Seminario sobre transgénicos en América Latina

El pasado mes de mayo el Proyecto de Bioseguridad de Puerto Rico participó de Planet Diversity (http://www.planet-diversity.org/), un congreso mundial de la sociedad civil para discutir el futuro de la agricultura y los alimentos celebrado en la ciudad alemana de Bonn. Una de las actividades fue un seminario sobre transgénicos en América Latina organizado por la Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos. A continuación las conclusiones del seminario.

CONCLUSIONES DEL SEMINARIO
SITUACION DE LOS CULTIVOS TRANSGENICOS EN AMERICA LATINA
Bonn, Alemania, 14 Mayo 2008

El Seminario “Situación de los Transgénicos en América Latina” fue coordinado por la Fundación Sociedades Sustentables como parte de la Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos (RALLT). Se efectúo en las dependencias de Gustav Stressmann Institute en Bonn, Alemania, el Miércoles 14 Mayo de 2008, y se realizo como un evento paralelo a las negociaciones de la Cuarta Reunión de las Partes del Protocolo de Cartagena.

El programa del seminario se cumplió cabalmente con 6 presentaciones, comenzando con un panorama general de los transgénicos en América Latina, después se presento la situación de la papa transgénica y se continuó con cuatro presentaciones sobre las situaciones nacionales en Brasil, Argentina, Paraguay y Chile. El programa fue el siguiente:

1. La situación de los transgénicos en América Latina. Elizabeth Bravo, Acción Ecológica, Ecuador. Coordinadora RALLT (la charla fue presentada por Maria Isabel Manzur en reemplazo de Elizabeth Bravo que no pudo asistir)
2.La situación de la papa transgénica en América Latina. Georgina Catacora, Tierra Viva, Bolivia.
3.La situación de los transgénicos en Argentina, Jorge Rulli, Grupo de Reflexión Rural, Argentina.
4.Impactos del cultivo de la soja en Paraguay. Gilda Roa, Movimiento Agrario Campesino, Paraguay.
5.La situación de las semillas transgénicas y cultivos farmacéuticos en Chile. María Isabel Manzur, Fundación Sociedades Sustentables, Chile.
6.La situación y la soya y el maíz transgénico en Brasil. Gabriel Fernades, ASPTA, Brasil.

El seminario contó con la participación de alrededor de 40 personas. Fue moderado por Mari Carcamo de Rapal Uruguay, el debate estuvo a cargo de María Isabel Manzur de Chile y la traducción al ingles la efectuó Carmelo Ruiz de Puerto Rico quien gentilmente nos colaboró de forma voluntaria. La lista de asistentes se adjunta en el Anexo a este documento.

Posterior a las presentaciones, el seminario finalizó con un enriquecedor debate sobre las prioridades de acción en América Latina respecto a los transgénicos y su expansión. Las propuestas efectuadas por los participantes se resumen a continuación de manera resumida.
Se mencionaron las siguientes necesidades de acción:

Diagnóstico - Monitoreo
Efectuar un diagnostico de la situación de los transgénicos en los países de América Latina.
Efectuar un diagnóstico de las estrategias de las empresas a nivel continental y un mapeo de las áreas donde están presentes las corporaciones.
Efectuar monitoreos de la contaminación accidental de semillas y la entrada ilegal de semillas transgénicas a los países. Para esto se requiere de acceso a test kits baratos y sencillos de utilizar.
Monitorear los proyectos de papas transgénicas del Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) en Perú.
Monitorear la expulsión de campesinos de sus tierras para aumentar la superficie de cultivos transgénicos en los países donde esta ocurriendo.

Protección de Semillas
Proteger los centros de biodiversidad y de origen en América Latina y declararlos zonas libres de transgénicos. Todas las campañas debieran incluir esta temática.
Se debiera además apoyar y mantener las zonas libres que aun existen.
Apoyar a los productores no transgénicos para mantener sus cultivos libres de transgénicos y apoyar acciones de Indemnización por contaminación.
Fomentar la conservación de las semillas tradicionales, incluir a los agricultores como conservadores de las semillas y multiplicar los bancos de semillas.
Realizar campañas a nivel local y a nivel global de forma articulada.
Dar a conocer las iniciativas en América Latina sobre conservación de biodiversidad agrícola.

Intercambio de Información
Potenciar el intercambio de información en la región. Apoyar a la Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos (RALLT) como un órgano importante de difusión de información y coordinación.
Realizar un boletín mensual analítico de la situación de América Latina.
Efectuar seminarios regionales y una reunión a nivel del continente que recoja los resultados de los seminarios regionales.
Efectuar talleres regionales de las comunidades indígenas y nativas sobre conocimiento colectivo y patentamiento.
Hacer accesible la información sobre transgénicos, acceso a recursos genéticos, patentes, a las comunidades a nivel local.

Acciones Legales
Enfrentar el problema humanitario que se está generando en varios países de América Latina (expulsiones, envenenamientos por plaguicidas, crímenes, persecuciones etc), producto de la expansión de la soya transgénica. Utilizar herramientas jurídicas, como la Corte Internacional de la Haya por crímenes contra la humanidad.
Enfrentar el tema de la mayor expansión de la frontera transgénica, de las superficies de cultivos y de mas tipos de cultivos aprobados.
Utilizar leyes antitrust y redes.

Aumento de Conciencia –Trabajo en Redes
Fortalecer la educación de jóvenes de culturas originarias para conservar sus recursos.
Aumentar la conciencia y la sensibilidad en los consumidores y autoridades de países importadores de semillas o granos transgénicos sobre el alto costo que implica la producción de estos cultivos en países productores, de los impactos de vidas humanas, a la salud, socioeconómicos y a la biodiversidad.
Establecer lazos entre consumidores del norte y productores de transgénicos y la sociedad civil de países del Sur. Fortalecer el poder de los consumidores para rechazar los productos transgénicos. Establecer campañas coordinadas entre países del norte y del sur.
Utilizar redes existentes europeas o de otros países, que monitorean a las corporaciones.
Generar sistemas de activismo por Internet.

