Environmental Leaders say 'No!' to Gene Drives

OAHU, HAWAI'I — As thousands of government representatives and conservationists convene in Oahu this week for the 2016 World Conservation Congress, international conservation and environmental leaders are raising awareness about the potentially dangerous use of gene drives — a controversial new synthetic biology technology intended to deliberately cause targeted species to become extinct.

Members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including NGOs, government representatives, and scientific and academic institutions, overwhelmingly voted to adopt a de facto moratorium on supporting or endorsing research into gene drives for conservation or other purposes until the IUCN has fully assessed their impacts. News of the August 26 digital vote comes as an important open letter to the group is being delivered.

Scientists and environmental experts and organizations from around the globe have advocated for a halt to proposals for the use of gene drive technologies in conservation. Announced today, a long list of environmental leaders, including Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, genetics professor and broadcaster Dr. David Suzuki, Dr. Fritjof Capra, entomologist Dr. Angelika Hilbeck, Indian environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva and organic pioneer and biologist Nell Newman, have lent their support to the open letter: “A Call for Conservation with a Conscience: No Place for Gene Drives in Conservation.” The letter states, in part: “Gene drives, which have not been tested for unintended consequences, nor fully evaluated for ethical and social impacts, should not be promoted as conservation tools.”

To read the full press release:

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/30-environmental-leaders-say-no-gene-drives-conservation

Stop The Gene Bomb! ETC Group Comment on NAS Report on Gene Drives

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/stop-gene-bomb-etc-group-comment-nas-report-gene-drives

First study on gene drive governance avoids the explosive issues: Militarization, Commercialization, Food Security. ETC Group urges that gene drive patents and governance be handed to the United Nations. 

Coming in at over 200 pages, today’s National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, 'Gene Drives on the Horizon’ is weighty but disappointing. It fails to properly address three of the most pressing issues raised by the controversial new technology of CRISPR-CAS9 gene drives. Dubbed, the ‘mutagenic chain reaction’ by its inventors, RNA-guided gene drives are a high-leverage synthetic biology technology invented only last year. They are designed to relentlessly drive a specific genetic trait through an entire species or population - potentially driving species to extinction. This capability to reshape entire natural populations and ecosystems raises significant threats to peace, biodiversity and food security which is why a high profile study of this kind was mobilized in such record time. Yet, inexplicably the NAS’s report entirely fails to address the problems that will follow from agricultural commercialization of the technology and gives short shrift to the military and security implications of gene drive development. Since commercialization, food security and militarization are among the most explosive issues raised by these developments, their near absence in the report is puzzling. The NAS study was co-funded by DARPA (a US military agency) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (a global agricultural funder). Both institutions are heavily invested in gene drive research.

The Industrial Food Chain's Recipe for a Box Lunch

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/industrial-food-chains-recipe-box-lunch

Who’s going to eat whose lunch … the Hardware Grunts or the Software Gurus? The Battle for the control of agricultural inputs is just beginning. Time for a “Kickboxer” Campaign?

A report by the ETC Group

Bayer’s $62 billion bid for Monsanto, as of this writing, has been rejected, but both parties say they are continuing to negotiate. That the “Joy of Six” agricultural input companies may soon become a ménage à trois has been a matter of speculation in ETC Group since mid-2014. If (and it is a big “if”) the marriages of Dow with DuPont, ChemChina with Syngenta, and Bayer with Monsanto are consummated, the only wallflower left on the dance floor, BASF, will either have to hook up or give up. Agriculture is, relatively speaking, small potatoes for the German chemical giant, but, still, it brought home $7.2 billion in crop chemical sales in 2014 and commands a hefty 11.5% of the global pesticide market. Although BASF invests in plant breeding and breeding technologies, it doesn’t directly sell seeds. Instead, the company collaborates on R&D all along the food chain – with Monsanto  (developing GMO traits), with Yara (producing ammonia for fertilizers), with synbio company Evolva (developing biosynthetic pesticides), with Cargill (developing oils high in omega-3), with Deere & Co. (selling crop insurance, precision agriculture) – and it has cross-licensing deals with major seed companies including Monsanto, DuPont and Dow.[1] BASF could give Bayer a run for its money wooing Monsanto, or it may decide its dance card is full enough. Or, the company may choose to spin off its Plant Science business altogether. If so, one of the top three farm machinery companies could be a buyer: Deere & Co., CNH or AGCO (in order of sales).

