Fonterra’s Gutting Of Organic Dairying Is The Next Step To GE Farms.

Fonterra has taken its next step towards genetically engineered pastures, with its announced scaling back of organic production by half, according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ.

Fonterra’s announcement yesterday of a 50% drop in support for organic dairy production, shows the dairy giant’s lack of support for good environmental practice or consumer health, and marks the next step to genetically engineered (GE) farmlands, according to the Soil & Health Association of NZ.

“Fonterra has never really been committed to organic production, although aiming for 200 farms and a 140% increase in production from 2005. Just 200 farms was a very limited vision. Organic production across all New Zealand’s dairy herd should have been in any long term vision for clean green 100% Pure NZ,” said Soil & Health – Organic NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning.

“Organic production has been identified as the main obstacle to introducing GE grasses and crops into New Zealand in a Ministry of Research Science and Technology (MoRST, now Science and Innovation) report written by Terri Dunahay, an international biotechnology policy specialist with the United States Department of Agriculture.”

“Government also stopped real support for the organic sector following a briefing to the Agriculture Minister by Dunahay in 2009, yet Dunahay was duplicitous in every presentation I observed her. The misrepresentation of GE internationally, was appalling when Dunahay presented to Dairy NZ and the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand,” said Mr Browning.

“Dunahay and other United States lobbyists, along with New Zealand based pro-GE scientists fail to mention the significant GE contamination of non-GE farms, the loss of markets, the massive increase in herbicide use, the new resistant weeds and disease problems, higher seed and production costs, loss of biodiversity, or the human and animal health problems associated with genetic engineering (GE).”

Yesterday’s shock presentation to organic farmers in Taranaki and the Manawatu that their organically certified milk wasn’t wanted by Fonterra, because of reduced international demand, also included comment that organics caused “conventional” dairy production to be questioned as to its quality.

Best practice organics has improved soil structure and climate resilience, 43% more earthworm counts, 28% higher soil carbon sequestration, improved animal welfare, 33% less energy use, and a massive 58% reduction of nitrate leaching, yet is not valued well by Fonterra, because Fonterra’s conventional farming’s  dirty environmental footprint, might be questioned more.

“The KPMG Agribusiness Agenda 2011 released in June, highlighted the potential lost opportunity of high net worth customers globally by New Zealand if support for organic market and production research is allowed to languish.”

Organic dairy exports from New Zealand grew 400% between 2005-2009. Organic product sales in the USA grew 7.7% compared with total food sales increase of less than 1% in 2010, yet the New Zealand government is allowed funding for Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) to stop this June, and had already long stopped support for the Green Party initiated Organics Advisory Service that had assisted significant growth in organic certification.

“Fonterra missed retailing organic butter in New Zealand, and has failed to market its organic products well. Where was the Fonterra brands organic butter in New Zealand super market shelves? It wasn’t to be found. Blaming reduced markets when there has been continued growth in organic consumption internationally shows a lack of organic marketing commitment by Fonterra, not a lack of customers.”

“Fonterra and the government have spent millions of dollars on GE rye grass development, while support has been stalled for the organic sector.”

“Most of Europe and Scandinavia and many other countries have targets for farm production conversion to organics, because the environmental and social benefits are well recognised, but in New Zealand there appears to be a blind adherence to short term economic benefit including GE, even when non-GE alternatives are proven.”

“When I asked on Friday, why the government had spent tens of millions on GE grasses, but had effectively stopped spending money on organics, Environment Minister Nick Smith told me, “We didn’t think there was any money in it,” “said Mr Browning.

“The planting of 336 GE pine trees by Scion and ArborGen at their Rotorua field trial site last week adds to the sadness of spirit New Zealand is suffering through short term financial aims by giant agribusiness, while it ignores the environmental and social health of Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Soil & Health wishes to express its support for the organic farmers whose livelihoods, dedication and dreams have been shaken by yesterday’s Fonterra announcement.

“Support by Federated Farmers to resist the drive for GE production in New Zealand, a requirement of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), could reignite Fonterra’s interest in organics. The New Zealand environment and consumers of the world will say thanks.”

