sovereignty

A ripening field of organic barley in the United Kingdom with hedges for diverse plant and animal life. The figures follow recent announcements of the biotech industry retreating from parts of Europe.

Mute Schimpf, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said: 

“The public’s rejection of genetically modified crops has ensured that they are confined to small pockets of the European Union. Politicians need to listen to public opinion and throw their weight behind the demand for greener and safer farming. Genetically modified crops should play no role in the future of Europe’s farming.”

Last month the world’s biggest chemical company, BASF, announced that it was halting the development and commercialisation of genetically modified crops in Europe. It said its decision was due to, “lack of acceptance for this technology in many parts of Europe – from the majority of consumers, farmers and politicians”.

Similarly Monsanto announced that it would not sell its genetically modified maize, MON810, in France in 2012, and beyond.

Resistance to genetically modified crops isn’t restricted to Europe. People worldwide are objecting to the power of the biotech companies and their push to control the global food chain.

“The evidence against genetically modified crops continues to grow. Since their introduction in the Americas, herbicide use has rocketed as farmers try to control fast evolving super-weeds, now resistant to many chemicals. Communities and nature are paying the price of the resulting pollution. The biotech system of farming is a dead-end and will fail to meet the needs of the future,” Mute concluded. 

Further reading

The report analyses the activities of 29 European banks, pension funds and insurance companies, including Deutsche Bank, Barclays, RBS, Allianz, BNP Paribas, AXA, HSBC, Generali, Allianz, Unicredit and Credit Agricole. It reveals the significant involvement of these financial institutions in food speculation, and the direct or indirect financing of land grabbing. Environmental and development organisations are calling for strict regulation to rein in these destructive activities.

Read the report

Daniel Pentzlin, sustainable finance campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe said: “Food speculation and the financing of land grabbing leads to a catastrophic instability in global food prices – forcing millions of people into poverty and hunger. European banks, insurers and funds that speculate with food and land are gambling with peoples’ lives whilst reaping huge profits. This industry needs strict regulation to protect the poorest in society.”

Friends of the Earth Europe is calling on financial institutions to investigate, publish and reduce their involvement in food speculation and investments in land. Banks, pension funds and insurers should phase-out and refrain from speculating in financial products based on staple foods, which threatens the human right to food. European regulators should introduce caps on the size of bets speculators can make to curb excessive speculation.

Read the report

Valencia's local government has revoked the permit of an Italian pharmaceutical company to experiment with GM rice combined with human genes in Vinaros, Castellon. 

After protests from social, ecologist and peasant organizations, the Valencian Committee of Genetically Modified Organisms, which depends on the Council of Agriculture, has rejected this dangerous crop.

The aim of the GM trial was to obtain enzymes to treat Gaucher's disease. However, there are several treatments for this disease that are obtained through genetic engineering in confined environments.

The risks associated with this experiment would have been far to high for what was a commercial purpose. There are already many cases of contamination with experimental GMOs, some of them with rice crops.

The trials were opposed by various social, ecological and farmers organisations. In Castellon the 15M movement were involved in setting up information stands about GM crops in various towns in the province in order to educate citizens more on the controversial science. 

Talks and open debates were also organised and a cyberaction was carried out in which 5,000 people participated requesting the annulment of the license granted to the crop. As a result of the opposition, the municipality declared the Castellon region would remain GM-free. 

However, in Spain as a whole, there are still numerous experiments with GM crops taking place. The country is the only EU member state that cultivates large-scale commercial GM corn.

