campaign: protest the GM potato

Submitted by turbosprout on Tue, 2008-07-29 10:47.

The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) has been conducting field trials for several years with a GM potato called Spunta G2, genetically engineered to kill a pest called the Tuber Moth. They have given notice that they will apply to the South African GMO Council for a general release permit in the next few days. This means they want to release the GM Potato to commercial farmers, which has the potential to wreak havoc with the local potato industry, and infringes on our basic human right to choose the food we want to eat.

Please check out this petition on the activist website, it is activist's first campaign and a very important one. The campaign is initiated by the African Centre for Biosafety and supported by SafeAge, Biowatch SA and urban sprout. (We're founding members of activist too).

What can your signature do?

The GMO council will be deciding on whether or not to allow this permit to commercialise GMO potatoes. Your signature will show them that consumers are not willing to eat this product. Your signature can sway their decision.

Potato South Africa oversees the whole potato industry. If they believe that their market will be jeopardised by GM potatoes, they will make a strong case to the GMO council not to allow them onto the market. Potato SA has already said that they will oppose the permit, your decision will help to galvanise their position.

GM Potatoes have already been rejected by consumers in the United States and the European Union. The governments of Egypt and Indonesia began experiments on these potatoes but ended them when they realised that consumers would not buy. Your signature could ensure they meet the same fate in South Africa.

Health Concerns

There is no consumer confidence in the long-term safety of GM potatoes and they pose no benefit to the consumer. Problems with Bt genes that have been commercialised in the past have included immune reactions, impacts on organ weight and function and allergic reactions.

Additionally, the use of antibiotic resistant marker genes poses an unacceptable risk to the health of Africans. There is a possibility that the use of these genes could diminish the efficacy of antibiotics such as Kanamycin, a drug that is listed in the WHO Essential Medicines Library as a drug reserved for treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

There is no reason for consumers to take the risk of eating a novel food for the sake of storage requirements for farmers.

Force feeding fellow Africans with dangerous food

ARC’s GM potato work is funded by USAID, which is well known for their tactics to push US corporate interests in GM in Africa. They are up front about their goal to “integrate GM into local food systems” through their Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP).

South Africa exports 90% of its potato crop to its neighbours in SADC, where many have imposed bans or biosafety restrictions on GM food. ARC’s GM potatoes will force feed fellow Africans with food that they have neither asked for nor have a say in.

GM Potatoes won’t help African farmers

GM potatoes are located within the “Green Revolution” package for Africa that proffers technical and economic solutions for African agriculture. These solutions, designed by transnational agribusiness, create dependence on hi-tech, capital-intensive technology that is inappropriate for small-scale farmers. Public research money would be better used on enhancing more appropriate agricultural systems that ensure local food security, adaptability to changing climates and local control over resources.

African farmers face the loss of their markets and control over their farming systems if South Africa paves the way for the introduction of GM potatoes onto the continent.

Biosafety Concerns

GM potatoes are touted as a tool to reduce the use of pesticides, particularly to control the tuber moth, which is most destructive during storage. However, these potatoes express toxins 24 hours a day that accumulate in the environment and throughout the food chain. As pests develop a resistance to the toxin, this is a short-term and short-sighted solution to the tuber moth problem.

GM potatoes will easily spread throughout the continent – a pocket of potatoes bought for consumption can be transported across borders and ultimately be planted in places where they have not been approved and cannot be traced. This will impact on each country’s sovereign right to decide on whether or not they want to accept GM potatoes, as well as impact on their Biosafety.

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GM potato

Submitted by Gurling (not verified) on Tue, 2008-07-29 19:59.

Hi Glen,
I was deeply disappointed when I read your article. The reason for my disappointment is that the article is riddled with inaccuracies and untruths. I don't believe you took the time to verify anything in the article, but took ACB's propaganda at face value. I believe it is unethical to take partial truths and paint a picture that does not resemble reality. I have no problem if you attack this potato (or any GM) but please don't twist things with half truths or lies. I have some first hand knowledge of this project and if you would like to get another side to the story you are welcome to contact me. I in no way expect you to change your views, but if you want to be honest to yourself you can't only blindly believe one source of propaganda.
Sincerely, Gurling

What are the lies?

Submitted by Ian Gilfillan (not verified) on Tue, 2008-07-29 22:13.

Hi Gurling, it would have been helpful if you'd listed what you see as the 'half truths' and 'lies' in the article, for the rest of us.

The GM industry is horribly mistrusted because of its record of coverups, suppression of contrary scientific evidence, and attempts to hide which products are genetically modified or not for the purposes of misleading consumers in order to make sales. When the motivation is money, not truth, it can't really complain if the truth remains fuzzy.

I personally don't trust

Submitted by WebDesignBoy (not verified) on Wed, 2009-07-29 00:09.

I personally don't trust them either because, you are right they do have lots of cover up and they are more interested in the money and not the truth.
thanks!

potato propagandist

Submitted by turbosprout on Wed, 2008-07-30 10:24.

I'm similarly disappointed that with all the "inaccuracies", "untruths", "partial truths", "half truths" or "lies" lurking above, that as someone with first hand knowledge of the project you fail to point them out for us! I'm convinced of the arguments against the GM Potato and as a lay person have invested time in my own research (see other posts on GM Potatos dating back to 2006 and 2007). I also trust the three civil society organisations that are behind the campaign a tad more than the biotech industry or the government to protect consumer interests. As for your mention of ethics and propaganda read about the worlds biggest biotech/seed company advertising in SA's very own Huisgenoot / You magazine or about Biowatches court case just to get necessary info from government.

Hello Urban Sprout, firstly

Submitted by Lauren (not verified) on Wed, 2008-07-30 16:03.

Hello Urban Sprout, firstly thank you for a generally informative website that is always up to date with eco issues - it's a resource I find most useful.

On the GM food issue, my instinct is to disagree with you. I do not dispute that there may be health / ecosystem risks, of course this is the case with deployment of new technologies that involve fiddling with the genetic make-up of nature. Nor do I dispute that much of the research is funded by institutions with very vested interests in propagating these GM products - they are businesses, after all, and are driven by a profit motivation. To deny that wold be naive, but then so would it be naive to suggest they're developing products that don't hold any commercial or small-scale farmer interest: otherwise, how could they reasonably expect to find markets to sell these products to?

What I never hear from the anti-GM side, is a call for funding of in-depth research of GM foods by non-vested interests. To speculate that there may be bias and cover-ups is simply not good enough - why do independent bodies not fund research to disprove GM proponents' claims to a satisfactory level? Science, not speculation, is what is truly needed.

And finally, my support for GM food is based on the expectation of a world population to peak at 9 billion. Current agricultural techniques, as far as I understand (not being an expert), will not cater to this need. So, in the interest of a pragmatic approach to feeding the masses, I believe GM may in future hold the answer to increased farmland productivity. The other extreme, organic food, will never accomplish this. I am of the opinion that organic food is an elitist thing, for the higher echelons of society, because the poor who are not blessed with their own land to farm organically on, could never afford. On this latter issue, I feel quite strongly.

Looking forward to a more detailed discussion of your article, particularly in light of the other comments posted above.

GM food for thought

Submitted by turbosprout on Thu, 2008-07-31 09:57.

Hi Lauren. Glad you enjoy urban sprout and thanks for airing your views. I'd like to resond as follows:

Health or eco-system risks
To me this is central to the whole debate about GM foods. There is already evidence that genetically modified foods have caused alergic reactions in people and have had a negetive affect on other organisms in ecosystems. This alone should indicate that we need to be more careful before launching GM into the wild. Unfortunately once GM crops have hybridised with non GM crops these genes can't be recalled.

Research
I agree with the need for non-biased research. Anti GM lobbyists have been calling on government to provide this for a long time, but the costs involved mean that only government and universities could provide research facilities. Universities are also sometimes tied to commercial funding. The University of the Free State has a lab set up where they can test for the prescence of GMO's in food, which is a positive step. Testing corn and soya processed food products in this country has already revealed GM contamination. When civil society movements like Greenpeace have contracted Universities to review the tests conducted by Biotech companies, the neutrality of the science employed by Biotech has been found lacking. So it's not just science that is needed, but "good" science.

Feeding the millions
There have been independent studies in the US proving that yields are actually lower with GM soya compared with conventional soya. Conventional crop breeding techniques are still able to produce varieties that achieve increased yields without the risks of GM. Industial agriculture (which has now turned to GM science as its new hope) inevitably ends with the land not being able to sustain itself. The fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides that are added deplete the soil and pollute groundwater. Organic farming by contrast builds the health of the soil and over time yields increase.

Extreme, elistist organic food
Remember that eating organic was the natural thing to do before the 1950's when chemical fertilisers (from wartime bomb making industry) were applied to farming. There is a perception that organic food is expensive, but if you factor in the harm that is done to the environment and peoples health through industrial agriculture, the cost of "conventional" agriculture far outweighs that of organic. In poor communities that are still on the land, organic food is what is eaten. When GM seed is sold to farmers they have to sign a contract that they will not save their seed, and so are tied in to a cycle of seed purchasing from biotech companies. Organic farming is also more labour intensive and so has massive potential in this country to create jobs, indeed it is already underway with the likes of the Organic Freedom Project.

Nice comment Lauren

Submitted by Al (not verified) on Thu, 2008-07-31 11:42.

Nice comment Lauren. I found myself nodding while I read through it.

There are (many) scientific studies showing that GM is fine and there are studies saying that it is not. It just depends what you believe.

I have to say though that I just don't see how GM could be that unsafe. Fear of change and the unknown is natural to humans. For instance these guys probably thought (or still think) cell phones are going to give us cancer.

I believe that hysterical opposition to GM is a bad thing - I like your gunning for a rational approach.

Good luck

GM facts and hype

Submitted by glenn (not verified) on Thu, 2008-07-31 17:43.

Its interesting that Gurling thinks i wrote the initial GM article.
All i wrote was a commentary pointing out that we were about to get the first GM potatoes to be licensed anywhere in the world - this is a fact. They have been turned down everywhere else, even the USA, the heartland of GM drive. Why? Because people do not want to eat GM vegetables, especially something as sacred as a potato, something that is normally viewed as a safe, healthy carbo veg.
I think that Gurling should be open about where he is coming from - he is one of the primary persons involved in this project with the Agricultural Research Centre, part of the Dept of Agriculture which is rabidly pro GM.

Gurling disputes the facts as put out by the African Center for Biosafety. Point is here, who do you trust - someone who has been involved in this project for years or someone who views teh entire project from the outside and objectively engages.

Fact - there has been no long term testing made available (yet) on mammals for this food. If there has i would like to see it.

Fact - we have never eaten GM food that is so close to its natural source as GM potatoes. Most GM products are processed into other constituents or are used as additives. Potatoes are, well, um, potatoes.

Fact - We also have the worlds first GM staple in white maize - all of our mielie meal and stampmielies have been contaminated by GM produce as well. If this stuff is so safe and tested why the hell is it not labelled and why does industry fight labelling tooth and nail?

Fact - if gm food is not labelled it is scientifically dishonest to claim that nobody has suffered ill effects from eating GM food. It is impossible to verify such a claim if GM food is not labelled, which is precisely why the industry does not want it labelled.

Fact - varieties of food such as maize and soy (which both have GM varieties) are routinely segregated into various lines that are tracked through the production process. Therefore to claim that labelling will add to the cost is egregious and misleading. It is yet more industry hype.

Fact - there has never been a single multi-generational test of any GM product, even on a mouse or rat. Yet this experiment is going on in the human race without our permission and in the most unscientific manner possible.

Fact - GM crops do not produce more. We do not need GM to feed the 9 million people Lauren so cares about. We produce enough food already. Problem is that many people simply cannot afford food. We have been producing GM food in SA for ten years. A decade ago we had around 45% of the population suffering from dietary deficiency. Today we still have the same amount of people with facing the same problem.

Fact - ever time independent research is carried out that casts any doubt on GM foods being safe these studies are savaged by the multinationals and their paid PR people around the world. There have been numerous independent published studies that cast serious doubt on the short medium and long term safety of GM food but these are discounted by teh same pro GM cheerleaders.

Fact - it is nearly impossible to get funding to do independent research on GM, especially if you are perceived to be opposed to the technology. It is a simple matter that the fact is that significant funding for tertiary institutions comes from transnational s like the GM companies. Berkeley in the US was recently funded heavily by Syngenta amid a huge outcry. Same goes right here in SA.
If you are a scientist and you have spent your entire career talking up the hype of GM are you now going to cast doubts on your career choice? Are you going to jeopardise it? No.

Fact - GM crops do not yield higher - the most widely grown GM crop in the world GM soy yields anything between 5 and 10% less than conventional soy.

Fact - industrial agriculture is the problem. We need to move away from fossil fuel dependent agriculture - fertilisers, chemicals are all dependent on the fossil fuel industry. Industrial agriculture is the problem not the solution.

If you want to understand this matter properly - it is a complex and profound issue - i suggest reading "The end of food," by Paul Roberts "Genetic roulette," by Jeffrey Smith, and looking at this issue with deep scepticism.

Fact - there is a whole new industry out there that has arisen over the past decade that now controls most of the worlds seed, chemicals, pesticides. Monsanto has morphed from a massive chemical corporation, responsible for PCBs (and their cover ups) DDT, Agent Orange, et etc. and is now the worlds biggest seed company while they also control most of the worlds GM seed and nearly 100% of SA gm patents. They also have a stranglehold on our wheat and barley seed, even though they are not GM and have made all sorts of threats about that too, regarding withholding research. They lied about their toxic chemicals, but now we must trust these guys with our food? No, i dont think so.
Syngenta was also a massive chemcial company. It has also become a big player in the seed industry. Same with Dow agrochemcials. On and on it goes.

Fact – most GM crops are developed so that increased levels of toxic herbicides, linked to cancer, genetic damage, damage to water living animals, etc etc, can be applied. And they are. The levels of these chemicals have skyrocketed. We were told that GM crops would reduce pesticide use but the opposite has happened. Just one more lie revealed.

I have studied this issue for years with an open mind. I will not touch GM food. I will not feed it to my family. It takes a bit of adaptation but thats all it takes.

Demand labelling. Demand that these potatoes from hell go right back to that hot place and stay there. We do not need them. They will not benefit anybody at all. They are a threat not a saviour. Lets be very clear about this.

Thanks for your support and if you want to take up these issues with me please drop me a line through my website at www.ekogaia.org or lets just continue to hack it out on this forum.

And yes, viva rationality, viva more science not less, viva no hysterics and viva open debate and forums. But truly folks i am heartily sick of trolls who think they know about this issue and then hack out the same old tired old nonsense that GM is fine and we have nothing to worry about. I just happen to disagree, the reasons above just for starters. I could write a book. I have already edited one on this and related topics. If anybody has a vested interest its the cheerleaders and lets never forget this.
And thanks to Urban Sprout for putting this issue out there, as they should. The limp wristed mainstream media just wishy-wash along with the tide of exploitation and excess, so what's new?

Demand GM free food and GM free spuds. It is your right. End of story.

GM potato

Submitted by Gurling (not verified) on Thu, 2008-07-31 23:44.

I addressed my comment to Glen who I believe runs Urban Sprout (E-mail signed by Glen from Urban Sprout) and had no idea Glenn was involved, but I see turbosprout seems to have written the particular piece.
Where am I coming from? I am an agricultural scientist. My comments here are my personal views and don't neccessarily represent any group or organization. I am involved in a few agricultural projects, and was involved in a few of the biosafety studies on the potato. I get nothing out of it, except knowledge. My salary gets paid no matter what project I work on. What upsets me is when people make statements about the potato, when I know they have no knowledge of the project and make general statements and use the standard anti-GM retoric that is not true about the potato.
The accusation is always made that the multinationals are trying to control the worlds seed supply using GM technology. Then when non-multinationals try to develop systems, attempts are made to stop the research. The regulatory and cost hurdles are already massive. There is the accusation that not enough research is being done,
but projects are opposed and in parts of the world research sites are trashed. ie Produce safety data but we wont let you do the trials. A large component of the GM potato project was to develop capacity within SA to do safety evaluations on GM products and to see how the administrative system (GM legislative system) copes with an application by a non-multination company with data largely generated in SA. There are many facets to this and some were raised in the article (eg, molecular evaluation, toxicity studies, environmental impact, socio economic considerations, agronomic performance etc.). Just as the Write brothers did not start by building a 747 jet, the ARC had to start somewhere.
Well let us look at the comments on the potato.
“we have never eaten GM food that is so close to its natural source as GM potatoes”
How are papayas eaten? That is why we did animal feeding studies and toxicity studies. If we found anything funny the project would be stopped.
“GM Potatoes have already been rejected by consumers in the United States and the European Union.” Not quite true. Pressure groups threatened the “mac donalds - food manufacturers” with boycotts. Average consumers never even got the chance to reject them because the potato processors did not want risk losing business. I suppose this is a kind of industrial terrorism.
“The governments of Egypt and Indonesia began experiments on these potatoes but ended them when they realised that consumers would not buy” Well also not quite true. I spoke to people involved and their story is similar to the statement above. They were threatened by European activists that their exports (even though the GM potato was not an export potato) would be boycotted. The average consumer never even got the chance to reject them.
“There is no consumer confidence…” who is this consumer and who decided that they could speak for them. There are SA studies that refute this.
“Additionally, the use of antibiotic resistant marker genes poses an unacceptable risk to the health of Africans.” This is also a contrived argument. There should be thousands of cases by now with people carrying superbugs resistant to all sorts of things. Most microbiologists I have asked about this don’t believe there is any evidence that this is a real risk. Antibiotic misuse in medicine is the real culprit.
“eating a novel food for the sake of storage requirements for farmers.” The people who store them will most likely eat them as well. Have you ever seen what devastation PTM can cause to stored potatoes. There are no pesticides registered for use on stored potatoes.
“ARC’s GM potatoes will force feed fellow Africans with food that they have neither asked for nor have a say in.” How? Ever heard of International treaties regarding the movement of LMO’s across borders? Get real. Sounds like potatoes are being pumped out of the country in massive amounts.
“create dependence on hi-tech, capital-intensive technology that is inappropriate for small-scale farmers” What? Explain this. You know nothing about this potato.
“However, these potatoes express toxins 24 hours a day that accumulate in the environment and throughout the food chain. As pests develop a resistance to the toxin, this is a short-term and short-sighted solution to the tuber moth problem.” Your science is a bit dodgy here. Where did you get this data? You have no evidence to support this. Currently PTM is controlled by spraying poison. Suggest another way to control PTM. NO resistance has been found in wild potato.
“GM potatoes will easily spread throughout the continent – a pocket of potatoes bought for consumption can be transported across borders and ultimately be planted in places where they have not been approved and cannot be traced.” So potatoes in general must be spreading at the moment. What you say about a pocket being taken over the border is true. But you imply that they will spread like weeds.. . again not the real picture.
ACB also said that Syngenta were going to make lots of money out of this and that US researchers would enrich themselves from this potato. No truth in this at all.
The standard arguments used against all GMO’s are used in the potato debate. People attacking the potato project have not seen any of the research data generated, yet make a judgment on the potato.
There is much more to be said but quite frankly it is not worth the effort. Any data generated, that does not support the anti-GM movement is ignored by them. (And the same could be said about some pro-GM groups.) Maybe GreenPeace could spend 5% of its vast budget in sponsoring real research. Then maybe we will have real data that we can use to evaluate GMO’s.

indpendent gm testing.

Submitted by glenn (not verified) on Fri, 2008-08-01 17:49.

ja gurling,
its fine to ask greenpeace to set aside 5% of thier budget to do testing but every time GP gets involved there are accusations of bias from the industry, so this is why the tests have not happened.
Coupled to that is the fact that as soon as someone contracts to testing GM stuff and comes up with negative findings, immense ( and here i use immense in the true sense of the word, as in gargantuan, titanic, mega, etc, etc.) pressure is placed on those who published such results.
Its happened time and time again. And then monsanto hulle come out and get a test done that proves just the opposite.

Fact is - if gm is so safe, what is the problem with labelling. End of story. People want it, so do it.

International surveys show over 85% demandding labelling, just for starters.

And who wants to eat GM spuds? Not i said the fly, who ate one and fell flat on his back!

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