This may sound like some obscure and irrelevant report, but in fact it is the Canberra based FSANZ that decides on the composition and labelling of all of our food –even though New Zealand has a only one vote out of ten on the key governing body of FSANZ.

The report casually mentions that six new Genetically Engineered foods were approved last year –bringing the bringing the number of genetically engineered foods that have been approved in our food supply to 43! There are16 genetically engineered corn, 11 GE cotton (eg cottonseed oil) and 6 GE soybeans –and none of them need to be declared on a label, thanks to our Clayton’s labelling laws.

So most consumers are unaware that processed foods in our supermarkets are riddled with genetically engineered ingredients.

In other decisions FSANZ says it has approved the voluntary addition of fluoride to bottled water (!) and rejected an application for the labelling of palm oil. (Despite the fact that one of FSANZ exp0licit objectives is ‘the provision of adequate information to consumers.’)

It also dismisses concerns that have been raised about the high consumption of food preservatives –benzoates and sulphites– especially by young children. FSANZ says soothingly that manufacturers use them at the lowest possible levels, so not to worry if they trigger allergic reactions in children.

And while other countries have started taking action to reduce children’s exposure to the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, FSANZ dismisses these concerns too, with the all too familiar mantra ‘there is no new evidence to change existing regulatory arrangements!’

It also dismisses concerns about trans fats, and the need for them to be labelled. And also concerns about the composition, availability and marketing of caffeinated energy drinks.

FSANZ clearly does an excellent job of representing the interests of the food industry, but it does not even attempt to represent the interests of consumers. Its decisions are consistently appalling, and have virtually no input from New Zealanders—including people like myself who are vitally interested in food issues. It has been carefully designed to prevent our Parliament, from having any input, other than the Minister of Food Safety who has three or four secret meetings with her Australian counterpart. It is an outrage.

Personally, GE was one of the first issues I got active on as a young environmentalist, and I even got arrested protesting McDonald’s use of GE soy chicken feed. I was motivated by concern that a tiny number of powerful corporates from the chemical and agricultural industries wanted to release a new and potentially dangerous technology on Aotearoa for their own profit, disregarding the environmental and social risks, the threat to our clean green brand, and endangering our organic future.

Back then the argument for embracing GE technology was ‘to feed the world’ through increasing crop yields. However, as the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2009 report Failure to Yield evidences – this promise has failed to eventuate. Now GE advocates have moved on to new arguments such as ‘it’ll help battle climate change’. Scion are claiming that their trees will play a significant role in capturing carbon but they don’t provide any evidence that their genetically modified pines would have any significant benefit over normal pines. And as highlighted by a press release from GE Free NZ, the perceived benefit of faster growing GE pines for building supplies raise serious questions about the strength and durability of the timber, as well needing to intensify tanalisation, increasing the use of toxic substances.

GE supporters often promoted the decrease in herbicide or pesticide use, but as shown in Dr Charles Benbrook’s 2003 research into pesticide use on GE crops in the US over a ten year period – the trend was a gradual then accelerated increase in supplementary chemical management of GE crops – largely due to increased herbicide resistance. But when the same company that provides the seeds also provides the herbicides – you can see that not everyone loses in that situation.

Another great concern about open field trials of GE is the risk of accidental escape or cross-pollination. Scion has been accused of spreading misinformation about the research behind pine pollen spread – which GE Free NZ refutes with several examples of recent research showing just how far and fast pine pollen can spread.

I also think it is fair to question whether ERMA is just a ‘rubber stamping’ body for approving GE trials, an issue Organic NZ highlighted earlier in the year. It is not only the environmental implications of an uncontrolled GE release (though, this should be enough), but it is also the potential economic damage. Currently around two thirds of our pine exports carry the Forest Stewardship Council certification standard, which only certifies products that are GE free. If Scion’s genetically modified pines are released (accidentally or otherwise) the FSC will no longer be able to say with certainty that our exports are free from contamination. This will affect our exports to major trading partners such as Europe, Canada and the USA.

