Countdown - Bill C-474

There's so much going on in the GMO world right now. All a-flutter about GM Alfalfa down south, and tomorrow there's the final debate on Bill C-474, with the vote on February 9.

If you're Canadian, it's worth writing your MP. CBAN makes it easy...

And if you're interested in knowing more about why it's worth trying to protect our organic and non-GM growers, there are good reasons why you as a consumer might not want to be eating genetically modified foods. Or exporting them elsewhere.

Because there is no mandatory labelling of GM foods in this country, at the moment your only option not to eat genetically modified foods in Canada is to buy organic .

And here's why organics might be worth your investment, excerpt from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s Position Paper on GMOs (from May, 2009):

Natural breeding processes have been safely utilized for the past several thousand years. In contrast, "GE crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years."

Despite these differences, safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of "substantial equivalence" such that "if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food." However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.

According to Dr. Arpad Pusztai,who exposed risks to the immune system associated with GM potatoes, “it's not the foreign gene that's added to a food product or animal hybrid that is dangerous - these things taken on their own had little to no effect - but it's the entire process of changing the genes that creates the problem” (quoted last March). And that’s the outcome on which we’re gambling our health and that of our children.

The other thing to remember about genetically-modified foods is that they're not developed for better flavour or nutritional qualities. They're developed to tackle weeds by making the patented seeds resistant to a patented pesticide, the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate). So that means that when you eat genetically-modified foods, you are consuming foods produced with ever-increasing amounts of pesticides, which are proving ever less effective.

We have Monsanto’s assurance that glyphosate is not harmful to us. Curiously, it’s been deemed safe for us to eat, but is labelled a groundwater contaminant and is toxic to fish and marine life. I can’t help but wonder what long-term effect will it have if it reaches human digestive systems through seafood or groundwater?

The Alfalfa thing and final debate & vote on C-474

A year or two ago I was interviewing someone about organic issues and genetically modified something or other and the topic of GM alfalfa came up. She told me that GM wheat had been on the regulatory table some years ago, but the public outcry was such that it was soundly defeated.

Which she thought was great, but the real problem would come when GM alfalfa came knocking at Canada's door. That, she said, would kill organics, and the public wouldn't even know to get excited because who cares about alfalfa? Wheat we can identify with; it's part of being Canadian. But alfalfa's just hay or something, right? Actually it's at the bottom of our food chain, and so you had better care deeply, because it's about to change your life.

As you may have heard, the American government has not just opened the door but laid down a red carpet for GM alfalfa, so it seems we have pretty much lost the battle before the bugle has even sounded. Alfalfa is the fourth most widely-grown crop in the United States behind corn, wheat and soybeans.

It is the primary animal feed - forage crop - in Canada. It is heavily used to feed dairy cattle, as well as horses, beef cattle, sheep, chickens, turkeys and other farm animals. Which means it feeds the dairy industry and the meat and egg industries. It's popular in animal feeds because it's high in protein, vitamins and minerals; this is why people eat alfalfa sprouts as well.

Organic producers are not allowed to use genetically modified ingredients or feeds, so if you buy organic eggs, milk, cheese, butter or meat, get ready to kiss them goodbye. Likewise organic alfalfa sprouts.

One thing to know about alfalfa is that it's pollinated by bees, so it will travel. The bees who pollinate it are specialized (alfalfa leafcutter bees/Megachile rotundata). Honeybees can't do the work because of the mechanics of the flower and the size and shape of the bee. Alfalfa leafcutters do not have the range of honeybees, but travel they will, and the GM alfalfa pollen with them.

Alfalfa is hugely important in farming because it's a legume, meaning it has nitrogen-fixing qualities for gardens as well as farms, and so it's frequently grown as a cover crop, as well as a forage crop.

Because of its position in our food chain, contamination of organic alfalfa with GM alfalfa means no more organic meat, eggs, dairy or sprouts for us, but it also means no more organic *or* conventional meat, egg or dairy products can be exported by Canada to protected markets like the EU which refuses to buy GM foods.

