods from grocery stores are likely eating GM products without even knowing it, according to environmental group the Center for Food Safety. The group, which was involved in a successful court battle to stop introduction of Monsanto's genetically engineered alfalfa seed, also contends that up to 70 percent of soda, soup, crackers and other processed goods sold under major household brands are GM derived.
"There really is no human health analysis of GM crops," said William Freese, science policy analyst for the center. "It's a real result of the policy that our government has put in place, which is basically a presumption of innocence."
A banner issue for U.S. anti-GM crusaders is genetically engineered growth hormones for dairy cows, known as rBGH. Introduced in the United States in 1994, rBGH is a drug to extend milk production after a cow gives birth. It was developed by Monsanto but recently sold to Eli Lilly and Co.
Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of hospitals and other health groups, believes the drug is dangerous because it increases the likelihood of infection in the cow's udder, which leads to greater antibiotic use in the animals. That contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans, they argue.
Other critics say it may be linked to cancer in humans, despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals.
Proponents have won over a string of big names to reject the drug, including the big yogurt makers Yoplait and Dannon, and have also lobbied coffee chain Starbucks to oppose rBGH.
A Starbucks spokesman said the firm's entire core dairy supply comes from suppliers that do not use the hormone.
"Our core products, coffee and tea, are not genetically modified," the spokesman said in a statement. "We have no plans to purchase coffee or tea that is derived from GM sources, now or in the future."
The industry notes that GM research is supported by a number of august groups, including the Royal Society of Britain and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Keywords: FOOD/
"IDEOLOGICAL WEDGE"
For those seeking to end global hunger, rather than just satisfy rich consumers' craving for cappuccino, Africa presents the greatest challenges.
Monsanto, together with corporate rivals, is working with poor countries and charitable groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife.
At the annual World Food Prize forum last month, Gates warned that the fight to end hunger was being hurt by environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops should not be used in Africa. He said it was vital to help small farmers there boost production by all means, including GM crops, fertilizer and chemicals.
"This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in two," Gates said at the forum for the prize, which was created by Borlaug, who died in September at the age of 95.
"Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment," Gates said. "They have tried to restrict the spread of biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it."
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, who has worked for the IFPRI thinktank on food for 22 years, summed it up like this: "I'm a Kenyan. I resent very much people telling us in Africa 'OK, this biotechnology is not good for you.' Well, we have different problems than you do, and if it helps us to solve a problem, we should try it."
Yet, even in Africa, there is suspicion of GM technology. Many countries there, such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania, do not allow GM seeds.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a Kenya-based group set up in 2006 with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation, targets its programs specifically at small-scale farmers.
Three-quarters of the world's poorest billion people live in rural areas, dependent on farming for their livelihoods.
AGRA's Program for Africa's Seed Systems uses conventional breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans, rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests. The goal is to develop and release more than 1,000 improved crop varieties over the next 10 years.
"We've adopted a small grant mechanism that gets money out to plant breeders on the ground, so that they can, over a period of years, and selections and lots of consultations with local farmers, and access to the world's gene banks, come up with something that's truly novel, much higher yielding and resistant to local diseases and with the taste and texture that local people want," said Joseph DeVries, director of PASS.
"To leap to the GM model at this stage, just seems like it's ignoring a lot of the things that make sense locally, that people can do locally without it," he said.
Kostas Stamoulis, director of the FAO's Agricultural Development Economics Division, said only a few food crops are in wide use in genetically modified forms, and most are not well adapted to the varied and often extreme environmental conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa has eight or more staple crops that are grown in a wide variety of climates and conditions, making it far more of a challenge than in Asia, where single staple crops, such as rice, are grown in relatively homogenous conditions over wide areas. Stamoulis emphasized the need for all kinds of technology, including traditional plant breeding.
He said there should be a balance between "people that, in my view, make the extraordinarily dangerous proposition that you can feed the world with organics, which is absolutely crazy, and those who are fanatic about GMOs without looking at the full balance of options."
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
The FAO said last month the world needs to invest $83 billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed a predicted population of 9.1 billion people in 2050.
To achieve that, both public and private investment on a grand scale is needed, but the trend on the public side has been discouraging. Official development assistance to agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005, dropping from 17 percent of total aid to 3.8 percent over that period. It now stands at about 5 percent, the FAO said.