Merge-Santo: New Threat to Food Sovereignty

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/merge-santo-new-threat-food-sovereignty

A briefing by the ETC Group

As ETC first warned in May[i] last year and again in February[ii] this year, the pressure of two mergers among the Big Six Gene Giants would make a third merger inevitable. In the last few days the business media have reported that Monsanto is in separate talks with Bayer and BASF – the two German giants among agricultural input companies. While anti-competition regulators are fussing about the hook up of DuPont with Dow and of Syngenta with Chem China, Monsanto urgently needs to make a match. They hope that if regulators let the other two deals go through, they won’t be able to deny Monsanto a chance to even the score.

If the companies get their way, the first links in the industrial food chain (seeds, pesticides) will be in the hands of just three companies. If the marriages of DuPont-Dow and Syngenta–Chem China go through and Monsanto merges with Bayer’s Agricultural division, the three will control more than 65% of global pesticide sales and almost 61% of commercial seed sales. If Monsanto and BASF strike a deal instead, the Titanic Three will still have almost 61% of pesticides and more than 57% of seeds (see chart below).

Either way, a fourth move will be inevitable. Whichever company is left at the altar (Bayer or BASF) will have to buy or sell since it won’t have the clout to take on the Three. Either could prove irresistible for Deere & Co. or one of the other huge farm machinery companies that are in the best position to ultimately dominate all on-farm related agricultural inputs from seeds and pesticides to fertilizers, machinery, data and insurance.

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/corporate-vision-future-food-promoted-un-0

More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting

Just when the biotech companies that make transgenic seeds are merging, the corporate vision of biotechnology is showing up at FAO. At today’s opening of the three-day International symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 civil society and social movement and organizations (CSOs) from four continents have issued a statement denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for Genetically-engineered crops and livestock. 

Pat Mooney, Executive Director of the ETC Group

Pat Mooney has more than four decades experience working in international civil society, first addressing aid and development issues and then focusing on food, agriculture and commodity trade. In 1977 Mooney co-founded RAFI (Rural Advancement Fund International, renamed ETC Group in 2001). He received The Right Livelihood Award (the "Alternative Nobel Prize") in the Swedish Parliament in 1985 and the Pearson Peace Prize from Canada's Governor General in 1998. He has also received the American "Giraffe Award" given to people "who stick their necks out."

The author or co-author of several books on the politics of biotechnology and biodiversity, Pat Mooney is widely regarded as an authority on issues of global governance, corporate concentration, and intellectual property monopoly. Although much of ETC's work continues to emphasize plant genetic resources and agricultural biodiversity, the work expanded in the early 1980s to include biotechnology. In the late 1990s, the work expanded more to encompass a succession of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, synthetic biology, geoengineering, and new developments in genomics and neurosciences.

http://www.etcgroup.org/users/pat-mooney

ETC's Irreverent Review of 2015...

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/etcs-irreverent-review-2015-and-possibly-irrelevant-preview-2016

The Year that Ended Dangerously

If El Niño weren’t enough, the extraordinary winds that struck Yemen and Mexico’s Pacific Coast were matched by record-breaking forest fires in the Indonesian archipelago, droughts, torrential rains and floods from Australia to the British Isles and heat-waves on the east coast of North America (in winter). Much of this was El Niño, of course, but some of it was climate change – and all of it wound up in Paris with calls for geoengineering …2015 was the year that ended dangerously.

Realpolitik in Paris. 

ETC Group feels like the Grinch Group that stole Christmas when we complain about Paris. Yes, there was a heightened level of awareness and commitment palpable among governments and civil society and, yes, governments are committed to reporting back every five years creating a space in which many believe it will be self-evident that they need to up their game and commit to bigger and faster GHG cutbacks. As importantly, 2015 was the year in which CSO Climate Change Campaigners worked together better than ever before and often supported one another even when we didn’t entirely agree with the tactics. From the World Social Forum in Tunis in March on through the preparatory sessions in Paris and Bonn and then right through Paris again at COP21, folks were trying to understand each other’s positions, agreeing on many points even though not everybody spoke out. Sadly, some CSOs and online clicktavism brands felt they owed their followers a victory and resolved to celebrate regardless of reality. False optimism is still lying to your friends – a very high-risk tactic. For industrialized countries at least, climate change continues to be a distant disaster and politicians are still punting the ball down the road an election or two. The realpolitik defense - that Paris was the best it could be – needs a reality check. 

Breaking Bad: Big Ag Mega-Mergers in Play

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/breaking-bad-big-ag-mega-mergers-play

A report by the ETC Group

December 2015. In this new report, ETC Group examines corporate consolidation in four agricultural input sectors: seeds, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and farm equipment. With combined annual revenue of $385 billion, these companies call the shots. Who will dominate the industrial food chain? And what does it mean for farmers, food sovereignty and climate justice?

