Uncategorized

According to a German newspaper report there will be no Amflora cultivation in 2009. In May 2008, the EU Commission had requested an additional opinion from the EFSA after memberstates did not find a qualified majority to approve or reject BASF's application to cultivate the GM ptotato in Europe. Concerns were raised repeatedly about the antibiotic resistance marker gene nptII in Amflora, that among others concerns antibiotica used as a last resort for multi-resistant tuberculosis.
But a closer look at the Draft Decision by the EU Commission also shows that the EU Commission came to a very different conclusion about risks and risk management of Amflora cultivation. While the EFSA stated that they agreed with BASF that no case-specific monitoring was needed, the EU Commission drafted a decision in which case-specific monitoring was requested to monitor effects on potato feeding animals on and around the fields - an issue the EFSA had not even considered in its review of the application. (More details in the German report EU-Risikomanagement.)
Already in 2008 2008, BASF had sued the EU Commission for unduly delaying a decision. A new EFSA opinion was expected on 15 December, but now will only be published in March 2009 - too late for planting in 2009, independent of what the outcome of this new opinion will be.

On 31 Octobers, cottons fields were harvested in Texas, US. The cotton was then processed into cottonseed oil and cotton meal and sold as animal feed in the US and Mexico. Most of it might already been eaten up by now. One of the fields however was not a normal field but a field trial from Monsanto. A week after the harvest, scientists found that their experimental Bt cotton field had gone.
About a quarter ton of GM cotton got harvested together with 60 tons conventional tons from the neighbouring fields. This harvest was then stored in a facility with about 20.000 tons of cotton and processed from there.
That's adds up to one field trial potentially contaminating a harvest up to 80.000 times its own weight.

An assessment of statements and decisions by the EU Commission shows that the EU Commission repeatedly points to the independence of the EFSA instead of taking up the responsibility to assess and control the work of the EFSA. So far the Commission usually hides behind the EFSA opinions and in practice even leaves the power to take decisions to the EFSA even though this is in contradiction to the EU regulation. In other cases however, like the cultivation of Bt11, 1507 maize and Amflora, at least some parts of the EU Commission disagree with the EFSA opinion.

On 13 November 2008, the Dutch parliament decided that the agricultural minister Verburg should vote against the approval of the herbicide-tolerant soy MON89788 at the next Council Meeting of the EU agricultural ministers. Reasons are especially the failure of EFSA to consider long-term effects of GM crops.
In general The Netherlands are very much in favour of the GM crops, but in this case even two motions were put forward: one by the Socialist Party asking for a no-vote from Verburg, another one from the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, both of which are in the government coalition asking either for a no-vote or postponing a vote.
Update 19 November: After consulting the rest of the Dutch government, who is notoriously pro-GM, the Dutch agricultural minister Verburg decided to ignore the motion. On 19 November she voted in favour of the approval of MOn89788 soy. The decision failed to get a qualified majority, so it is now up to the EU Commission to take a decision.
Update 4 December: The EU Commission gave approval for the import and food/feed use of the GM soy.

"Summarising the study, the maize with the stacked event NK603 x MON810 affected
the reproduction of mice in the RACB trial." - that is the conclusion of a study conducted by Austrian scientiest, commissioned by the Austrian ministries for agircultere and environement and for health.
On more then 100 pages the authors give details of their long-term study over 4 generations of mice. In addition to reproduction rates and organ weights, the authors also looked at the way genes were expressed differently depending on GM and non-GM diet: "In total 439 genes were found to be expressed differentially." (For details of the results and discussion see the full report.)
The reaction from Monsanto on a press release on the study was predictable: First of all Monsanto wanted to see the full study before commenting. Fair enough. But secondly, Monsanto already criticized the study as not peer-reviewed. True - but then again: Monsanto's own studies that were used as basis for the approval of their GM crops are not peer-reviewed either. So would Monsanto consider their own studies as not valid either.
The study of the Austrian scientists also draw attention to the criteria the EFSA applies for its risk assessment of GM crops. In October 2005, EFSA gave a positive opinion for NK603xMON810 for use as food & feed.

For the third time now the EFSA has given a positive opinion on the two maize events Bt11 and 1507.
In November 2007, Environmental Commissioner Dimas had proposed that an approval for cultivation for these Bt-maize events should not be given. In May 2008 the Commission send the two notifications back to the EFSA with the explicit question to review eleven scientific studies that had come out since the EFSA gave its last opinion. Now on 29 October 2008, the EFSA once more gave an opinion - and once more it is positive.
How can it be that over years now the Competent Authorities of several memberstates as well as the DG Environment sees risks in the cultivation of these Bt maize - but the EFSA simply maintains their position that everything is fine? Do the members of the GMO Panel have such a completely different view on what makes a risk?

The November issue of the Ecologist has a special issue on "GM - Seeds of change or fool's gold?"
It contains a number of interesting articles on drought tolerance by Jack Heinemann, about pro-GM agendas in the media by Guy Cook, about developments in the UK by Clare Oxborrow, Becky Price and Pete Riley, about yields of GM crops by Ricarda Steinbrecher and Antje Lorch, and a short piece on PRRI.

20 years of research and about 25 Million Euros later and an Australian company developed a transgenic blue rose. Is that really why we need genetic engineering?

In the beginning everything was simple. Bt maize was supposed to be just on the field, and nothing else would be affected: No organism that wasn't on the field, no organisms that would prey on maize pests. But over the years things became more complicated and now it's common knowledge that parts of the Bt plants make it off the field themselves, that predators can be affected indirectly in the food web. And still the question whether the field crop maize could also water organisms seems to be one step too far for most risk assessments.

In 2007, the GM potato Amflora was cultivated on nearly 450 ha in Germany. The goal of the “field trial” as to produce seed potatoes just in case Amflora would be allowed for commercial cultivation. But another result now becomes quite obvious: GM potatoes cannot be kept under control and they cannot be cleared off the field completely. In summer 2008, despite repeated controls Amflora potatoes are happily growing on the field.