Yet, the payoff from agricultural investment, particularly by governments, can be seen in Brazil, a case study in how the Green Revolution transformed a developing country.
Within a few decades it developed from a producer of a handful of cash crops into one of the world's largest producers of food stuffs, with an agriculture business worth nearly 300 billion reais ($172 billion) in annual sales.
Brazil began its Green Revolution in the mid-1970s, with the creation of the government farm research firm Embrapa, which resulted in increased diversification and productivity of crops as well as the expansion of cropland.
Each year Embrapa measures the return to society from research in agriculture. Latest figures show that each dollar spent on agriculture research generates a return of $13.50.
Last year's food crisis, when fears of food shortages gripped grain markets -- sending wheat and rice prices soaring to record highs and sparking hoarding and riots -- was a wake-up call, one that experts hope will translate into sustained investment.
The unrest was a powerful reminder of the risks of food insecurity and helped spur the world's richest nations to promise to spend $20 billion over three years to help small, subsistence farmers improve their productivity.
U.S. President Barack Obama has launched a $3.5 billion hunger and food security initiative focused on agriculture.
Back on the farm in Italy, Oglio said an operation like his can be run on a shoe-string budget, without the sort of subsidies that prop up agriculture, even in the wealthy European Union.
The 87-acre (35-hectare) farm that his parents used to run in a conventional way was on the edge of bankruptcy 20 years ago, burdened by high operating costs and competition in the changing economy of Europe.
With his back-to-nature methods, Oglio turned the farm around and now makes profits.
But that is a very European story. His customers, he admits, are willing to pay more for his healthful products because many of them are environmentalists.
The world's poorest people -- 1 billion of them -- may not have the luxury of making that choice.
For graphics to illustrate this report see: here here (Additional reporting by Carey Gillam, Himangshu Watts, Raymond Colitt, Mica Rosenberg and Ed Cropley; editing by Jim Impoco and Walter Bagley)
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Monday, October 05, 2009
Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
Monday, 5 October 2009, 1:17 pm
Press Release: Robt Mann
Commentary on Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
September 2, 2009
GBC News Sep 1, 2009 http://gbcghana.com/news/27886detail.html
By Edem Srem
Sad to say, Genetically Modified foods have been introduced to the African Market. It is now up to African consumers to reject them. This will save lives and cost for the treatment of the side effects of consuming Genetically Modified foods.*
*The history of controlling the food industry in the world by the then American Government in 1973 under President Nixon started by introducing the "Food for Peace" programme which was led by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser.*
According to the New African Magazine, Kissinger controlled absolutely the US foreign policy and summarized his activities as "Control oil and you control nations, control food and you control the people". His idea of capturing the worldwide food industry started with the introduction of what was termed as the gene revolution.
The revolution did not succeed until 1990. a member of the South African consumer movement, Andrew Taynton explains that whereas natural breeding techniques select plants or animals with desirable traits and cross breed within a species to create better crops or animals, genetically modified are developed in laboratories by splicing genes from unrelated species into the host organism.
For instance, bacterial genes can be spliced into food crops and it will reproduce itself in each cell in the plants. Also scientists are now transferring anti-freeze genes from fish to tomatoes to keep it longer in the cold. There is also the splicing of pig genes into rice and daffodils to corn. All these have devastating effects, because of its imprecise processes.
The main effects of consuming genetically modified foods includes; allergies, new toxins, new diseases, antibiotic resistance and change in nutritional values. One other thing which needs to be mentioned is the "V Gurts" Varietal Genetic Use Restriction Technology which is popularly called the "Suicide Seeds" or terminator technology.
One expert believes Africa is in great danger now as genetically modified seeds are made in forms of herbicides and pesticides. These are normally exported to Africa and the Caribbean. The centre for Disease Control of the United States says that at lease 80% of food related illnesses are cause by viruses or pathogens that scientist cannot even identify.
Prince Charles, the heir to the British Throne, was once reported to have stated that "growing genetically modified crops in the developing world represents the biggest environmental disaster of all time".
With the realities of climate change, it is just an option to reject these kinds of foods on the market. More revelations have been made by Dr. Arpad Pusztai, when he found out that rat fed on genetically modified potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains.
It was also revealed that their immune systems have been damaged with a lot of structural changes in their white blood cells, making them vulnerable to infections and other diseases as compared to rats which were fed on normal organic foods. The same changes occur in humans who also take genetically modified foods.