Issue

The Big Six agrochemical corporations (BASF, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto, Syngenta) that dominate commercial seed and pesticide markets worldwide now insist they must get bigger, faster if the world wants food security in the midst of climate chaos. According to agribusiness, the extreme pressures of population, demand for meat, and climate crisis require Big Science and Big Money – and that means extreme Mergers all along the industrial food chain.

At Stake

The fate of the six dominant pesticide and seed companies (and their $93 billion market) is in play. For all the talk of “Climate-Smart Agriculture,” their R&D strategies are collapsing and, among them, there are more sellers than buyers. Simultaneously, the much bigger ($175 billion market) greenhouse gas-intensive fertilizer industry is caught in the headlights of climate change negotiators and is wrapping itself in the mantle of Climate-Smart Agriculture to protect its assets. The four companies that control 56% of the $116 billion farm machinery industry already have the robotics hardware; are acquiring the software (Big Data, satellite surveillance) technologies; and are thinking about adding the bio-based software (seeds and pesticides) to their shopping cart. It’s too soon to tell which companies or sector will become the one-stop shop for farm inputs – but farm machinery, seeds, fertilizers and chemicals are now linked like never before. Monsanto collaborates with the world’s three biggest farm equipment companies (Deere & Co, CNH Industrial, AGCO). Deere has strategic alliances with five of the Big Six companies. Ultimately, the company that controls the data on soil, historical weather and crop yield, as well as the Big Box robot that deposits the seeds, pesticides and fertilizers will be the company that can gain most from crop insurance contracts that increasingly dictate inputs to the farmer. In the short term, the big shifts will likely be among the existing seed and pesticide enterprises, but even in the mid-term, watch out for the muck and machinery majors to rule the roost.

Outsmarting nature?

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/outsmarting-nature

Many of the world's largest agro-industrial corporations are pushing forward the poorly-defined idea of "Climate-Smart Agriculture"(CSA) to re-market industrial agriculture as 'climate-ready'. This report uncovers how some advocates of CSA are embracing the extreme genetic engineering tools of synthetic biology ("Syn Bio") to develop a set of false solutions to the climate crisis.

The 20-page report includes:

-       An overview of the Players lining up behind the “Climate-Smart” brand and the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA).

-       Details and critique of public and private research projects to alter photosynthesis pathways in plants and microbes, theoretically to increase the carbon sequestration of plants.

-      Details and critique of Synthetic Biology projects that aim to increase nitrogen fixation in plants and create ‘self-fertilizing plants,’ theoretically to reduce fertilizer applications.

-      An exposé of new Syn Bio applications developed by agrochemical giant Syngenta that make the activation of ‘climate-tolerance’ traits dependent on the application of proprietary pesticides – thereby tying farmers closer to agrochemical use.

-      Proposals to release controversial ‘Gene Drive’ technology into the wild to make weed populations more susceptible to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, altering ecosystems to extend the commercial viability of that agrochemical.

Extreme biotech meets extreme energy

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/report-release-extreme-biotech-meets-extreme-energy

Paris, 24th November 2015 - At the upcoming Climate summit in Paris, some governments and much of civil society will be pushing for an urgent transition away from the carbon-rich fossil fuels responsible for climate chaos. However, one hi-tech sector, the multi-billion dollar Synthetic Biology industry, is now actively tying its future to the very oil, coal and gas extraction it once claimed to be able to displace. That’s the conclusion of a new report released jointly today from the ETC Group and Heinrich Böll Foundation. Titled “Extreme Biotech meets Extreme Energy”, the report predicts that as the extreme biotech industry and the extreme extraction industry move towards deeper collaboration, the biosafety risks and climate threats emanating from them will become ever more entangled.

Synthetic Biology (or Syn Bio) describes a set of new and emerging genetic engineering techniques and is also the name for a surging young industry that is designing and engineering life-forms from scratch for industrial purposes. The first round of synthetic biology companies sold themselves to investors on the promise of a ‘clean green’ industry that would replace fossil fuels with biofuels and bioplastics made from sugar and cellulose. However, Syn Bio industry leaders are now retooling their companies explicitly in order to serve the petrochemical industry and to increase the value and flow of fossil minerals from the frackfields and oilfields to commercial markets.

“Only five years ago Syn Bio industry CEOs were posturing that they would bring about a sugar-based bioeconomy that would do away with dirty fossil fuels” explains Jim Thomas, Programme Director with ETC Group. “Now those same CEOs are restructuring their operations to prop up the oil and gas majors and their green promises are melting along with the ice sheets.” 

Monsanto/Syngenta: From Gene Giants to Agribehemoths

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/monsantosyngenta-gene-giants-agribehemoths

A proposed merger of seed and pesticide conglomerates portends a new level of monopoly over the first link in the global food chain

What is Synthetic Biology?: Engineering Life and Livelihoods

Regulate Synthetic Biology Now: 194 Countries

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/regulate-synthetic-biology-now-194-countries-0

Press Release, Oct 20 2014

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA– In a unanimous decision of 194 countries, the United Nation's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) today formally urged nation states to regulate synthetic biology (SynBio), a new extreme form of genetic engineering. The landmark decision follows ten days of hard-fought negotiations between developing countries and a small group of wealthy biotech-friendly economies. Until now, synthetic organisms have been developed and commercialized without international regulations; increasing numbers of synthetically-derived products are making their way to market. The CBD’s decision is regarded as a "starting signal" for governments to begin establishing formal oversight for this exploding and controversial field.

Victory against Terminator, for now

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/good-news-world-food-day-suicide-seeds-are-dead%E2%80%A6for-moment

Good News for World Food Day: Suicide Seeds Are Dead…for the moment

Submitted on 16 October 2013

In a great bit of news for World Food Day, a key Brazilian congressional committee today withdrew the consideration of legislation that would have allowed the sale and use of Terminator Technology, also known as suicide seeds. The Constitutional Commission of the Brazilian House of Representatives was slated to consider Bill PL 268/2007 this morning, but decided instead to withdraw it from the agenda – taking into account the social concerns raised by the national and international mobilization in opposition to the bill. Further, the President of the Commission pledged that as long as he is at the helm, he will not allow the bill back on the agenda.

“This should be taken as a victory for Food Sovereignty and Farmers’ Rights around the world. Social movements, farmers’ organizations and CSOs both in Brazil and internationally have made it crystal clear that Terminator has no place in our food, fields or future,” said Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American Director for ETC Group. “This is great news for World Food Day.”

The threat of the Terminator bill quickly mobilized a broad network of social movements, CSOs, NGOs, large umbrella organizations and other groups both within Brazil and internationally, including La Via Campesina, the ANA (National Articulation of Agroecology Movements), FBSSAN (Brazilian Forum on Food and Nutrition Security and Sovereignty), Plataforma Dhesca Brasil (Brazilian Platform on Human Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights), CONSEA (Brazil’s National Food and Nutrition Security Council), Action Aid, FIAN, Terra de Direitos, FASE, Centro Ecológico and others. At this morning’s meeting, members of the Constitutional Commission were handed both a petition now signed by more than 19,000 people from around the world (in just 3 days) and a resolution from the Second National Conference on Sustainable Rural Development asking for the bill’s rejection. The Conference, taking place now in Brasilia, has 1,500 participants from 26 states, including landless and settled peasants, small farmers, black communities, indigenous peoples, local and traditional communities, artisanal fisherfolk and others, together with representatives from government.

Concern over Brazil’s proposed legislation was also brought to the attention of governments attending the 17th meeting of the SBSSTA (science subsidiary body) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) currently meeting in Montreal. (193 countries of the CBD agreed on a de facto moratorium on Terminator in 2000.) Representatives from civil society raised the matter with both the Brazilian delegation and the Executive Secretary of the CBD. The alarm had also been sounded the week before in Rome during the meetings of the Committee on World Food Security.

While this is good news, sources in Brasilia stress the importance of remaining vigilant.

“The Terminator bill was withdrawn from the agenda, but it could be resuscitated at some point, and we know there is a second Terminator bill lurking in the labyrinth of the legislature. However, the immediate and unequivocal mobilization from inside and outside the country reminded those in Brasilia that attempts to legalize Terminator won’t go unnoticed or unchallenged,” says Maria José Guazzelli of Centro Ecológico.

From Montreal, ETC Group’s Executive Director Pat Mooney speculates, “Perhaps Congressmen in Brazil realized that if they had violated the Terminator moratorium, the issue would inevitably be raised at the CBD’s COP12 next year in Korea. Korean farmers’ organizations and Via Campesina are known worldwide for their numbers and effective action.”

Growing maize disaster

ETC Group
News Release
Thursday, 13 December 2012
www.etcgroup.org

  
Growing Maize Disaster

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Mexico remains on high alert following the attempts of Monsanto and other agribusiness multinationals to win the government’s approval to plant 2.5 million hectares of transgenic maize in Mexico, the center of origin and diversity of maize.[1] As ETC wrote last month, approval would allow the boldest coup of a global food crop in history and would threaten biodiversity, farmers’ rights and resilience in the face of climate change. While the outgoing government of Felipe Calderón did not approve the applications before leaving office on November 30^th, its last-minute, surreptitious changes to regulatory procedures removed obstacles that could have hindered the new administration’s ability to grant the companies’ requests.

Inside and outside Mexico, voices have decried the attack aimed at the heart of Mexican cultures, food, health and nature. Since mid-November, there have been workshops and public meetings, as well as petitions and protests by farmers, artists, activists and scientists in social and print media and on the radio. La Via Campesina, Grain and ETC Group wrote an open letter to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) asking the multilateral agencies to intervene for the sake of global food security.[2]

As Greenpeace reported at the end of November,[3] the Mexican government quietly changed its regulatory procedures so that the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) is no longer legally bound to take into account the advice of its own and other government agencies’ experts on biosafety. Three government bodies had made critical, extremely cautionary or explicitly negative recommendations when previously consulted about the release of GM maize in Mexico.

Up until the Calderón administration’s parting shot, approvals to release GM crops were granted by the Secretary of Agriculture (Sagarpa) in agreement with the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, with a binding (vinculante) obligation to follow the recommendations of the National Institute of Ecology (INE), the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio) and, when applicable, the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp). The Calderón government did away with the obligation to follow the recommendations of the three institutions, and the reference to the National Institute of Ecology (INE) was deleted altogether.[4]

The Mexican National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (Conabio) had recommended the companies’ applications be rejected on the basis of the risks to biodiversity and because it considered coexistence of peasant varieties with GM maize an impossibility. In 2009, Conabio published a study on the origin and diversification of maize,[5] and subsequently began a project involving 235 experts from 70 institutions,[6]which concluded that the whole Mexican territory is the center of origin of maize. This contradicts the conclusions conjured by the Mexican government in its map published in October 2012, which designated some areas in several states of Mexico outside the center of origin – the areas include those where the multinationals have asked to plant GM maize.

After the government of Enrique Peña Nieto took office on December 1^st, the new Secretary of Environment, Juan José Guerra, was quick to declare that he didn’t know enough about GMOs to give an opinion on the controversial issue, but stated it was a “technical decision” and he would consult scientists.[7] While it is absurd to constrain the issue of maize in Mexico to the “technical” realm, there are ample reasons to deny the applications on technical grounds, many of which are as cited in the November 26 letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCCS) to the Mexican government, signed by more than 2700 scientists and other experts, including two Nobel laureates and dozens of national science award winners. The UCCS letter requests that the government immediately reinstate the moratorium against GM maize and cancel all experimental trials as well.[8]

On December 7^th, a broad coalition of urban and rural organizations demonstrated against GM maize outside the Secretary of Agriculture (Sagarpa).[9] Mazahua indigenous women and urban grassroots organizations made tortillas in the street, with Mexican farmers, indigenous peoples and civil society organizations affirming their resistance to transgenic maize and the attempted coup by transnational companies. Delegates from all the organizations met with biosafety authorities of the Secretary to discuss the situation they consider “a national emergency.”[10] They called for an open debate on GM maize to take place as soon as possible, with the understanding that the government not allow planting of GM maize in the meantime. On the same day as the demonstration in Mexico City, civil society organizations in Germany demonstrated their solidarity in front of Mexico’s embassy in Berlin.[11]

The United Nations and the world’s governments are standing by while the creators of maize are threatened by a government administration that has the power to unilaterally and irrevocably undermine global food security[12] and 7,000 years of peasant maize breeding. If Mexico’s government allows the commercial planting of GM maize, the precedent will have been set for centers of origin and diversity of food crops to be plundered and for the temporal territorial priorities of one administration to prevail over the human Right to Food.

For more information:

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group Latin America Director, silvia@etcgroup.org

Verónica Villa, ETC Group, Mexico, veronica@etcgroup.org

Tel: (+52) 55 63 2664

Pat Mooney, ETC Group Executive Director, etc@etcgroup.org

Tel: 1-613-241-2267

Red en Defensa del Maíz: http://redendefensadelmaiz.net/

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[1] The official list of commercial applications for environmental release of GMOs is available here: http://www.senasica.gob.mx/?id=4443. The applications for commercial GM maize release are in numbers 61, 62, 79, 80, 81, 82 from year 2012.

[2] La Via Campesina, Grain, ETC Group, “Maíz transgénico en centro de origen. Carta abierta al CBD y a la FAO,” 29 November 2012. Available at http://viacampesina.org/es/

[3] Greenpeace Mexico, “Semarnat modifica reglamento para allanar camino a transgénicos,” press release, 29 November 2012, available online:http://www.greenpeace.org/mexico/es/Prensa1/2012/Noviembre/Semarnat-modifica-reglamento-para-allanar-camino-a-transgenicos/.

[4] Diario Oficial de la Federación 26 November 2012, “Decreto por el que se expide el Reglamento Interior de la Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales.” The change is in article 27 - XVII. A comparison with the previous version of art 27 is in the Greenpeace news release cited in footnote 3. See: http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5279128&fecha=26/11/2012

[5] Kato, T.A. et al., “Origen y diversificación del maíz: una revisión analítica,” Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad, México, 2009, available online:http://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/genes/pdf/Origen%20del%20MaizUv.pdf.

[6] National Commission for Biodiversity, Project Centers of Origin and diversification, available online:http://www.biodiversidad.gob.mx/v_ingles/genes/centers_origin/centers_origin.html.

[7]  Enciso, A. “Para decidir sobre maíz transgénico, reunión intersecretarial…” La Jornada, México, 6 December 2012, available online:http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/12/06/politica/017n1pol.

[8] See also, UCCS, European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES), Third World Network and Grain, “GM Maize in Mexico: An irreversible path away from agricultural biodiversity, farmer livelihoods and the right to food within the center of origin of maize,” November 2012, available online:http://www.ensser.org/developing-responsible-approaches-to-risk-assessment/gm-maize-in-mexico/.

[9] The demonstration was called by the Asamblea Nacional de Afectados Ambientales, Red en Defensa del Maíz, Movimiento Urbano Popular, Jóvenes ante la Emergencia Nacional, Movimiento Yo soy 132 and Unión Popular Revolucionaria Emiliano Zapata (UPREZ).

[10] See the original statement by the 8^th Assembly of Environmental Affected in November 2012:  http://redendefensadelmaiz.net/2012/11/pronunciamiento-emergencia-nacional-maiz-transgenico-a-punto-de-envenenar-nuestras-mesas-2/.

[11] See http://www.emergenciamaiz.org/ with photos and the declaration in English.

[12] The poor in Latin America, but also in Asia and Africa, depend on breeding from maize diversity to support their subsistence and to help them cope with impacts of climate change.

The Great Mexican Maize Massacre

http://www.etcgroup.org/content/great-mexican-maize-massacre

Thu, 2012-11-15 10:08

Gene Giants Prepare the Genetic Wipe-out of One of the World’s Most Important Food Crops

 ETCNR-GMmaizefinal15Nov2012_links.pdf

Agribusiness giants Monsanto, DuPont and Dow are plotting the boldest coup of a global food crop in history. If their requests to allow a massive commercial planting of genetically modified (GM) maize are approved in the next two weeks by the government of outgoing president Felipe Calderón, this parting gift to the gene giants will amount to a knife in the heart of the center of origin and diversity for maize. The consequences will be grave – and global. With the approvals and December planting deadlines looming, social movements and civil society organizations have called for an end to all GM maize in Mexico. Mexico’s Union of Concerned Scientists (UCCS) has called on the Mexican government to stop the processing of any application for open-field release of GM maize in Mexico.[1] ETC Group joins these calls, and appeals to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – intergovernmental bodies mandated to support food security and biodiversity – to take immediate action.

Outrage and alarm rang out through Mexico when the world’s two largest commercial seed companies, Monsanto and DuPont (whose seed business is known as DuPont Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.), and Dow AgroSciences (the world’s 8^th largest seed company) applied to the government for the planting of 2,500,000 hectares (more than 6 million acres) of transgenic maize in Mexico.[2] The land area is massive – about the size of El Salvador. Scientists have identified thousands of peasant varieties of maize, making Mexico the global repository of maize genetic diversity. If the agribusiness applications are approved, it will mark the world’s first commercial-scale planting of genetically modified varieties of a major food crop in its center of origin.

“If Mexico’s government allows this crime of historic significance to happen, GMOs will soon be in the food of the entire Mexican population, and genetic contamination of Mexican peasant varieties will be inevitable. We are talking about damaging more than 7,000 years of indigenous and peasant work that created maize – one of the world’s three most widely eaten crops,” said Verónica Villa from ETC’s Mexico office. “As if this weren’t bad enough, the companies want to plant Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerant maize [Mon603] on more than 1,400,000 hectares. This is the same type of GM maize that has been linked to cancer in rats according to a recently published peer-reviewed study.”[3]

To read the full release, please download the PDF.