Surely this situation gives Canada grounds to sue the USA for violation of NAFTA's environmental and trade protections? I think we should be questioning long and loud why Obama's government's love affair with the biotech industry is allowed to rob Canada of the right to choose whether or not to allow GM plants and foods into our environment and agricultural production. Won't the American decision cause Canada clear economic losses by crippling our ability to produce organic foods and supply our export markets?

Therefore, this is a particularly important time to heed CEBan's call to action over Bill C-474 which is thoroughly entangled in the alfalfa issue. Bill C-474 aims to protect farmers who wish to export non-GM crops into protected markets; it came up because of the accidental contamination of Canadian flaxseed with GM flax.

The final debate takes place February 8; the final vote on February 9. We need the Liberals to vote for this bill, so if you are in a liberal (or even conservative) riding (or care to drop a line to Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper) write, phone or otherwise harangue your MP today.

Write to Tom Vilsack and Barack Obama while you're at it. Do not let them say that nobody complained so they did what they liked.

Not so sweet

To anyone who's been watching the GM sugar beet issue, it's perhaps not surprising to see Monsanto being just the tiniest bit manipulative in the media. If the genetically modified sugarbeet they hustled onto the market without doing their environmental impact study is banned, they argue, your sugar prices will rise.

So whose fault would a rise in sugar prices be then, the farmers who planted the beets at Monsanto's promise it would make their lives easier, their yields higher and their profits better? The consumer, who has no say? The sugar companies who, for reasons we can only guess at, insisted farmers plant GM sugar beets? The multinational who stands to make a lot of money from the exercise?

The arguments against genetically modified sugar beets are pretty standard: if you allow sugar beets to be planted, as Alberta currently does (for Rogers Sugar/Lantic) as did the US sugar beet industry, then you risk cross-contamination of sugar beet's plant relatives, through cross-pollination. These relatives include table beets and chard, and that puts at risk the crops of farmers who wish to grow them as conventional or organic crops.

Another reason for opposing GM sugar beets is their herbicide resistance, which means there is a potential for increased use of herbicides. Increased use of herbicides leads to increases in herbicide-resistant weeds, which leads to even more use of herbicides. And round and round. Since Monsanto sells both the seed and the herbicide, it is in their economic interest to sell plenty of both. Given the profits it stands to make by selling its herbicides, should we accept the company's assurances that no harm will come from the residues of their product that ends up on our food, our farmland and in our water supply?

And finally, consumers who simply do not wish to consume genetically modifed foods are once again being sold a food product that doesn't have to be labelled - so they have no real choice in the matter - and whose health risks over the long term are simply not known. We've been told that if we wish to avoid GMO products, we need only buy certified organic. But products like these are simply slipped into the food chain without public warning. And if consumers don't know in the first place that their sugar is suddenly now made from genetically modified ingredients, how would they know to switch to organic?

If a supermarket chain can do it....

Carrefour’s new “Reared without GMOs”* labelling gives its customers the option of knowing what they are eating.

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Shame on Candian Conservatives (again)

Info and action - www.cban.ca/474

PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release

Conservatives Shut Down Debate on Biotech Harm to Farmers

Parliamentary hearings cancelled to protect biotechnology corporations

October 28, 2010, Ottawa - Today, House of Commons Agriculture Committee hearings on Private Members Bill C-474 - dealing with the issue of genetic engineering - were cancelled and invited witnesses were turned away because, last night, Conservative Members of Parliament voted down a motion to extend debate on the Bill. The motion to extend the debate by 30 days was defeated by just 4 votes.

Bill C-474 would support farmers by requiring that “an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.”

“The Conservatives ended the debate in order to protect the biotech industry from any more scrutiny,” said Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network. “This Bill spurred the first real debate in Parliament over the negative impacts of genetically engineered crops and that’s why Conservatives shut it down.”

“The vote to extend the hearings should have been an uncontroversial procedural matter but the Conservatives made a calculated political move to save biotech corporations like Monsanto from the spotlight,” said Sharratt. “The debate was exposing the reality that some genetically engineered crops can cause serious economic harm to farmers and the Canadian economy, and our government currently has no legislative way to stop economically harmful GE crops.” Farmers are at risk when GE crops are commercialized in Canada without also being first approved in our major export markets.

