Hanky panky at Gill Tract

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/Research+at+the+Gill+Tract

Unclean Hands at the Gill Tract?

UC Berkeley researchers say they have nothing to do with Big Agribusiness, but records show that companies like Monsanto profit from their work.

By Darwin Bond Graham, East Bay Express, May 16,2012
The Gill Tract in Albany, CA, Photo by Steve Rhodes/Flickr
The battle over the future of Albany's Gill Tract has tapped into multiple, deep-seated conflicts that perennially dominate Bay Area politics, from land use and development to food ethics. But in one area, the roots of disagreement are potentially very deep: biotechnology and its uses.
Genetic engineering has been a topic of intense debate since its emergence in the early 1970s when scientists developed methods to cut and paste fragments of DNA, creating genetically modified organisms — GMOs. Some claim that GMOs represent a dangerous leap in the technological manipulation of life. Critics also point out that GMO research products benefit large corporations, producing proprietary crop varieties designed to promote industrialized models of agriculture, at the expense of small farmers and the public. Proponents, meanwhile, contend that genetic engineering is simply a new tool that could, if responsibly applied, enable humanity to better provide for the common good.
The East Bay encapsulates the entire debate like no place else. UC Berkeley and many of its spin-off companies are on the cutting edge of biotech. This university-led academic-industrial combine has arguably done more to promote the genetic engineering of food crops than any other cluster of institutions. Paradoxically, the Bay Area is also an epicenter for GMO opposition. It's no wonder, then, that the issue has lurked in the background of the recent farm occupation in Albany.

While saying they respect the academic freedom of the current crop of UC researchers who utilize the Gill Tract, and even inviting these researchers to continue their work alongside them, organizers of the farm occupation have expressed concern with the University of California's wider links to agribusiness corporations. Perhaps due to these criticisms, a few of the researchers who use the Gill Tract in their experiments have fired back. They said their work, and, by association, UC's research program at the Gill Tract, isn't connected to the biotech industry's profit motives, nor the genetic engineering of food crops.

In an interview with Albany Patch shortly after the occupation began, Damon Lisch, a UC researcher who uses the Gill Tract in his studies, characterized his work as having nothing to do with the agenda of corporate agribusiness. "Basic research using corn as a model is different than making GMO corn to improve profits for Monsanto," he said. In another Albany Patch article, UC researcher Sarah Hake said her research "is not to create new products (such as in genetic engineering)," but rather, "to understand basic processes in plant biology." Most recently, Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson quoted UC researcher George Chuck, who is a member of Hake's lab team, as saying that research at the Gill Tract is not funded by large oil and other corporate concerns.
But are the GMO-free claims of UC's researchers true? Is research at the Gill Tract by UC's scientists purely a public service, unconnected to corporate profits?

A survey of biotechnology patents that cite the research of these outspoken scientists shows that some of their research has, in fact, resulted in the production of GMO technologies. While UC's researchers might not be conducting GMO trials at the Tract directly for Big Agribusiness, some of their findings have been heavily cited by private sector researchers who are developing transgenic crops for their corporate employers. In fact, Lisch, the most outspoken researcher opposed to the Gill Tract occupation, is a co-inventor of a patent that is directly applicable to GMO research.

Lisch is a named inventor of one biotechnology patent owned by UC, "Genetic functions required for gene silencing in maize." The patent claims to solve a problem, known as "transgene silencing," faced by developers of GMO corn. In addition, the UC Office of Technology Transfer markets the techniques described in Lisch's patent to biotechnology companies so they can use these methods in their GMO development operations. According to the UC's Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances website, the patent's "applications" are relevant to the "genetic engineering of corn." UC's Office of Technology Transfer says it's university policy to keep the names of corporations that are licensing a specific technology confidential, so it's not clear who is using Lisch's patented research findings to develop GMO corn.

Researcher Chuck's insistence that his work at the Gill Tract isn't funded by industry might be technically true, but his research has also been patented and marketed, not by UC, but by a private biotechnology company called DNA Plant Technology Corporation, which was headquartered on San Pablo Avenue in North Oakland during the 1990s, giving researchers physical access to UC's resources, including the Plant Gene Expression Center in Albany. DNA Plant Technology's intellectual property holdings were bought by the Bionova Holding Corporation in the mid-1990s. Bionova markets numerous GMO plant varieties, and has "major technology relationships" with Monsanto and UC, according to the company's website.

The academic research of UC's Gill Tract scientists also serves as an important building block in private industry's biotech efforts. A search of the US Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals more than a dozen patents or patent applications that cite Hake's research. One patent that cites Hake's corn research involves inserting genetic material from another life form from outside the plant kingdom. The owner of the patent is DeKalb Genetics Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto. Lisch's research is also referenced in patents involving the genetic manipulation of food crops by Pioneer Hi-Bred, a subsidiary of DuPont.
A reference to academic research within a patent does not mean the cited researcher necessarily endorses the end product, or intended to facilitate its creation. Furthermore, a few patents citing Lisch and Hake's research do not involve genetic engineering methods, but instead employ more "traditional" means of plant breeding or modification. Neither Lisch nor Hake responded to requests for comment.
The University of California is a major contributor to the development of genetically engineered food crops, and the Plant Gene Expression Center, which uses the Gill Tract, is a large part of UC's link to the biotech industry. UC owns more than 150 GMO plant patents, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office. UC policy states that financial proceeds from licensed technologies are shared with the inventors, and that the remainder is plowed back into research at the university or put into the general fund.
According to UC's most recent annual report, the university earned approximately $182 million on its patented technologies on 2011. A mere 25 UC-owned patents earned the bulk of this — about $155 million. Among these are licenses for four different varieties of strawberries and a mandarin orange. Through a licensing arrangement with UC, one of the strawberries, the Camarosa, was genetically engineered by DNA Plant Technology Corporation to withstand Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. The Camarosa Strawberry patent earned the university $2.36 million last year.
Many other UC patents are routinely licensed by biotech companies to develop GMO crops, like the Endless Summer Tomato, another product of DNA Plant Technology. Such deals are lucrative for UC. The university had 627 active plant licensing contracts with industry at the end of last year. More than a few of these were developed from research conducted at the Plant Gene Expression Center. Hake is the center's director.
Monsanto and UC have at least twenty agreements "that include licensing, sharing materials for research, sponsoring research, and utilizing their specialized, technical services," according to Kelly Clauss, a Monsanto spokeswoman. "We've had a long-standing relationship with the University of California, as well as many other land-grant universities across the country, for decades," Clauss added. "As a company rooted in science and research, we are proud to work with universities and support agricultural research through these types of collaborative programs."
Organizers of Occupy the Farm contacted for this article said they support academic freedom, and were wary of jumping into any debates about the nature of research that has been conducted at the Gill Tract. After planting their crops in late April, Occupy the Farm organizers posted several open letters to all the researchers inviting them to continue their projects alongside the working farm.

Ignacio Chapela on Pollan and the Gates Foundation

Berkeley, April 1
To: Jim Thomas et al.
From: Ignacio Chapela
Re: Gates' Grant to Berkeley's Journalism School

In coincidence with Jim's friends at Berkeley (but independently of any of them), I composed an email to Michael Pollan, which I sent earlier today with copies to people I thought would be directly interested. Since this seems in fact to be taking a deservedly higher magnitude of interest, I am enclosing the text of that email for your information below.