Thus, the whole world could be exterminated if nothing is done to stop it. We have all become lab rats in mass human experiment with huge risks. The risks will be too late to detect and save the world especially Africa because it will take longer times to find the antidotes. By then the genetically modified companies would have made their money.
Apart from South Africa which has started growing genetically modified crops, the remaining African countries must reject and fight against governments who want to adopt the technology. Ghana should also try to establish strict checks on imported foods, seeds, herbicides and pesticides to control, if not to stop the spread of the genetically modified crops in the country.
The solution is to accept nuclear foods which are done through induced mutations. World examples of induced mutations include; Tek Bankye which has been developed by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in collaboration with the IAEA. The Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute has carried out researches that show that the Tek bankye yields as high as 17.84 tons per acre.
Kenya has also developed a high yielding and drought resistant wheat. Hopefully all Africans, especially, Ghanaians would reject genetically modified foods for a sustainable environment and good health.
ENDS
Press Release: Robt Mann
Commentary on Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
September 2, 2009
GBC News Sep 1, 2009 http://gbcghana.com/news/27886detail.html
By Edem Srem
Sad to say, Genetically Modified foods have been introduced to the African Market. It is now up to African consumers to reject them. This will save lives and cost for the treatment of the side effects of consuming Genetically Modified foods.*
*The history of controlling the food industry in the world by the then American Government in 1973 under President Nixon started by introducing the "Food for Peace" programme which was led by Henry Kissinger, Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser.*
According to the New African Magazine, Kissinger controlled absolutely the US foreign policy and summarized his activities as "Control oil and you control nations, control food and you control the people". His idea of capturing the worldwide food industry started with the introduction of what was termed as the gene revolution.
The revolution did not succeed until 1990. a member of the South African consumer movement, Andrew Taynton explains that whereas natural breeding techniques select plants or animals with desirable traits and cross breed within a species to create better crops or animals, genetically modified are developed in laboratories by splicing genes from unrelated species into the host organism.
For instance, bacterial genes can be spliced into food crops and it will reproduce itself in each cell in the plants. Also scientists are now transferring anti-freeze genes from fish to tomatoes to keep it longer in the cold. There is also the splicing of pig genes into rice and daffodils to corn. All these have devastating effects, because of its imprecise processes.
The main effects of consuming genetically modified foods includes; allergies, new toxins, new diseases, antibiotic resistance and change in nutritional values. One other thing which needs to be mentioned is the "V Gurts" Varietal Genetic Use Restriction Technology which is popularly called the "Suicide Seeds" or terminator technology.
One expert believes Africa is in great danger now as genetically modified seeds are made in forms of herbicides and pesticides. These are normally exported to Africa and the Caribbean. The centre for Disease Control of the United States says that at lease 80% of food related illnesses are cause by viruses or pathogens that scientist cannot even identify.
Prince Charles, the heir to the British Throne, was once reported to have stated that "growing genetically modified crops in the developing world represents the biggest environmental disaster of all time".
With the realities of climate change, it is just an option to reject these kinds of foods on the market. More revelations have been made by Dr. Arpad Pusztai, when he found out that rat fed on genetically modified potatoes had smaller livers, hearts, testicles and brains.
It was also revealed that their immune systems have been damaged with a lot of structural changes in their white blood cells, making them vulnerable to infections and other diseases as compared to rats which were fed on normal organic foods. The same changes occur in humans who also take genetically modified foods.
Thus, the whole world could be exterminated if nothing is done to stop it. We have all become lab rats in mass human experiment with huge risks. The risks will be too late to detect and save the world especially Africa because it will take longer times to find the antidotes. By then the genetically modified companies would have made their money.
Apart from South Africa which has started growing genetically modified crops, the remaining African countries must reject and fight against governments who want to adopt the technology. Ghana should also try to establish strict checks on imported foods, seeds, herbicides and pesticides to control, if not to stop the spread of the genetically modified crops in the country.
The solution is to accept nuclear foods which are done through induced mutations. World examples of induced mutations include; Tek Bankye which has been developed by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in collaboration with the IAEA. The Biotechnology and Nuclear Agricultural Research Institute has carried out researches that show that the Tek bankye yields as high as 17.84 tons per acre.
Kenya has also developed a high yielding and drought resistant wheat. Hopefully all Africans, especially, Ghanaians would reject genetically modified foods for a sustainable environment and good health.
ENDS
.
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