This morning’s Agriculture Committee hearings were cancelled and National Farmers Union President Terry Boehm, who was invited by the Committee to testify, was turned away. Boehm traveled from Saskatchewan and planned to speak in favour of the Bill. Many more witnesses, including other farm leaders, will now not have a chance to present to the Committee. The Committee has already heard strong testimony in support of Bill C-474 from organizations representing conventional alfalfa growers. The growers are predicting that Monsanto’s GE alfalfa will harm their markets. “The debate was making it increasingly harder to justify a position against the Bill,” said Sharratt.

The final vote on the Bill could be called within weeks. The Bill was introduced by Alex Atamanenko, the NDP Agriculture Critic and MP for British Columbia Southern Interior.


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For more information: Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, 613 241 2267 ext 6; cell: 613 263 9511 coordinator@cban.ca

Terra Madre: GMOs, nutraceuticals, organic/biodynamic farming

I paid a fleeting visit to a session on GMOs, functional foods and nutraceuticals, both areas of concern for Slow Food, whose No-GMO campaign was visible during the week.



A few snippets:

Marcello Buiatti:

• more is spent on marketing than researching GMO products;
  
• GMO is a technology of failure, because only 4 plants have been successfully modified since 1987, and these use the same processing methods as the nineties, so no advancement in the ten years 1997 to 2000;
  
• plants evolve in ways that GMO do not; there is the same cross contamination between regulatory bodies and biotech firms in Europe as there is in the US, for example the marketing manager for Syngenta came from the European agency responsible for risk analysis and testing of GMOs.
  
• the "3 sisters" (why the feminization?) Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta with the other five (including Pioneer, Hasbro, Sogeti) control most of the seed companies in the world, and have made alliances with pharmaceutical companies who develop fungicides;
  
• and that Monsanto earns more from royalties than it does from plants and seeds.

Manuela Giovannetti from the University of Pisa spent some time explaining the "substantial equivalence" myth



which has been contested since the nineties, and yet is still in use to allow GMOs into our countries. There are many other sources of information which call into question the science upon which the policies pursued by governments are based. And with that I had to flee to a tasting, about which more another time.

Paid an even briefer visit to the Earth Workshop on organic and biodynamic farming, which was underway when I arrived.



I caught some discussion of a 21-year study (1977-1998) in Switzerland which compared organic, biodynamic and conventional farming methods using 7 year crop rotations. The study was funded by government rather than multinationals, a dangerously rare situation nowadays. According to the speaker, the soil fertility findings were of particular interest because biodynamics came out far ahead of any other method, showing an increase in soil fertility, which he attributed to biodynamic methods of composting. The trials showed organic methods caused a drop in soil fertility of 10% over the 21 years; conventional methods, using chemicals as well as manure, dropped soil fertility 8%, and conventional using only artificial inputs dropped 15% while biodynamics increased soil fertility 1% (after an initial drop of 4%).

Bill C-474: proposed Seeds Regulation Act

And now, a message from CBAN, which is campaigning for Bill C-474 (Seeds Regulation Act), which aims to protects Canadian farmers who grow crops for our export (and organic) markets, by requiring Canada to perform proper analysis of potential harm before it allows any more GE crops into our fields.

This analysis is not being done at the moment: you may recall that flax contamination badly harmed our exports last year. The matter is urgent because Monsanto aims to introduce GE wheat and alfalfa into our markets, which would cause immeasurable and permanent damage to the purity of our wheat and alfalfa crops, and our ability to export to markets like Europe, which has banned GE products for human consumption. Italy, for example, relies upon Canadian wheat for its pasta industry.

You can listen to the First Reading debate on Deconstructing Dinner's March 25 episode.

Here's what CBAN has to say:

Action Alert. Please distribute widely.

Action Alert #3: Take New Action before April 14, 2010!

Support Bill C-474 – before April 14, 2010 - Support Canada’s Farmers! You can stop GE Alfalfa and GE Wheat!