I cannot pretend not to be concerned about these developments, even with Michael's reassurances as reported by Jim. As the corporate capture of all aspects of public life noose-knots tighter and faster, I think this is a very unfortunate step. Berkeley is, as we have shown multiple times over the decades, the weathervane for developments in the corporatization of public spaces and this, modest and independent as it seems, looks to me as a very important one. It was Berkeley, not least thanks to Michael's deft leadership and brilliant writing, which catalyzed the very successful and inspiring inroads of the organic and slow food movements in the last few years, developments which have had resonance around the world. And it is because of this influence that Berkeley continues to be a target of all kinds of discredited parties who want to gain credibility, not least BP, Novartis, the hordes of biotech boosters and now Gates.

Gates' move on Berkeley is interesting because it comes from a "charity", an organization which could be naïvely believed to be free of vested interests and because it targets an institutional player who is not clearly identified with direct interventionist goals as a technical research lab would be. So it is not the usual "BP Pays Energy Researchers to do its Work" kind of headline (as it is, no regular news outlet seems to have picked up the story, but that is another story), and Gates is as free to claim independence from vested interests as the J School is free to claim freedom to research. Naively, then, we should pack this conversation and move on to another (for example, watch the nice video at one my ex student's comment on youth bloggers against clean coal here: http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090331/media-savvy-youth-are-blogging-coal-death ). But the reality is not so simple, not these days of Government by Monsanto, BP, Lockheed and Goldman Sachs.

As Jim probably pointed out to Michael, Gates is bereft of ideas on what to do with their billions as they seek to save the poor (from whom?), and they have -naively or not, I don't know- loaded their ship with well-known agents of the capsizing nave of agricultural biotech. If there is anything in which the Gates people seem to believe, it is the unavoidability nay the morality of technical solutions to all problems, and the one tired thing left in the magician's hat of technology for environmental interventions is transgenesis, or at least they seem to believe so. Most importantly, Gates' dominant voice and policy enforcer continues to be one of the most notorious activists for the transgenization of Africa, Robert Horsch (a UC R alumnus and Monsanto's main strategist on the very matter). Given the dismal record of transgenic agriculture in general, and in particular in Africa, can we possibly believe that Gates would want to attract real, probing journalism to their (basically, Monsanto's) agricultural works in the troubled continent? Horsch must know very well what Burston-Marsteller was telling Monsanto already in 1998, namely that the battle over GMOs was not technical, but one of PR dominance. I use the word "Monsanto" here because of Dr Horsch, but also to refer to this particularly interesting beast of the 21st Century corporate state as much as to a metonymy for the rest of the known list of commercial, environmental transgenecists such as Syngenta, Amyris or LS9.

Ever since, and despite all signs of financial, ecological and public rejection of their plans, Monsanto and allies have continued a campaign to enforce the use of GMOs wherever possible. "Africa" has been in their designs at least since their catastrophic collapse of 2000 (largely unreported as such), mostly as a strategic -and mostly rhetorical- location. It appears that Gates may have naively run into its role as the new, new lease on life to Monsanto's designs after the evaporation first of real industrial money (1999), then of venture capital (2002) and now of governmental subsidies. Along this long trek of failures, it has been interesting to note also the move on Monsanto's part from trying to support their own scientists (early 1990s) to getting hired, subsidized ones (in academia and government mid- to late 1990s), to altogether giving up on them and dedicating themselves to two main things: PR and litigation.

I am sure I would offend many at the J School by even suggesting that they could possibly be participating in anyone's PR campaign, but I cannot avoid the conclusion that this grant is intended to weigh the academic balance in that direction. Nevertheless, we the Academic Senate of the Berkeley campus re-wrote the meaning of Academic Freedom in 2007, on the occasion of the BP half-billion cannonade, to mean the freedom to receive money from any source we wish without being questioned about it, so it may be close to impossible (and for me even a breach of basic academic rules) to even ask questions about it. Gates must be well advised about this nice, business-friendly novelty at the Berkeley campus, since the chair of the Senate at the time and a fierce promoter of the idea was the Journalism School's locally influential William Drummond.

Whether Michael (Pollan) takes money from them or not is in fact a consideration, but one that in the dumb light of PR campaigns represents a minor one in comparison with the brightness of the well-honed power of our campus' PR machine and of course those of Gates and their subjacent interested parties. Already in the press release about the grant, Michael is the subject of about 1/6 of the text, certainly the only one with anything to say about how this makes any sense, and there is definitely the impression that he is a central player in the grant. This image is irretrievable. Did he mean to play this role? Apparently not, but this subtlety will remain hidden from the outsider.

By staying on as a faculty member on the Berkeley campus of BP, I am myself confronted with the very same quandary, knowing that the very work I may do on my side of the biotech debates is always prone to be used as a demonstration of the "balance" and even "radicalism" of the campus, no matter how marginal my position may be. It is a sad National situation when I have to be proud that there are no quotes of me on the campus' news website (the ugly mugs with one of my quotes in the Free Speech Movement Café are also gone), or that my Chair would have called me in to tell me that I was tarnishing the image of the Department by my statements. I do not wish this status on Michael, who had managed to keep -together with some of his colleagues- a notably sane environment in the J School, and wish him well on managing what I believe to be unmanageable.

After all, what are the options? In my case, and now it appears in Michael's, too, the alternative doors are closing for the moment. For me the prospect of receiving funds from BP or Monsanto is untenable, but even looking elsewhere the panorama is not much broader for the critical thinker: I do not seem able to find a federally-funded program that has even two degrees of separation from BP's Department of Energy, Monsanto's Department of Agriculture, Lilly's NIH and so on. It is not a coincidence that Gates itself would have hit a brilliant, $48 million strategic alliance with the last uninfected (perhaps) agency, the NSF: not two days ago, the announcement was made that Gates was pouring $24 million into the perversely named BREAD initiative, whereby NSF will administer Gates' money to entice scientists to perform promotional work in ag biotech. In a world where journalism has passed from the kneeling to the supine position, the Seattle Times appears to be the only independent source of this news and far from implying any interest in influencing scientist's attention, the homie reporter highlights Gates' generosity in "sharing" the decision: "Staff from NSF and the Gates Foundation will jointly make the final cut." I would have called that jaw-dropping arrogance, glaring censorship and meddling in the work of science. And of course I can easily imagine the fate of one of my proposals to this generous program.

No doubt, we must keep the feet of the J School and the Gates Foundation on the fire of critical thinking and analysis, and I am thankful that there are so many out there who are paying attention. Please keep pushing, please keep questioning.

With all best from a Berkeley buffeted by a long tide of corporate cooptation that does not relent,

Ignacio


Dear Michael,

I just read news about the big Gates grant to the Journalism School to draw your attention and efforts to Africa's agriculture: What a great idea, what a scary reality! I just want to wish you luck in dealing with this, loaded as it is with the intervention of Gates, Henry and Zilberman (those few I could figure out from the PR on the press release at http://journalism.berkeley.edu/press/africa_reporting/, among the many chefs that I imagine will be wanting to help with the menu); I can see there will be involvement of the Beahrs Poverty Center, too.

I hear from good sources that Gates may be honest about trying to find out the consequences of their extremely clumsy moves on Africa, and they will have to conclude sooner or later that they have been acting like an ignorant goat in a concert hall. But will they be so open as to allow serious journalism being done about themselves? No doubt AGRA will have to be part of any English-language reporting on Africa's agricultures, perhaps the most important part, and it is hard not to conclude from all they do in their "Fourth Generation" AGRA program that Gates are clear in a propagandistic intent.

How to avoid the conclusion that the J School is now burdened with as heavy a conflict of interest as there can be in the field? Not even Monsanto has such a desperate need for inspired and credible propagandizing (check out their Monsanto blog, which they present as if it was their maiden trip into internet-driven opinion-shaping, as if nobody knew about their millions invested over the many years in every possible PR strategy, including the questionable "viral marketing" from its earliest days) - and Gates has in fact much more financial muscle to push their weight around than Monsanto. Gates (and AGRA) cannot claim independence from Monsanto, with whom they have strategic alliances, at least through Monsanto's Danforth Center. Perhaps it will be useful to hear what Paul Rabinow has to say about such deals since he has gained experience trying to infuse the BP deal with a streak of Bioethics, a similar quandary as the one you are presented today.

I do look forward to the internationalization of the food-related work and the J School, and keep my fingers crossed.

With all best,

Ignacio

FYI

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards Two-Year GrantTo J-School for Africa Agriculture Reporting Program

The University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism has received a two-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop an intensive training program designed to promote high quality media coverage of agricultural development issues in Africa.
"We are thrilled," said Professor and Dean Neil Henry, a former Africa correspondent for the Washington Post. "There are so many untold stories from Africa about this subject in the U.S. and international media. We're delighted and honored to be able to play an important reporting role on the continent at a very critical time."
Today, more than a billion people live on less than $1 a day, and nearly 1 billion live in hunger. A majority of these people rely on agriculture for their food and incomes. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, agriculture accounts for about two-thirds of employment. Building public awareness of hunger and the issues that surround it can provide political leaders with the mandate and support to take action.
Berkeley's $767,800 grant will support extensive work in the U.S. and Africa by groups of reporters, including the School's graduate students and select visiting scholars from Africa and other regions of the globe.
Michael Pollan, the University's Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism, and the author of best-selling books about food and agriculture including the The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and In Defense of Food, will lecture in a yearlong intensive seminar examining food issues on the continent.
"How will Africa feed itself? is one of the most important food stories of our time," Pollan said, "and this grant will help make it possible for our students to cover it."
According to Professor Henry, the project's chief goal is to produce compelling narratives in all media formats about the roles of small farmers in Africa --most of whom are women-- for publication and broadcast to general audiences in the U.S., Africa, and around the world.
The project will feature teaching collaborations between the journalism school, the University's Center for African Studies, and researchers in departments including Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Center of Evaluation for Global Action.
A yearlong intensive background course will explore topics ranging from the effects of western aid and trade policies on African development, to the role of genetically modified food in addressing global hunger and poverty, to the geopolitical factors contributing to hunger.
"We believe that meaningful, original, and independent works of journalism about these issues can translate into a far more enlightened and engaged public, and hopefully better decision-making by government leaders," said Professor Henry. "It's a very valuable initiative especially at a time when so many mainstream media organizations are cutting back on foreign coverage."
This grant is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Global Development Program, which works to increase opportunities for people in developing countries to overcome hunger and poverty. The program's Policy and Advocacy initiative supports efforts to increase awareness of global development issues, identify and promote powerful solutions, and advocate for more and better investments, helping to accelerate progress against the world's most acute hunger and poverty.

SOURCE: http://journalism.berkeley.edu/press/africa_reporting/

Is Steven Chu BFF With BP?

News: How Obama's DOE head got $500 million BP bucks to bankroll Berkeley research—and what it means for our energy future.

By Josh Harkinson

December 18, 2008

Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to lead the Department of Energy, seems about as climate friendly as they come. As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and director of the DOE-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he has dedicated his career to weaning the globe from petroleum. But Chu, who declined to comment for this story, is also more industry friendly than his rhetoric suggests. Last year he sealed a deal between the Berkeley Lab, two public universities, and oil company BP, creating the largest university-industry alliance in US history, the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute, to conduct biofuels research. The proposal sparked fierce opposition from faculty and students at the University of California-Berkeley, which will host the institute. Biology professor Ignacio Chapela called the partnership the "coup de grace to the very idea of a university that can represent the best interest of the public."

Chu's role in creating the Energy Biosciences Institute may inform his approach to governing the Department of Energy, a major governmental underwriter of research, and one that will face pressure to partner with corporations in pursuing technological solutions to climate change. As the incoming Obama administration prepares to spend liberally to develop cleaner sources of energy, the structure of corporate-government partnerships will determine how the profits of that research return to taxpayers, and how rigorously scientists evaluate the downsides of controversial technologies such as biofuels.

In 2004, when Chu left a teaching job at Stanford to direct the Berkeley Lab, research partnerships between oil companies and California universities were in vogue. In 2002, Stanford had formed the Global Climate and Energy Project with $225 million in funding from General Electric, Toyota, ExxonMobil, and oil-services company Schlumberger. In 2006, UC-Davis established a biofuels research project with $25 million from Chevron. Capitalizing on the momentum, Chu pitched the BP deal as a natural evolution of the new research paradigm. "The motivation is that you have to start working with companies at the get-go," he told a March 2007 meeting of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate. "I think the University of California-Berkeley and the Berkeley Lab are the perfect place for this, so you can…get largely CO₂-neutral fuels in a responsible way, in a way that is sustainable."

READ THE REST:
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/12/is-steven-chu-bff-with-bp.html

Next-Generation Biofuels Carmelo Ruiz Marrero | May 1, 2008 Translated from: La próxima generación de agrocombustibles Translated by: Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org
First-generation biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel debuted on the world stage as the solution to the fossil fuel trap. Soon evidence began to mount indicating that the solution may well prove to be just a new set of problems. Executives and scientists of agribusiness and biotechnology corporations know the problems caused by first-generation agrofuels, and are wagering that these can be solved by a new generation of agrofuels derived from cellulose. Cellulose, the most common organic compound on earth, is a key structural component of the cell walls of green plants and many forms of algae. About 33% of all plant matter is cellulose. Scientists have devoted major efforts to find practical ways of turning it into liquid fuel. In nature only fungi and certain bacteria found in the guts of termites and ruminant mammals (such as cows) produce enzymes that can digest cellulose. The ability to turn cellulose into fuel would make it possible to use any vegetable matter, living or dead, to this end. "WHAT IF WE COULD CONVERT not only corn, but also corn stover—the leaves, stalks, and cob—into ethanol? What if we could transform sugarcane bagasse (leafage) to transportation fuel? Could poplar and pine trees, wheat and rice straw, or even municipal waste become a sustainable source of biofuels? If so, energy crops like fiber cane, switchgrass, and miscanthus could become our country's strategic "oil" reserve, and Oklahoma could be the next member of OPEC. In the past, scientists using traditional chemistries have been unable to cost-effectively convert these residual plant products and energy crops to ethanol. Now, recent advances in industrial biotechnology are providing powerful new tools to solve this historic challenge." Source: Verenium corporation In 2006 venture capitalists invested $235 million in the development of cellulose agrofuels. That same year the Chinese government announced it would spend $5 billion over the next decade to expand ethanol production, with a special emphasis on cellulosic ethanol. Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Department is investing $385 million in cellulosic ethanol facilities for the period 2007-2010. The development of new-generation cellulosic fuels will undoubtedly be dominated by U.S.-based biotech giant Monsanto, world leader in agricultural biotechnology. In 1982 its scientists created the first GM plants. A quarter-century later, the company has 3,000 scientists on its payroll, and approximately 90% of the world's GM seed is either patented by Monsanto or contains some technology that is patented by Monsanto. Monsanto became the life sciences behemoth it is today by buying out its competitors. According to Claire H. Cummings' book "Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds," the buying spree began in 1996 when it bought Agracetus for $150 million and Calgene for $240 million. Monsanto went on a veritable buying spree, purchasing Dekalb, an American company, for $2.3 billion, Holden Seeds in 1997 for a price that was 23 times its annual earnings, seed companies in Brazil and India, Unilever's European wheat-breeding business, and Cargill's international seed operations for $1.4 billion. Cummings explains that Monsanto sought more than increased market share and production: "... it was about owning the parent seed lines and getting control of the genetics." In 2005 Monsanto became the world's biggest seed company by adding the Seminis Corporation to its acquisitions for a cool $1.4 billion. Seminis, the world's largest developer, grower, and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds, was founded in 1994 by Mexican tycoon Alfonso Romo. The company boasted 70 research stations, seed production sites in 32 countries, and sales in 120 countries. At the time Monsanto bought it, Seminis had 40% of the U.S. vegetable seeds market. Monsanto now owns its vast catalog of seeds, which includes 75% of tomatoes sold in the United States, plus numerous varieties of lettuce, cabbage, melon, and spinach. In 2007 the Mendel Biotechnology company—co-owned by Monsanto—bought the German corporation Tinplant Biotechnik, which owns the world's largest collection of miscanthus varieties. This perennial grass native to Africa, also known as elephant grass, is considered ideal for cellulosic ethanol production because of its rapid growth and high biomass yield. Mendel is currently developing GM miscanthus varieties and in June 2007 oil giant British Petroleum (BP), the world's fourth largest corporation, announced it would fund Mendel's five-year cellulosic fuel research program. As a result of the deal, BP became a shareholder of Mendel with representation on its board. "Working with BP, Mendel aims to be at the forefront of seed supply into the future energy grass seed market," according to the company's press release. "Mendel will establish breeding stations in the Midwest and the Southeast United States, and accelerate breeding collaborations with groups in Germany and China." Other oil corporations that have joined the cellulose trend including Chevron, Shell, and Conoco-Phillips. The latter invested $100 million in a joint venture with Tyson Foods to process animal fat into fuel. Brazil's Petrobras has jumped on the bandwagon with a bio-ethanol agreement with Japan's Itochu. Monsanto is also interested in the fuel potential of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), and currently collaborates with the U.S.-based Ceres corporation to research its possibilities. A native of the North American prairie, switchgrass was mentioned by President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address as an alternative to fossil fuels. Ceres says it is "improving switchgrass as a crop via selection of improved types but, more importantly, is bringing its proprietary genes, tools, and procedures to enhance the improvements more rapidly and provide the plant with attributes ideally suited to being farmed on large acreages to produce consistently higher yields." The company claims to possess the largest proprietary collection of fully sequenced plant genes, with patents on more than 75,000 genes. A substantial portion of cellulosic ethanol research is focused on sugarcane. The Brazilian Votorantim conglomerate owns CanaVialis, world leader in the field of sugarcane genetics, and sugarcane genomics company Allelyx. Both subsidiaries are developing GM sugarcane for ethanol. Monsanto announced in 2006 that it is working with Votorantim to commercialize GM sugarcane by 2009. Meanwhile Syngenta, Monsanto's major European competitor, obtained access to inedible sugarcane strains with ultra-high cellulose content developed by the Celunol biotechnology company. In 2007 Celunol merged with Diversa to form the Verenium Corporation. In February 2008 Verenium, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop cellulosic ethanol. U.S. universities are fishing for big money in the cellulosic ethanol rush. In 2007 BP gave the unprecedented sum of $500 million to the University of Illinois' Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Berkeley campus of the University of California for the development of agrofuels (see sidebar). Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project is getting $100 million from Exxon-Mobil, the world's second largest corporation, over a 10-year period, in part to develop new GM agrofuels. Other corporate donors are General Electric and Toyota, each one giving $50 million to Stanford. $500 Million Corporate Grant Ignites Academic Controversy British Petroleum (BP) signed in 2007 an agreement with the University of California's Berkeley campus and the University of Illinois' Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory to found the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), a "private-public" entity that will employ biotechnology to develop agrofuels. What's in it for the two universities? $500 million, a private donation without precedent in the history of academia. BP chief Robert A. Malone said, "We are joining with some of the world's best science and engineering talent to meet the world's demand for low-carbon energy. As part of that effort, we will be working to improve and expand the production of clean, renewable energy through the integrated development of better crops, better processing technologies, and new biofuels." The BP-Berkeley deal has provoked heated opposition from groups of students, faculty, and citizens. "This partnership reflects the rapid, unchecked, and unprecedented global corporate alignment of the world's largest agribusiness, biotech, petroleum, and automotive industries," denounced Berkeley professor Miguel Altieri and Eric Holt-Giménez, director of Food First. "With what for them is a relatively small investment, these industries will appropriate academic expertise built over decades of public support, translating into billions of dollars in revenues for these global partners." "BP-related employees would be housed in buildings funded and equipped by the public," declared U.C. Berkeley professor and former Shell Oil scientist Ted Patzek. "The public would then be blocked from entering the BP-occupied buildings. Most information would flow through and be filtered by the BP personnel and their UC Berkeley affiliates, who would need to sign non-disclosure agreements, making it impossible to distinguish between their private and public roles." Patzek notes with great concern that the Berkeley side of the EBI will be run by Mendel Biotechnology CEO Chris Somerville. "Mendel Biotech is 'completely aligned' (their own wording) with Monsanto and Savia Ltd. Monsanto controls most sales of GMO seeds worldwide. Savia is the world's largest dealer of non-commodity crops: trees, flowers, vegetables, grasses, etc., and is deeply vested in GMO manipulations. "Dr. Somerville's company has received $46 million from Monsanto and Savia to conduct research on genetically modified plants." "Chris Sommerville, CEO of Mendel, has been apparently rushed in to Berkeley through a secretive and highly irregular flash-hire process to be safely on the UC side as a professor for the signing of the agreement," denounced Professor Ignacio Chapela, long-time critic of the biotechnology industry. "Not surprisingly, there is no outward sign that the Academic Senate even knew about all this ... In this proposal, Berkeley is nothing but a business partner with these corporations, and professors, entrepreneurs, and students, simply cheap labor, paying high fees for the privilege of giving their work to the right corporation." Source: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/01_ebi.shtml Agricultural "Waste" Environmentalists warn that the use of any plant matter, including forest deadwood and agriculture and garden residues, entails considerable ecological costs. "As farmers and agronomists know, 'biomass waste' does not exist; it is the organic matter that you have to put back after harvest in order to maintain the soil's fertility," advises GRAIN. "If you don't, you mine the soil and contribute to its destruction. And that is precisely what will happen if the world's topsoil has to compete with the bio-distillers." If so-called "agricultural waste" is not used to fertilize fields, it will have to be replaced by synthetic fertilizers, which are industrial agriculture's biggest contributor to global warming. Once applied to fields, the nitrogen in fertilizer combines with oxygen to form nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. According to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a 700- page document commissioned by the British government, agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions will increase 30% by 2020. Half of this will be due to increased fertilizer use. In the same period, the Third World is expected to double its fertilizer use and much of this increase will be for agrofuels. A 2005 joint report by the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture notes that the use of wood, grasses, and "plant waste" for the production of cellulosic ethanol would require 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass a year. Obtaining this amount of biomass would be possible only by removing most of the country's agricultural residues, planting 55 million hectares under perennial crops like switchgrass, and putting all U.S. farmland under "no-till" agriculture, say the report's authors. "The removal of organic residues from fields will require greater use of nitrate fertilizers, thus increasing nitrous oxide emissions, nitrate overloading, and its very serious impacts on the biodiversity on land, freshwater, and oceans," according to a 2007 report authored by 11 civil society organizations, including Argentina's Grupo de Reflexión Rural, Watch Indonesia, EcoNexus, Corporate Europe Observatory, and Friends of the Earth Denmark. "The complete removal of plant material is also likely to accelerate topsoil losses, causing further decline in soil nutrients. This could have serious implications for human health in terms of future nutrient deficiencies in food crops. It is also likely to reduce soil water retention, making agriculture more vulnerable to droughts." The report continues, "The removal of dead and dying trees from managed forests already leads to large-scale biodiversity losses and possibly to lower carbon sequestration in forests ... Removing even more 'wood residues' for agrofuels would almost certainly accelerate biodiversity loss and reduce carbon storage in forests. Growing millions of hectares of land under perennial crops for bioenergy will put intense pressure on land both for food production and communities, and for natural ecosystems. Many plants which have been identified as preferred choices for second generation agrofuels already cause serious environmental harm as invasive species, such as miscanthus, switch grass, or reed canary grass." Translated for the Americas Program by Carmelo Ruiz Marrero. Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero is a Puerto Rican independent environmental journalist and environmental analyst for the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org), a fellow of the Oakland Institute and a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program and founder/director of the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety (bioseguridad.blogspot.com). His bilingual web page (carmeloruiz.blogspot.com) is devoted to global environment and development issues.

Biotecnología y Agrocombustibles

Biotecnología y Agrocombustibles

Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
(Artículo publicado el domingo 3 de febrero 2008 en periódico puertorriqueño El Nuevo Día bajo el título 'Riesgo Ecológico')

Hay un nuevo participante en los debates sobre el calentamiento global y los agrocombustibles: la industria de la biotecnología. Los gigantes corporativos de la genética están proponiendo nuevas tecnologías, como árboles genéticamente alterados y biología sintética, para producir combustibles biológicos. Pero no todo el mundo está contento con esta visión.

Las empresas de biotecnología agrícola figuran entre los principales impulsores del uso de cultivos, como maíz, soya y caña de azúcar, para hacer combustibles como etanol y diesel. Su entusiasmo se debe en gran parte a que enfrentan dificultades severas vendiendo sus cultivos genéticamente alterados, conocidos también como transgénicos (vea el recuadro ‘Zozobran los transgénicos’).

Frente a esta situación, la industria ve su salvación en la producción de cultivos transgénicos para combustible. De esta manera pueden despachar las preocupaciones acerca de los efectos que puedan tener sobre la salud humana (“Son para combustible, no para alimento”) y a la vez ganar injerencia directa en los foros internacionales donde se discute el calentamiento global.

Las ambiciones del sector biotecnológico van mucho más allá de simplemente utilizar cultivos convencionales como maíz y soya para hacer combustible, sino que van encaminadas a desarrollar la próxima generación de agrocombustibles, los cuales serán derivados de celulosa.

RECUADRO: Donativo récord a la academia

La British Petroleum (BP) firmó en 2007 un acuerdo con la Universidad de California (UC), recinto de Berkeley, y el Laboratorio Lawrence Berkeley de la Universidad de Illinois para fundar el Energy Biosciences Institute, entidad que usará la biotecnología para desarrollar combustibles. ¿Y qué hay en este trato para estas dos instituciones? Respuesta: $500 millones, un donativo privado sin precedentes en la historia de la academia. Robert A. Malone, jefe de BP, dijo que su compañía “se está uniendo a algunos de los mejores talentos mundiales en ciencias e ingeniería para responder a la demanda por energías de bajo contenido de carbono, que estaremos trabajando para mejorar y expandir la producción de energía limpia, renovable, a través del desarrollo de mejores plantaciones”.

Pero el trato BP-Berkeley, como se le conoce, ha provocado la airada oposición de grupos de estudiantes, facultad y ciudadanos. “Esta asociación refleja un alineamiento global corporativo rápido, sin fiscalización, y sin precedentes, de las más grandes empresas del mundo en el agronegocio, la biotecnología, el petróleo y las industrias automotrices”, denunciaron los profesores de la UC Miguel Altieri e Ignacio Chapela. “Para ellas es una inversión relativamente pequeña, ya que estas empresas se van a apropiar de la pericia académica construida a través de décadas de apoyo gubernamental, lo que se traduce en billones de dólares en ganancias para esos socios globales”.

RECUADRO: ZOZOBRAN LOS TRANSGÉNICOS

Los transgénicos son organismos cuya composición genética (genoma) ha sido alterada mediante técnicas de ingeniería genética, la cual permite combinaciones genéticas que nunca serían posibles en la naturaleza. Los productos transgénicos aprobados para comercialización por el Gobierno de Estados Unidos son mayormente variedades de maíz y soya que fueron alteradas para resistencia a plagas (cultivos Bt) o herbicida (semillas Roundup Ready). Estos se utilizan mayormente para alimentar animales de finca -de los que se producen carne, huevos y lácteos- y hacer aditivos (como endulzadores y harina) presentes en casi todos los alimentos procesados.

Pese a los esfuerzos de las compañías de biotecnología, amplios sectores ciudadanos alrededor del mundo entero rechazan estos productos por entender que no son seguros ni beneficiosos.

• En 2007, sobre tres millones de italianos firmaron una petición a su gobierno para que continúe en pie la prohibición a siembras transgénicas en el país.

• Hasta en África hay resistencia. Sudán, Angola y Zambia han exigido que la ayuda alimentaria que reciben no contenga transgénicos. En 2007, las autoridades sudafricanas se rehusaron a aprobar la siembra de casabe y sorgo transgénico. Y en ese mismo año la oposición militante de la sociedad civil logró que la legislatura de Kenia rechazara un proyecto de ley favorable a los transgénicos.

• En el Foro Social Mundial de 2007, celebrado en Kenia, 70 organizaciones de doce países africanos se declararon en contra de los transgénicos. Un mes después, grupos de agricultores y de sociedad civil de 17 países se congregaron en Mali y expresaron categóricamente su oposición a los transgénicos.

• Cuando el director de la Organización de Agricultura y Alimentos de las Naciones Unidas (FAO) expresó en 2004 que los transgénicos ayudarán en la guerra contra el hambre, sobre 650 organizaciones firmaron una carta abierta desmintiéndolo, alegando que al endosar los transgénicos la FAO les declaraba la guerra a los agricultores y no al hambre.

Recursos online

ARBORGEN - www.arborgen.com

BIOENERGY SCIENCE CENTER - http://bioenergycenter.org

CAMPAÑA CONTRA CONVENIO BP-BERKELEY - www.stopbp-berkeley.org

GENOMES TO LIFE - http://genomicsgtl.energy.gov

GLOBAL CLIMATE AND ENERGY PROJECT - http://gcep.stanford.edu

GRAIN - http://grain.org

GRUPO ETC - www.etcgroup.org

MENDEL BIOTECHNOLOGY - www.mendelbio.com

SYNTHETIC GENOMICS - www.syntheticgenomics.com

VERENIUM - www.verenium.com

VOTORANTIM - www.votorantim.com.br/ptb

Y ¿qué importancia tiene la celulosa? Hay muchas materias vegetales, como la madera, que no pueden ser convertidas fácilmente en combustible líquido debido a su contenido de celulosa, sustancia que sólo algunos microbios pueden digerir y procesar. Todavía no se ha inventado una manera práctica de convertir la celulosa en combustible como para hacer mella en la demanda energética global, pero la carrera para lograrlo ya empezó. El poder convertir la celulosa en combustible haría posible usar cualquier materia vegetal, viva o muerta, para fines energéticos. Por menos que eso uno se gana un premio Nobel.

En 2006 inversionistas de capital de riesgo invirtieron $235 millones en el desarrollo de agrocombustibles celulósicos. Ese mismo año el Gobierno chino anunció que gastaría cinco mil millones de dólares en los siguientes diez años para expandir la producción de etanol, con énfasis especial en etanol celulósico. Y mientras tanto, el Departamento de Energía de Estados Unidos está invirtiendo $385 millones en instalaciones de etanol de celulosa para el período 2007-2010.

La compañía de biotecnología Monsanto, líder mundial en cultivos transgénicos, está metida de lleno en el desarrollo de agrocombustibles. En 2005 pasó a ser la mayor compañía de semillas del mundo al comprar a Seminis, empresa fundada por el magnate mexicano Alfonso Romo. Al momento de ser comprada, Seminis controlaba 40% del mercado de semillas de vegetales en Estados Unidos. Este vasto catálogo de semillas, del cual salía 75% de los tomates vendidos en EE.UU., e incluía numerosas variedades de lechuga, repollo, melones y espinaca, ahora pertenece a Monsanto.

El año pasado Mendel Biotechnology -compañía de la cual Monsanto es codueña- compró la empresa alemana Tinplant Biotechnik, que posee la mayor colección del mundo de variedades de miscanthus, una de las plantas más prometedoras para la producción de etanol celulósico. Actualmente, Mendel desarrolla variedades transgénicas de miscanthus y el pasado mes de junio, British Petroleum (BP), la cuarta corporación más grande del mundo, comenzó a financiar a Mendel para la investigación de cultivos agrocombustibles celulósicos.

Otras petroleras en este campo son Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, que invirtió $100 millones en una empresa conjunta con Tyson Foods para procesar grasa animal, y la brasileña Petrobrás, que pactó con la japonesa Itochu para hacer bioetanol.

A Monsanto le interesa también el potencial de la maleza Panicum virgatum (en inglés, ‘switchgrass’) para combustible, y tiene con la corporación Ceres una colaboración a este fin. Ceres dice estar “mejorando genéticamente el pasto ‘switchgrass’ como cultivo mediante la selección de tipos mejorados pero, lo más importante, está aportando genes de su propiedad, herramientas y procedimientos para impulsar las mejoras más rápidamente y proveer a la planta de atributos idealmente adecuados para ser cultivada en grandes áreas y dar rendimientos constantemente más elevados”. Ceres alega tener la mayor colección privada de genes vegetales totalmente secuenciados, con patentes en más de 75 mil genes.

Las investigaciones en caña de azúcar no se quedan atrás, y Brasil está en la delantera. El conglomerado brasileño Votorantim es dueño de CanaVialis, compañía más grande del mundo en mejoramiento genético de la caña; y de Allelyx, empresa de biotecnología de la caña. Ambas subsidiarias están desarrollando caña de azúcar transgénica para hacer etanol. En 2006 Monsanto anunció que está trabajando con Votorantim para comercializar caña transgénica para el año que viene.

La academia, entretanto, está pescando en río revuelto. El año pasado BP dio la insólita suma de $500 millones a las universidades de Illinois y California para desarrollar agrocombustibles (vea el recuadro ‘Donativo récord’). Por su parte, el Global Climate and Energy Project de la Universidad de Stanford recibirá $100 millones de Exxon-Mobil, segunda corporación más grande del mundo, en los próximos diez años. Las actividades de este proyecto incluyen ingeniería genética para agrocombustibles. Otros donantes corporativos son General Electric y Toyota, quienes darán $50 millones cada uno.

El futuro de la celulosa

Hay un obstáculo para el uso de la celulosa: la lignina. Esta sustancia, que da dureza y firmeza a plantas y árboles, sólo puede ser digerida por algunas bacterias y hongos. Mientras más lignina, más difícil es llegar a la celulosa. La lignina es precisamente lo que hace difícil y complicado el convertir madera en pulpa de papel.

No son de sorprender entonces los esfuerzos por desarrollar árboles transgénicos con contenido de lignina reducido. La compañía estadounidense ArborGen es la líder mundial en el desarrollo de árboles transgénicos. El pasado mes de agosto compró los viveros de tres de sus competidores, convirtiéndose así en la mayor productora de plántulas de árboles en el mundo, con operaciones en puntos tan diversos como Nueva Zelandia y Brasil.

ArborGen espera lucrarse con la moda de los agrocombustibles y ya se ha expandido para incluirlos en sus investigaciones, particularmente en el área de árboles transgénicos con contenido reducido de lignina. “La energía renovable puede crear nuevos mercados para los productos verdes”, dijo Barbara Wells, directora ejecutiva de la empresa. ArborGen es uno de los socios corporativos del BioEnergy Science Center, un proyecto de $125 millones del Departamento de Energía de Estados Unidos dedicado a adelantar el procesamiento de biomasa lignocelulósica para hacer combustible.

Peligro, advierten ecologistas

El uso de árboles para hacer combustible significa plantaciones de monocultivo forestal de extensiones masivas. Ya existen tales plantaciones en Suramérica para extraer madera y pulpa de papel. Este modelo forestal ha sido objeto de duras críticas y oposición.

“En todos los países donde se han implantado estos monocultivos, las consecuencias han sido las mismas: mayor riqueza y poder para unas pocas empresas nacionales y extranjeras y mayor pobreza para las comunidades locales”, declaró en 2007 la Red Contra Monocultivos de Árboles, una coalición con miembros en 16 países. “Como contrapartida, la oposición a este modelo social y ambientalmente nefasto está creciendo a nivel local, nacional y regional”.

