El Danforth Plant Science Center, institución que dirige el consorcio para el desarrollo de yuca transgénica, del cual la UPR-RUM es miembro, depende económicamente de Monsanto desde que fue fundado. Miren en Google Maps- su sede está literalmente frente al corporate headquarters de Monsanto, al otro lado de la autopista 340 en el suburbio de Creve Coeur en la ciudad de St. Louis, Missouri.

http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=200

Dr Roger Beachy, is the founding president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, which was established by Monsanto and academic partners, including Peter Raven 's Missouri Botanical Garden. The Center was launched with a $70-million pledge from Monsanto, which also donated the Center’s 40-acre tract of land, near Monsanto's home town of St. Louis, valued at $11.4 million.

Beachy is also Professor in the Department of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. It was Beachy's work at Washington University which, in collaboration with Monsanto, led to the development of the world’s first genetically modified food crop, a variety of tomato that was modified for virus disease-resistance.

In 2003, in letters to the journals Science and Nature, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, complained that Beachy had published an editorial in Science and co-signed a letter in Nature Biotechnology without either journal disclosing that 'Beachy’s research on agricultural biotechnology has been funded by Monsanto and other biotech companies, even though the subjects of his submissions — the safety of genetically engineered crops and intellectual-property policies — are directly relevant to those companies.'

Interview with Roger Beachy, Obama's pick to head the Natl Inst of Food & Ag

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v28/n1/full/nbt0110-11.html

Plant scientist Roger Beachy has joined the Obama administration to lead the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the new research funding arm of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Beachy, whose research led to the first transgenic crop, was previously the long-time head of the not-for-profit Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. Emily Waltz talks to Beachy about his plans for the new agency.

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Do you think that the financial support from Monsanto at the Donald Danforth Plant ScienceCenter will affect how you form relationships with industry at NIFA?

No. As president of the Danforth Center I encouraged relationships with private companies, including Monsanto. But it should be understood that those relationships did not result in significant influences over the mission of the Center. It's unfortunate that some people think that that relationship has tainted me in some way, although I guess it's not unexpected.

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Why do we see such an emphasis on transgenic strains of major crops rather than other crops that would benefit small-scale farmers and consumers?

There is relatively little profit in minor crops like blueberries and sweet potatoes compared with the large commodity crops. So the major seed companies aren't very interested in developing them; that is left to the public sector and small seed companies. And while public sector science is putting a lot of effort into researching these smaller crops, the cost of navigating the regulatory process is so high that it essentially eliminates public sector participation in commercialization. Noncommercial researchers also lack the expertise and infrastructure to provide regulatory authorities with the necessary documentation for regulatory approval. Without additional support, there will likely be few genetically enhanced crops developed by public sector researchers in the marketplace in the near future.

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Will NIFA fund research that examines the potential risks of biotech crops?

We've had more than 15 years of successful deployment of biotech crops. That history alone tells us a lot about how safe transgenes are under current regulatory guidelines. I think it's important that we stop talking only about risks and talk more about risk-benefit analyses.

President Obama agriculture picks sow confusion

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32812_Page2.html

EXCERPT:

Roger Beachy, the new director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which has a $1.3 billion budget for research grants, comes from the Danforth Plant Science Center, funded through gifts from the Monsanto Fund, among others.

In an interview, Beachy said the institute will support all methods of farming: production, conventional or organic.

But he also said something about food safety that has small farmers quaking: “Scientific standards for food safety regulations should be the same across all farming systems. They should apply to big farms and small farms, including organic farms.”

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Beachy has also described genetically engineered crops as sustainable. “The science of biotech is extremely important in feeding an ever-growing population around the world,” he said. “I don’t think sustainability should be limited to organic and local.”

Dave Murphy, founder and director of Food Democracy Now, a grass-roots organization that promotes sustainability, is angered by the effort to co-opt the word. “GMOs are not sustainable,” he said. “The problem with GMOs is that they have not provided higher yields and lower pesticide use.”

Another administration appointment, Islam “Isi” Siddiqui, who’s been nominated to become the chief negotiator on agriculture issues in global markets, was a pesticide lobbyist for the nation’s most powerful agrichemical lobby group.

As special assistant for trade to the agriculture secretary in 1999, he told the Japanese he did not want them to label GMOs. “We do not believe that obligatory GMO labeling is necessary, because it would suggest a health risk where there is none,” he said. “Mandatory labeling could mislead consumers about the safety of these products.”

GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org
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GM CASSAVA FAILS IN AFRICA

Mariam Mayet, African Centre for Biosafety
http://www.biosafetyafrica.net

The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (the "Danforth Center"), whose partners include Monsanto Corporation and the Missouri Botanical Garden, has been heavily involved in research on transgenic varieties of cassava for the past seven years. According to the Danforth Center's website, it has been pursuing a Disease-Resistant Cassava for Kenya Project, with funding from USAID, in order to develop and deliver transgenic, disease-resistant cassava planting materials to farmers in Kenya to increase their harvests and improve their food security.

However, on the 26 May 2006, the Danforth Center quietly announced that it had discovered that GM virus-resistant varieties of cassava, first developed seven years ago, had lost resistance to the African cassava mosaic virus (CMVD) and that expert consultants had been asked to review why and how the modified cassava had changed and to assess future plans.[i] This failure underlies the reason why African governments, save for pro-GM South Africa, have adopted the precautionary principle and not allowed Africa to be turned into a laboratory for an unpredictable technology.

According to the Danforth Center press release, the group reviewed the data and concurred with the conclusions that resistance to the African CMVD was achieved in cassava line Y-85, "that the resistance was subsequently lost, and that methylation of the plant's DNA had taken place." This failure undermines the claim on the Danforth Center's website that "transgenic plants developed at the Danforth Center have demonstrated strong resistance to the disease in greenhouse trials over multiple years."[ii]

This turn of events also undermines plans by the Danforth Center's International Programs Office to push Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to test transgenic cassava plants under natural field conditions. Clearly, the kind of promises held out by the Danforth Center on its website are no longer credible: "virus-resistance technology will initially be deployed in the East African region's most popular cultivar - Ebwanatareka - for adoption by the 22,000 Kenyan farming families.. the project will help 200,000 Kenyan cassava farmers and their families and increase cassava harvests by 50% on a sustainable basis." Similar benefits are promised to neighbouring Uganda and to millions of farmers throughout Africa.

This is not the first time that these kind of false promises have been held out to KARI, which previously ran field trials on a much hyped transgenic sweet potato - part of another USAID supported project. The sweet potato had been touted as high-yielding and virus-resistant, but during three years of field trials KARI discovered the virus resistance was no better than for ordinary varieties and the yields were sometimes less. By contrast, a conventional breeding programme in Uganda successfully produced a high-yielding virus-resistant sweet potato more quickly and more cheaply, without any recourse to genetic engineering.[iii]

The Danforth Center is also involved in sequencing the cassava genome.[iv] In what seems to be a dramatic about turn from its previous commitment to address hunger and the nutritional needs of people in developing countries, Dr Claude Fauquet, of the Danforth Center revealed in a press release, that the "acquisition of the cassava genome sequence will .provide a platform to explore the vast biodiversity within cassava wild species. Ultimately, these activities
will position cassava as a valuable source of renewable bio-energy." According to the U.S Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), funder of the project, the DOE JGI chose to sequence cassava because it is an excellent energy source - "it is grown worldwide as a source of food for approximately 1 billion people, raising the possibility that it could be used globally to alleviate dependence on fossil fuels."[v]

The cassava genome project is spearheaded by a consortium made up of the Danforth Center, the USDA, Washington University in St Louis, the University of Chicago, the Institute of Genomic Research, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Broad Institute, Ohio State University, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, and the Smithsonian Institute.

NOTES

[i] Danforth Center Cassava Viral Resistance Review Update
http://www.danforthcentre.org/newsmedia/NewsDetail.asp?nid=121; and Danforth Centre Cassava Update
http://www.danfothcentre.org/newsmedia/NewsDetail.asp?nid=119
[ii]
http://www.danforthcenter.org
[iii] Monsanto's showcase project in Africa fails, New Scientist, Vol 181 No. 2433, 7 February 2004
[iv] Danforth Center Spearheads Effort to Sequence Cassava at National Research Center
http://www.danforthcentre.org/newsmedia/NewsDetail.asp?nid-122 18 July 2006.
[v] Danforth Center Spearheads Effort to Sequence Cassava at National Research Center
http://www.danforthcentre.org/newsmedia/NewsDetail.asp?nid-122 18 July 2006.