Further information

The following organizations participated in this campaign:

*ACSUD Las Segovias * ADP Amics de Palanques * ADV Producció Ecològica del Montsia Baix Ebre * Amigos de la Tierra * APNAL Ecologistas en Acción Vinaròs * Asociación Olea * Colla Ecologista d’Alacant/Ecologistas en Acción * Colla Ecologista de Castelló * Colla Ecologista d´Almassora * GECEN * GER Ecologistas en Acción Vila-real * Greenpeace * Grup de Ciències Meridià Zero * Intersindical Valenciana * ISF Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Valencia * La Unió de Llauradors i Ramaders * Llavors d´ací * Asociación de consumo L´Alficòs * L´Arquet Ecologistas en Acción Vall d’Uixó * Mercatrèmol Alacant * Plataforma Andalucía Libre de Transgénicos - PALT * Plataforma Ciutadana No a la Contaminació * Red de Semillas Resembrando e Intercambiando * Som lo que sembrem * Terratrèmol * Xarxa d´Agroecologia de Castelló

Check out the campaign's blog for more information: http://notransgenicsavinaros.blogspot.com/

From 18-20 April, investors, government officials and staff of international agencies will gather in Washington DC for the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty to discuss how to operationalise a framework called Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment  (RAI). Formulated by the World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), RAI consists of seven principles which investors may choose whether or not to abide by when conducting large-scale farmland acquisitions. 

A statement released by Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo Mexicano, FIAN International, Focus on the Global South, Friends of the Earth International, Global Campaign on Agrarian Reform, GRAIN, La Via Campesina, Land Research Action Network, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos and World Forum of Fisher Peoples calls instead for an outright ban on land grabbing.

According to Henry Saragih from La Via Campesina, “The food price crisis happened because of the commoditization of food. RAI will legitimize land grabbing worse than in the colonial era. All sizes and types of land will be taken by TNCs; there will be no place for peasants, peoples and communities to live. This type of agricultural production is creating a way of life that is highly dependent on a few TNCs.”

“Large-scale land acquisitions are designed to open up new spaces for export oriented, industrial, plantation agriculture” said Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN. “There is no point in sanctioning that through any set of investor 'principles' or code of conduct. This is not an agriculture that feeds people in a just and sustainable way.”

Accounts pouring in from Asia, Africa and Latin America reveal that local communities are being dispossessed as never before of their sole sources of food and livelihood security. Reports indicate that at least 50 million hectares of good agricultural land – enough to feed 50 million families in India – have been transferred from farmers to corporations in the last few years alone. Investment brokers estimate that US$25 billion have already been committed globally, and boast that this figure will triple in a very near future. RAI will offer such large-scale land deals a cloak of respectability.   

“RAI is dangerously deceptive” said Shalmali Guttal from Focus on the Global South. “Corporations and governments will win, but local communities, eco-systems and future generations will lose; the takeover of rural peoples lands is completely unacceptable no matter what guidelines are followed.”

“The breaching of international human rights law is an intrinsic part of land grabbing,” stated Sofía Monsalve from FIAN International. “Forced evictions, the foreclosure of vast stretches of land for current and future use by rural peoples, the introduction of models of land use and agriculture  that destroy natural environments, the blatant denial of information, and the prevention of meaningful local participation in political decisions that affect people's lives are all human rights violations.”

“The new wave of land grabbing will have a devastating effect in the Amazon and Cerrado by giving the green light for illegal activities of large cattle ranchers, agribusinesses, mining and lumber companies to destroy protected forests and biodiversity in food production by small farmers and indigenous land,” said Maria Luisa Mendonça, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil.

According to Ibrahim Coulibaly from the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations in Mali, member of La Via Campesina, “Land grabbing is state banditry; it's about seizing or taking over the only resource that poor people have left and giving it those who already have too much, those who are already extremely rich. And that is not acceptable.”  

The joint statement calls instead for a renewed focus on genuine agrarian reform and agricultural investment that supports small-holder farmers to produce on their own lands through agro-ecological means.

