Monsanto related environmental and health risks lead to court case - again

According to The Madison St Clair Record last week:

A group of Illinois residents who live in or near Sauget have filed a class-action lawsuit over the release of various hazardous substances that they claim has created a severe health risk and has contaminated their properties.

Lead class plaintiffs Vernon Lee Anderson Sr., Ernestine Lawrence, Katie Burnett-Smith, Martha Emily Young, Marcella Phillips and Bernice Laverne Collins argue that three release sites - a 90-acre landfill operated by Sauget and Co., a 314-acre W.G. Krummrich Plant and property owned by Cerro Flow Products - have released PCBs and other various substances, including dioxins and furans, into the atmosphere for more than 70 years.

Residents fear they will develop a deadly disease from the PCBs, which have been shown to result in toxic effects in the brain and nervous system and in low birth rates and birth defects.

"According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a lifetime dose of one milligram of PCBs is sufficient to cause cancer and other serious and life-threatening diseases," the suit filed Feb. 10 in St. Clair County Circuit Court states. "According to the World Health Organization, there is not safe level of exposure to PCBs."

Dioxins and furans are also known to be dangerous and to create significant health problems through inhalation, ingestion, dermal absorption and ingestion of homegrown produce.

In addition to the health risk, the residents claim the PCBs have contaminated property within a two-mile radius of the release sites, waterways and groundwater, the suit states.

The releases began after the W.G. Krummrich Plant, which is also referred to as the Monsanto Facility in the complaint, began producing, storing and disposing of PCBs at its facility, the residents claim.

In fact, "more PCBs were produced at the Monsanto Facility than at any other site in the United States, and perhaps even the free world," the suit states.

This Sauget flood plain region is well-known to the US Environmental Protection Agency and Monsanto had previously entered a negotiated settlement with the State of illinois.

Fox River Watch has a history of PCB health problems in the US here.

And with a corporate history like that Monsanto (along with the other biotech multinationals now operating here) expects Australians to take its word that the genetically modified crop types it is pushing onto often unwilling communities will do no harm?
Show us the longitudinal studies which scientifically demonstrate this, Monsanto.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto's GM canola? Can't give the stuff away in WA

The following may be read while softly humming that old song Who’s sorry now?

The West Australian on December 16, 2010:

Harvesting a WA record 13,000-hectare genetically modified canola crop is a time-critical challenge for man and machine.

Monsanto plays hard in the West Australian on April 21, 2011:

GM canola seed company Monsanto estimated GM canola crops would surge from about 70,000 hectares to 100,000ha in WA this year.

On GM Canola seed costs for farmers in the West Australian on May 18, 2011:

“The seed is about $70 a hectare, but home-grown seed is about $12-$18 a hectare….. GM canola growers need to pay seed developer Monsanto a $3 technology fee on top of the seed and an end point royalty of $13.20 when they deliver the product. GM canola is also discounted on the world market, with growers receiving about $20 a tonne less than regular varieties.

The West Australian on May 26, 2011:

Two of Australia’s biggest grain traders say they have no plans to take genetically modified canola this season.

Elders-Toepfer Grain acting WA accumulations manager Ben Noll said the company was not currently taking GM canola and that was unlikely to change as the season progressed.

“From where we sit at the moment, we’re all non-GM, ” he said.

“We’re in the process of being involved in certification for the sustainability of canola products.”

Under the European Union Renewable Energy Directive, canola for the European premium-paying biofuel market requires International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC), which means sustainably produced canola is in and GM canola is out.

Glencore Grain, both Australia and WA’s second-biggest grain exporter, is not taking GM canola either — at least for the moment.

The company is also in the midst of ISCC……

Mr Haddrill said 95 per cent of WA’s canola went to Europe last year and given the dry conditions across much of northern Europe, demand would likely be high again this season……..

Gavilon currently has a $40 discount for GM canola and AWB has a $30 discount.

Viterra has GM canola bidding at $45 below non-GM and Emerald at $30 below.

The Hon. Peter Collier representing the West Australia Minister for Agriculture in the WA Parliament on June 23, 2011 in response to questions from Lynn McLaren MLC:

Question: How much GM canola was produced last year?
Answer: 49, 000 tonnes.

Question: How much of this GM canola has been sold and to whom?
Answer: I am advised that none of this canola has been sold at this point….

Gene Ethics list of known West Australian commercial GM canola growers in 2010:
A. Tom Powell, Binnu The Countryman 10-6-10
B. Andrew Messina, Mullewa The West Australian 13-4-10
C. R & M Appleyard, Northern Gully The Countryman 24-6-10
D. J&B Bagley, Mingenew The Countryman 25-5-10
E. Bill Crabtree, Morowa Farm Weekly 4-2-10
F. Brian Ellis, Bindi Bindi Farm Weekly
G. John Shadbolt, ,Nungarin The Countryman 15-4-10
H. Jason Haywood, Goomalling The Counyry Man 17-6-10
I. Mervyn Burges, Meckering The West Australian 22-5-10
J. John Snooke, Meckering The West Australian 9-4-10
K. David Fullwood, Cunderdin The Countryman 18-3-10
L. Les Thompson, Wagin thecountryman.com.au/article/2912.html
M. Chris Hockey, Gibson thecountryman.com.au/article/2805.html
N. Michael Shields, Wongan Hills
1. Bodallin
2. Wongan Hills
3. Kojonup
http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/state/agribusiness-and-general/general/huge-gm-canola-planting-at-bodallin/1874316.aspx?storypage=0
O. Craig Simpkin, Binnu 2ha 5ac The Countryman 1-7-10

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto under the media spotlight once again

Click on image to enlarge

Monsanto and Co is under the media spotlight once more at US ABC News in a four-page article AP IMPACT: Monsanto Seed Business Role Revealed which looks at how this biotech company is determined to create a global seed monopoly.

Something Australian farmers and consumers should consider carefully, given government's almost uncritical acceptance of gene technology, the very narrow profit margins of many family farms and those comfortable margins jealously defended by the dominant retail grocery companies.

"We now believe that Monsanto has control over as much as 90 percent of (seed genetics). This level of control is almost unbelievable," said Neil Harl, agricultural economist at Iowa State University who has studied the seed industry for decades. "The upshot of that is that it's tightening Monsanto's control, and makes it possible for them to increase their prices long term. And we've seen this happening the last five years, and the end is not in sight."

Monsanto is rather upset about the claims made in this and other similar articles and, as usual, has gone into print itself with a quick muddy of the waters over at its own blog Beyond The Rows.

I'm sure that everyone is relieved to know that, according to its corporate blogger Mica, the biotech giant really doesn't control 90 per cent of seed genetics because; we licensed the technology to hundreds of seed companies, including our major competitors, and no one has offered a better product to these seed companies or to growers.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto can Twitter but it can't hide

Not long back I added MonsantoCo to my Twitter list.
It has been fascinating to watch the parallel universe in which its public relations employees live.

Equally fascinating is that this urge to tweet appears to follow on from its earlier advertising campaign which was apparently based around the concept of 'sustainability'.

One has to suspect that the campaign in print and radio was not the success Monsanto hoped for, hence the back-up.

Of course Monsanto & Co is not alone in pushing the GMO cause - its clones are out there doing their bit as well.

The Mid America Croplife Association apparently wrote to Michelle Obama trying to head that new White House vegetable garden off at the pass and, Croplife Australia is still plugging way.

Needless to say SourceWatch cites BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, FMC, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta as key funders for the Croplife group.

Such is Monsanto's chutzpah that through Croplife International (of which it is a member) the company attempted to hijack the U.N. sponsored International Day for Biological Diversity this month which had as its theme Invasive Alien Species.

Invasive alien species are plants, animals, pathogens and other organisms that are non-native to an ecosystem, and which may cause economic or environmental harm or adversely affect human health. In particular, they impact adversely upon biodiversity, including decline or elimination of native species - through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens - and the disruption of local ecosystems and ecosystem functions.

If you believed Croplife, the international day was actually all about the pesticides/herbicides, genetically modified seed etc., supplied by its member companies.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

If it's July it must be time to mention Monsanto again....

Another month has passed and the big biotech companies continue their push to dominate the basic mechanism of food production - seeds, fertiliser and chemical weed eradication/suppression.

Each month that passes highlights Monsanto & Co's abysmal safety record.

From the Idaho Business Review, June 29 2009:

Federal regulators say an Idaho mine that Monsanto uses to make Roundup weed killer has violated federal and state water quality laws almost since it opened, sending selenium and other heavy metals into the region's streams. The Environmental Protection Agency says problems at the St. Louis-based company's mine near the Idaho-Wyoming border were documented starting in April 2002, 15 months after it won Bureau of Land Management approval.
The mine recently has failed to halt metals-laden water seeping from a waste dump.
Eva DeMaria, an EPA enforcement official in Seattle, says, "The measures they have implemented aren't working.''
The disclosure comes as Monsanto Co. wants federal officials to approve a new mine in the region.
Monsanto lobbyist Trent Clark says his company has remedied some EPA concerns and continues to work to fix violations at the waste dump.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto & Co. begins 2012 in court - again

The Charleston Daily Mail, 27 December 2011:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Several hundred Nitro area residents gathered Tuesday at the Charleston Marriott as attorneys attempted to forge a mediation in a class action lawsuit against the former Monsanto Company.

Representatives of the West Virginia Supreme Court mass litigation department and the attorney's law firms would not allow media access to any of the plaintiffs, saying those settlement discussions were confidential.

The case is scheduled to begin trial Jan. 3 in Putnam Circuit Court before specially-appointed Circuit Judge Derek Swope. If a settlement is not approved before then, jury selection is expected to begin next week and the trial is predicted to take up to six months.

The mass-litigation mediation involving 193 cases of alleged personal injury and wrongful death is being presided over by Circuit Judges Booker T. Stephens of McDowell County and Circuit Judge Alan D. Moats of Taylor County…..

The Charleston Gazette, 3 January 2012:

As jury selection began Tuesday in the class-action lawsuit seeking medical monitoring for those who may have been exposed to hazardous chemicals produced at Monsanto's former Nitro plant, the judge expanded a gag order on the lawyers prohibiting comments to the media.

"No lawyer is to discuss anything about the case," said Mercer County Circuit Court Judge Derek Swope. "If asked, you are to have no comment, end of story."

Swope's comments came after Monsanto lawyers filed a motion Tuesday asking him to hold lead plaintiff attorney Stuart Calwell in contempt of court for comments he made concerning the case to the Gazette and other local media outlets.

The judge did not immediately rule on the motion, but indicated he would hear arguments and rule later.

Swope was appointed to hear the case after Putnam Circuit Judge O.C. Spaulding was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease and retired at the end of the year…….

Background

Court rejects Monsanto’s attempt to hide behind government contractor defence, 28 September 2011.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto introduces Australian farmers to seed servitude

The Canberra Times reported yesterday:

Australian farmers signing up to grow genetically modified canola are exposing themselves to ''onerous'' obligations, an international law expert says.

Duncan Currie says the contract between biotechnolgy firm Monsanto and GM canola growers bars farmers from selling their land to anyone without a Monsanto licensing agreement.

Monsanto described the claim as ''ridiculous''.

The contract, obtained by The Canberra Times, shows that if the land is sold up to two years after the agreement expires, contractual obligations are passed to the buyer, who could be liable for the former owner's contract breaches.

Monsanto reserves the right to take legal action against any farmers who possess its patented canola without a licensing agreement.

If GM canola is found, the land owner must prove whether its presence was intentional or due to inadvertent contamination.

Under the contract, farmers give Monsanto the right to ''inspect, take samples and test all of the grower's owned and/or leased fields and storage bins'' and to obtain copies of all operational documents for three years after they buy GM canola.

Mr Currie believes the implications for farmers are dire.

''In general this is a very one-sided agreement,'' he said.

''[One provision] is particularly onerous [and] includes liability for payment of Monsanto's legal and attorney fees, including expense incurred in enforcing Monsanto's rights and investigation expenses.'' ......

NSW and Victorian farmers are now harvesting Australia's first GM canola crops after a moratorium on GM crops was lifted in both states earlier this year.

The crops contain resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in many non-selective herbicides. A member of the Concerned Farmers Network, Donald McFarlane, said canola crops were hard to contain in one location.

''Farmers of canola will know that it's almost impossible to stop the spread of [canola] seed,'' he said.

''Every year, up to 13per cent of a crop will escape to end up god knows where.''

He was concerned if a farm sold land within three years of planting GM crops, the contract did not ensure the new owner would be trained to prevent crop contamination.

The NSW Farmers Association would not comment on deals between Monsanto and individual farmers.

Its president, Jock Laurie, advised farmers to seek legal advice before signing any contract, GM or otherwise.

Yet another thing that the former neo-conservative Howard Government and the majority of it's State Labor Government counterparts wished on the Australian people.

One has to wonder at the role of the Farmers Association in all this.

Given the fact that prime farmland within 100 kms of the Australian coastline and similar land on the fringes of inland towns and cities is often sold-on or developed for urban-rezoning to supply farmers with a retirement income (especially in areas such as the NSW North Coast), one has to wonder how prospective buyers will feel about inheriting a legal obligation to Monsanto.

Surely this will affect local agricultural property prices and how many 'treechangers' and seachangers' view property on offer.

Joint Select Committee report to Tasmanian Government on GMO seed, crops and food, August 2008, supporting a GM-free state.

In case you thought Monsanto only produces genetically modified seed now

That wonderful biotech company Monsanto & Co, which helped bring forth the deadly Agent Orange before it decided to move on and attempt to commercially crowd out natural food crops world-wide, still produces herbicides/pesticides.

Lest you think that this is confined to the well-known Round Up - here is one new product announced in 2010:

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 2, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) announced it has received approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the sales of a new formulation of acetochlor for early post-emergence use in cotton and soybeans. The product will be marketed as MON 63410 Herbicide for the 2010 growing season.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this herbicide has been classified as a probable human carcinogen and is considered dangerous in community water supplies at an annual concentration ≥ 2.0 ppb.

Monsanto & Co. has been partly owned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since at least 2008 and if The Guardian newspaper is to be believed the foundation increased its shareholdings in 2010.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Image from Infowars Ireland

Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al. v Monsanto: the fight continues

OSGATA July 18 2012:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 17, 2012 – Eleven prominent law professors and fourteen renowned organic, Biodynamic®, food safety and consumer non-profit organizations have filed separate briefs with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit arguing farmers have the right to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement by agricultural giant Monsanto. The brief by the law professors and the brief by the non-profit organizations were filed in support of the seventy-five family farmers, seed businesses, and agricultural organizations representing over 300,000 individuals and 4,500 farms that last year brought a protective legal action seeking a ruling that Monsanto could never sue them for patent infringement if they became contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed. The case was dismissed by the district court in February and that dismissal is now pending review by the Court of Appeals. The plaintiffs recently filed their opening appeal brief with the appeals court……..

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto's failures come as no surprise

Potential for yield declines in GM soybean has already been recorded, along herbicide resistant weeds, so it should really come as no surprise to find that yet another Monsanto genetically modified seed variety is not living up to its advertising hype:

A genetically modified cotton produced by Monsanto is failing to control pests in four Indian states, the company said last week.
The survival of the pink bollworm in Monsanto's Bollgard brand cotton was detected in four of the nine Indian states where the cotton is grown.
A spokesman for the Creve Coeur-based company said it is taking the matter "very seriously" and will continue to monitor the situation with the help of a team of Indian-based experts. The detection has been reported to the Indian Genetic Engineering Committee, the company said.
The cotton is engineered to resist the pink bollworm, a pest that can ruin crops. However, testing was conducted to assess resistance to Cry1Ac, the Bt protein in the crop, and insects were found to be surviving it.
The company said Friday that the resistance could be occurring because the required refuge areas were not planted by farmers and some may have used unapproved Bt cotton seed.
Recently, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said the country should be more cautious in adopting genetically modified crops.

* This post is part of the North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

And this is a biotech company FSANZ takes at its word......

On of the most disturbing facts about methodology employed by Food Standards Australia New Zealand when it 'investigates' new food products or genetically modified food/food additives, is that it takes the so-called research offered in support of produce/product safety at face value when it is presented by biotech multinationals such as Monsanto & Company.

It is almost as though FSANZ is completely blind to a corporate history of environmental damage, deceit and avoidance of responsibility that is the trademark of this multinational.

Apparently choosing to believe that biotech industries miraculously operate differently once they establish themselves in Australia.

This is posted on the Environment Agency U.K. concerning what The Guardian U.K. called in 2007 one of the most contaminated places in Britain:

Between 1965-70 Brofiscin quarry was used as a disposal site for industrial and chemical waste.
The wastes included toxic substances such as solvents, heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs.......

We have completed our extensive enquiries to identify those we consider should be held responsible under the contaminated land laws and be held liable for the cost of remediating Brofiscin Quarry. We are at an advanced stage in our consultations with BP, Veolia and Monsanto to provide them with the opportunity to help remediate the land on a voluntary basis. We expect to make further progress on this matter in the next few months. If this approach is unsuccessful, we have the power to carry out the work needed ourselves and recover our costs. The three companies have been identified under the legislation as inheriting the liabilities of companies who were associated with depositing wastes at the quarry.

This is not the only site used by Monsanto which has problems with PCB or other toxic contamination - the company doesn't mind polluting its home country, wrecking the health of its own workers, generally running roughshod over the interest of countries in which it operates and, if the Ecologist is to be believed is not above bullying witnesses to its bad corporate behaviour.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

One in the eye for Monsanto & Co

The Australian 12 March 2010:

A SALT-RESISTANT wheat variety developed by an Australian team through old-fashioned cross-breeding rather than genetic modification is increasing crop yields by up to 25 per cent in salinity-prone areas, and could help counter food security concerns.

Researchers from Adelaide University's Waite Institute, the CSIRO and the NSW government first isolated the gene in an ancient relative of durum wheat -- used to make couscous and pasta flour -- 15 years ago.

The breakthrough was published in the international journal Nature Biotechnology overnight…..researchers had spent more than a decade using traditional cross-breeding techniques to blend the 10,000-year-old durum with its modern cousin to increase its salt resistance without genetic modification…..

Rana Munns, Richard A James &  Bo Xu, Asmini Athman, Simon J Conn, Charlotte Jordans, Caitlin S Byrt,  Ray A Hare, Stephen D Tyerman, Mark Tester, Darren Plett and Matthew Gilliham are to be congratulated for the research behind Wheat grain yield on saline soils is improved by an ancestral Na+ transporter gene in the March issue of  Nature Biotechnology (R.M., R.A.J., R.A.H., M.T., D.P. and M.G. conceived the project and planned experiments. R.M. and M.G. supervised the research. B.X. performed all Xenopus, yeast and protoplast experiments and R.A.J. performed field research. C.S.B. performed wheat genotyping. S.D.T. assisted with electrophysiology experiments. S.J.C., A.A. and C.J. performed in situ PCR and qPCR. M.G., D.P., R.A.J. and R.M. wrote the manuscript. All authors commented on the manuscript).

Dr. Rana Munns is Chief Research Scientist at the C.S.I.R.O. and began her investigations many years ago - her profile is here.
 
The C.S.I.R.O. is reported to have conducted field trials of durum wheat varieties containing new salt tolerant genes in northern NSW in 2009-10.

This is science which seeks  to improve cereal crops but does not risk contaminating wild grass populations with novel genetically modified organisms which never existed before in nature. It potentially does not have the same exploitative limitations imposed on farmers by biotech industry giants like Monsanto & Co.

As there are 12 types of groundwater flow systems contributing to dryland salinity across Australia, research into salt resistant food crops is also very relevant to national food security.

National Report by Australia on Measures Taken to Support Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
Commonwealth Intergovernmental Working Group for the UNCCD, April 2002

So it is more than a pity that the C.S.I.R.O. is looking at an additional use for this ancient gene - adding it into the GMO research it already conducts on wheat and other food crops. [ABC AM 12 March 2012]

It appears that once an Australian scientific agency gets into bed with Monsanto it is for life.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Monsanto and Edelman provide a giggle or two

They say all things come to he who waits.

While North Coast Voices has to confess that it was more a case of 'we didn't have the time right now' to chase up the names than one of stealthily waiting for Monsanto lobbyists in Australia to raise their heads, the result has been the same.

Along with the regular 'Mr. Monsanto' another visitor to our blog turned up yesterday morning - one Edelman PR in Washington DC.

Now Edelman PR - Asian Pacific (with offices in Sydney and Melbourne) lists Monsanto as a client in India.

However, this company is entirely absent to date from the Australian Government Lobbyists Register.

One could conclude that this company was not active as an Australian lobbyist at the federal level; but with domestic clients such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, Pfizer, Shell, The Scotts Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Boots Healthcare, BristolMyersSquibb, CSL, iiNet and Origin, it is an unlikely that this is the case.

The fact that Edelman has Monsanto as a client rather puts a whole new light on its own Food and Wellness Report 2007.

Researching websites and digital social networks in which to embed the GM giant's message perhaps?

Biotech: the unmet promise of genetically engineered crops?

In the face of a review of GM crop yield studies which concluded that there was no appreciable difference between crops grown from conventional and genetically modified seed, talk of herbicide resistant weeds being associated with land used for GM crops and the banning of GM maize MON 10 by Germany on environmental grounds, the big biotech companies are pretending that is still business as usual.

And if you are a large multinational corporation like Monsanto, with lobbyist tentacles reaching into so many national or state governments around the world, I expect that it really is business as usual.

So usual that it is thinking of starting yet another court case in its pursuit of the 'golden' apex of a global agricultural food chain.

Still it doesn't hurt if you also create a slice of corporate propaganda like this:











View and Download this Ad
from Monsanto website











* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

Queensland genetically modified bananas anyone?

Is Genetically modified becoming something of a dirty term with the Australian general public?

Putting two and two together it is obvious that the Queensland University of Technology tried very hard to avoid both the GMO acronym and again naming its funding source as the Grand Challenges in Global Health (GCGH) Initiative - which was launched as a health initiative by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is in turn is associated with Monsanto & Co through its shareholdings in that notorious biotech giant.

ABC NEWS 22 December 2011:

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has met Queensland scientists who are trying to develop better bananas for Africa's sub-Saharan region.

The philanthropist has invested $10 million in banana research in recent years through his foundation's global health program.

Successful field trials have been carried out at Innisfail, south of Cairns, in the state's far north.

Professor James Dale, from the Queensland University of Technology, says he was pleased to update Mr Gates and his wife during their visit to Cairns last week…….

Unfortunately for UTS the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator reveals what is was hoping to cover with a little bit of verbal smoke:

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

The GM moguls advance with Weidemann et al assisting

According to The Age on 11 September 2008, Rupanyup farmer Andrew Weidemann brags that:

Much of his 92 hectares of GM canola is now in flower and is on track for harvest in about 11 weeks.

Now this farmer's crop reads as if it was first intended as non-commercial:
To allow a detailed comparison of the 10 canola varieties on his farm, all were planted in the same paddock on the same day in early May, in distinct plots.
Yesterday about 20 farmers from South Australia visited Mr Weidemann's farm to inspect the GM canola. South Australian law prohibits commercial production of GM canola.

In February this year he told ABC News that:
"There is an up-front fee that we pay and you can grow as many acres as the seed is available for this year and there is a royalty payment on the end which is the best situation in rewarding the researcher, the marketeer and the grower," Mr Weidemann said.

The Commonwealth Office of Gene Technology states that there is a current licence granted to Bayer Crop Science Pty Ltd which cover amongst other areas, Rupanyup and Wimmera.
So one might wonder if Andrew Weidemann, now VFF grains group deputy president, was originally in partnership with Bayer or affiliates.

Either way, Weidemann joins the ranks of those Australia may learn to curse in the future.

Here is a 1995 photo and brief bio of this foolish man who thinks that simply everyone will buy GM food if it is cheaper (found at the Birchip Cropping Group).

Mr Andrew Weidemann Farming 2500ha with his family in the Victorian Wimmera, producing a range of pulses, cereals, oilseeds and fat lambs, Andrew is a dedicated community member. He holds a range of positions with the VFF, currently the Wimmera District Council Grains Councillor, and is current President of the Rupanyup Football and Netball Club. Andrew is an inaugural Committee member on the 1st Bendigo Bank Community Bank. He has held past positions of VFF Rupanyup Branch President and Wimmera Farming Systems Deputy Chairman. Andrew has an Advanced Diploma of Agriculture, was the 2000 recipient of the Wimmera Conservation Farming James Muller Award and 2000 recipient of the Powercor Best Achievement in Primary Production....
Email: weidpast@wimmera.com.au. t 03 54922787 f 03 54922753

Monsanto, another GM giant operating in Australia, is not having much luck in France these days.

Apparently this is the first year that all its French GM test sites have been destroyed by activists.

At the same time the film The World According to Monsanto is actively circulating with a bad PR look for this company:

How much outrage can a single multinational corporation inspire? How much damage can they inflict? The breathtaking new film, The World According to Monsanto, features a company that sets the new standard. From Iowa to Paraguay, from England to India, Monsanto is uprooting our food supply and replacing it with their patented genetically engineered creations. And along the way, farmers, communities, and nature become collateral damage.

Seeds of Deception has also released a pdf document listing where in your personal food and grocery item chain GMO ingredients may be found once GM crops spread in Australia.

It's World Food Day Today, 16 October 2011

It is World Food Day today and it’s no surprise to find that this event is supported by the multinational biotech industry and agricultural sectors which promote GMO crops.

To counteract this I suggest……………………...

Send an email of support to Millions Against Monsanto here.

Sign up for Mothers Against Monsanto weekly newsletter here and join the network here.

Contact your Federal MP and tell him or her that you demand a review of the Australian Government’s position on GMO labelling. Contact details here and here.

Write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper stating how you feel about genetically modified crops and foods.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

In 2007 Monsanto gets US Government to run heavy-handed interference in Europe?

If you thought that Monsanto & Co doesn’t 'own' successive U.S. governments, this excerpt from a diplomatic cable from the American Ambassador to France concerning the GMO maize variety Mon810 and forwarded to Washington may change your mind.

The highlighting is mine.

¶1. (C) Summary: Mission Paris recommends that that the USG reinforce our negotiating position with the EU on agricultural biotechnology bypublishing a retaliation list when the extend "Reasonable Time Period" expires. In our view, Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the Commission. In France, the "Grenelle" environment process is being implemented to circumvent science-based decisions in favor of an assessment of the "common interest." Combined with the precautionary principle, this is a precedent withimplications far beyond MON-810 BT corn cultivation. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices. In fact, the pro-biotech side in France -- including within the farm union -- have told us retaliation is the only way to begin to begin to turn this issue in France. End Summary.

¶2. (C) This is not just a bilateral concern. France will play a leading role in renewed European consideration of the acceptance of agricultural biotechnology and its approach toward environmental regulation more generally. France expects to lead EU member states on this issue during the Slovene presidency beginning in January and through its own Presidency in the second half of the year. Our contacts have made clear that they will seek to expand French national policy to a EU-wide level and they believe that they are in the vanguard of European public opinion in turning back GMO's. They have noted that the member states have been unwilling to support the Commission on sanctioning Austria's illegal national ban. The GOF sees the ten year review of the Commission's authorization of MON 810 as a key opportunity and a review of the EFSA process to take into account societal preferences as another (reftels).

¶3. (C) One of the key outcomes of the "Grenelle" was the decision to suspend MON 810 cultivation in France. Just as damaging is the GOF's apparent recommitment to the "precautionary principle." Sarkozy publicly rejected a recommendation of the Attali Commission (to review France's competitiveness) to move away from this principle, which was added to the French constitution under Chirac

¶4. (C) France's new "High Authority" on agricultural biotech is designed to roll back established science-based decision making. The recently formed authority is divided into two colleges, a scientific college and a second group including civil society and social scientists to assess the "common interest" of France. The authority's first task is to review MON 810. In the meantime, however, the draft biotech law submitted to the National Assembly and the Senate for urgent consideration, could make any biotech planting impossible in practical terms. The law would make farmers and seed companies legally liable for pollen drift and sets the stage for inordinately large cropping distances.
The publication of a registry identifying cultivation of GMOs at the parcel level may be the most significant measure given the propensity for activists to destroy GMO crops in the field.

¶5. (C) Both the GOF and the Commission have suggested that their respective actions should not alarm us since they are only cultivation rather than import bans. We see the cultivation ban as a first step, at least by anti-GMO advocates, who will move next to banor further restrict imports. (The environment minister's top aidetold us that people have a right not to buy meat raised on biotechfeed, even though she acknowledged there was no possible scientific basis for a feed based distinction.) Further, we should not beprepared to cede on cultivation because of our considerable planting seed business in Europe and because farmers, once they have hadexperience with biotech, become its staunchest supporters.

¶6. Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious andmust be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect a nearly victory.

PARIS 00004723 002 OF 002Stapleton

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

If it's Moday it must be Monsanto time

Last April The Independent in the UK published an article on yield declines in Roundup Ready resistant soya bean crops.

The main premise appeared to be supported by entries such as this at Potash Corp in 2007:

Manganese Response of Conventional and Glyphosate-Resistant Soybean

Project Leader: Dr. Nathan Nelson, Kansas State University, Agonomy, 2708 Throckmorton Plant Sciences Center, Manhattan, KS 66506-5501.
Telephone: (785) 532-5115. Fax: (785) 532-6094.

Weed control benefits of glyphosate resistant (GR) soybeans have resulted in nearly complete adoption of GR soybean varieties by U.S. producers, despite an apparent yield decrease that accompanies this decision. Although the reasons for the yield decrease are not known, there is some evidence that GR soybeans have reduced manganese (Mn) uptake compared to conventional soybeans. Therefore, Mn additions may help overcome the apparent yield disadvantage of GR soybeans. The objectives of this study are to: i) evaluate nutrient uptake, distribution, and biomass accumulation in a GR soybean cultivar compared to a non-GR sister line, and ii) determine the response of a GR and non-GR soybean cultivar to soil and foliar Mn applications. Field plots were established at five locations (Scandia, Manhattan, Ashland Bottoms, Rossville, and Ottawa) in North Central and Eastern Kansas in 2006 and 2007 to compare conventional and GR soybean response to three rates of soil applied and two rates of foliar Mn. Response variables include yield, biomass, plant height, Mn uptake, and leaf, and grain Mn concentrations.

Application of Mn increased GR soybean yields between 6 and 14 bu/A at the Scandia site, but results were inconsistent at the other sites. Conventional soybeans were not responsive to Mn at any of the locations in 2006, but were responsive at the Scandia site in 2007. Over all, soybean yields were greater at the Scandia location compared to the other locations for both years, suggesting that the yield increase from Mn application to GR soybeans may only occur in high yielding environments (>60 bu/A). Trends indicated a yield response to both soil-applied and foliar-applied Mn, but the results were inconsistent across locations. Preliminary plant analyses show that there was no significant difference in Mn uptake between the GR and non-GR varieties. There were some differences in nutrient partitioning, where the non-GR soybeans had more K remaining in the leaves at R6 growth stage. Further analysis of 2007 data will be conducted to confirm these observations.

The premise appeared to also be supported by one of the other studies cited in The Independent article which concluded:

This research provides evidence that the GR soybean variety used in this study did not accumulate Mn in the same manner as the conventional variety, and did respond to application of Mn in this high-yield environment.

However, its author Dr. W.B. Barney Gordon objected to The Independent's summary of his findings and backed away from any statement that GMO soya bean may lead to lower crop yields (scroll through to Page 3).

According to Elmore et al in the Agronomy Journal:

Yields were suppressed with GR soybean cultivars. Our other work showed that there was no effect of glyphosate on GR cultivars (Elmore et al., 2001). The work reported here demonstrates that a 5% yield suppression was related to the gene or its insertion process and another 5% suppression was due to cultivar genetic differential. Producers should consider the potential for 5 to 10% yield differentials between GR and non-GR cultivars as they evaluate the overall profitability of producing soybean. Cultivar choices are best based on (i) previous weed pressure and success of control measures in specific fields, (ii) the availability and cost of herbicides, (iii) availability and cost of herbicide-resistant cultivars, and (iv) yield, and not solely on whether cultivars are herbicide resistant. Based on our results from this study and those of Elmore et al., 2001, the yield suppression appears associated with the GR gene or its insertion process rather than glyphosate itself.

What is becoming obvious in all this, is the fact that Australian farmers who plant GMO soya bean may initially save on pesticide application rates, but will inevitably face extra targeted fertiliser costs and the possibility exists that the genetic modification process itself may be responsible for some percentage of lower yield results anyway.

Not exactly the win-win situation that Monsanto and friends are presenting as the 'truth' and something NSW North Coast cane farmers should be aware of as they frequently alternate cane with soya bean.

Extra reading if you are interested in global agriculture here.

U.K. Soil Association 2008 press release here.

* This post is part of the North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

There are now 220 lobbyists on the Australian Government register

At least 32 new lobbyists went onto the Australian Government Lobbyists Register since 1 November 2008.
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide Pty Ltd registered on 17 November.

Edelman has a small but seemingly innocuous client list named for the register.
However, it must be remembered that the Edelman group also acts for GM seed giant Monsanto.

It has taken Edelman's over two months to decide to register after North Coast Voices mentioned its absence from this register.

I wonder how long it will take before it decides to fully list its client base in Australia?

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.