ecostory 
81/2008
next
Journalistic biases and unscientific muddles
The genetic engineering believers calling Prince Charles a "Luddite"
"PSEUDOWISSENSCHAFT: Der Öko-Fundi - die Tiraden von Prinz Charles"
home | climate | energy | sustainability | water | back
|
The media jumped upon the words of Prince Charles like a pack of hounds
They mix facts with fiction, attack the person instead of the issue and quote dignataries, like the former British Prime Minister, the Honourable Mr Tony Blair - to support their case. The Financial Times and the Spiegel are a case in point. What counts is business and money and optimism. Serious science is absent when the power brokers and profiteers feel attacked. The British Institute for science in society - I-SIS - provides a rebuttal of the malign and unfounded dimissal of Prince Charles' warnings. "Why Prince Charles is Right"
We are grateful to Prince Charles for cautioning the world on the blind, head long rush to spread GM seeds and crops worldwide, especially in the Third World [1]. It has become necessary for him to do so because the biotechnology industry is using the current food and fuel crisis to push GM crops on grounds that they will increase yields. This is doubly false. First, the current crisis is a result of speculation and diversion of food crops to biofuels, it is not a crisis of production, at least not yet, even though industrial monoculture has been failing through decades of unsustainable practices [2] (Food Without Fossil Fuels Now, SiS 38). Second, genetic engineering so far has only achieved the transfer of single gene traits such as herbicide resistance and Bt-toxin production. Yield and environmental resilience – most relevant for food security - are complex multigenic traits, and there is no GM crop currently engineered for high yields or that produces higher yields. Quite the opposite is the case. GM crops have been a disastrous failure on all counts. more... The media are doing a huge disservice to society because they have become far too much dependent on environmentally short-sighted business "interests". 
Your comments?
|
home | a-z site map
ecostory | feedback
top
ecoglobe
since 1997
8823
The Prince of Wales: 'If that is the future, count me out'In his most outspoken interview yet, The Prince of Wales attacks the 'disasters' of industrial farming while speaking to Jeff Randall.[Link to the part audio:] Hear the Prince's passionate outburst As I follow signs to the castle, doubts begin to stir. This doesn't look right. The road, such as it is, seems more like a lane to a dairy farm. Have I gone wrong? Why don't hire cars have sat-nav? Prince of Wales: 'We have gone working against Nature for too long' In a career littered with embarrassing moments, missing an appointment with HRH The Prince of Wales will be right up there in my premier division of professional blunders. Calm down, Randall. This isn't The Mall, it's Caithness, the bit of mainland Britain that's so far north its residents regard Inverness as "doon sooth". The terrain, as the travel brochure says, is "an unspoilt land". Just as irritation is turning to panic, my destination - the Castle of Mey - emerges on a grey skyline. It possesses neither the grandeur of Buckingham Palace nor the well-groomed estates of Sandringham and Balmoral. As much as any royal building can be, it is understated: a rugged, late 16th- century edifice that was saved for the nation by the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Bought as a wreck from the Imbert-Terry family in 1952, this was the only home she owned personally, a windswept refuge that was refurbished with great patience over nearly 50 years. With it, Queen Elizabeth developed an abiding affection for Caithness and its people - and they for her. As a young boy, the Prince was brought on the Royal Yacht Britannia to family holidays at Mey. In the early days, the castle's facilities were spartan: hip-baths and oil lamps, yet he loved the experience, a delicious freedom from the gold-fish bowl of royal life in the capital. I am here for an update from the Prince on his initiative to help farmers and fishermen of Scotland's Highlands - Caithness, Sutherland and Ross-shire - compete more profitably in their dealings with supermarkets. The scheme reflects not just his family's traditional links with the area but a deep personal conviction about the evils of industrialised food production. I meet the Boss, as Clarence House staff refer to him, in the drawing room, where Queen Elizabeth used to take tea. On the wall next door is a portrait of her, with her corgi, Ranger, painted to mark her 90th birthday. It presents a striking reminder of the formidable lady's natural authority. The Prince is dressed impeccably in a kilt of Hunting Stewart tartan. I cannot pretend to have recognised it, but his deputy private secretary is hot on detail. Unsure how to kick off (small talk or straight in with the killer question?), my task is made easy by the Prince who, with customary manners, asks: "Did you have a jolly dinner at the Forss Hotel last night?" I did. A little too jolly, in fact, on account of my thorough research into the region's single-malt whiskies. My confession prompts the Prince to admit that his favourite Scotch is Laphroaig, the peat-smoke whisky from Islay, which he describes as "magic". Having established my credentials as a whisky tippler, I press on. What's the latest on North Highland Products (NHP), the co-operative of local producers brought together by the Prince in 2005? For an enterprise that was started on a shoestring with just 13 members, its rapid success has been a surprise, not least to many local farmers who had become tired and suspicious of official efforts to ease their plight. Today, NHP embraces 481 farmers, six fisherman and five distilleries, plus some clothing outlets. From a standing start, its annual turnover has jumped to more than £10m, with hopes and plans for hitting £40m by 2001. The idea is simple. Faced with the purchasing might of Tesco or Asda, small food producers in this corner of Scotland have little leverage. On their own, they are nothing more than commodity price-takers. But give them a collective brand, one that signals quality output from sustainable production, with the stamp of royal approval, and the balance of power tips (a little) their way. It's "a marketing and branding exercise", explains the Prince, enabling NHP to "tell a good story". The royal role in the operation is, however, much more than banging heads together and co-ordinating ideas. The trick is that all the beef, lamb, mutton, geese, seafood, cheeses, biscuits, oatcakes, honey, conserves, wool products and whisky from co-operative members are sold under a single brand, Mey Selections, the logo of which is a print of a watercolour, painted by the Prince, of the castle. "What we have to do is constantly emphasise quality. Here is an opportunity to rediscover the vital importance of native and traditional breeds." The idea was inspired by his Duchy Originals range. The difference is that the Prince does not own Mey Selections. His involvement (as a brand developer) stems largely from his desire to protect "the future of family farming" and help focus buyers on a distressed region. Even in the cut-throat world of supermarket economics, the royal imprimatur still grabs attention. "The Prince's name gives us credibility," says William Calder, the managing director of Scrabster Seafoods. "Mey Selections gives us some selling power against the supermarkets. You can see why the Royal family is very popular in this part of Scotland. We would be much worse off without them." Sainsbury's is Mey Selections' sole multiple retailer. It says: "Mey Selections has been popular with our customers. Over the past three years the brand has experienced growth of more than 60 per cent year-on-year in our stores, and over 13 million Sainsbury's customers have bought its products from us. As consumers increasingly feel the pinch on their household budgets and dine out less, the demand for high quality food to cook at home is strong. With Mey Selections, customers can have restaurant-quality meals at home." Were the Prince not heir to the throne, he would make an effective director of Greenpeace. From the delights of Scottish beef, he moves on seamlessly to the broader challenges of tourism, the landscape, buildings and waste management. In the City, globalisation is a buzzword with positive implications for growth and profit. In the Castle of Mey, it carries a different connotation. "With globalisation there's a real danger," says the Prince, "of everything being homogenised to the point where nobody knows where you are." At the heart of Mey Selections is sustainability (music to the Prince's ears). The ingredients have to be sourced within 100 miles of the castle. Its promotions boast: "Natural, environmentally-friendly methods of farming, fishing and production are supported by the company's commitment to a supply chain which has minimal impact on its suroundings." Yes, yes, I say. But isn't this trying to turn back the clock? It's a nice thought that we might be able to feed the poor from family-run units where the animals live like residents at the Ritz, but in the real world Old MacDonald's Farm has come and gone. The solution, surely, is mass production? At this point, something snaps; the Prince can take no more. Throughout our conversation he has been calm, measured and disinclined to rubbish the supermarket chains which, I suspect, he regards as doers of the devil's work, turning Cotswold villages into miserable clone towns. But my suggestion that Big Food, industrial-scale operators, are the way ahead sends him whizzing off piste. Jabbing his finger at me, he lets rip: "What, all run by gigantic corporations? Is that really the answer? I think not. That would be the absolute destruction of everything and... the classic way of ensuring that there is no food in the future." Bouncing in his chair, the Prince sets out his nightmare vision, a world in which millions of small farmers "are driven off their land [by global conglomerates] into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness". If that's how it's going to be, he says, "count me out". We are missing the point. We should be discussing "food security not food production". Without naming names, he goes after the "clever" genetic engineers who have put us on course for the "biggest disaster environmentally of all time". We should be working, he says, "with Nature. We have gone working against Nature for too long." But these corporate monsters have engaged in "an experiment that's gone seriously wrong, causing untold problems which become very expensive and very difficult to undo". Monsanto, I imagine, will not be on his Christmas drinks list. You may not agree with the Prince, but it's hard to fault his passion. He cites India's Punjab where the so-called green revolution, involving