Twenty six countries ban GMOs Why wont the US By GMWatch. The case against GMOs has strengthened steadily over the last few years, even as the industry has expanded all over the world. EXCERPT Unfortunately for the biotech corporations, more people are listening to the words of scientists like Dr. Oscar Zamora, vice chancellor of the University of the Philippines at Los Banos, who says, For every application of genetic engineering in agriculture in developing countries, there are a number of less hazardous and more sustainable approaches and practices with hundreds, if not thousands, of years of safety record behind them. None of the GE applications in agriculture today are valuable enough to farmers in developing countries to make it reasonable to expose the environment, farmers and the consumers to even the slightest risk. Twenty six countries ban GMOs Why wont the US By Walden Bello and Foreign Policy In Focus. LANDSCAPE_768/firetreesca.jpg' alt='Sonoma County Fair Sheep Dog Trials 2018' title='Sonoma County Fair Sheep Dog Trials 2018' />The Nation, October 2. URL above The case against GMOs has strengthened steadily over the last few years, even as the industry has expanded all over the world. The GMO wars escalated earlier this month when the 2. Sonoma County Fair Sheep Dog Trials 2018' title='Sonoma County Fair Sheep Dog Trials 2018' />This bill would make nonsubstantive changes in various provisions of law to effectuate the recommendations made by the Legislative Counsel to the Legislature. We would like to show you a description here but the site wont allow us. World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive vice president and chief technology officer, Robert Fraley, responsible for development of genetically modified organisms GMOs. The choice of Fraley was widely protested, with eighty one members of the prestigious World Future Council calling it an affront to the growing international consensus on safe, ecological farming practices that have been scientifically proven to promote nutrition and sustainability. Monsantos Man. The choice of Monsantos man triggered accusations of prize buying. From 1. 99. 9 to 2. Monsanto donated 3. World Food Prize Foundation, in addition to a 5 million contribution in 2. Hall of Laureates, a public museum honoring Norman Borlaug, the scientist who launched the Green Revolution. For some, the award to Monsanto is actually a sign of desperation on the part of the GMO establishment, a move designed to contain the deepening controversy over the so called biotechnological revolution in food and agriculture. The arguments of the critics are making headway. Owing to concern about the dangers and risks posed by genetically engineered organisms, many governments have instituted total or partial bans on their cultivation, importation, and field testing. A few years ago, there were sixteen countries that had total or partial bans on GMOs. Now there are at least twenty six, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, Mexico, and Russia. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries. Restraints on trade in GMOs based on phyto sanitary grounds, which are allowed under the World Trade Organization, have increased. Already, American rice farmers face strict limitations on their exports to the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and are banned altogether from Russia and Bulgaria because unapproved genetically engineered rice escaped during open field trials on GMO rice. Certain Thai exportsparticularly canned fruit salads containing papaya to Germany, and sardines in soy oil to Greece and the Netherlandswere recently banned due to threat of contamination by GMOs. The Case against GMOs Gains Strength. The case against GMOs has strengthened steadily over the last few years. Critics say that genetic engineering disrupts the precise sequence of a foods genetic code and disturbs the functions of neighboring genes, which can give rise to potentially toxic or allergenic molecules or even alter the nutritional value of food produced. The Bt toxin used in GMO corn, for example, was recently detected in the blood of pregnant women and their babies, with possibly harmful consequences. A second objection concerns genetic contamination. A GMO crop, once released in the open, reproduces via pollination and interacts genetically with natural varieties of the same crop, producing what is called genetic contamination. According to a study published in Nature, one of the worlds leading scientific journals, Bt corn has contaminated indigenous varieties of corn tested in Oaxaca, Mexico. Third, a GMO, brought into natural surroundings, may have a toxic or lethal impact on other living things. Thus, it was found that Bt corn destroyed the larvae of the monarch butterfly, raising well grounded fears that many other natural plant and animal life may be impacted in the same way. Fourth, the benefits of GMOs have been oversold by the companies, like Monsanto and Syngenta, that peddle them. Most genetically engineered crops are either engineered to produce their own pesticide in the form of Bacillus thurengiensis Bt or are designed to be resistant to herbicides, so that herbicides can be sprayed in massive quantities to kill pests without harming the crops. It has been shown, however, that insects are fast developing resistance to Bt as well as to herbicides, resulting in even more massive infestation by the new superbugs. No substantial evidence exists that GM crops yield more than conventional crops. What genetically engineered crops definitely do lead to is greater use of pesticide, which is harmful both to humans and the environment. A fifth argument is that patented GMO seeds concentrate power in the hands of a few biotech corporations and marginalize small farmers. Free Map Of Florida Cities. As the statement of the eighty one members of the World Future Council put it, While profitable to the few companies producing them, GMO seeds reinforce a model of farming that undermines sustainability of cash poor farmers, who make up most of the worlds hungry. GMO seeds continue farmers dependency on purchased seed and chemical inputs. The most dramatic impact of such dependency is in India, where 2. Some studies have sought to counter these accusations against GMOs, but they have been discredited by revelations that they were funded by biotechnology firms or conducted by researchers close to them. The Philippines as GMO Battlefield. The key battleground in the battle over GMOs has shifted, over the years, from the developed to the developing world. The GMO advocates have deployed their big guns to convince African, Asian and Latin American governments to shift to GMOs. Among them are Bill and Melinda Gates, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, and Oxford economist Paul Collier, who argues that Africa needs a new Green Revolution based on genetically engineered seeds because it missed out on the first one, which was promoted by chemical intensive agriculture. The Philippines is one such battleground. Even as many other countries have tightened their controls over GMOs, the Philippine government has become more and more liberal in its granting of licenses for GMO production. According to Greenpeace Southeast Asia, it has allowed the importation of sixty genetically modified plants and plant products for direct use as food and feed or for processing, an additional eight GM plant varieties for propagation, and twenty one modified plant varieties for field testing in Philippine soil. Despite concerns about its impact on the environment, Bt corn now has 7. Philippine land devoted to it. According to Greenpeace Southeast Asia spokesman Daniel Ocampo, no GMO application has ever been rejected, which is rather shocking given the controversy over their use.