In the case of our brand the economic benefits of maintaining a GE free New Zealand are huge with prices for organic and certified GM-free food at prices well above agricultural products that do not carry such labels. I note in Al Morrison’s latest speech he says that global sales of organic food and drink have increased three-fold since 1999, and sales of certified sustainable forest products quadrupled between 2005 and 2007.

So, I would say that the old arguments about keeping GE in the lab still hold fast and strong, and in fact many of our original concerns have (unfortunately) been proven correct. Will the people’s moratorium hold?

We need to keep GE in the Lab and not release modified organisms into the environment. Pine trees are an important part of our economy and an exciting, potentially-sustainable alternative to transport fuels and steel amongst other things. Keeping GE in the lab is also important to our valuable clean green brand. I urge you to put in a submission

Scion has been conducting similar research in the area since late 2000, and this new, much larger project would see 4000 trees planted over the next 25 years. Each tree will be grown for a maximum of 8 years and presents a different risk than other GE crops due to the longevity of trees in our ecosystems.

Despite assurances from Scion serious concerns still exist. The Soil & Health Association of New Zealand argues that the study of these previous tests was inadequate, and argues that the acceptability of the ‘terminator gene’ technology being used is still under debate internationally.

The risk of pollen drift is also a major concern, particularly in light of previous experiences at the Scion site in Rotorua. GE Free NZ have also got involved, sighting an erroneous Scion spokesperson who argued that pollen only travels 300 centimetres, while research confirms that pine pollen can travel up to 41kms in as little as 3 hours.

You have until October 6 to have a say. More information on making a submission to ERMA is available on their website.

Monsanto’s advice to farmers? Use our Bollgard II version, it’s better. But the science doesn’t back them up.

Agricultural scientists and activists say Monsanto’s advice is “ridiculous”. The Bollgard II product has no additional toxin to combat pink bollworm.

All the hype about the effectiveness of Bt against pests is bogus …This proves that you can’t stay ahead of the pest with … this shortsighted approach.

So. Monsanto wants an arms race. Meanwhile their GE products have made managing normal seeds difficult or illegal in many countries, denying farmers their long cherished right to develop and husband varieties suited to their own unique ecosystems.

The shrill cry of the GE apologists is that GMOs are the only way to save humanity from starvation. First of all, the evidence is rolling in that they don’t deliver as promised. Second, they are destroying  a few millennium’s worth of human knowledge and breeding in a few short years, exposing all of humanity to the very crisis they pretend to fix.

I, for one, would rather see our burgeoning biotech industry focus on using their technology to accelerate traditional breeding techniques, not fill our world with failed genetic cocktails.

Hat tip: Greenpeace

Failure to Yield is the first report to closely evaluate the overall effect genetic engineering has had on crop yields in relation to other agricultural technologies.

For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields.

That promise has proven to be empty, according to Failure to Yield, a report by UCS expert Doug Gurian-Sherman released in March 2009. Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase U.S. crop yields.

Failure to Yield makes a critical distinction between potential—or intrinsic—yield and operational yield, concepts that are often conflated by the industry and misunderstood by others. Intrinsic yield refers to a crop’s ultimate production potential under the best possible conditions. Operational yield refers to production levels after losses due to pests, drought and other environmental factors.

Herbicide-tolerant soybeans, herbicide-tolerant corn, and Bt corn have failed to increase intrinsic yields, the report found. Herbicide-tolerant soybeans and herbicide-tolerant corn also have failed to increase operational yields, compared with conventional methods.

The report does not discount the possibility of genetic engineering eventually contributing to increase crop yields. It does, however, suggest that it makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of  technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries. In addition, recent studies have shown that organic and similar farming methods that minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers in such developing regions as Sub-Saharan Africa.

And we want to bring these genetic failures onto our shores? For what purpose? To what end? If conventional breeding technologies are far outstripping genetic technologies, are cheaper and more readily deployable, why should New Zealand go down this path at all? It’s not like we’re world leaders or anything like it. Keep it in the lab, I say!