Write an instant letter to Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party leader from http://cban.ca/liberalact474 and ask him to make sure the Liberals pass the Bill on April 14.

You can also write to your own MP at http://cban.ca/474action

Bill C-474 was voted down but not out on April 1. The Liberals support the Bill in words - but will they support with enough votes on April 14?

Private Members Bill C-474 was debated on March 17, and April 1 with an oral vote. The recorded, official vote will happen on April 14.

Your concrete action could stop genetically engineered (GE) seeds from causing chaos in Canadian farming!

Bill C-474 would require that “an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.” The Bill could stop GE alfalfa and GE wheat.

This Bill is critically important because, as we know from experience, the introduction of new genetically engineered (GE) crops can cause economic hardship to farmers. Farmers are at risk when GE crops are commercialized in Canada without also being approved in our major export markets.

Flax farmers in Canada are now paying a heavy price because of this exact problem. Late last year, Canadian flax exports were discovered contaminated with a GE flax that is not approved in Europe or in any of our other export markets (except the U.S.). Flax farmers actually foresaw that GE contamination or even the threat of contamination would close their export markets. That's why they took steps in 2001 to remove GE flax from the market. Despite this measure, flax farmers were not protected. The GE flax contamination closed our export markets in 2009. It has created market uncertainty and depressed prices. Farmers are also paying for testing and cleanup and may be required to abandon their own farm-saved flax seed and buy certified seed instead. These costs are an unnecessary and preventable burden.

We cannot allow GE seeds to harm our export markets. Please support Bill C-474 and protect Canada’s farmers.

Write an instant letter to Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party leader before April 14 http://cban.ca/liberalact474

Bill C-474 was introduced by Alex Atamanenko, the NDP Agriculture Critic and MP for British Columbia Southern Interior.

For updates, more info and action options, see http://cban.ca/474 or contact Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network 613 241 2267 ext. 6

This action alert was issued by the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN) http://cban.ca

Did we really have to wait for the data? Livers and kidneys: The health costs of Genetically Modified crops and High Fructose Corn Syrup

A sweet little article about whether the body's seasonal health needs can be satisfied by eating seasonal foods is a timely one, in light of a couple of recent stories about risks to kidneys and livers by things we must have known we shouldn't be eating. It's not completely helpful to those of us above the citrus growing belt - article observes that colds and flu coincide with citrus and kiwi harvest - but it's a nice idea. (Though winter vegetables like broccoli and squash do contain vitamin C as well) And the bottom line is that eating fresh vegetables and fruits is always the best way to go.

Because processed foods are getting more and more bad press. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS - or by its additive names, dextrose, glucose-fructose, fructose-glucose or isoglucose) was rumbled by Michael Pollan and many others for its role in increasing the heft of its consumers. Now, in addition to its contribution to obesity levels, it has been identified as damaging to human livers in people who already have liver disease.

Avoiding HFCS is difficult, if you buy processed foods, because it has been embraced by food processors for its cheapness (thank you US farm subsidies), and can be found in foods including (but not limited to) soft drinks, fruit drinks, sports drinks, flavoured yogurts, frozen dinners, frozen desserts, canned food, breads, muffins, cakes, stuffing mixes, breakfast cereals, pancakes, waffles, cookies, crackers, ice cream, children's vitamins, cough syrup, candy bars, ketchup, relish, mustard, barbecue sauce, drink mixes, jams, jellies, syrups, meats, salad dressings, sauces, marinades and snack foods and chocolate bars.

Assuming you successfully dodge products containing HFCS, you can now start trying anew to avoid genetically modified foods, because there is evidence that GM crops are harmful to kidneys and livers. Indeed, this has only been proven in animal tests, but who wants to be the human lab rat?

Kidney disease is of course linked to obesity (see HFCS, above). Then again, it might be pure coincidence, but the rise in kidney disease over the past ten years coincides pretty neatly with the increase in unlabelled GM food ingredients (found in about 60% of our processed foods nowadays, according to a 2004 CBC article) like corn, canola, dairy, soy, potatoes, rice and now sugar beet products into North American diets: worth a bit of independent study, I'd think. We know already that Health Canada does not require independent testing on GM food safety for human consumption, but relies on the studies that the producers choose to release.

So. You know what to do. Get your copy of Michael Pollan's Food Rules, consult your GE-free shopping guides and a good basic cookbook, and get thy processed foods behind thee.

BTW: was I the only one who found the beverages consumed in the movie Juno disturbing, particularly when the consumer was pregnant? Without wanting to know what was in the blue liquid whose surplus the character disposed of at various points, the ingredients in the jug of what she drank before her pregnancy test (amounting to 1539 calories, by the way) are:

Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup and 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Concentrated Juices (Orange, Tangerine, Apple, Lime, Grapefruit). Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Beta-Carotene, Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Natural Flavors, Food Starch-Modified, Canola Oil, Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Benzoate To Protect Flavor, Yellow #5, Yellow #6.

It's all in the ingredients: molecular gastronomy and the onward march of genetics

Preferring as I do the simplicity of cooking with ingredients that are easy and relatively inexpensive to lay my hands on, I am suspicious of molecular gastronomy. It strikes me as an unsustainable novelty, requiring specialized equipment and highly processed ingredients. So I am with the feeling behind the Italian government's ban on chemical ingredients used in molecular gastronomy, in the interests of public safety. Though I think if you really want to eat the stuff, you should be willing to bear the consequences - I doubt most people would be eating Gibbs, Vauquelin or Baumé on a daily basis anyway.

It is hard sometimes not to feel that big biobusiness is winning, through sheer massive persistence and economic might. The approval of genetically modified potatoes and feeds by the European Union is disappointing news, to say the least, coming as it does

"over the resistance of half or more of the EU’s 27 countries"

and

"opposition to such foods by European consumers, who worry about risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of “superweeds” that are impervious to herbicides."

The problem with letting GMO/GE (pick your acronym of choice) feeds into Europe is that this contaminates European animal products, and it also allows the strong possibility (inevitability?) of rogue crops springing up where the seed falls. EU legislators have apparently learned nothing from the experiences of Mexican corn farmers and Canada's own Percy Schmeiser.

Meanwhile, Canada has more GE headaches, around the flax contamination issue. Here's how the GE-Free BC folk are tackling it, by asking for support for Alex Atamanenko's private members Bill C474, An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm) with a call to action before the bill is debated on March 17:

In the wake of the discovery of Genetically Engineered flax in shipments to Europe 10 years after that flax was removed from the market, and subsequent bans on Canadian exports of flax to Europe, Bill C-474 will help put pressure on the Canadian government to test adequately GE crops.

Please contact your MP through the CBAN website.

If you would like to start a petition to present to your MP, contact GE Free BC at gefreebc07@yahoo.ca to get a blank petition form. Your MP must present the petition in the House of Commons if you get 200 signatures.

Deconstructing Cargill

Busy times. Let's try to catch up.

A week ago last Sunday, a talk by Jon Steinman,



out at Muse Winery, was an attempt to draw together the gist of several years' worth of radio (Deconstructing Dinner). He illustrated some of his concerns by deconstructing one of the agricultural multinationals who control the full spectrum of our food supply in Canada: Cargill. (The Deconstructing Dinner program upon which this is based: part 1 is here and part 2 is here.)

Cargill was established in 1865, in Minnesota. In Canada its headquarters are in Winnipeg. Here are the pies in which you'll find its fingers:

Beef: Cargill owns 40% of the slaughter capacity in Canada (one of two companies that control 80% of capacity). It operates only two facilities: High River Alberta and Guelph, Ontario, which between them slaughter 5,400 cattle each day. Narrowing the field of operation in this way is undoubtedly cost-efficient for the company, but it shows very clearly the risks to consumers: any problem in one of those plants has grievous repercussions for consumers and meat producers alike, a point proven by the Maple Leaf experience, where we saw how large was the reach from a single production plant. And how great could be the financial repercussions for the company.

Animal feed: Cargill owns Nutrena, the largest feed company in the world, which makes pet food as well as feed for horses and pigs, chickens and cattle; and in 2000 they bought out their competitors, Agribrands Purina (not the pet food Purina, which is owned by Nestle).