Varios
Se debe denunciar el aumento del uso de herbicida en los cultivos transgénicos y efectuar campañas contra el glifosato y sus impactos en la biodiversidad, en la creación de supermalezas , impactos en los anfibios y la salud humana. También denunciar los impactos de la toxina del maíz Bt y del glifosato en el suelo.
Cuestionar no solo los transgénicos sino el modelo de monocultivo. Las denuncias deben mostrar el modelo alternativo evitando mostrar a la soya convencional como alternativa a la soya transgénica, sino enfatizar que la verdadera alternativa es la soya agroecológica.
Se debe denunciar que la soya transgénica sustentable es una solución falsa.
Se debe aclarar que la soya transgénica no es una solución al cambio climático pues es más susceptible por su homogeneidad genética.
SE debe promover la agricultura agroecológica como alternativa al modelo de monocultivos y transgénicos, capacitar a lideres campesinos en agroecología y sistematizar las experiencias. La conservación de semillas debe hacerse bajo un modelo agroecológico y se debe masificar la información sobre agroecología.
Es indispensable promover el control de las semillas y el control de la tierra. Se debe evitar la perdida de territorio y asegurar el acceso a tierra y semilla que permita una soberanía territorial, cultural y alimentaria.
Se debe estar atento que la expansión de los agrocombustibles en América Latina que propicia la expansión de los transgénicos.
Es indispensable buscar apoyo financiero a las campañas contra los transgénicos en América Latina.
Detener la producción de semillas transgénicas y cultivos farmacéuticos en América Latina.

Natural Alternatives to GM Crops

• GM Watch (EU), September 24, 2008
  Straight to the Source
  
  

NOTE: Superb Responses to the UK's Science Minister
--- ---
The Guardian (Letters), 24 September 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/sep/24/4

Ian Pearson needs to get his science straight before considering taking a stance in support of GM (Science minister attempts to reopen the debate on GM crops, September 22). Properties such as innate pest or blight resistance, drought or salt tolerance and yield are sophisticated processes that manifest from the function of multiple genes working in a tightly regulated, coordinated manner. The introduction of such properly functioning complex gene networks in plants by the crude and genetically disruptive GM transformation process is currently not possible. Fortunately, we have better alternatives that can contribute to alleviating the world's food problems now.

First, the biotechnological procedure of marker-assisted selection (MAS), which uses our increasing knowledge of gene maps, can significantly expedite the identification of new crop varieties with complex desirable properties created by natural cross-breeding programmes. Unlike GM, there are no inherent safety concerns with MAS that makes use of the vast gene pool of any given food crop in a manner that retains natural gene order and function.

Second, a 1996 report by the National Research Council in the US highlighted that there already exist many crops such as fonio, pearl millet, African rice that are naturally adapted to harsh climates and marginal soils as well as being nutritious and tasty. Unfortunately, outside interference has led to these hardy staples being displaced by maize, wheat and Asian rice. In the face of climate change, the world needs fast solutions to its food problems, which MAS and a return to traditional food varieties can provide and which GM simply cannot deliver.

Dr Michael Antoniou
King's College London
*****
Ian Pearson's comments reveal a government increasingly prepared to act as a mouthpiece for the GM industry. GM crops have failed to deliver - they do not yield more than conventional crops and there is not a single GM drought or salt-tolerant crop available commercially.

The government's own GM public debate in 2003 revealed widespread scepticism over both GM crops and corporate control of the food system. Instead of trying to convince the public to support GM and continuing to fund this unpopular and ineffective technology, the government must focus on the real farming solutions backed by 400 scientists in a recent UN report on the future of agriculture. This means meeting local food needs by combining science and technology with communities' traditional knowledge to support localised and diverse farming.

Clare Oxborrow
Food campaigner, Friends of the Earth

Are GMOs a solution to climate change and food crises?

(Henk Hobbelink, GRAIN)

Amila de Saram Larssen

This was the title of a recent seminar held in Oslo jointly organized by Norad and the Development Fund.

The meeting room was filled to capacity, leaving no doubt that the debate over the risks and benefits of GMOs is still raging, especially in Norway.

While several interesting perspectives on GMOs were presented, the seminar was dominated by voices critical of GMOs. Gunn Opsahl Sorteberg, professor of genetics and plant biology at the University of Agriculture, Ås, offered the sole pro-GMO perspective.

Henk Hobbelink, Coordinator of GRAIN, an international NGO promoting the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity, was the featured speaker and presented a brief history of GMOs. He also assessed the promises made by proponents of the “GMO Revolution” twenty years ago, promises of increased food security and sustainability.

Hobbelink pointed out that 5 large corporations dominate the market, producing a narrow range of GM crops that can be cultivated in only few countries. Also, just two traits have been developed, herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. He concluded that the promises of the GM Crop Revolution remain unfullfilled.

Opsahl Sorteberg agreed that GMOs were not “the” answer to mitigating climate change or the food crisis, but argued that it might offer some part of the solution. According to her, the GMO debate has become so politicized that it is no longer based on science and facts.

Casper Linnestad, Senior Advisor, the Norwegian Biotechnology Advisory Board outlined the guidelines Norway uses to assess new GMO applications and David Quist, Researcher at Genøk and visiting scientist at University of California, Berkeley presented a short commentary on the need to see GMOs not as a product or an ideology, but rather as a technical system. He also pointed out the hypocracy of countries such as Norway, that deem it unsafe to import GMO technology into the country, but advocate its use in other parts of the world.