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[1] UCCS (Unión de Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad), “Statement: Call to action vs the planting of GMO corn in open field situations in Mexico,” November 2012, available online: http://www.uccs.mx/doc/g/planting-gmo-corn.

[2] The list of commercial applications for environmental release of GMOs is available here: http://www.senasica.gob.mx/?id=4443. (In Mexico, DuPont Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., is known by the name PHI México.)

[3] Gilles-Eric Séralini et al., “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize,” Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 50, Issue 11, November 2012, pp. 4221–4231. See also, John Vidal, “Study linking GM maize to cancer must be taken seriously by regulators,” The Guardian, 28 September 2012, available online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/sep/28/study-gm-maize-cancer.

Report: Who Will Control the Green Economy?

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5296

Download PDF:

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Who Will Control the Green Economy­­?

New report on Corporate Concentration in the Life Industries

[download entire report - PDF]

[download news release - PDF]

[download info "What you will find in WWCTGE" - PDF]

What you will find in the

'Who Will Control the Green Economy?' Report – Dec 2011

- Naming The Green Economy's “One Percent”

'Who Will Control the Green Economy?' provides hard data on the largest and most powerful corporate players controlling 25 sectors of the 'real economy'. This is the only freely available report to assemble top 10 listings of companies (by market share) from 18 major economic sectors relevant to the Green Economy. These lists include the top 10 players in Water, Energy, Seeds, Fishing and Aquaculture, Food Retail and Processing, Chemicals, Fertilizer, Pesticides, Mining, Pharmaceuticals, Biotech, the Grain Trade and more. The report also identifies the leading players in a handful of new and emerging industrial sectors including Synthetic Biology, Big Data, Seaweed and Algae production and Livestock Genetics (pp.1-2).

- Corporate Concentration Unchecked

ETC Group has been monitoring corporate ownership trends for 30 years and the trendline is remaining steady: more monopoly everywhere. For example the top 10 multinational seed companies now control 73% of the world's commercial seed market, up from 37% in 1995 (p. 22). The worlds 10 biggest pesticide firms now control a whopping 90% of the global 44 billion dollar pesticide market (p.25). 10 companies control 76% of animal pharmaceutical sales (p.34). 10 animal feed companies control 52% of the global animal feed market (p.33), 10 chemical firms account for 40% of the chemical market (p.11), 10 forestry companies control 40% of the forestry market (p. 31), 10 mining companies control a third of the mining market (p. 29) and the top ten energy companies control a quarter of the energy market (p.10).

- Forget Windmills, Think Grain Mills

The 'Green Economy' may evoke iconic images of solar panels and wind turbines but this is not actually where corporate activity is focusing. While non-hydro and non-nuclear 'renewable' energy is only a thin sliver (1.8%) of global energy consumption - almost all of this consists of harvesting and burning biomass for energy and fuels and now chemicals. This report shows how the major corporate realignments in the new 'Green Economy' are happening around plant biomass (p.8-12, 18-21).

- New ‘Green’ Oligopolies

This report uncovers new corporate convergences across diverse industry sectors as large players position themselves to dominate the Green Economy. A case in point is the DuPont company - the world's 2nd largest seed company, 6th largest chemical company and 6th largest pesticide company which is now emerging as a major player in biotech, biofuels and bioplastics, synthetic biology, seaweeds, ingredients and enzymes while partnering with the worlds third largest energy company BP (pp. ii-iii).

- Food Dollars Trump Energy Dollars

Conventional wisdom says the size of the global energy market weighs in at $7 trillion and dwarfs every other economic sector. According to our research, however, the global grocery market ekes out ahead of energy – even when government subsidies paid to producers for energy and agriculture are taken into account (p.37).

- Synthetic Biology's Meteoric Rise

In the early 1990's the early commercialization of genetic engineering technologies drove massive reorganization of the seed, agrochemicals and pharmaceutical sectors and the emergence of 'life science' giants such as Monsanto and Novartis. Today the new technologies of Synthetic Biology are spurring another frenzy of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures around the biomass economy drawing large energy and chemical players such as Dow, DuPont, BP, Shell, Exxon, Chevron and Total into new alliances with grain, forestry and seed giants such as Monsanto, Cargill, Bunge, Weyerhaeuser and ADM. At the heart of these new alliances are surprisingly new Synthetic Biology companies such as Life Technologies Inc, Amyris, Solazyme and Evolva – all rapidly being promoted to significant roles in the global food, energy, pharma and chemicals sectors (pp.8-12).

- Controlling the Blue Economy too.

Biomass found in oceans and aquatic ecosystems accounts for 71% of the planet’s surface area. That’s why energy and chemical corporations such as Du Pont, Statoil , DSM, Exxon, Mitsubishi, Monsanto , Chevron and shipping giant Stolt Nielsen are looking to the wild, wet frontier for new sugars and oils to fuel the bio-based economy, proposing the large-scale exploitation of algae, seaweed, fish and all the aquatic biomass found in lakes, rivers and coastal estuaries. (Pp. 18-21)

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Nuevo informe sobre nanotecnología

14 de febrero de 2011

Pequeña contribución del Grupo ETC a la gran conversación en Dakar:

ETC presenta nuevo informe sobre nanotecnología.

Cuando activistas, movimientos sociales y organizaciones de la sociedad civil se reunieron en Porto Alegre, Brasil, en el Primer Foro Social Mundial, era muy incipiente la inversión de los gobiernos en investigación y desarrollo de nanotecnología. Una década más tarde, la inversión pública rebasa los 50 mil millones de dólares, un promedio de 10 mil millones cada año.

Estos días aproximadamente 50 mil personas se reúnen en Senegal para actualizarse, debatir y planear estrategias en el Foro Social Mundial en Dakar, Senegal. El Grupo ETC contribuye a esta importante discusión con un nuevo informe, ¿Qué pasa con la nanotecnología? Regulación y geopolítica. Pat Mooney, director del Grupo ETC, explica: “En Dakar, un tema urgente a discutir es la gobernanza de las tecnologías emergentes y cómo la sociedad puede responder a las posibles amenazas –sociales, ambientales y a la salud– que estas nuevas tecnologías presentan. Un caso específico es la nanotecnología, que ha sido desplegada sin regulación gubernamental ni debate público. Nuestro primer informe sobre tecnologías de nanoescala, La inmensidad de lo mínimo, se presentó en el Foro Social Mundial en Porto Alegre hace ocho años. Hemos traído a Dakar ¿Qué pasa con la nanotecnología? porque la comercialización y las inversiones en tecnologías de nanoescala se han incrementado muchísimo a pesar de que persiste el vacío regulatorio, y que sus riesgos e impactos siguen sin haberse discutido a profundiad.”

El documento dec68 páginas del Grupo ETC puede descargarse en inglés en www.etcgroup.org/en/node/5245, y estará próximamente en castellano. Brinda un panorama actual de las inversiones, los mercados, la gobernanza y la situación de la nanotecnología en el sistema de patentes. El impacto de las tecnologías de lo nanoscópico es muy difícil de discernir debido a la falta de definiciones aceptadas de lo “nano” y a la ausencia de etiquetados obligatorios. Sin embargo, el Grupo ETC ha logrado investigar, entre otras cosas:

• En todo el mundo, hay más de 2000 empresas de nanotecnología que desarrollan o fabrican nanopartículas
• Aunque la mayoría de los consumidores no sabe que existen ingredientes de nanoescala en diversos productos, el número de éstos rebasa con mucho los 1500, que se han podido identificar gracias a la información de mercado disponible.
• Al menos 60 países tienen iniciativas oficiales de nanotecnología, incluso los más nuevos en el campo, como Nepal, Sri Lanka y Pakistán. Los sectores público y privado de Estados Unidos, juntos, son los que gastan más dinero en nanotecnología; China es quien cuenta con más científicos dedicados a ello. Rusia se colocó repentinamente como el país que más dinero público está invirtiendo en tecnologías de nanoescala.
• Los analistas predicen que el valor del mercado de la nanotecnología alcanzará pronto los 224 mil millones de dólares, aunque la cifra actual es unas diez veces menor.

¿Qué pasa con la nanotecnología? Analiza las iniciativas que se proponen para su regulación (muy incipientes), los estándares de desarrollo, los esquemas de participación pública así como la actividad en la oficina de patentes más ocupada y pródiga del mundo, la Patent & Trademark Office de Estados Unidos. El reporte concluye que si bien el mercado de productos con base nanotecnológica es relativamente limitado y la industria está cada vez más nerviosa con respecto a los impactos sobre la salud y el rechazo de la opinión pública, los gobiernos de muchos países han invertido demasiado para renunciar a la tecnología de lo nanométrico, que afirman ayudará a terminar la recesión, rescatar el clima y resolver la crisis del petróleo, redituando billones de dólares en nuevas ganancias.