Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2003 15:44:42 -0800 From: News Update from The Campaign <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: USDA Survey + Bt crop discovery
News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear News Update Subscribers,
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service has released their "Prospective Plantings" survey report for 2003. It includes the projected acreage that will be planted in genetically engineered crops this year.
Unfortunately the percentages of acreage for both genetically engineered soybeans and corn are increasing. Genetically engineered soybeans will increase from 75 percent to 80 percent of the entire soybean crop. Biotech corn will increase from 34 percent to 38 percent and cotton will remain the same at about 70 percent.
If you would like to view the USDA "Prospective Plantings" 35-page report, here is a link to the PDF version: http://www.thecampaign.org/USDA2003.pdf
Since the 15 European Union nations and many other countries are not buying genetically engineered corn and soybeans grown in the United States, you may be wondering how farmers can continue to grow such large amounts of these biotech crops. The primary reason is that the vast majority of corn and soybeans grown in the United States go to feed livestock or are used in processed foods.
Once we pass legislation to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods, these figures will drop rapidly. But until we are successful in passing the labeling legislation in the United States, we can expect biotech crop plantings to maintain at these levels or even slightly higher.
In the short-term, our biggest concern about such a large amount of acreage being grown in genetically engineered crops is that organic crops, especially corn, are being contaminated with genetically engineered genes. It is irresponsible for the USDA to continue to allow contamination of organic crops from the genetically engineered varieties. The USDA is favoring the biotech industry at the expense of the organic industry.
In the long-term, there is growing evidence that genetically engineered foods could cause various health problems in humans. And history will record that biotech crops can pose significant threats to the environment.
Posted below are two articles. The first article titled "U.S. Farmers to Grow More Biotech Crops " is about the new USDA survey.
The second article comes from a United Kingdom newspaper called The Independent. It is an article titled "Insects thrive on GM 'pest-killing' crops." This alarming article reports that scientists from Imperial College London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas, Venezuela have found the toxins in genetically engineered Bt crops may actually make insects thrive rather than die.
It has previously been reported that the toxic effect of Bt crops is losing its ability to kill insects. If it turns out that insects are actually able to adapt to the point where the Bt toxin becomes food for them, this will have significant negative ramifications for both the biotech and the organic industries.
The long-term effect could be worse for the organic industry than the biotech industry since Bt used in spray form is one of the few weapons organic farmers have to battle severe insect infestation. The biotech industry will likely come up with another toxic to splice into their biotech crops. But organic farmers will be left without one of their most important tools to fight insects as a result of overuse of Bt by the biotech industry.
It is ironic that the U.S. continues to grow the most genetically engineered crops in the world, yet is doing little research to determine their health and environmental safety. And in other countries that are not yet growing genetically engineered crops, they are conducting research in advance and finding disturbing results.
Craig Winters Executive Director The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods
The Campaign PO Box 55699 Seattle, WA 98155 Tel: 425-771-4049 Fax: 603-825-5841 E-mail: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org
Mission Statement: "To create a national grassroots consumer campaign for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered foods in the United States."
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U.S. Farmers to Grow More Biotech Crops
By EMILY GERSEMA .c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Europe's opposition to biotech food isn't stopping U.S. farmers from planting more genetically engineered crops.
This spring, they're devoting fewer acres to growing corn and soybeans but intend to plant more biotech crops than ever - part of a growing trend, the Agriculture Department said Monday.
``This is only the fourth year that we've been tracking it, but from that, it is the highest it's been,'' said Darin Jantzi, a department statistician.
While U.S. consumers generally accept biotech foods, Europeans doubt their safety. That concern prompted the European Union to put a moratorium on U.S. biotech imports. It's been in place for four years, costing the United States $300 million annually in corn exports.
However, an Agriculture Department survey says 38 percent of the 79 million acres of corn planted this year probably will be genetically engineered. That's up four percentage points from last year and 13 percentage points over the 2000 crop.
Total corn acreage is projected to be almost the same as last year's 79.05 million acres - just 32,000 acres less.
U.S. farmers like biotech crops because they require fewer chemicals for killing insects and weeds. They have been planting two main varieties, one of which is known as Bt, or bacillus thuringiensis. It is genetically engineered to fend off insects.