Henk Hobbelink's presentation: Download henk_hobbelink.ppt

Gunn Opsahl Sorteberg's presentation: Download Hilde-gunn_Ppt0000001.pptx

Casper Linnestad's presentation: Download casper_linnestad_utviklingsfondet_norad_250908.pptm

David Quist's presentation: Download David_norad_25sept08_quist_v2.pptm

A letter to Scientific American

In regards to your article "Food Shortage Aid Should Start with Lessons in Agriculture." [Aug 2008], isn't it time that groups in wealthy developed countries stopped professing to know "the solution" to hunger in Africa? If Scientific American is concerned about "putting African bread on African tables," maybe you should be reporting on, and supporting, the many agroecological projects on that continent and elsewhere that have increased productivity using means more readily available to Global South farmers. [For example, the NY Times has reported that just intercropping of rice strains can double yields (Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Simple Method Found to Increase Crop Yields Vastly," August 22, 2000)].

Many farming organizations in Africa have, with comparatively little international support behind them, achieved amazing agricultural successes through endogenous innovation, biointensive farming, and other organic farming methods, without the use of genetically engineered seeds.

We disagree with your support of Green Revolution technologies as a solution for African farmers. Green Revolution packages of hybrid seed, mechanical instruments, and chemical inputs were previously introduced in much of Africa, and for the most part, they failed due to their incompatibility with place-specific agricultural production patterns. Elsewhere in the world, they have led to significant negative consequences --consolidation of farms, massive debt for smallholders, and subsequent suicide epidemics. They did not reduce global hunger.

High tech inputs may be suitable for large mechanized industrial farms (although even here they present significant problems), but they are completely inconsistent with the needs of smallholders in the Global South. For example, while these technologies benefited those large farmers who were well-connected, they failed to address the politics of class. Patented GE seeds can not be legally replanted, shared with neighbors, or crossed with other varieties-the techniques that enabled these people to feed themselves for millennia.

The recent report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, prepared by the World Bank and the UN, refused to support the further industrialization and globalization of agriculture and, in particular, reliance on genetically engineered plants, because the analysis shows that this route is unlikely to achieve the goal of feeding a hungry world.

GE issues are intensely political, as are agricultural issues in general-hunger in Africa and elsewhere is at least partly attributable to problems with unequal global distribution of food, political instability, and international trade regimes. However, your article leaves out the various political and economic aspects of the problem; these will not be fixed by technological improvements in agriculture.

Given our concern with the global state of agriculture and food security, we encourage Scientific American to consider all factors contributing to world hunger and to feature non-genetically engineered approaches that combine agricultural science with social, political, and economic non-technological solutions in your pages.

Sincerely,

Prof. Philip L. Bereano and Ashley Fent
on behalf of AGRA Watch, Seattle

EL LIBRO DE LOS EDITORIALES
Globalización y Resistencia

El “Libro de los Editoriales”, presentado al público por Corregidor en este año 2008, consiste en una recopilación de los Editoriales de Jorge Eduardo Rulli, en el programa Horizonte Sur, emitido por Radio Nacional AM, y leídos en el transcurso de los años 2005 y 2006.
Son charlas radiofónicas de estilo discepoliano, que ensayan una mirada que pretende ser original, y que mezclan como antaño lo hiciera el inolvidable “Mordisquito”, la Biblia con el calefón. Los editoriales llevan, fundamentalmente, la intención de combinar de una manera retroprogresiva, los imaginarios revolucionarios más la crítica al setentismo, con los nuevos desafíos globales, las necesidades de los mercados internacionales, la producción de commodities, el creciente peso de las Corporaciones, la extensión de los monocultivos, la minería con cianuro y los Biocombustibles.
Este ida y vuelta de una reflexión que es esencialmente política en un sentido didáctico y de formación de la conciencia, desafía de manera provocativa al oyente o en este caso al lector, y va armando un tramado nuevo que combina el pensamiento nacional con las luchas antiglobales, y en que se trataría de actualizar las viejas doctrinas, en medio de un vasto escenario operatorio donde el simulacro y el hacer “como que...”, parecieran ser la norma de las nuevas traiciones y adaptaciones al poder, que hoy se travisten con antiguos ropajes y discursos progresistas, y que se trata de develar, de confrontar y de contrastar con los nuevos sueños y las nuevas propuestas.

Ediciones Corregidor 2008
corregidor@corregidor.com
Rodríguez Peña 452 –
011 4374 5000 / 4959
Ciudad de Buenos Aires 1020

Producción periodística del programa
Horizonte Sur: Bernardo Elffman
berekproducciones@gmail.com
011 15 52622242

Biotech Snake Oil: A Quack Cure for Hunger

• By Bill Freese
  Multinational Monitor, September 20, 2008
  Straight to the Source
  
  

Rising global food prices reached a flash point this spring, sparking food riots in over a dozen countries. Mexican tortillas have quadrupled in price; Haiti's prime minister was ousted amid rice riots; African countries were especially hard hit. According to the World Bank, global food prices have risen a shocking 83 percent over the past three years. And for the world's poor, high prices mean hunger.

The global food crisis has many causes, but according to the biotechnology industry, there's a simple solution - genetically modified, or biotech, crops. Biotech multinationals have been in media blitz mode ever since the food crisis first made headlines, touting miracle crops that will purportedly increase yields, tolerate droughts, grow in saline soils, and be chockfull of nutrients, to boot.

"If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015," says Clive James, founder of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), an organization whose funders include all the major biotech companies, "biotech crops must play an even bigger role in the next decade."

Not everyone is convinced. In fact, the UN and World Bank recently completed an unprecedentedly broad scientific assessment of world agriculture, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which concluded that biotech crops have very little potential to alleviate poverty and hunger. This four-year effort, which engaged some 400 experts from multiple disciplines, originally included industry representatives. Just three months before the final report was released, however, Monsanto, Syngenta and chemical giant BASF pulled out of the process, miffed by the poor marks given their favorite technology. This withdrawal upset even the industry-friendly journal Nature, which chided the companies in an editorial entitled, "Deserting the Hungry?"

