The merger, which would be the largest foreign acquisition ever by a Chinese firm, follows last year’s failed takeover of Syngenta by US-based Monsanto.

“The proposed takeover of…Syngenta by China National Chemical Corporation would accelerate the hyper-consolidation in the global seed and agrochemical market. The move by…ChemChina comes on the heels of last year’s announced mega-merger between DuPont and Dow Chemical — a deal that would leave three firms controlling more than three-quarters of the corn and 80 percent of the soybean seeds in America,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch, in a statement released today.

He added, “Today’s deal dwarfs the takeover of formerly U.S.-owned Smithfield by WH Group in 2013. The Department of Justice and antitrust authorities of governments across the world must act to block these seed megamergers.”

The rapid concentration of economic power and seed patents in the hands of a tiny and diminishing number of global agribusiness giants harms farmers and eaters worldwide. Farmers will undoubtedly be forced to pay more for a reduced choice of options controlled by the gargantuan seed monopoly.

The companies use the patented seed varieties — overwhelmingly biotech crops with accompanying pesticides and agrichemicals — to control not only what farmers plant, but how they cultivate their crops, what chemicals they use on their fields and how they can manage their farms.

“The merger has far-reaching impacts on the food supply, the environment and consumers. There is a growing demand by consumers to know what they are eating, how it is grown and how it impacts their communities. Global agribusiness mega-mergers like the proposed ChemChina-Syngenta deal give a corporate cabal a stranglehold on the world’s farmers and the world’s eaters. When fewer firms control more of the seed and agrochemical market, both farmers and consumers lose out,” said Hauter.

Syngenta is a leading global agribusiness formed at the end of 2000 by the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals. It operates in over 90 nations, employing nearly 30,000 people.

Food & Water Watch is a Washington, D.C.-based champions healthy food and clean water for all, standing up to corporations that put profits before people, and advocating for a democracy that improves people’s lives and protects our environment.

Want to get involved? It’s easy. Food & Water Watch helps you amplify your influence – from telling your elected officials about your concerns to becoming more active in your community. See all the ways you can help change happen, then take the next step to protect your food and water.​ Find out more on their website (link here).

The post Syngenta Merger Must Be Blocked appeared first on Green Prophet.

Hot on the trail of GMOs in the food-scarce country, journalist Louise Sarant talked with activists and bio-safety insiders who expressed concern about discrepancies between The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA)’s assertion that 1000 hectares of MON810 maize was planted in Egypt and the Ministry of Agriculture’s claims that the entire shipment of insect-resistant seeds was destroyed. 

Funded by Monsanto, Bayer AG, and American government agencies USAID and US Department of Agriculture, ISAAA considers Egypt to be the third most promising market for genetically modified maize, soybean and cotton, according to Egypt Independent.

Even so, when Monsanto’s 40 ton shipment entered Egypt in January, 2012, the Ministry of Environment ordered its seizure on the grounds that they had not approved it. But then, Ministry of Agriculture custom officials took control of the shipment and publicly announced that it was destroyed.

Speaking to Sarant, Osama El-Tayeb, a microbiology and immunology professor at the 6th of October University Faculty of Pharmacy said that he has information that some seeds were destroyed in certain governorates.

However, that the Ministry of Agriculture has failed to publicly dismiss the ISAAA’s claim that 1000 hectares of MON810 was planted has aroused suspicion.

Greenpeace campaigner Ahmed el Droubi told the paper that someone in the Ministry of Agriculture should be held responsible if it turns out that parts of the shipment escaped destruction despite overwhelming evidence that GMO crops come with severe ecological, health and financial side effects.

Meanwhile, El-Tayeb, who is an industry insider, is unconvinced by the validity of the ISAA’s report.

“The ISAAA cannot associate itself with scientists unless they buy them first,” he told EI. “It’s a piece of crap.”

Either way, this is a seedy story. If ISAAA’s report is true, that means that the Ministry of Agriculture has deceived and potentially endangered the Egyptian public.

On the other hand, the ISAAA could be fudging the truth. But why?

:: Egypt Independent

Image credit: Corn being injected, Shutterstock

The post Seedy 40 Ton GMO Shipment in Egypt Shrouded in Mystery appeared first on Green Prophet.

It sounds like something from a book about the perils of the future, a future that is strangely today reality: The seed-engineering company Monsanto genetically engineers seeds to have desirable traits that make them hearty or the plants resistant to the effects of herbicides like Roundup. But when farmers buy and use these seeds they must sign away rights to use the seeds of future generations. After all, Monsanto is investing in the biotechnology (the company reasons) and it needs to ensure future business for its investment.

Holding back the use of one’s self-made seeds sounds almost as bizarre as bottled air in the Lorax, or the bottling of water. But in the case of water, bottled O2 and seeds: these things do happen in our polluted world.

Environmentalists typically are against the practices of Monsanto, claiming that there are certain inalienable rights people and farmers have when they buy seeds. Some farmers in Egypt have resisted Monsanto’s GM maize, while a new company from Israel called Morflora claims to have a new way of washing seeds to avoid Monsanto’s ethical problems altogether. But farmers need to think about their future, and profits. They buy Monsanto seeds because in some markets it is the only way to stay relevant.

So far Monsanto has been a winner in cases against farmers it has taken to court who have gone against the company’s terms, recounts a recent story in the New York Times. Now an American farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman, from Indiana has gone against Monsanto by using soy seeds produced by his crop. The trick: he bought his own seeds back from a grain elevator which sells the seeds for animal food.

According to the Times article: “the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could have a huge impact on the future of genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medical research to software.”

Bowman pleads that he honored Monsanto’s agreement and didn’t use the seeds from his harvest and noted that the contract he signed didn’t make provisions for him buying the same seeds back from another party. He told the NYT that he didn’t want to pay Monsanto huge sums of money for their soy seeds because he planted his crop late in the season, after the wheat harvest, and that it was bound to fail.

He lost to a district court hearing in 2007, and had to pay Monsanto more than $80,000 for infringing on patents owned by the company.

But now Bowman who is planning to fight till the end says, “I was prepared to let them run over me, but I wasn’t getting out of the road.”

Once the beans are sold to the grain elevator, Bowman claims that Monsanto has no more rights to them. And this is what he is bringing with him to court.

He is being helped by lawyers working pro bono.

The question about patenting living organisms has long been considered immoral, but it is the only legal tool in place that can support and grow the biotechnology industry, proponents for the industry argue.

Sources say that any Supreme Court ruling on this new case could have monumental impacts on the biotechnology industry.

I have to note that the seeds in question are ones Monsanto produces to make crops tolerant to Roundup (a Monsanto product ), a strong herbicide that kills weeds but not the crop. Roundup has also been linked to birth defects and God knows what else. Were more farmers to return to permaculture methods of farming, ones that use organic-friendly and natural pesticides, and sometimes heirloom seeds, all this business of Monsanto would be irrelevant.

Yet when I say this people I know who argue for genetic engineering they say GMOs are the only choice for feeding a hungry world. What do you say?

Image of  Vernon Hugh Bowman via the NYT

Update 2013: United States Supreme Court patent decision in which the Court unanimously affirmed the decision of the Federal Circuit that the patent exhaustion doctrine does not permit a farmer to plant and grow saved, patented seeds without the patent owner’s permission. Vernon lost.

The post Small American Farmer Sends Monsanto Seed Patents to Supreme Court appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dubbed ‘Pink Slime’ by activists and ‘finely textured beef’ by the manufacturers, beef filler made by ammonium has turned out to be a smoking gun in the food industry, demonstrating just how powerful activist intervention is in changing paradigms. One of the biggest ground beef processors in the United States, AFA Foods, is filing for bankruptcy, according to Reuters. It’s just one step in many necessary to clean up our global diets.

According to the story, ground beef processor AFA Foods filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, citing the impact of the uproar over a meat filler dubbed “pink slime” by critics.

Supporters of AFA, however, still say that pink slime is safe to eat. AFA is one of the largest ground beef processors in the US, and it produces more than 500 million pounds of it every year.

Green Prophet has reported on the implications in the Middle East. “The Middle East may have been spared the use of this meat product largely due to regional dietary laws for both Jews and Muslims,” writes Maurice about pink slime. He’salso put out a call for information specific to our region for more awareness. We couldn’t agree more on the importance of industry insiders to raising awareness of the issues in food production.

From meat glue to pink slime to the heavy use of pesticides and GM foods, the serious fact remains that being conscious in how we choose the foods we eat requires us to be especially vigilant. What’s more, dietary food laws that Jews and Muslims (and others in the Middle East) follow only go so far.

Beyond kosher for instance could mean choosing organic, sustainably grown, and choosing locally harvested. A Mediterranean Diet rich in plant foods is demonstrably healthier over all than one heavy on animal consumption.

It’s not just the icky factor at stake. What we eat is directly linked to the health of future generations. Our reproductive wellbeing and quality of life comes from the foods we eat today, from the foods our parents ate before us, and the foods our children will eat tomorrow.

The data is still fresh but emerging nonetheless – we are what we eat, and the next generation depends on us to make the healthiest of choices.

::Reuters

More Food, Diet and Health News:
Pink Slime Phasing Out of US Food, Will Middle East Follow?
GM Foods Shrinking Reproductive Health in a Womb Near You
Can GM Foods be Halal or Kosher?
Genetically Modified Foods in Israel, Lots of It

Image of ground beef from Shutterstock

Follow TinaMarie @ModernLoveMuse. She also blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com.

The post Pink Slime Beef Bankruptcy First Step to Improved Global Diet appeared first on Green Prophet.

Investigating the profit-motivated push to make genetically modified food ‘halal’

Back in December 2010, a conference held in Penang, Malaysia with biotechnology experts and halal proponents ended with the conclusion that genetically modified food was halal ( ‘permissible’ for Muslims) as long as the sources from which they originate from are halal. This decision – which was accompanied by a fatwa declaring GM halal – came as a shock to some in the wider Muslim community who consider GM a deviation from god’s creation.

The UK-based green Muslim organisation Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences insisted the fatwa was controversial and “failed to consider biotechnology from an Islamic perspective, ignoring not only the harm that GM causes to the environment but the way it undermines the integrity of God’s creation.”

Genetically modified food is a plant or animal which has genetic material that has been changed using genetic engineering rather than sexual crossing. Genetic modification was developed back in the 1980s and commercial agricultural companies invested heavily in the science in the 1990s to grow crops mainly in developed nations such as Canada and the US.

It has since spread to rising developing nations such as Argentina, Brazil and India (although controversy in Europe means that their use there has been limited).

The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES) has remarked that GM companies are now targeting Muslim populations through their “profit-motivated” efforts to establish the Shariah-compliance of GM. They added that they are “manipulating Islamic scholars into issuing highly controversial fatwas in support of GM.”

Fazlun Khalid, founder of IFEES, explained in an editorial in the organisations newsletter that there were real fears about pest-resistant GM crops causing species loss and a decline in bird species. “There are complex scientific, ethical,and political issues to be explored ,” he said. “And it is a puzzle how an unrepresentative group of ulema [religious scholars], however learned in the Islamic Sciences, can determine in a two-day conference held in Penang, Malaysia last December, that GM foods are halal and can be consumer by Muslims.”

Green campaigners such as Greenpeace have challenged GM crops on the grounds that there is a lack of adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health.

The GM industry has also been criticized due its efforts to portray GM as a solution to world hunger through genetically modifying crops with increased yield and nutrition, when in reality GM crops are expensive, require a lot of pesticide and water which may actually hinder the agriculture of developing nations.

However, even amongst green activists the debate over genetically modified food is not straightforward. During a lecture given by the vertical farming advocate Dickson Despommier, a question was raised about the possibility of using GM crops in the farms.

Despommier, who is a parasitologist at Columbia in New York City, insisted that there was nothing wrong with genetically modified food per se. The only problem he saw was that most GM crops were modified to resist higher and higher levels of herbicide and pesticide and not for greater yield or better nutrition.

So, what do you think? Is GM good or bad for us? Maybe you think that with some limits it can be useful or are you concerned that we are simply meddling in affairs we don’t fully understand? Also, can GM really be Halal or Kosher?

: Image via Joost J. Bakker Ijmuiden/flickr.

For more on GM see:

GM Foods Shrinking Sexual Health In A Womb Near You

Frankenstein Falafel? Israeli Consumers At Risk From GM Foods

Is Egypt Backtracking On GM Crops Ban?

The post Can GM Foods Be ‘Halal’? Or Kosher? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Human genetic material and human gelatin – coming to your marshmallows and Jello soon?

Reading the ingredients list in any processed food is always thought-provoking. If you really want to know what those mysterious combinations of letters and numbers mean, you have to become adept at Internet research. So I suppose it could be argued that artificial colors and flavorings, the various forms of sugars, like that derived from GM beets, addictive chemicals, and strange substances like meat glue are actually good for us.

I mean, it’s intellectually stimulating – tracking down their origins and possible side effects. Like a puzzle or a good detective story, right?

Not.

Now how about human genes in your drug capsules, dessert, or cosmetics?

The latest stomach-turning development in the science of food processing is gelatin derived from human genetic material. According to the American Chemical Society, scientists at the University of Chemical Technology in Beijing, China, are working on culturing human collagen genes to yeast. In this highly synthesized process, the human-DNA-laden yeast does what yeast does so well, reproducing itself many times over and making massive amounts of gelatin.  Human-derived gelatin.

The advantage in this gelatin over the conventional animal-based kind, is being able to get around allergic responses and risk of infectious diseases carried by animals, claim the Chinese scientists. Is it vegan?

Having spoken to a biochemist of my acquaintance who prefers to remain anonymous, it becomes clear that the gross-out factor is the major deterrent in our minds. There’s no question of cannibalism. It’s not necessary to boil down human bones or skin.

An inner-cheek swab would provide enough DNA to start the synthesis. According to my source, the manufacturing process is already well-known and widely used. And the original human material is so remote from the finished product that ethical concerns are irrelevant.

Well, it depends on what you consider ethical. To observant Jews and Muslim, not to mention vegetarians or vegans, this kind of food is abhorrent.  In addition, humans are full of infectious diseases, just like animals, so the “cleaner than animal-based” argument seems specious.

Since this human-derived gelatin falls under the safe food category, it might not even be required to appear on labels. One more reason to avoid processed foods. As if we needed another reason.

Yet the scientist I spoke to brought up another issue: this kind of gelatin is essentially another genetically modified food. It’s not yet known how our bodies ultimately react to synthetic foods. We were born with enzymes that help us metabolize animal and vegetable foods, but handling synthetic foods wasn’t built into our body’s blueprint. They are viewed as irritants by our natural systems and treated as such.

Now, what’s an  allergy? Reaction to an irritant, isn’t it? And with current theories about the origins of many cancers coming from constant cellular irritation, you really do have to pause for thought. Before you treat your child to GMO food, swallow a capsule, or apply makeup, that is.

More on creepy synthetic foods to avoid on Green Prophet:

• “Humanized” Milk From a Cow
• Meat Glue: It’s Everywhere
• McNuggets? Macabre.
• Oy! Soy!

The post Human-Based Gelatin? Yum! appeared first on Green Prophet.

Attitudes towards public breastfeeding in Israel are more relaxed, in general, than in the USA where the sight of mom’s nursing babies is often met with squeamishness (or worse) as various factions debate the utilitarian vs. pleasure functions of the female bosom.  Never mind the brouhaha over breast milk vs. formula, something covered in length by Greenprophet.com writers. Now, Chinese researchers have introduced a third teat into the equation: they’ve genetically engineered cows to produce ‘humanized’ milk. This makes Lady Gaga’s ice cream from human milk seem positively tasteful in comparison.

Professor Ning Li, lead scientist and director of the State Key Laboratories for Agro-Biotechnology at the China Agricultural University, insisted that the genetically modified milk would be as safe to drink as milk from ordinary dairy cows. Why mess with mother’s milk in China to begin with (a country that tainted baby formula not so long ago)? The laws governing GMO research in China are less stringent, according to sources, than those in Europe.

Li and his colleagues, who have been working with the GenProtein Biotechnology Company in Beijing, said their work had shown it was possible to ‘humanize’ cow’s milk. They said they had produced a herd of about 200 cows “transgenic” animals that were physically identical to ordinary cows with one exception.

“Our study describes transgenic cattle whose milk offers similar nutritional benefits as human milk,” said Li. “The modified bovine milk is a possible substitute for human milk. It fulfilled the conception of humanizing the bovine milk,” with the intent of providing an alternative to human breast milk and formula milk for babies.

Human milk contains less protein, making it easier for babies to digest, and high quantities of nutrients that can help to boost the immune system of babies and reduce the risk of infections.

Helen Wallace, the director of GeneWatch UK, a biotechnology-monitoring group, has her concerns about this milky (as in hazy) business: “There is a question about whether milk from these cows is going to be safe from humans and it is really hard to tell that unless you do large clinical trials like you would a drug, so there will be uncertainty about whether it could be harmful to some people. Ethically there are issues about mass producing animals in this way.”

Environmentalists and sexual health experts point to the inconvenient truths about GM animals, who have higher numbers of still born fetuses and birth defects, never mind the concerns that GMO foods may be shrinking sexual health in a womb near you.

Some bloggers are responding with humor and vivid imaginations. “The ingenuity involved in shifting the nutrient profile of milk produced by mammals is pretty remarkable—it can now only be a matter of time before we bypass the Nestlé factory altogether and squeeze chocolate-yumberry flavor cow’s milk with brain-boosting Omega 3 direct from our pet goat’s udders.” In a region where sheep, goat and cattle farming are big agribusiness, that image is udderly creepy. Our inner eco-brats are wondering if root-beer floats are an option.

But of course the biggest question is, what’s wrong with human milk from humans?

More eco sexy news:
Are Anti-Oxidants Keeping You Young and Infertile?
World’s Most Expensive Spicy Aphrodisiac: It Really Works!
Seven Tips for Modest Moms: Choosing a Green Breastfeeding Cover

:: the money watch

You can follow Tinamarie on @ModernLoveMuse and facebook. She blogs at www.tinamariebernard.com. Image via: the guardian.co.uk

The post Udderly Creepy? ‘Humanized’ Milk From a Cow appeared first on Green Prophet.

Turkey’s organic industry is picking up speed despite the continued use of chemicals for some farms, and various other Middle Eastern countries have demonstrated that local, natural farming practices can be sustainable. Even Dubai’s desert environment can produce delicious fruits and vegetables if given sufficient care. But projected population increases   and fears of subsequent food shortages, as well as recent spikes in food prices, is bolstering the argument to perpetuate Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the agricultural sector.

In the developing world, this is an especially contentious debate since it is considered inhumane to refuse food – regardless of how it has been tampered with – when people are starving. However, GMOs pose considerable risks, some that science can’t even begin to predict, and many countries have banned their growth and use.  

Turkey on a pedestal

At the Global Economic Symposium in Instanbul, the Executive Director of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) Marco Ferroni put Turkey on a food production pedestal.

“Turkey could well be the main food provider of its neighbors. It has the potential to do so,” Ferroni told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “If science and sensible policies prevail, if strategic investments are made and the markets function properly, food demand could be met in a sustainable way.”

Statistics show that by 2050, with another 2.3 billion people seeking out food, the demand could double. This puts particular impetus on the agricultural industry to bolster their production capabilities.

Mr. Ferroni suggests that improving harvest technology and food processing would go a long way to reducing waste, and that countries should reduce biodiversity loss and forest destruction, but that GMOs are another solution.

The GMO wagon

“[GMOs] are certainly not the only way, but they are an option that some countries could apply for the sake of meeting increasing demand to fight hunger,” he told the paper.

“Acknowledging that developed countries also have doubts on GMOs, he said: “I can understand Turkey’s concern, but in the end, the technology used for this process has been practiced for nearly a decade now. Brazil today is the biggest soybean and oil producer in the world through GMOs.”

Syngenta is the biggest maker of agricultural chemicals and a leading producer of GMOs, according to Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Potential threats

According to the Food and Drug Administration, the following are the main concerns related to GMOs:

1. Gene Escape: for example, herbicide resistant weeds could get into weeds; once released, it would be difficult to retract a GMO;
2. Genes could mutate and artificial genetic infusion could destabilize the organism;
3. Sleeper genes could be accidentally activated; it would be hard to predict how the organism would react to perceived attack;
4. GMOs could compete with or breed with existing populations that could then be lost; however, this possibility already exists with natural breeding techniques;
5. It is unknown how GMOs will interfere with birds, insects, and soil;
6. There is a risk that allergens will be transferred to humans;
7. Unless proper controls are put in place, there is a chance that genetically engineered foods not meant for humans will enter the food chain. This happened with the maize called Starlink;
8. Humans could develop a resistance to antibiotics;
9. Powerful conglomerates (such as Monsanto) could dominate the business and marginalize smaller farmers  ;
10. And finally, there is concern that intellectual property rights on GMOs could slow research.

Don’t be clever

Different countries have taken different stances on the growth and distribution of GMOs. Some like France and Japan have banned them outright, while others will allow certain GMOs and not others.

Hunger is a powerful incentive to tamper with food genes to make them more resistant to disease and drought, but the potential results are too uncertain and set a dangerous precedent. Nor is the argument that they have already been circulated for ten years sufficient. That I have been poisoning my brother every day for the last ten years is not a good enough reason to continue doing so. Not to mention Syngenta’s got a particular financial interest in this agenda.

Instead, we should focus on improving soil quality and existing agricultural methods that follow nature’s inherent wisdom. We thought it would be a fantastic idea to extract oil and gas as a revolutionary solution to all of our energy needs, never anticipating the resulting melting ice caps, rising water levels, or altered weather patterns. Do we really want to risk similarly unforeseen consequences with our food?

:: Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review

Happier food and health news:

5 Fast and Delicious Sandwich Ideas

Nightshades: Vegetables To Be Careful With

RECIPE: Fresh-Corn Corn Muffins

image via Debs (ò‿ó)♪

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