The other variety, Roundup Ready, allows farmers to spray and kill weeds with Monsanto Co.'s Roundup herbicide without killing the corn plant.
Growers likely will plant more biotech soybeans, too. The department predicts 80 percent of this year's 73.2 million acres of soybeans will be a biotech variety engineered to tolerate Roundup. That's up five percentage points from last year's biotech soybean crop and 16 percentage points over the 2000 crop.
The department predicts the soybean crop will be the smallest since 1998, down 1 percent from the 73.8 million acres grown last year. Many growers are switching back to corn because wet weather last year prevented them from planting it, forcing them to raise soybeans instead.
The survey is based on interviews with 75,000 growers in 48 corn states and 31 soybean states.
Per Pinstrup-Andersen, a biotechnology expert at Cornell University, said the government's projection for biotech planting is higher than he expected.
``I would have thought that it would have been roughly constant compared to last year, partly because of the market problems,'' he said, referring to the United States' trade troubles with European Union.
Congressional lawmakers are pressing the White House to seek an end to the dispute by complaining to the World Trade Organization.
They are especially nervous that Europe's anti-biotech sentiment is spreading to developing countries since some African countries rejected U.S. biotech food aid a few months ago.
However, U.S. farmers and exporters remain confident that other trading partners will continue buying biotech food. That's why growers are planting more biotech crops, said Hayden Milberg, lobbyist for the National Corn Growers Association.
He said he believes farmers may double their biotech acreage in the future, especially since the government recently approved Monsanto's new rootworm-fighting corn for the market.
The new corn is engineered to contain its own pesticide, derived from Bt, a natural soil bacterium. It protects the plant against rootworm, a common pest whose larvae nibble at the plant's roots.
On the Net:
Planting Survey: http://www.usda.gov/nass/
03/31/03 16:01 EST
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Insects thrive on GM 'pest-killing' crops By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
The Independent (London) 30 March 2003
Genetically modified crops specially engineered to kill pests in fact nourish them, startling new research has revealed.
The research which has taken even the most ardent opponents of GM crops by surprise radically undermines one of the key benefits claimed for them. And it suggests that they may be an even greater threat to organic farming than has been envisaged.
It strikes at the heart of one of the main lines of current genetic engineering in agriculture: breeding crops that come equipped with their own pesticide.
Biotech companies have added genes from a naturally occurring poison, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is widely used as a pesticide by organic farmers. The engineered crops have spread fast. The amount of land planted with them worldwide grew more than 25-fold from four million acres in 1996 to well over 100 million acres (44.2m hectares) in 2000 and the global market is expected to be worth $25bn (£16bn) by 2010.
Drawbacks have already emerged, with pests becoming resistant to the toxin. Environmentalists say that resistance develops all the faster because the insects are constantly exposed to it in the plants, rather than being subject to occasional spraying.
But the new research by scientists at Imperial College London and the Universidad Simon Rodrigues in Caracas, Venezuela adds an alarming new twist, suggesting that pests can actually use the poison as a food and that the crops, rather than automatically controlling them, can actually help them to thrive.
They fed resistant larvae of the diamondback moth an increasingly troublesome pest in the southern US and in the tropics on normal cabbage leaves and ones that had been treated with a Bt toxin. The larvae eating the treated leaves grew much faster and bigger with a 56 per cent higher growth rate.
They found that the larvae "are able to digest and utilise" the toxin and may be using it as a "supplementary food", adding that the presence of the poison "could have modified the nutritional balance in plants" for them.
And they conclude: "Bt transgenic crops could therefore have unanticipated nutritionally favourable effects, increasing the fitness of resistant populations."
Pete Riley, food campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said last night: "This is just another example of the unexpected harmful effects of GM crops.
"If Friends of the Earth had come up with the suggestion that crops engineered to kill pests could make them bigger and healthier instead, we would have been laughed out of court.
"It destroys the industry's entire case that insect-resistant GM crops can have anything to do with sustainable farming."
Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, said it showed that GM crops posed an even "worse threat to organic farming than had previously been imagined". Breeding resistance to the Bt insecticide sometimes used by organic farmers was bad enough, but problems would become even greater if pests treated it as "a high-protein diet".
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