Una revolución verde para África: desastre en puerta

Mariam Mayet

Centro Africano para la Bioseguridad

mariammayet@mweb.co.za, http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/portal/

Introducción

Un reciente informe del Banco Mundial dio que hablar en todo el mundo porque atribuye la culpa de la escalada mundial del precio de los alimentos a la producción de agrocombustibles en Estados Unidos y Europa, al comercio especulativo y a las prohibiciones de exportación, y concluye que dichos factores provocaron un alza de los precios de entre 70 y 75% (1). Sin embargo, el informe no hace sino arañar la superficie de lo que realmente está detrás de la actual crisis alimentaria. Se requiere un estudio mucho más riguroso para analizar el “colapso estructural” provocado por políticas como la Revolución Verde, que transformaron algo tan sagrado como los alimentos en simples objetos de regateo y especulación (2). Si han proliferado los motines callejeros es debido al descontento y la frustración de tantos pobres del mundo ante los daños “colaterales” provocados por las fuerzas globalizadoras del capital. Ahora, esas mismas fuerzas se aprestan a acelerar el desarrollo agrícola en Asia y América Latina, y a resucitar el sector agrario de África. Ellas son el motor de la “nueva” Revolución Verde en África.

Cuando los líderes mundiales se reunieron apresuradamente en la Conferencia de Alto Nivel de la Organización para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (FAO) para buscar respuesta a la crisis alimentaria mundial, salieron con una declaración lamentable (3) que, como de costumbre, prescribía las habituales soluciones económicas y técnicas, en este caso el avance de una “nueva” revolución verde en África. Durante la conferencia, las tres instituciones de las Naciones Unidas con sede en Roma, es decir la FAO, el Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDA) y el Programa Mundial de Alimentos (PMA), firmaron un Memorando de Entendimiento con las fundaciones Gates y Rockefeller para la Alianza para una Revolución Verde en África (AGRA), y de esa forma dar un fuerte envión a dicho proyecto.

Detrás de la promoción de la Revolución Verde está la tendencia a considerar la escasez de alimentos como una consecuencia de la insuficiencia de los alimentos disponibles, y no como un fenómeno más complejo que requiere un enfoque más amplio y holístico de las razones por las cuales la gente pasa hambre.

La Revolución Verde dirigida por el AGRA es una amenaza para la riqueza de la agricultura tradicional africana, y contrasta claramente con las muchas alternativas exitosas que ofrece este continente en materia de agricultura orgánica, agricultura sustentable, agro-silvicultura, pastoralismo, control integrado de plagas, obtención de variedades vegetales por parte de los agricultores, gestión sostenible de cuencas y tantos otros enfoques agroecológicos.

Fundamentalmente, la Revolución Verde socava los sistemas alimentarios y la soberanía alimentaria de África: el derecho de las personas a disponer de alimentos sanos y culturalmente apropiados, producidos por métodos ecológicamente sensatos y sostenibles, y su derecho a definir sus propios sistemas alimentarios y agrícolas.

La Revolución Verde

La Revolución Verde se refiere al desarrollo de variedades de alto rendimiento (VAR), obtenidas para que respondan a los fertilizantes inorgánicos y otros insumos químicos. Estas VAR forman parte de un paquete tecnológico compuesto por fertilizantes inorgánicos, plaguicidas y otros productos químicos, y se alega que han mejorado mucho la producción agrícola mundial, contribuyendo así a la existencia de excedentes de productos agrícolas y a la eliminación del hambre (4).

El desarrollo de semillas híbridas estériles para reemplazar las semillas producidas naturalmente por los productores fue uno de los pasos clave en el proceso de acumulación capitalista dentro del sector agrícola. Mientras las semillas se reprodujeran por sí mismas, iba a ser muy difícil que el capitalismo pudiera controlar el principal componente de este sector. Cuando se logró quitar a los agricultores la obtención de semillas y la posibilidad de que éstas se reprodujeran por sí mismas, el capitalismo completó el ciclo para controlar el sector agrícola y las semillas se convirtieron en el principal componente del proceso de acumulación. Este control se vio acentuado por la producción de organismos genéticamente modificados y el establecimiento de un régimen más riguroso para las patentes y los derechos de propiedad intelectual.

Así, la Revolución Verde de los años 1960 y 1970 facilitó la integración de un sistema agrícola mundial, con el pretexto de “resolver el problema de la seguridad alimentaria nacional” (5).

Los problemas asociados a la agricultura convencional e industrial, de la cual la Revolución Verde es el mejor ejemplo, incluyen los siguientes: (6)

La agricultura ha terminado por obtener de fuentes más alejadas, tanto espacialmente como sectorialmente, los insumos que utiliza, por obtener de fuentes no renovables una proporción cada vez mayor de la energía que consume, por depender de una base genética cada vez más reducida y por tener cada vez mayor impacto ambiental. Esto se refleja particularmente en su gran dependencia de los fertilizantes y plaguicidas químicos, en su necesidad de subsidios y medidas para mantener los precios, y en los costos externos que implica, como la amenaza a otras especies, la contaminación ambiental, la destrucción del hábitat y los riesgos para la salud y el bienestar humanos.

El paquete de la Revolución Verde requiere gran cantidad de energía, directamente para el transporte y la maquinaria, e indirectamente para la producción de fertilizantes y otros insumos. La aplicación continua y cada vez mayor de un modelo de agricultura de gran intensidad energética no sólo aumentará los costos de la producción de alimentos sino que contribuirá a agravar el cambio climático.

La Revolución Verde en África

La “nueva” Revolución Verde para África es una “revolución de base científica”, que apunta a transformar una agricultura “atrasada” e “ineficiente” según una nueva visión de la modernidad. El 12 de setiembre de 2006, la Fundación Rockefeller y la Fundación Bill y Melinda Gates (7) (la “Fundación Gates”) se asociaron en la llamada Alianza para una Revolución Verde en África (AGRA). Con sede en Nairiobi, Kenia, el AGRA está diseñada para ayudar a millones de pequeños agricultores a salir de la pobreza y el hambre, dando un gran empuje a la productividad agrícola gracias a tecnologías similares a las de la Revolución Verde (8). Para este fin, la Fundación Gates se comprometió a dar 100 millones de dólares y la Fundación Rockefeller 50 millones durante los próximos cinco años. (9)

El AGRA apunta principalmente a la selección de productos agrícolas. A este respecto, se ha fijado la ambiciosa meta de desarrollar en cinco años 100 nuevas variedades de los principales productos, como el maíz, la mandioca, el sorgo y el mijo. El AGRA ha sido inscripta en Estados Unidos como organización de beneficencia, y funciona como órgano administrativo, proveyendo apoyo en materia de políticas y de movilización de recursos, principalmente en lo referente al desembolso del fondo inicial de 150 millones de dólares.