The statement, “It's time to outlaw land grabbing, not to make it 'responsible'!” can be found online here

Contacts

Henry Saragih, La Via Campesina, Indonesia: +62-811655668

Devlin Kuyek, GRAIN, Canada:  +1-514-5717702

Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South, Thailand: +66-2-2187383/4/5

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth Interantional, UK : +44-79-61986956

Sofia Monsalve, FIAN, Germany: +49-62216530030

Maria Luisa Mendonça, Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, Brazil: +55-11-81679951

'The socio-economic effects of GMOs' reveals the hidden costs of GM crop cultivation that are being unfairly pushed onto conventional and organic sectors – risking further GMO-contamination and increased food prices – and comes as environment ministers meet to discuss GM-crops in Europe.

Environment ministers will assess the legality of banning the cultivation of GM-crops on their territories, but the discussion must take into account the full social and economic impacts of growing GM crops, and not be based on industry-biased models.

Mute Schimpf food campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe says:

"The true environmental and economic costs of GM-crops must be taken into account when discussing GM-crop cultivation in Europe. The biotech industry must be held accountable for damage done through cross contamination – the costs must not be unfairly pushed onto farmers, consumers and taxpayers."

European policy relies on the assumption that non-GMO stakeholders in the food industry pay for all measures to secure their GMO-free status. Official EU research concludes that the segregation of GM-crops from conventional products could increase product costs by up to 13%, but the real figure is far higher.

New research from Friends of the Earth Europe shows key costs involved in segregation are not reflected in EU research. The costs incurred for maintaining GMO and conventional separation, including monitoring and testing, far outweigh any projected economic benefits of lower production costs.

Mute Schimpf added:

Friends of the Earth Europe calls for a moratorium on all GMO cultivation approvals until the socio-economic impact assessment of GMOs is integrated into the EU approval system, alongside strict and compulsory anti-contamination measures in all European countries. All costs to prevent GM-contamination must be covered by the polluters.

Find out more and read the briefing

Following the International Forum on Food Sovereignty held in Mali in February 2007, the social movements that brought this initiative to life have decided to create a tool for communication and exchange in order to continue the fight for food sovereignty and to defend the interests of disadvantaged groups as small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples and those living from pastoralism. The situation of these groups continues to deteriorate due to the ongoing assaults of an increasingly inhuman capitalism. 

A new wave of landgrabbing can now be added to the problems of our times, a reality which the World Bank seeks to legitimize in its latest report. It is therefore urgent and critical for social movements to regroup and to strengthen our alliances in order to deal with the offensive of neoliberalism, unprecedented in the history of mankind. This newsletter aims to bring a small stone to the edifice of resistance that will be built to counteract transnational corporations, the World Bank and their allies. We urge all organizations and all movements committed to the struggle for food sovereignty to embark with us on this journey.

The newsletter will be published every two months and is available on the Nyéléni website. 

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The 'Amflora' potato, designed to produce starch for industrial purposes by Germany´s chemical giant BASF, carries a controversial antibiotic resistant gene which it cannot be guaranteed will not enter the food chain.

Heike Moldenhauer, GMO spokesperson for Friends of the Earth Europe said:

"This is a bad day for European citizens and the environment. The new Commissioner whose job is to protect consumers has in one of his first decisions ignored public opinion and safety concerns to please the world’s biggest chemical company. This decision puts profit before people or the environment and will do little to increase public confidence in the Brussels bureaucracy.

"There are clear health concerns surrounding this GM potato. The antibiotics affected by Amflora are vital tools against illness and despite growing resistance to these life saving drugs, industry has added them to potatoes with no guarantees that they will not get into the food chain. This is nothing less then a crass decision that puts the public at risk."

Amflora is highly controversial mainly due to its antibiotic resistant gene. The potato was given official approval by the European Food Safety Authority but for the first time the judgment of the scientific body wasn't unanimous. Two EFSA scientists stated that the possibility of a transfer of antibiotic resistant genes to bacteria within the gastro-intestinal-tract cannot be predicted.

Two other conventional potato varieties already on the market have the same characteristics as Amflora – one developed by German plant breeder Europlant, the other by Dutch company Avebe. The existence of these non-GM alternatives means that there is no reason for farmers to have to cultivate Amflora for the European starch industry and no need to introduce the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance.