[Pirateninfo] actionaid:: GE CROPS WON'T END HUNGER

[Martin Sundermann]

http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/gatg.pdf

GE CROPS WON'T END HUNGER
May 30, 2003
P A N U P S
Pesticide Action Network Updates Service
www.pannas.org
Genetically engineered crops pose a considerable threat to farmers and
food security in developing countries, according to ActionAid, a highly
respected development organization in Great Britain. The group recently issued a
report, GM Crops--Going Against the Grain, that compares the promises of
biotech companies with the real performance of genetically engineered
(GE) crops in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It concludes that the new
technology will lead to more hungry people, not less.
ActionAid released the report as part of a national debate about GE food
soon to begin in the UK. The debate has been made even more important by
the mid-May announcement that the U.S. will file a World Trade Organization
(WTO) case against the European Union for its moratorium on biotech
crops.
President Bush has gone so far as to assert that Europe's refusal to
allow food from GE crops into their markets has discouraged Third World
countries from using this technology and thus undermined efforts to end hunger in
Africa.
Matthew Lockwood of ActionAid warned, "The UK public should not be duped
into accepting GE in the name of developing countries. GE does not
provide a magic bullet solution to world hunger. What poor people really need is
access to land, water, better roads to get their crops to market,
education and credit schemes." ActionAid is one of the UK's largest development
organizations, working with poor and marginalized people in 30 countries
around the world to eradicate poverty.
The report states that nearly 800 million people go hungry every day
because they cannot grow or buy enough food. One in seven children born in the
countries where hunger is most common die before they reach the age of
five.
The biotechnology industry says that GE crops will solve the problem of
world hunger by increasing food production. Yet the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) finds there is more than enough food in the world to
meet current global needs, both now and several decades into the future. The
causes of food insecurity are political and economic; many people are
too poor to buy food, lack the land or other resources to grow food
themselves, or are unable to obtain food through existing distribution systems.
Four GE crops, maize (corn), cotton, canola (oilseed rape) and soya >
(soybeans), account for 99% of all commercial GE crops in 2002. With the
exception of cotton, these crops are used primarily for animal feed. Soy
and the vegetable oils derived from canola are used in processed foods.
ActionAid reports the pesticide industry has been the driving force
behind GE agriculture, as four multinational corporations--Monsanto, Bayer
CropScience, DuPont and Syngenta--have purchased seed and biotechnology
companies around the world and now control most of the GE seed market.
The global market for GE seeds is on the rise, with 2002 estimates at
US$4.25 billion, up from US$3.8 billion in 2001. GE seeds represented 13% of the
global commercial seed market in 2001.
Despite the biotech industry's claims that genetic engineering is an
essential tool to combat hunger, GE research in Africa, for instance,
focuses on export crops such as cut flowers, fruit, vegetables, cotton
and tobacco. In Kenya, only one out of 136 patent applications for plants
was for a food crop; more than half were for roses.
Genetically engineered seeds threaten the practice of saving and
replanting seeds, which is common in many countries around the world. Up to 1.4
billion people, including 90% of farmers in Africa, depend on saved seed. Yet GE
seeds must be bought each season, and biotech companies charge farmers
royalty fees and force them to sign contracts that they will not save or
replant seeds, use only the corporation's chemicals on the crop, and
provide access to their property to verify compliance. These companies also
continue to develop "Terminator technologies" which makes plants produce sterile
seeds.
The report also contradicts biotech companies' claims that GE crops will
lower use of dangerous pesticides, reporting that chemical use per
hectare in Argentina has more than doubled on GE soy fields compared to
conventional varieties. Also, GE technology will enable corporations or farmers in
wealthy countries to grow crops currently grown only in tropical
climates.
Such "crop substitutions" would deprive export-producing countries of
valuable income and employment. For example, corporations are currently
developing canola genetically engineered to produce oils to replace
coconut and palm oils grown in the developing world, devastating coconut oil
production in India and oil palm producers in Malaysia and Ghana.
Sources: GM Crops--Going Against the Grain, ActionAid, 2003, available
for free download at: http://www.actionaid.org/resources/pdfs/gatg.pdf;
Press Release, May 28, 2003, Press Release, Office of the U.S. Trade
Representative, May 13, 2003.
Contact: ActionAid (44-20) 7561 7627, Hamlyn House, Macdonald Road,
Archway, London N19 5PG, UK; phone (44-20) 7561 7561; fax (44-20) 7272 0899;
email at actionaid.org.uk; Web site http://www.actionaid.org.

Die Antwort der Industrie liess natürlich nicht lange auf sich warten (schliesslich hat man ja soger den US-Präsi in der Tasche),
friedliche Grüsse - martin

ActionAid says GM crops could push poor farmers into debt, but CropGen
disagrees...http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstry.asp?recid=1688
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