En junio de 2007, el ex Secretario General de la ONU, Kofi Annan, fue nombrado presidente del AGRA. Se prevé que una de sus funciones principales consistirá en usar sus numerosos lazos políticos, sus muchos contactos y su influencia en general para promover medidas mundiales, regionales y nacionales en apoyo del AGRA y sus programas. Ya tuvo ocasión de solicitar el apoyo directo de las tres agencias de la ONU con sede en Roma, la FAO, el FIDA y el PMA. En lo que respecta al Memorando anteriormente mencionado, serán designadas zonas específicas en determinados países africanos para intensificar allí la producción agrícola.

El AGRA de Kofi Annan no es más que el buque insignia filantrópico de una gran red de compañías de semillas y fertilizantes y de instituciones que pretenden industrializar la agricultura africana. La fuerte campaña del AGRA por una nueva Revolución Verde tiene por objetivo atraer inversiones privadas, reclutar a los gobiernos africanos y convencer a los agricultores africanos de que compren las nuevas semillas y los nuevos fertilizantes. El AGRA está preparando a los investigadores, las instituciones y los agricultores africanos para la introducción de productos transgénicos, no sólo arroz, trigo y maíz, sino también mandioca, plátano y otros productos agrícolas africanos. La ideología sobre la que se basa el AGRA en su conjunto pretende abrir el camino a la industrialización de los cultivos africanos para que las grandes agroindustrias puedan penetrar en el sistema agrícola del continente y dominarlo.

La soberanía alimentaria

El concepto de soberanía alimentaria fue desarrollado por La Vía Campesina, un movimiento campesino mundial, e introducido en el debate público durante la Cumbre Mundial de la Alimentación que tuvo lugar en Italia en 1996, como marco alternativo para la alimentación y la agricultura. Según Vía Campesina, el mundo se enfrenta a un conflicto histórico entre dos modelos de desarrollo económico, social y cultural para el mundo rural: un modelo agroindustrial, dentro del cual se inserta la Revolución Verde, y un modelo alternativo llamado soberanía alimentaria, que parte del concepto de los derechos económicos y sociales del ser humano, entre los cuales figura el derecho a la alimentación (10). La soberanía alimentaria trata de los derechos políticos y económicos de los agricultores como condición previa para lograr la seguridad alimentaria.

El concepto está obteniendo más y más apoyo como modelo político alternativo para la alimentación, la agricultura, las pesquerías y el pastoralismo. En febrero de 2007, más de 500 personas provenientes de más de 80 países, que representaban a organizaciones de campesinos o agricultores familiares, pescadores artesanales, pueblos indígenas, campesinos sin tierra, trabajadores rurales, emigrantes, pastores, comunidades del bosque, mujeres, jóvenes, consumidores, movimientos urbanos y de consumidores, se reunieron en Nyéléni, ciudad de Sélingué, en Malí, para fortalecer el movimiento mundial por la soberanía alimentaria. A finales de 2007, otro encuentro de más de 150 representantes de agricultores, pastores, organizaciones ambientalistas, de mujeres, de jóvenes y de desarrollo de 25 países africanos y 10 países de otros continentes tuvo lugar en Nyéléni con el fin de buscar alternativas africanas a la campaña del AGRA por una nueva Revolución Verde, alternativas de raíces locales, basadas en los sistemas agro-ecológicos y las luchas por la soberanía alimentaria (11).

Mucho queda por hacer a nivel nacional para hacer avanzar una campaña que proponga otras alternativas que la campaña del AGRA y de sus partidarios por una nueva Revolución Verde. Dichas alternativas deben estar basadas en los sistemas agroecológicos locales y las luchas por la soberanía alimentaria. Sus pilares fundamentales han de ser la investigación y el aprendizaje mutuo entre agricultores, las campañas de información a nivel popular, y las políticas de apoyo a la diversidad agrícola y biológica y a los derechos de los pastores, agricultoras y pequeños agricultores.

(1) “Biofuels, major driver of food price rise”, Banco Mundial, 28 de julio de 2008, Reuters. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N286150`6.htm. “Biofuels are prime cause of food crisis, says leaked report”, Aditya Chakrobortty, 3 de julio de 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/03/biofuels.renewableenergy.

(2) GRAIN. El negocio de matar de hambre. Abril de 2008, http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=40

(3) Conferencia de Alto Nivel sobre la Seguridad Alimentaria Mundial: los Desafíos del Cambio Climático y la Bioenergía, Roma, 3-5 de junio de 2008. Declaración de la Conferencia de Alto Nivel sobre la Seguridad Alimentaria Mundial: los Desafíos del Cambio Climático y la Sociedad. (http://www.fao.org/foodclimate/hlc-home/es/). Ver también: Net Dano, “Food Security Declaration weak on substance”, www.twnside.org.sg, http://www.biosafety-info.net/.

(4) International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI), 2002. Sustainable options for ending hunger and poverty: Green Revolution Cure of Blessing. www.ifpri.org.

(5) McMichael, P. (2004), “Global Development and the Corporate Food Regime”. Simposio sobre las nuevas orientaciones de la sociología del desarrollo. 11º Congreso mundial de sociología rural. Trondheim.

(6) Rigby, D. y Brown, S. (2007), “Whatever Happened to Organic ? Food Nature and the market for ‘Sustainable’ Food. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism.” Vol. 18, nº 3.

