GM-Crops Are A Dead-end
ISIS Press Release 18/10/04
Press Release
Embargoed until 20 October 2004
GM-Crops Are A Dead-end
Europe Must Invest in Sustainable Agriculture Now
Scientific evidence has turned decisively against genetically modified (GM) crops and in favour of non-GM sustainable agriculture; that's the conclusion of the Independent Science Panel (ISP) report [1] presented in three languages (English, French and Spanish) at the European Parliament today [2].
French farmer José Bové, representing Confédération Paysanne and European Farmers Coordination, Michael Meacher, Member of Parliament, UK, Prinz Felix of Löwenstein, President of the federation of organic food producers in Germany, and Jill Evans, MEP Wales, are among those joining the scientists to demand that Europe keep its GM-Free status by banning all GM crop releases, and invest instead in non- GM sustainable agriculture. They reject the European Commission-sponsored paper, "Plants for the future" [3], which is promoting plant biotechnology for Europe.
"That's a serious mistake," says Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, director of the Institute of Science in Society, who initiated the ISP. The biotech industry is showing all the signs of collapse, "because it has got ther science wrong."
"When genetic engineering started in the mid 1970s, scientists thought the genome was static and genes determined the characteristics of organisms in linear causal chains," Ho says. "It turns out that the genome is constantly in conversation with the environment and changing both the expression and structure of genes. It is this `fluid genome' that unsettles genetic modification, and creates the dangers of uncontrollable gene transfer and recombination." GM is a scientific and financial dead-end, according to Ho, and we should draw the curtain over it.
That's not happening because, says José Bové, "Public research has been taken over by the corporations. Many academic scientists are no longer doing research that benefits the public." Bové has been up-rooting GM crops in protest, and serving prison sentences.
"A major challenge for politicians in Europe is to guarantee there will be an agriculture free from GMOs in the long term," Prinz Felix of Löwenstein remarks. "The costs for that should be borne by those who are making it necessary to use GMOs at all."
Sue Edwards, director of the Institute of Sustainable Development in Ethiopia, has helped introduce the traditional Indian pit-composting method to the northern state of Tigray, which has increased crop yields two to three-fold, outperforming chemical fertilizers. The project has proven so successful that the Ethiopian government is adopting organic agriculture as one of its strategies for food security. "Working with nature is the best way to produce healthy environments that give people healthy and fulfilling lives; and at the same time to protect and increase biodiversity," Edwards explains.
Dr. Bob Orskov of the International Feed Resources Unit, Aberdeen, Scotland, concurs: "In general, multiple cropping, including agroforestry, is a better option than conventional monoculture in increasing crop yield, soil fertility and biodiversity; especially for Third World countries."
Teddy Goldsmith, founding editor of the Ecologist, gives us the bottom line: "Industrial agriculture depends heavily on oil and water, both rapidly running out, and GM crops will intensify that dependence. There will be no way to feed the world other than sustainable agriculture, which will also ameliorate the worse excesses of climate change."
Notes to Editors
1. The ISP - launched 10 May 2003 at a public conference in London attended by then environment minister Michael Meacher and 200 other participants - consists of 26 prominent scientists from eight countries spanning the disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany, chemical medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology. As their contribution to the global GM debate, the ISP has published its report, The Case for a GM Free Sustainable World, a complete dossier of evidence on the known problems and hazards of GM crops and the proven successes and benefits of sustainable agriculture.
2. "Keep Europe GM-Free!" Science for a GM-Free Sustainable Europe. ISP Briefing at the European Parliament, Brussels, 20 October 2004 http://www.indsp.org
3. "Plants for the future": a 2025 vision for European plant biotechnology, News alert 24 June 2004, http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/press/2004/pr240 6-2en.cfm
For more information contact Lim Li Ching
Tel: 44-(0)20-8643-0681
e-mail: ching@i- sis.org.uk
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
Press Release
Embargoed until 20 October 2004
GM-Crops Are A Dead-end
Europe Must Invest in Sustainable Agriculture Now
Scientific evidence has turned decisively against genetically modified (GM) crops and in favour of non-GM sustainable agriculture; that's the conclusion of the Independent Science Panel (ISP) report [1] presented in three languages (English, French and Spanish) at the European Parliament today [2].