“Sin embargo, pareciera que en la mayoría de nuestros países se hace oídos sordos a los reclamos de la gente y se continúan promoviendo políticas que están agravando aún más las situaciones descritas arriba y que incrementarían las áreas de ‘desiertos verdes’. Las que se anuncian como ‘soluciones’ para el cambio climático no sólo no solucionarán el problema, sino que serán causa de mayores sufrimientos en las comunidades. Los agrocombustibles son ejemplo de estas falsas soluciones que ya se están implementando en nuestros países. A ello se suma el peligro de los planes para la liberación de árboles transgénicos, que ya están siendo genéticamente manipulados en laboratorios en Chile y Brasil”, agrega la Red.

Uno de los problemas que los ecologistas ven con los árboles transgénicos es que, como seres vivos que son, regarán sus semillas y polen y proliferarán de manera descontrolada, un fenómeno conocido como contaminación genética.

“Esta contaminación es particularmente peligrosa en el caso del árbol más extensamente utilizado en plantaciones -el eucalipto- cuyas muchas especies tienen la capacidad de hibridarse y pueden, por lo tanto, ser fácilmente polinizados por eucaliptos transgénicos”, declararon un grupo de ecologistas de varios países en una carta a la Convención de Biodiversidad de la ONU en 2006. “También existe el mismo peligro en el caso de otras especies ampliamente plantadas, tales como los pinos, álamos y acacias. En China, el único país en que los árboles transgénicos han sido plantados a escala comercial, la contaminación de los álamos nativos ya ha sido documentada”.

La carta abierta enfatiza que manipular el contenido de lignina puede ser un problema. “Los árboles con menos lignina (y mayor contenido de celulosa) estarían más expuestos a las plagas, probablemente aumentaría su caída ante fuertes vientos, y la descomposición de su madera sería más rápida, alterando la composición del suelo y liberando CO2 con mayor rapidez, contribuyendo de esta manera al cambio climático. La madera descompuesta de los bosques provee un hábitat esencial para una gran diversidad de flora y fauna. Alterar los niveles de descomposición tendría un efecto grave en poblaciones de especies, cuya consecuencia aún no ha sido estudiada”.

Algunos ecologistas sostienen que el utilizar cualquier materia vegetal para producir energía tiene riesgos ecológicos considerables. “Retirar los residuos orgánicos de los campos implicaría tener que usar más nitratos fertilizantes, incrementando las emisiones de óxido nitroso, lo que sobrecargaría de nitrato el sistema provocando serios impactos en la biodiversidad”, advierte el documento ‘Agrofuels: Towards a Reality Check’, presentado en 2007 a la Convención de Diversidad Biológica de la ONU.

El informe fue coescrito por once grupos de sociedad civil de Argentina, Dinamarca e Indonesia, entre otros países. “Despojar por completo la materia vegetal implica acelerar las pérdidas de cubierta del suelo, lo que ocasiona la devastación de los nutrientes del suelo”, dijeron.

GRAIN, organización internacional de defensa de la biodiversidad, advierte que con los agrocombustibles de segunda generación “lo que veremos es una disminución aún más drástica de la materia orgánica que se devuelve a los suelos, un deterioro creciente de la fertilidad de estos y una dependencia cada vez más profunda de los fertilizantes químicos, lo que a su vez llevará a nuevas pérdidas de materia orgánica. Lo que se anuncia, entonces, es la creación de un círculo vicioso que llevará a emisiones crecientes de gases con efecto de invernadero y deterioro creciente de los suelos”.

Biología sintética

En el futuro cercano el debate sobre los agrocombustibles podría ser transformado por el nuevo campo de la biología sintética. También conocida como synbio, la biología sintética va más allá de la ingeniería genética. “Hoy día los científicos no están solamente haciendo mapas de genomas (códigos genéticos) y manipulando genes, están construyendo vida desde cero”, dice el Grupo ETC, organización no gubernamental que investiga los impactos de nuevas tecnologías. “Usando una computadora laptop, prácticamente cualquier persona tiene el potencial de construir genes o genomas enteros”.

Un pequeño pero creciente número de científicos-empresarios están montándose en el tren de la biología sintética con fondos públicos y capital de riesgo, y formando compañías, como LS9, Amyris y Codon Devices. Ellos dicen que con la biología sintética se podrán fabricar organismos artificiales que harán de todo, desde detener el calentamiento global hasta producir combustibles.

El más prominente de estos capitalistas de nuevo cuño es el polémico científico Craig Venter, quien se hizo famoso dilucidando la secuencia del genoma humano en su antigua compañía Celera Genomics. En 2007 la revista Time lo puso en su lista de las cien personas más influyentes del mundo.

En 2005 Venter fundó Synthetic Genomics, compañía que busca crear microbios sintéticos que producirán combustibles como etanol e hidrógeno. La mitad de su capital inicial vino del ya mencionado Alfonso Romo. El Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives, organización sin fines de lucro fundada por Venter, recibe dinero de Genomes To Life, un programa del Departamento de Energía de Estados Unidos que desarrolla el uso de plantas y microbios para faenas como generar energía y remover carbono de la atmósfera.

No todo el mundo está entusiasmado con el surgimiento de formas de vida sintéticas. “Las amenazas sociales, ambientales y de bioarmas de la biología sintética sobrepasan los posibles peligros y abusos de la biotecnología”, advierte el Grupo ETC. “La biología sintética significa herramientas más baratas y accesibles para construir armas biológicas, patógenos virulentos y organismos artificiales que podrían presentar graves amenazas a la gente y el planeta. El peligro no es solamente el bioterror, sino el ‘bioerror’”.

En 2006, una coalición de 35 organizaciones internacionales de científicos, ambientalistas, sindicalistas, expertos en guerra biológica y otros sectores pidieron debate público, reglamentación y supervisión de la biología sintética.

Una visión radicalmente distinta

Los detractores plantean que ante la crisis energética y el calentamiento global lo que se necesita no son soluciones de alta tecnología, sino confrontar el sistema económico y proveer alternativas ecológicas basadas en el desarrollo a nivel local.

“No hay escapatoria: tenemos que reducir el consumo de energía si queremos sobrevivir en este planeta”, sentencia GRAIN. “De nada sirve pedir a las compañías automovilísticas que hagan sus automóviles un poco más eficientes en materia energética, si la cantidad de automóviles se va a duplicar. De nada sirve pedirle a la gente que apague las luces de sus casas, si todo el sistema económico continúa orientado exclusivamente a mover mercancías por todo el planeta, desde los países donde las empresas que los producen pueden obtener los máximos márgenes de ganancias”.

“Para resolver el problema del cambio climático no necesitamos plantaciones de agrocombustibles. En cambio, necesitamos dar un giro de 180 grados en el sistema industrial de alimentos. Requerimos políticas y estrategias para reducir el consumo de energía e impedir el derroche. Tales políticas y estrategias ya existen; se lucha por ellas”.

La Vía Campesina , organización internacional que representa a decenas de millones de campesinos y pequeños agricultores en el mundo entero, propone la producción en pequeña escala, sin necesidad de gran maquinaria industrial que utiliza mucha energía y libera gases de efecto invernadero; la agricultura orgánica, que no usa agrotóxicos elaborados a base de combustibles fósiles; y la energía solar.

El pasado 5 de enero el diario inglés The Guardian incluyó al líder de Vía Campesina, Henry Saragih, en su lista de las 50 personas que podrían salvar el mundo, lista que incluye a Al Gore y la canciller alemana Angel a Merkel.

Según la Vía Campesina , es necesario cambiar de forma radical las formas de producir, comercializar y consumir alimentos, bajo la concepción de que la agricultura sustentable a pequeña escala y el consumo local de alimentos pueden revertir la devastación ambiental actual y sustentar a millones de familias rurales y urbanas que actualmente no acceden a alimentos de calidad y cantidad suficientes.

“La agricultura también puede contribuir a enfriar la tierra usando prácticas agrícolas que reduzcan las emisiones de CO² y el uso de energía por los campesinos”, declaró la agrupación durante la conferencia mundial sobre cambio climático en Bali en diciembre pasado.

Según los profesores Miguel Altieri e Ignacio Chapela, de la Universidad de California, “la única manera de parar el calentamiento global es promover la agricultura orgánica en pequeña escala y reducir el uso de todos los combustibles, lo que implica disminuir los patrones de consumo y el desarrollo de sistemas masivos de transporte público”.

GRAIN concurre: “En la agricultura y la producción de alimentos eso significa orientar la producción a los mercados locales en lugar de los mercados internacionales; significa adoptar estrategias para mantener a la gente en la tierra, en vez de expulsarla; significa apoyar enfoques sostenidos y sustentables para regresarle la diversidad biológica a la agricultura; significa diversificar los sistemas de producción agrícola, utilizando y expandiendo los saberes locales; significa poner a las comunidades locales nuevamente al frente del desarrollo rural”.

“Tales políticas y estrategias implican la utilización y el posterior desarrollo de tecnologías tradicionales y agroecológicas para mantener y mejorar la fertilidad del suelo y la materia orgánica -y en el proceso secuestrar dióxido de carbono en el suelo, en vez de desprenderlo a la atmósfera. También requieren una confrontación decidida con el complejo agroindustrial mundial, ahora más fuerte que nunca, que está conduciendo su agenda de agrocombustibles justo en la dirección opuesta”.

http://www.elnuevodia.com/diario/noticia/revistas/revistas/riesgo_ecologico/356539

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hc160108.html

Biofuels, BP-Berkeley, and the New Ecological Imperialism
by Hannah Holleman and Rebecca Clausen

In February 2007, BP announced plans with the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, in partnership with the University of Illinois and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to lead the largest academic-industry research alliance in U.S. history. The $50 million-a-year bone that BP will throw to Berkeley will create the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), primarily focusing its research on biotechnology to produce biofuels. "In launching this visionary institute, BP is creating a new model for university-industry collaboration," said Beth Burnside, UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Research (quoted in Sanders 2007). In light of the historic record of capitalist accumulation, this "new model" for university-industry collaboration looks like old wine in a new bottle: appropriate a social good (public university), privatize the property (intellectual development), and commodify the output (energy-intensive products). And in this instance, BP has recruited a public institution to be its profit-making subsidiary.

Appropriating Academia

This is not the first time UC Berkeley fed at the corporate trough, and as government expenditures for social goods continue to decline relatively, it is likely that it won't be the last. Berkeley entered into a research deal with the seed giant Novartis ten years ago, after which an external review of the UCB-Novartis interaction recommended avoiding such partnerships (Altieri and Holt-Gimenez 2007). Nevertheless, on November 15, 2007, BP, the UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced the signing of a controversial ten-year pact forming the Energy Biosciences Institute. The current deal with BP is ten times larger than the Novartis deal.

UC Berkeley officially enters Faustian deal

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UC Berkeley officially enters Faustian deal with oil giant BP

Student Campaign to Stop BP at Berkeley
Wednesday Nov 14th 2007 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/11/14/18461214.php

'Our Generation's Manhattan Project' is now reality; students, faculty, citizens outraged

Berkeley, Calif. - As the San Francisco Bay Area reels from the worst oil spill in living memory, UC Berkeley and oil giant BP secretly signed a $500 million deal despite public criticism and calls for transparency. The contract will create an 'Energy Biosciences Institute' (EBI) to do research on genetically engineered agrofuels (also known as biofuels) and microbes for enhanced oil and coal production. The final agreement, released today, allows BP to conduct secret research in the publicly-funded EBI building, while reaping the benefits of the open research done by university scientists on the same project.

The deal has become infamous since its preliminary announcement on February 1, 2007, as a threat to public research at the world's premier public university. Its signing has been fraught with controversy as Berkeley faculty charged administrators with bypassing standard processes of governance. UCB administrators, who said the deal was negotiated 'at warp speed,' also disregarded an external review the University commissioned in the wake of the equally ill-received Novartis-Berkeley deal of 1998, which advised them to 'avoid industry agreements that involve complete academic units or large groups of researchers.' The university's student government passed a strong resolution calling for the deal to be delayed so its terms could be studied.

The BP/Berkeley research, and schemes for large-scale agrofuel production in general, are facing strong popular resistance around the world, for instance from farmers in Africa, peasants and consumers' groups across South America, and environmentalists from Papua New Guinea to Denmark and Germany. The use of land for large-scale agrofuel farming would place the unconstrained energy 'needs' of first-world consumers into direct competition with cash-poor countries' food supplies and conservation of rare and important ecosystems. These conflicts are already reality, even in today's tiny agrofuel market, as U.S. ethanol production has led to riots over skyrocketing corn prices in Mexico earlier this year, and palm-oil farming for export threatens to drive the orangutan to extinction in Indonesia and Malaysia.

BP scientists will be treated like tenured faculty at Berkeley, with privileges such as teaching classes, mentoring students, and conducting research in a building constructed with $70 million of taxpayer funding.

The Institute's researchers, including both Berkeley and BP scientists, will be housed in Berkeley's Strawberry Canyon, a mere few hundred meters from the Hayward Fault, probably the most dangerous earthquake fault in Northern California. Untested genetically-modified organisms could easily be released in case of a serious earthquake.

This new development is a direct continuation of UC Berkeley's past involvement in global devastation and inequality, from its participation in the devastation of native tribes and desecration of native remains to the development of nuclear weapons, all of which continue to this day. The research and technologies the EBI is designed to create are a direct threat to indigenous and traditional communities around the world. They have the potential to create new global catastrophes beyond the climate crisis, ranging from predictable extinctions and financial crises resulting from excessive pressure on the global agricultural economy to ecological collapses brought on by escaped genetically modified organisms.

BP and Berkeley administrators have referred to this project as 'our generation's moon shot' and compared it to the Manhattan project, the unprecedented large, fast and secret research project that created the Atomic Bomb. Like the Manhattan Project, the EBI is unprecedented in scale, is being initiated at Berkeley, and has been rushed into existence in secrecy. Democracy has no more place in this project than in its predecessor, and the damage it ultimately causes may be just as severe.

Resistance to the BP project, and any further violations of the UC's responsibility to California and the world, will continue undeterred by this latest disgrace committed by the university's administration. The Student Campaign to Stop BP at Berkeley (http://StopBP-Berkeley.org) has opposed the deal unequivocally since it was announced. Its recent international petition calling for transparency and a halt to negotiations quickly received nearly 1,000 signatures from people in over 50 countries.

For further information:

Student Campaign to Stop BP at Berkeley http://StopBP-Berkeley.org

Related recent news:

BP Executive pied in Europe http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/383831.html

BP/Berkeley deal featured on Boston Legal season premiere http://chronicle.com/blogs/facevalue/index.php?id=683

http://stopBP-Berkeley.org

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