(7) La Fundación Bill y Melinda Gates (BMGF) es una sociedad creada en 2000, con base en Seattle, gracias a la fusión de la Gates Learning Foundation y la William H. Gates Foundation. La BMGF es la fundación benéfica más grande del mundo. Información disponible en: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/MediaCenter/FactSheet/default.htm.

(8) Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. http://www.agra-alliance.org.

(9) OCDE. Africa Partnership Forum. www.oecd.org/dataoecd/37/1/39024069.pdf.

(10) La Vía Campesina (2002). Soberanía alimentaria. Folleto distribuido en la Cumbre Mundial de la Alimentación + 5, Roma, Italia.

(11) Conclusiones de la conferencia organizada en el centro Nyéléni de Sélingué, Malí, del 26 de noviembre al 2 de diciembre de 2007.

Puedes comentar este artículo en: http://wrmbulletin.wordpress.com/

This is the country report I presented at GenØk last month

PUERTO RICO COUNTRY REPORT

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero

Summer 2008

We at the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety have not been able to gather much objective data on agricultural biotechnology in our territory. But what little information we have obtained is quite worrying.

Puerto Rico is one of the biotechnology industry's favorite sites for GE (genetically engineered) crop experiments. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, the island hosted 2,957 GE crop field tests between 1987 and 2002. At the time, that figure was surpassed only by the states of Iowa (3,831), Illinois (4,104), and Hawaii (4,566).

More recent USDA datashow that as of January 2005 a total of 1,330 field releases had been granted to experimental GM crops in the island, which have resulted in 3,483 field test sites. Of these field releases, 944 were for corn, 262 for soy, 99 for cotton, 15 for rice, 8 for tomato, one for papaya and one for tobacco.

With the exception of Hawaii, no state of the USA has so many of these experiments per square mile. The only states that have had more field releases are Hawaii (5,413), Illinois (5,092) and Iowa (4,659). Consider the vast difference in size: Illinois and Iowa have over 50,000 square miles each, while Puerto Rico has less than 4,000. Puerto Rico has more field releases than California, which has had 1,964 of them, although it is 40 times bigger than Puerto Rico and its Central Valley is probably the world's most productive agricultural zone.

"These are outdoor, uncontrolled experiments," affirmed Bill Freese of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, commenting on the situation in Puerto Rico. "These experimental GE traits are almost certainly contaminating conventional crops just as the commercialized GE traits are. And the experimental GE crops aren't even subject to the cursory rubber-stamp 'approval' process that commercialized GE crops go through, so I think the high concentration of experimental GE crop trials in Puerto Rico is definitely cause for concern."

Why Puerto Rico? Various answers to this question were offered in a symposium organized by the Agricultural Extension Service on biotechnology held in the town of San Germán in 2002. According to Claridad, a local newspaper, several symposium participants stated that the island's friendly tropical climate allows up to four harvests a year, which makes it ideal for agronomists and biotechnology corporations like Dow, Syngenta, Pioneer, and Monsanto. These four companies joined together in 1996 to found the Puerto Rico Seed Research Association.

One of the participants gave a much more provocative reason: he said that Puerto Rico has a "good political climate." The island's general population is ignorant of the existence of GE crops and foods in its diet and fields, which contributes to the "good political climate" that the speaker alluded to.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) named Puerto Rico governor Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá "Governor of the Year" during its 2006 annual convention, held in Chicago.

"Among his recent achievements, Gov. Acevedo-Vilá signed an Executive Order making the promotion and development of the biotechnology industry a public policy priority; instituted an inter-agency task force to address permitting issues for biotechnology companies on a fast-track basis; and, signed a proclamation creating the first annual biotechnology week," gushed the BIO in a press release.

"Acevedo-Vilá and his administration have been champions of building a strong bioscience industry presence in Puerto Rico," said BIO Vice President Patrick Kelly. "Not only does Puerto Rico have the third largest biologic manufacturing capacity in the world, but the Commonwealth also has a significant agricultural industry presence. (His) administration has been successful in creating an environment that will lead Puerto Rico into the forefront of the bioscience industry development well into the new millennium."


Para más información sobre GenØk: http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/search/label/Genok

ABOUT DNA FOLDING

A comment on this item in the TED blog: http://blog.ted.com/2008/09/the_immense_pro.php

What speaker Paul Rothemund says is utterly absurd and flies in the face of the bulk of discoveries and developments in genetics and genomics of the last 20-25 years and completely ignores all we know now of the risks and faulty scientific assumptions of genetic engineering.

Especially sad and embarassing is his analogy of genetics to computer programming. Such an analogy would have been fine 30 years ago, as it parts from some very simplistic and obsolete assumptions about biology.

Rothemund is blissfully unaware that genes are not independent, context-free units of information. DNA strands are folded in chromosomes in very particular ways, and these are not arbitrary. Changes in the folding can have dramatic effects on transcription, and can therefore result in a cascade of unwanted and unforeseen effects.

To say that it does not matter how DNA is folded is just as absurd as saying that it does not matter how proteins fold. We know now that how a protein is folded matters an awful lot. The best example of this is CJD/mad cow disease. The prion protein responsible for this disease is pathogenic because of the way it is folded. A mere reading of its aminoacid sequence would not reveal anything unusual or dangerous about it.

In few words: when it comes to DNA and proteins, position and shape do matter an awful lot.

A biologist friend of mine commented:

I've only watched a portion of the video, but DNA folding isn't 'magic.' It turns out that many of the regulatory functions of DNA are not controlled at the level of the sequence, but by the 3 dimensional orientation of the nucleotides in space. The folding of DNA into its 3D structure is not random, but mediated by a host of regulatory proteins and structures that are just beginning to be understood. Nanotech scientists are interested in finding ways to control and manipulate this process to, in the words of the blog post, "create tiny machines that assemble themselves from a set of instructions." This is still a rather speculative proposition. This lecturer's approach is mechanistic and reductionist to the extreme; honest biologists have rarely taken this "life as computation" paradigm seriously, but it's still very fashionable among software engineers and researchers.