French farmer José Bové, representing Confédération Paysanne and European Farmers Coordination, Michael Meacher, Member of Parliament, UK, Prinz Felix of Löwenstein, President of the federation of organic food producers in Germany, and Jill Evans, MEP Wales, are among those joining the scientists to demand that Europe keep its GM-Free status by banning all GM crop releases, and invest instead in non- GM sustainable agriculture. They reject the European Commission-sponsored paper, "Plants for the future" [3], which is promoting plant biotechnology for Europe.
"That's a serious mistake," says Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, director of the Institute of Science in Society, who initiated the ISP. The biotech industry is showing all the signs of collapse, "because it has got ther science wrong."
"When genetic engineering started in the mid 1970s, scientists thought the genome was static and genes determined the characteristics of organisms in linear causal chains," Ho says. "It turns out that the genome is constantly in conversation with the environment and changing both the expression and structure of genes. It is this `fluid genome' that unsettles genetic modification, and creates the dangers of uncontrollable gene transfer and recombination." GM is a scientific and financial dead-end, according to Ho, and we should draw the curtain over it.
That's not happening because, says José Bové, "Public research has been taken over by the corporations. Many academic scientists are no longer doing research that benefits the public." Bové has been up-rooting GM crops in protest, and serving prison sentences.
"A major challenge for politicians in Europe is to guarantee there will be an agriculture free from GMOs in the long term," Prinz Felix of Löwenstein remarks. "The costs for that should be borne by those who are making it necessary to use GMOs at all."
Sue Edwards, director of the Institute of Sustainable Development in Ethiopia, has helped introduce the traditional Indian pit-composting method to the northern state of Tigray, which has increased crop yields two to three-fold, outperforming chemical fertilizers. The project has proven so successful that the Ethiopian government is adopting organic agriculture as one of its strategies for food security. "Working with nature is the best way to produce healthy environments that give people healthy and fulfilling lives; and at the same time to protect and increase biodiversity," Edwards explains.
Dr. Bob Orskov of the International Feed Resources Unit, Aberdeen, Scotland, concurs: "In general, multiple cropping, including agroforestry, is a better option than conventional monoculture in increasing crop yield, soil fertility and biodiversity; especially for Third World countries."
Teddy Goldsmith, founding editor of the Ecologist, gives us the bottom line: "Industrial agriculture depends heavily on oil and water, both rapidly running out, and GM crops will intensify that dependence. There will be no way to feed the world other than sustainable agriculture, which will also ameliorate the worse excesses of climate change."
Notes to Editors
1. The ISP - launched 10 May 2003 at a public conference in London attended by then environment minister Michael Meacher and 200 other participants - consists of 26 prominent scientists from eight countries spanning the disciplines of agroecology, agronomy, biomathematics, botany, chemical medicine, ecology, histopathology, microbial ecology, molecular genetics, nutritional biochemistry, physiology, toxicology and virology. As their contribution to the global GM debate, the ISP has published its report, The Case for a GM Free Sustainable World, a complete dossier of evidence on the known problems and hazards of GM crops and the proven successes and benefits of sustainable agriculture.
2. "Keep Europe GM-Free!" Science for a GM-Free Sustainable Europe. ISP Briefing at the European Parliament, Brussels, 20 October 2004 http://www.indsp.org
3. "Plants for the future": a 2025 vision for European plant biotechnology, News alert 24 June 2004, http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/press/2004/pr240 6-2en.cfm
For more information contact Lim Li Ching
Tel: 44-(0)20-8643-0681
e-mail: ching@i- sis.org.uk
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/
Starmail - 18. Okt, 17:58