It can only end in tears for our clean green image, as scientists try to eliminate the tears from onions using genetic engineering. TVNZ reports about it here, with video.

This follows hot on the heels of the decision last week to approve the release of a genetically modified horse flu vaccine.

As Jeanette said last June:

“All GE organisms raise the possibility of horizontal gene transfer where genetic material from one species jumps across to another unrelated species, by a process other than usual reproduction. Can this happen inside the horse, and affect a longer lived virus, which perhaps then infects other animals?

“It seems incredible that with our experience of rabbits, possums and didymo, ERMA could approve a GE organism throughout the land without thought of long-term consequences. Why pick an invisible little virus that we can’t find if we need to?

“If the Government is so keen to destroy our GE-free status, my choice would have been something we can actually keep track of, like an elephant.”

Destroying our clean green image and our GE Free status on a ‘what if’ hypothesis is irresponsible to say the least. It is the road to perdition. As Dr Elvira Dommisse says in the first video, cross contamination will almost certainly occur. Why can’t we keep it in the lab?

1. Many pro-GM commentators hail the technology as the solution to the current food crisis because of its ability to reduce fertilizer use and help farmers cope with problems like drought, salinity or flooding. After 20 years of GM research, how many GM drought tolerant, or salt tolerant, or flood tolerant, or fertilizer-reducing crops are there on the market worldwide? ANSWER: None.
2. There have been tens of thousands of articles in the world’s media about ‘miracle’ crops genetically engineered for enhanced appearance, flavour, nutrition, or to be allergen-free, or to combat problems like obesity or to contain edible vaccines that protect against major diseases like cancer. How many of these GM crops are there on the market worldwide? ANSWER: None.
3. When published in April 2008, which appraisal of global agriculture, sponsored by the World Bank and the U.N., and undertaken on a scale comparable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concluded that GM crops have at best variable impacts on yields and would not play a substantial role in addressing climate change, loss of biodiversity, hunger or poverty? ANSWER: IAASTD – International Assessment of Agricultural knowledge, Science and Technology for Development

The Greens have done a good job stemming the GM tide for the last nine years. But, as we can see from the AgResearch application to genetically engineer all sorts of animals here in New Zealand including using human and monkey cell lines with sheep, pigs, goats, horses and cows, New Zealand is not guaranteed GE free for the future.  Aside from the ethical issues around genetic engineering we have GE Free spokesperson Jon Carapiet highlighting the significant economic risk GE poses to New Zealand’s ‘brand’:

A preliminary economic evaluation of biopharming in New Zealand by Lincoln University showed GE organisms in the dairy sector had a theoretical potential to cause a minimum of $539 million in losses to the dairy and tourism industries, said Carapiet…

The Lincoln report signalled that exporters such as Fonterra and “Brand New Zealand” could be stigmatised if some future GE food turned out to hurt consumers.

Food Democracy’s other nine questions are here as well as a link to an earlier quiz, Who’s designing your food?

This application in four parts lists numerous animal and human cells and other animal body parts to be host organisms for engineering. It could allow AgResearch to develop unlimited numbers of GE animals without telling us which specific genes and associated genetic material they intend to use, and without going back to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) for further approval.

The application also shows AgResearch has refused to tell ERMA where in New Zealand its outside experiments are likely to be and suggests Canterbury, Taranaki and Southland might become new GE testing grounds.

Whole animals the Crown research institute wants to genetically engineer for “outside containment” are llamas, alpacas, sheep, cows, pigs, goats, buffalo, deer and horses.

Worryingly, this GE application seems to be more about engineering our food than it is about medicines or vaccinations.  The scope of it, both in terms of the places that that the GE animals will be bred and raised, and also where they will then end up presents a massive threat to NZ’s GE-free reputation. The huge ominbus application appears to breach the Government’s promise to deal with GE applications on a case by case basis, instead trying to get through a wide range of objectionable applications all in one go.

Opportunities to submit on this application close on 31 October – details are on ERMA’s website here and here.

On May 21, the US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, announced that it would stop its annual publication on the kinds and amounts of pesticides applied to crops in the U.S.