hybrid seeds and grains that demand huge quantities of water, has led to a collapse in the water table. And in Western Australia, he claims, there are huge salinisation problems, "through excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture". On my way back from the castle, I stop off in rural Caithness for lunch with one of Mey Selections' founding farmers, Danny Miller. The scheme has transformed his prospects. Almost all his livestock is sold through Mey Selections, giving him a three-to-four per cent price uplift on lamb and five-to-six per cent on beef. Unsurprisingly, he is a big fan of the Prince: "Mey Selections offers me a future that I once thought would not be possible. I truly believe we are going to be a global brand. That's not living in the world of dreams." That night in the hotel bar, I spot a bottle of Barrogill whisky. It's a blend of five malts from local distilleries and is sold under the Mey Selections banner. I order a large one and toast the Prince. Britain would be duller without him. http://www.accessinterviews.com/interviews/detail/prince-charles/4169 Title: Prince Charles Synopsis: The Prince of Wales: 'If that is the future, count me out'. The Daily Telegraph today publishers a big exclusive interview with Prince Charles. In his most outspoken interview yet, the Prince of Wales attacks the 'disasters' of industrial farming. As I follow signs to the castle, doubts begin to stir. This doesn't look right. The road, such as it is, seems more like a lane to a dairy farm. Have I gone wrong? Why don't hire cars have sat-nav? In a career littered with embarrassing moments, missing an appointment with HRH The Prince of Wales will be right up there in my premier division of professional blunders. Calm down, Randall. This isn't The Mall, it's Caithness, the bit of mainland Britain that's so far north its residents regard Inverness as "doon sooth". The terrain, as the travel brochure says, is "an unspoilt land". Just as irritation is turning to panic, my destination - the Castle of Mey - emerges on a grey skyline. It possesses neither the grandeur of Buckingham Palace nor the well-groomed estates of Sandringham and Balmoral. .... Source= The Daily Telegraph 13 August 20008reproduce for scientific purposes only. ISIS Press Release 20/08/08 Why Prince Charles is Right We Need GMO-Free Food and Agriculture for Food Security. Dr. Vandana Shiva and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho Counteracting biotech industry’s false claims We are grateful to Prince Charles for cautioning the world on the blind, head long rush to spread GM seeds and crops worldwide, especially in the Third World [1]. It has become necessary for him to do so because the biotechnology industry is using the current food and fuel crisis to push GM crops on grounds that they will increase yields. This is doubly false. First, the current crisis is a result of speculation and diversion of food crops to biofuels, it is not a crisis of production, at least not yet, even though industrial monoculture has been failing through decades of unsustainable practices [2] (Food Without Fossil Fuels Now, SiS 38). Second, genetic engineering so far has only achieved the transfer of single gene traits such as herbicide resistance and Bt-toxin production. Yield and environmental resilience – most relevant for food security - are complex multigenic traits, and there is no GM crop currently engineered for high yields or that produces higher yields. Quite the opposite is the case. GM crops have been a disastrous failure on all counts. GM crops bring less income, less yield, more pesticides, more pests, and superweeds; and are far from safe Data compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture and studies carried out in US universities consistently showed that GM crops not only failed to increase yields, but resulted in yield drags, reduced income for farmers, and increased pesticide use [3]. New data paint an even grimmer picture: the use of glyphosate on major crops went up more than 15-fold between 1994 and 2005, along with increases in other herbicides in order to cope with rising glyphosate resistant superweeds [4, 5]. Similarly, Roundup tolerant canola volunteers are top among the worries of Canadian farmers [6, 7] (Study Based on Farmers’ Experience Exposes Risks of GM Crops, SiS 38). A Cornell University study of 481 Chinese farmers warned that the farmers were losing money due to secondary pests that have emerged after growing Bt cotton for seven years in the country. These pests have increased so much that farmers were spraying their crops up to 20 times during a growing season [8]. More direct evidence has come from witnesses in the fields. Monsanto has claimed that its Bt cotton in India yields 1 500 kg/acre. Most independent studies have found an average of just 300-400 kg/acre [9, 10] (Organic Cotton Beats Bt Cotton in India, SiS 27; Message from Andra Predesh:Return to organic cotton & avoid the Bt cotton trap, SiS 29). Many farmers face total crop failure due to pest attacks, while some get more than 1 000 kg only if the weather was not too dry or too wet. Bt. cotton is supposed to control the bollworm, but the bollworm is evolving Bt resistance, while new pests that were not previously significant have exploded, requiring higher doses of pesticides [11] (Deadly gift from Monsanto to India, SiS 38), exactly as has been documented in China [6]. As a pest-control strategy, GM crops have decisively failed. Integrated pest management [9, 10] and pest control through mixed cropping have proven much more scientific and effective (see below). Finally, despite the notorious failure of regulation and lack of funding for independent research on the health and environmental impacts of GMOs, substantial evidence has accumulated to indicate that GM food and feed are far from safe [12] (see GM Food Nightmare Unfolding in the Regulatory Sham, ISIS scientific publication). Allergy-like and other immune responses, illnesses, stunted development, sterility and deaths have been reported in the scientific literature and by farmers in the fields. This is the main reason why consumers in Europe and the rest of the world have been rejecting GM in our food chain. It is supreme irony that the more the industry makes false claims about GM crops giving higher yields and using less pesticide, the more they appeal to “science”-based decisions, whereas they have consistently ignored and suppressed real scientific evidence. GM crops, farmers’ suicides and global disaster in the making The UK Environment Minister Phil Woolas was obviously speaking for the industry when he said that the government had a “moral responsibility” to investigate whether genetically modified crops could help alleviate hunger in the developing world [13], and challenged Prince Charles to provide the evidence that GM crops have been a disaster. Not only has Woolas ignored the scientific evidence on the abysmal failures of GM crops, he seems also oblivious to the massive farmers’ suicides in India [14] (Indias Agrarian Suicides, Navdanya Report). The suicides are concentrated in the Bt. cotton belt. Monsanto’s Bt. cotton is costly, non-renewable, and unreliable. Farmers are getting trapped in unpayable debt and are ending their lives. Vandana visited Krishna Rao Vaidya’s widow on 10th Oct 2007, and it was evident he was driven to suicide because of debt induced by Bt. cotton. One farmer like Vaidya takes his life every 8 hours in Vidarbha. Over the past decade, 200 000 farmers in India have committed suicide. Prince Charles said that GM crops and corporate control over agriculture “risked creating the biggest disaster environmentally of all time.” Two things were clear in the Prince’s statement. He was addressing the risk of creating a disaster, not a disaster that has already occurred. He was also addressing the issue of disaster in a broad and comprehensive sense not just in a narrow perspective of safety. As he stated [1] “Relying on gigantic corporations for mass production of food would threaten, not boost future food supplies.” He warned that we would end up with “millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness. I think it will be an absolute disaster.” For Prince Charles, the large scale uprooting of peasants and small farmers is a social and human rights disaster and tragedy, as it is for most ordinary people. Corporate monopoly over our food systems is a food security disaster. And while in some places like India these disasters have already occurred, at a global level, they are a disaster in the making. Given all the other agronomic and environmental failures of GM crops, and large doubts over safety, we have little doubt that further indulgence in GM crops will seriously damage our chances of surviving the food crisis especially as global warming is taking its toll on food production. [15] (see Ban GMOs Now, ISIS Lecture) It is therefore unscientific and irresponsible of Phil Woolas to say that Prince Charles must provide “proof” that a disaster has happened. We would expect the Environment Minister to be aware of the environmental principle on which the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change rest. It is called the Precautionary Principle: where there is scientific evidence that an activity raises threats of serious harm to human health or the environment, measures to halt or modify the activity may be taken even in the absence of scientific certainty [16] (see Use and Abuse of the Precautionary Principle, ISIS Report). Organic non-GM agriculture is the answer The Environment Minister would be far better advised to investigate whether biodiverse and ecological farming could help provide a solution to hunger in the developing countries, especially in Africa, and he would find a lot of supporting evidence in a comprehensive report presented to the UK Parliament earlier this year [17, 18] (Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free, ISIS publication; Full House for Food Futures Now, SiS 38). The report documents how organic biodiverse agriculture out-produces industrial chemically fertilized monoculture by 30 percent. It came to much the same conclusions as the recently completed International Assessment on Agriculture Science and Technology: that neither GMOs nor industrial agriculture is the solution; instead, small scale ecological agriculture is the answer to poverty and hunger. Mr. Woolas should at least read that report [19] (see “GM-Free Organic Agriculture to Feed the World”, SiS 38). Yes we want a science-based policy on GMOs The Environment Minister also said [13]: “Government Ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: can GM crops help?” If the Minister could travel with Vandana through Vidarbha and see the tears in the eyes of Bt. cotton widows, you would be compelled to ask the question “Can GM crops harm?” That is your moral responsibility. It is also your responsibility to sincerely base your decisions on real science, not pseudo-science supporting corporate interests. Science-based policy would recognize that an agriculture that conserves biodiversity also produces more food and nutrition in the same plot of land. Science based policy would recognize that if Bt. cotton traps farmers in debt, it is not an instrument for ending poverty, but has become a recipe for suicides. A science based policy would not blindly spread GM crops to Africa or anywhere else without assessing their role in India’s agrarian crisis. A science based policy would not rely on the unscientific principle of “substantial equivalence” [20] that prevented independent and serious testing on the safety of GM food and feed before they are widely released. The Supreme Court of India has served notice on the Government of India to ask why a GMO Moratorium should not be imposed till proper testing protocols and tests and facilities for biosafety are in place [21]. We want a science for peace and sustainability We are proud that Prince Charles will be delivering the Ninth Howard Memorial lecture for Navdanya this year on 2nd October. Navdanya has organized the lecture to honour Sir Albert Howard, the imperial agriculturist sent to India early last century. His Agricultural Testament published in 1940 was based on the knowledge on sustainable farming he learnt from India’s peasants. The lecture will take place on Gandhi’s birth anniversary to celebrate non-violent farming which protects all species, the farmers, the soil and our health [2, 17]. GMOs are the latest offerings in a violent tradition of industrial agriculture that has its roots in war and has become a war against the farmers, the land, and our bodies. All that the biotech industry and its allies in governments can talk about is the smartness of their weapons in a war against nature. Prince Charles, like many of us, wants this war to end. It is time they realized the debate is much wider and deeper. It is about the planet we live on, the societies we are shaping, the billions condemned to exclusion, the super profits for the gene giants and giant grain harvesters, while the real harvest in the fields of real farmers shrink. GMOs have failed the test of both ecological sustainability and socio-economic accountability. They have the worst features of industrial monocultures and more. They are therefore a greater driver of climate change as well as being more vulnerable to climate change [2]. Prince Charles is right to warn of this impending catastrophe, and we must take heed. References “Prince Charles warns GM crops biggest-ever environmental disaster”, Jeff Randall, 12 August 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/12/eacharles112.xml Ho MW. Food without fossil fuels now. Science in Society 39, 8-13, 2008. Benbrook CM. Genetically Engineered Crops and Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Nine Years”, BioTech InfoNet, Technical Paper Number 7, 2004 Who benefits from gm crops? The rise in pesticide use, executive summary, Friends of the Earth International, Amsterdam, January 2008. “Report raises alarm over ‘superweeds’”, Brian Hindo, Business Week, 13 February 2008, http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2008/db20080212_435043.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives%20 Mauro IJ and McLachlan SM. Farmer knowledge and risk analysis: postrelease evalulation of herbicide-tolerant canola in Western Canada. Risk Analysis 2008, 28, DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.200801027.x Ho MW. Canadian farmers’ experience exposes risks of GM crops. Science in Society 38, 44-45, 2008. “Seven-year glitch: Cronell warns that Chinese GM cotton farmers are losing moneyBts”, Susan Lang, Chronicleonline, 25 July 2006, http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July06/Bt.cotton.China.ssl.html Gala R. Organic cotton beats Bt cotton. Science in Society 27, 49-50, 2005. Gala R. Return to organic cotton & avoid the Bt-cotton trap. Science in Society 29, 38-39, 2006. “Deadly gift from Monsanto to India”, Ram Kalaspurkar, eye witness report with photographs, Letter to the Editor, Science in Society 38, SIS 36 - Letters to the editor), 51, 2008. Ho MW, Cummins J and Saunders PT. GM food nightmare unfolding in the regulatory sham. Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease 2007, Disease 2007, 19, 66-77. “Minister challenges Prince Charles to prove GM crops threat”, Jenny Percival, The Guardian, 17 August 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/17/gmcrops.greenpolitics India’s Agrarian Suicides, Navdanya, 15 July 2004, http://www.navdanya.org/news/04july15.htm Ho MW. Ban GM crops now. ISIS invited Lecture, 4 June 2008, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/banGMOsNow.php Saunders PT. Use and abuse fo the Precautionary Principle, ISIS Report, 11 July 2000, http://www.i-sis.org.uk/prec.php Ho MW, Burcher S, Lim LC, et al. Food Futures Now, Organic, Sustainable, Fossil Fuel Free, ISIS and TWN, London, 2008. Burcher S. Full house for Food Futures Now. Science in Society 38, 3-7, 2008. Ho MW. “GM-free organic agriculture to feed the world”, Science in Society 38, 14-15, 2008. Ho MW and Steinbrecher R. Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Interactions 1998, 2, 51-84. “SC issues notice to Centre on plea for GM crops' moratorium” Press Trust India, August 12 2008, http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200808121921.htm |