The most accessible article on the role of DNA folding in biology, and how it defies the mechanistic outlook of biotechnology, is still Barry Commoner's classic piece in Harper's Magazine from Feb. 2002.
(http://www.saynotogmos.org/dna_myth.html)

May I also suggest "Blinded by the Gene" by GRAIN: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=239

Organic can feed the world

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/organicagriculturefeedtheworld.php

Scientists Find Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World & More

Comprehensive study gives the lie to claims that organic agriculture cannot feed the world because it gives low yields and there is insufficient organic fertilizer. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Scientists refute common misconceptions about organic agriculture

Two usual objections are levelled against the proposal that organic agriculture can feed the world. Organic agriculture, opponents claim, gives low yields, and there isn’t enough organic fertilizer to boost yields substantially.

A team of scientists led by Catherine Badgley at the University of Michgan Ann Arbor in the United States has now refuted those common misconceptions about organic agriculture. Organic agriculture gives yields roughly comparable to conventional agriculture in developed countries and much higher yields in developing countries; and more than enough nitrogen can be fixed in the soil by using green manure alone [1].

The research team compared yields of organic and conventional agriculture (including low-intensive food production) in 293 examples, and estimated the average yield ratio (organic versus non-organic) of different food categories for the developed and the developing world. With the average yield ratios, they modelled the global food supply that could be grown organically in the current agricultural land base. The results indicate that organic methods could produce enough food to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base.

They also estimated the amount of nitrogen potentially available from nitrogen fixation by legumes as cover crops. Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystmes suggest that they could fix enough nitrogen to replace all of the synthetic fertilizer currently in use.

The report concluded: “These results indicate that organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture.”

South Africa will label GMO's

PRESS RELEASE from SAFeAGE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONSUMER RIGHTS RECOGNISED: GM FOODS WILL BE LABELLED IN SOUTH AFRICA



Wednesday 17 September 2008

Cape Town: History was made yesterday when the Department of Trade and Industry handed down a ruling for mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods.

The decision came after a clause to this effect, which had been removed from the draft Consumer Protection Bill last year, was reinstated.National Co-ordinator of SAFeAGE, a consumer GMO watchdog that has been lobbying for two years to have this clause reinstated said, "The GMO Act does not protect consumers, it is rather a permitting system that welcomes untested, unlabelled and irresponsible genetic modification to run rife in our country. Consumers will finally have the right to choose once this Bill is implemented".

Parliament's Trade and Industry committee also withdrew a clause from the original Bill that rendered GMOs exempt from liability for damage caused by them. "Why should food that has been spliced with virus, anti-biotic resistant and herbicide genes be exempt from liability,"questioned Treherne."These foods should be subject to more stringent labelling, not exemption."

The Department of Trade and Industry's labelling laws have not gone unopposed. Both the Department of Agriculture and Department of Health have opposed mandatory labelling saying it would send out a confusing signal to consumers. However, spokesperson for the Safe Food Coalition, Andrew Taynton said that "the Department of Trade and Industry should be congratulated for this bold move. Current GM labelling laws in South Africa are so flawed that they do not label any of the GM foods currently on the market."

Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) commented that "government has embarked upon the first step towards regulating agribusiness involved with GMOs. Not only have consumers been given a choice to reject GM foods, now, GM food can also be tracked from farm to fork in order to hold Monsanto and others liable when we discover that something has gone wrong."

Treherne was however concerned that the Department of Agriculture would still be responsible for determining the thresholds and technical requirements of these new regulations, saying, "We hope this does not undermine the excellent work done by Parliament and the Department of
Trade and Industry on the Consumer Protection Bill.


ENDS

For more information contact:

Charmaine Treherne, National Coordinator, SAFeAGE

Phone 021-4478445or072-450-8229

Email safeage@mweb.co.za

www.safeage.org

FAO favors organic

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/FAOPromotesOrganicAgriculture.php

FAO favours organic agriculture

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has come out in favour of organic agriculture. Its report Organic Agriculture and Food Security explicitly states that organic agriculture can address local and global food security challenges [1]. Organic farming is no longer to be considered a niche market within developed countries, but a vibrant commercial agricultural system practised in 120 countries, covering 31 million hectares (ha) of cultivated land plus 62 million ha of certified wild harvested areas. The organic market was worth US$40 billion in 2006, and expected to reach US$70 billion by 2012.

Nadia Scialabba, an FAO official, defined organic agriculture as: “A holistic production management system that avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and genetically modified organisms, minimizes pollution of air, soil and water, and optimises the health and productivity of plants, animals and people.”

The strongest benefits of organic agriculture, Scialabba said, are its reliance on fossil fuel independent, locally available resources that incur minimal agro-ecological stresses and are cost effective. She described organic agriculture as a “neo-traditional food system” which combines modern science and indigenous knowledge.

The FAO Report strongly suggests that a worldwide shift to organic agriculture can fight world hunger and at the same time tackle climate change. According to FAO’s previous World Food Summit report [2], conventional agriculture, together with deforestation and rangeland burning, are responsible for 30 percent of the CO2 and 90 percent of nitrous oxide emissions worldwide.

******

Organic agriculture provides long term solutions

The FAO Report concludes that a broad scale shift to organic agriculture can produce enough food on a global per capita basis to feed the world’s population over the next 50 years. Workable solutions to pressing problems such as the growth in population and consumption, oil peak, fossil fuel dependence, food transport, and agricultural sector employment are all built in holistically to the organic agriculture paradigm. Therefore, as the myth of “low yield organic agriculture” recedes [24], it is up to the agricultural researchers, officials and Governments to invest in long-term alternative agricultural systems such as green manures that can provide enough biologically fixed nitrogen to replace all the synthetic nitrogen currently used on the planet [4]. Despite scepticism at the potential of organic agriculture to feed the world [25], if conventional farmers adopted only some of its principles such as soil health and ecology, the results would strongly benefit farmers, consumers and the environment.

La génesis de una política agraria: de la OCDE a la producción de biodieseles de Soja

Durante los últimos días de Enero del 2007, un grupo de personas en representación de agencias no gubernamentales Europeas, de América del Sur y del este de Asia, todos preocupados por algunas medidas que se anticipaban sobre la crisis energética, mantuvimos contactos telefónicos entre nosotros, con el fin de encontrar las maneras más adecuadas para lograr persuadir a los mandatarios Europeos, que proseguir con las metas establecidas en relación con el corte de combustibles para el 2010, implicaba graves riesgos para el medio ambiente a nivel global. En una de esas conferencias telefónicas mantenidas, nos preguntábamos las razones por las cuales este proceso resultaba tan acelerado... Y por qué causa los que deciden las políticas energéticas, no se detienen siquiera a evaluar las evidencias que existen respecto a la insostenibilidad de la producción de biomasa en escala, y en especial pensábamos en las crecientes cantidades de materias primas originadas en la agricultura, que están comenzando a llegar desde lugares remotos, ahora para saciar las demandas energéticas de la sociedad europea. La respuesta justa nos la dio una activista Alemana, quien nos dijo: "Es que el proceso no es democrático, lo están llevando adelante oscuros funcionarios de la Unión Europea, obedientes a un mandato externo y sin mayores miramientos... Para entender este diseño, hay que mirar a la OCDE"… y así fue cómo, haciendo referencia a un caso significativo, direccionamos nuestra atención al nuevo programa sobre bioeconomía, antecedente inmediato de las políticas que nos preocupaban. Boletín N° 304 de la Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgénicos

LEA EL RESTO: http://www.biodiversidadla.org/portada_principal/documentos/la_genesis_de_una_politica_agraria_de_la_ocde_a_la_produccion_de_biodieseles_de_soja

The Problem with Nutritionally Enhanced Plants
David R. Schubert
Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California

JOURNAL OF MEDICINAL FOOD
J Med Food 11 (4) 2008, 000–000

ABSTRACT Among the next generation of genetically modified (GM) plants are those that are engineered to produce elevated levels of nutritional molecules such as vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids, and amino acids. Based upon the U.S. current regulatory scheme, the plants and their products may enter our food supply without any required safety testing. The potential risks of this type of GM plant are discussed in the context of human health, and it is argued that there should be very careful safety testing of plants designed to produce biologically active molecules before they are commercially grown and consumed. This will require a mandatory, scientifically rigorous review process.

For the full article see here:
JOURNAL OF MEDICINAL FOOD
J Med Food 11 (4) 2008
schubert@salk.edu

CONCLUSIONS
The above paragraphs summarize published data that clearly show the following: (1) Compounds structurally related to a common small molecule can have a lethal effect when present as even a minor contaminant in a food supplement. (2) The GM enhancement of a metabolic pathway by the overexpression of genes for that pathway can have unpredictable consequences in the form of synthesizing a toxin. (3) Finally, in the case of golden rice, it is argued that biologically active compounds derived from aberrant plant carotenoid synthesis could have profound effects on human development. Similar arguments can be made for NEP-derived fatty acids that are directly incorporated into brain lipids and about NEPs overproducing vitamin E. Aberrant fatty acid composition of brain lipids is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease,45,46 and vitamin E has a role similar to RA in mammalian development.47 The excess consumption of a nutrient can also have negative effects. For example, a clinical trial with vitamin E supplementation showed that a relatively small dose increased the risk of heart failure,48 and smokers who supplemented their diet with -carotene had an increased risk of lung cancer.49 Therefore, there is a potential for nutrient toxicity in NEPs because upper tolerable levels of many nutrients are not well established (p. 107)35 and are likely to vary between individuals and lifestyles.

The information presented here shows that not only the potential harm of the product should be considered for risk assessment, but the GM process itself. The data clearly invalidate the argument that "the regulatory trigger for risk assessment should be based upon the physical features of the product rather than the process by which the product was generated."50 While it is true that traditional breeding methods can give rise to potentially hazardous products, the most recent assessment of GM food safety by the National Research Council35 stated that GM “has a higher probability of producing unanticipated changes than some genetic modification methods" (p. 118), but it curiously concludes by stating that the risk of GM technology is no greater than conventional breeding methods. There are, in fact, no data comparing the food safety profiles of GM versus conventional breeding, and the ubiquitous argument that since there is no evidence that GM products make people sick, they are safe (see, for example, McHughen and Smyth,50 Bradford et al.,51 and Miller et al.52) is both illogical and false. There are, again, simply no data or even valid assays to support this contention.53 Without proper epidemiological studies, most types of harm will not be detected, and no such studies have been conducted. The necessity of labeling all GM products and particularly NEPs is therefore critical if there is any hope of monitoring adverse health consequences due to their consumption. For example, it would have been impossible to identify the source of the toxic tryptophan supplement if the product were not traceable through labeling. It follows that before NEPs producing biologically active molecules such as -carotene, omega-3 fatty acids, or vitamin E are introduced into the food chain, great care must be taken to do rigorous, multigenerational animal safety assessments with the hope of identifying risks to health (for methods, see, for example, the 2007 publication by the National Toxicology Program54 and Pusztai and Bardocz55). In addition, the products must be labeled and traceable, and the unpredictable and unintended metabolic changes that may occur in NEPs require the thorough testing of the entire edible portion of the plant, not just the designated product as is almost always done by biotech companies.56 To date there is essentially no multigenerational animal safety testing published for GM plants55,57 and no required labeling in the United States for any GM product. In an excellent review of our current GM regulatory process, Mandel58 concluded that for second-generation GM products, like NEPs, "it is necessary to establish a comprehensive, efficient and scientifically rigorous regulatory system." As discussed herein there are very valid scientific concerns to support this conclusion.