This annual Agricultural Chemical Usage report, begun in 1990, will no longer serve thousands of farmers, agricultural inspectors, environmental agencies, state and local representatives, chemical researchers and even chemical manufacturing companies, as a free resource to track U.S. pesticide usage. The alternatives for getting the information, priced as high as $500, are both out of the financial reach of many farmers and consumers, and provide less reliable information.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, also uses the data from these reports to determine which chemicals need to be regulated. Without this information, the successive or duplicate spraying of food crops with various chemicals could lead to lethal consequences in human, animal and aquatic populations. In fact, failure to monitor could result in currently illegal chemicals like Captan, Dursban and Endosulfan returning to the U.S. food supply and drinking water.

More important, researchers who track pesticide use on genetically modified (GM) crops like soybeans, corn and cotton will no longer be able to confirm that these GM crops actually require more pesticides than their native cousins, as a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently proved.

Given this future inability to track pesticide use in GM crops, Monsanto is now free to restate its claim that GM crops require fewer pesticides. It is also free to extend its already phenomenal reach (50 percent of corn and 90 percent of soybeans into America’s farming communities.

This is a very effective tactic of the conservative movement. Kill the measurement that allows people to research, to know and thus to choose, and the big corporates can then just do and say what they like, even when it is untrue. We are all losers when this happens.

This fuelled the worst fears of NGO’s that the food emergency, as its called, would be used to sneak GE seeds into Africa, directly to small farmers. GE was also mentioned by many developed delegates as a solution to the problem, and the Americans and Philippines hosted a private lunch for delegates (which I couldn’t attend unfortunately) to propound the virtues of GE and biotechnology. So GE seems very much back on the world agenda, as GE corporations use the food emergency to make another global push to get their seeds into the developing world, which will end seed saving and extend further corporqate control of the food chain from seed to fork.

I was not allowed to speak at the conference, or attend any bilateral meetings or negotiating sessions, presumably for fear that I might not reflect the party line. This did leave me free to roam and speak to delegates, attend NGO sessions and in other ways get a more direct understanding of the predicament of many countries than listening to the official speeches. I did feel our contribution of seven million dollars to the emergency fund was puny, compared to many countries, however. Though some of New Zealand’s contributions seemed to go down quite well.

It’s the final day of the conference now, and the NGOs have finally been allowed a few minutes to present their declaration to the conference. It is a strongly worded, hard hitting document, in stark contrast to the mealy mouthed compromise coming out of the main conference. Am off to the presentation, and it will be interesting to see how many delegates turn up to hear it. I will tell you all about it if I can get my technology to work!

[Frog: This was the second post in a series of three sent to me by Sue K while attending the conference in Rome. Here's the first.]

Except, as it turns out, they are not exclusively grass fed, as Russel exposed this morning. Our cows ate 455,000 tonnes of imported palm oil cake last year. Virtually no palm oil cake was eaten in 1999 but this year as industrial dairy continues to expand across our countryside cows could eat an estimated 700,000 tonnes.

“Consumers in this country and overseas have an advertising image of cows grazing on pure New Zealand grass, but industrial dairying is gradually turning farms into feedlots,�? says Greens Co-Leader Russel Norman.

“Increases in consumption of palm kernel mixtures or ‘cakes’ by New Zealand agriculture over the last seven years, excluding this year, would need up to 900,000 hectares of rainforest to be cleared for palm oil to meet the increased demand if new plantations were required,�? Dr Norman says.

“The palm oil industry is knocking down rainforests and burning peat across Indonesia and Malaysia to expand production to meet the increased demand. This is resulting in the release of massive amounts of greenhouse gases and the destruction of the habitat of endangered animals such as the orang-utan.�?

Here’s the figures:

2000 – 1,554,475 kgs

2001 – 25,876,818 kgs

2002 – 23,258,239 kgs

2003 – 43,322,490 kgs

2004 – 95,920,594 kgs

2005 – 188,261,717 kgs

2006 – 318,324,189 kgs

2007  – 455,313,609 kgs

“Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable,” said the report.

And the report’s Chief Scientist says “The short answer to whether transgenic crops can feed the world is ‘no’.�?

Yet, powerful countries with large GE lobbies like the USA, UK, Australia and Canada are currently not endorsing the report. So it seems some will continue to defend GE even when it fails to deliver on its most crucial promise.

The report concludes:

These findings show that the New Zealand Government is not currently pursuing the strategic option of ‘preserving opportunities’ as proposed by the Commissioners and raise further questions about New Zealand’s ability to manage the current and future risks of genetic modification. It leaves open questions about how well New Zealand can manage risks associated with current outdoor developments and field tests. It leaves untested and unclear how New Zealand will cope on the first application to ERMA for GM release (including conditional release), and provides little confidence that this will be done in a robust manner. Perhaps most importantly, it leaves unanswered whether the current framework meets the expectations of New Zealanders.

Jeanette sounds furious:

Not only are they [the Government] totally uninterested in keeping this country GE-free, they will not even protect non-GE farmers and New Zealand’s clean and green agricultural brand. It is yet more evidence that government agencies, supported by their ministers, don’t care about ruining our organic and GE free export brands…

While neglecting to set up a proper protection framework, government agencies were instead supporting larger and more risky field trials, for example Crop and Food’s proposed trial announced last week allowing plants to flower and seed, risking contaminating the country’s safe and GE-free food supply brands.

The government is giving every impression that it thinks it can just wait until the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who opposed introducing GE into New Zealand get bored or distracted with something else.  Then it can go ahead with its original plans to introduce GE.

Meanwhile Greenpeace is promoting a French documentary “The world according to Monsanto”, which outlines some of the environmental and health scandals Monsanto has been involved in.

It seems incredible that New Zealand, with our experience of the rabbit and the opossum, could be countenancing introducing a genetically engineered organism on to our shores without greater thought into the long term consequences. If we have to release any GE organism into the country, why pick an invisible little virus that we can’t track down if we need to. My choice would have been a GE elephant.

All the threats that genetic engineering poses to our environment are relevant to this vaccine. One of the most pertinent is probably that of horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer where the genetic material from the cells or genomes of one species jumps across to another unrelated species, by a process other than usual reproduction.

It is incredibly threatening because horizontal gene transfer has the potential to create new viruses and bacteria that cause diseases and spread drug and antibiotic resistance. Luckily it doesn’t really happen to animals that much in nature. But it does happen in genetic engineering. In fact that is basically what genetic engineering is. And worse, there is a possibility that once scientists have broken down the walls between species that prevent horizontal gene transfer the genes might find it easier to replicate this jumping between species outside of the science lab.

As Dr Mae-Wan Ho says;

In order to overcome natural species barriers limiting gene transfer and maintenance, genetic engineers have made a huge variety of artificial vectors (carriers of genes) by combining parts of the most infectious natural vectors – viruses, plasmids and transposons – from different sources. These artificial vectors generally have their disease-causing functions removed or disabled, but are designed to cross wide species barriers, so the same vector may now transfer, say, human genes spliced into the vector, to the genomes of all other mammals, or of plants. Artificial vectors greatly enhance horizontal gene transfer.

So when we find out this morning that GE protestors burrowed under a fence at Crown Research institute, Scion’s Rotorua farm, dug up a few pine trees and forgot to take their spade with them on the way out it all sounds like security was a bit lax. After all, look at the photo on this media release from 3 days ago. How clearly do security risks need to be drawn to your attention before you solve them?

Aside from the fact that these trees are magnets for GE protestors, you would have thought that Scion would be worried enough about its ERMA obligations to be preventing the likelihood of these trees escaping out into ‘the environment’. Although, if you read the rest of the media release, maybe not:

The genetically engineered tree field trials at the Rotorua base of CRI Scion (formerly Forest Research Institute Ltd) have rabbits and cats free ranging in and out of the trial, and the weekly fence inspection requirements of the ERMA (Environmental Risk Management Authority) consent have clearly not been followed for years according to Scion’s annual ERMA reports and photographic evidence collated for Soil & Health’s Organic NZ magazine.