Plant breeding: Cargill owns Renessen, partnered with Monsanto, producing such delights as genetically engineered corn. 'Nuf said.

Fertilizers: Cargil is the largest phosphate producer in the world, operating with agricultural firm IMC Global as Mosaic, and is the second largest potassium producer.

Natural gas: Cargill is one of the world's major traders and transporters of natural gas (an essential element in fertilizer production).

Salt: Cargill is the world's largest salt producer and sells such products as water softener as well as manufacturing, agricultural and the Diamond Crystal retail salt brand.

Grain: Cargill commands 17% of the world's grain trading.

Canola: Cargill operates the largest canola oilseed crushing plant in the world, in Clavet, Saskatchewan (selling under the trade name Canola Harvest).

Eggs: Cargill supplies most of the food service (Sunny Fresh) egg and breakfast products in Eastern Canada through its Kitchen Solutions brand.

Sugar: Cargill is partnering with Imperial Sugar Company to build the world's largest sugar refinery, in Louisiana.

Malting: Cargill is a partner in Prairie Malt and is one of the two companies that control 75% of malting in Canada.

Chocolate: Cargill owns the production and processing of chocolate, and brands like Peter's, Gerkens Cocoa, Veliche and Wilbur.

That's some of what they own. They have many other interests including cotton, grain (through AgHorizons), High-Fructose Corn Syrup and other corn derivatives, frozen desserts, and ethanol.

And that's only one company. Which is one extremely large reason why it feels safer to buy from small producers whenever possible.

Okara, and GE-free shopping guides

It's a byproduct, it's a food, it's a fertilizer..? Okara is all of these things. It's made up of the solids left over from tofu and soy milk making, and resembles cottage cheese. It starts to sour and then rot fairly quickly so is perishable if you're planning to eat it, as many Japanese do. It is rich in iron, low in fat, high in fiber, and also contains protein (not nearly as much as whole soybeans of course) as well as calcium and riboflavin.

Raw okara needs some preparation before using, both because it's relatively flavourless on its own and because the proteins need cooking to become digestible. It should be steamed or baked or toasted for 25 to 45 minutes, or fried in oil for about 20 minutes until thoroughly cooked, and then cooled before using. It's very light and crumbly once cooked, and still pretty flavourless.



You can add it to baking, use it as a substitute for nuts or ground beef; there are recipes around for okara falafel. I added it to some potato-vegetable pancakes last night, and it was good. There's a useful-sounding blog out there, Okara Mountain, which has many more ideas.

Here's a video on home tofu making, (and another one on making your own soya milk at home). The astute will notice that both tofu and soy milk begin the same way, and it is in these early steps that the okara is produced.



Okara is also a great soil enhancer if added to your garden or compost in the spring. If you leave it too long and it starts rotting in the bag, it will, as one of Haliburton's farmers put it to me, stink like a dead deer, though when spread over a garden and loosely raked under the leaf mulch, I haven't noticed a smell. But that decompositional tang, certainly discernable to the canine nose, might explain why old Anton has developed quite a fondness for it, so I have to watch him closely until it rots down. I hope I am not attracting other four-legged browsers in the meantime.

And further to an earlier post which featured a Genetically-Engineered Foods Shoppers' Guide from The Center for Food Safety, here's one for Canadians, thanks to our friends at Greenpeace.

GM Alfalfa... again

An issue that may affect any of us who like to buy organic food is rearing its head south of the border. In Canada, a large percentage of our organic foods are imported from the US, so anything they do affects us directly as consumers. In the last (failed) attempt to get GE labelling on our foods in this country, our own politicians told us that if we wanted to buy GE-free products, we should buy organic.

In 2007, Monsanto was blocked temporarily and nationally from introducing genetically engineered alfalfa into the US, because they had failed to do an environmental impact study proving no harm to other farmers (etc.). They have fought this ruling up to the American supreme court, which expects to rule on the matter by the end of June, and reapplied to the USDA to introduce their GE substance again. The matter is to be decided by mid-February when the USDA releases its environmental impact statement. Because favourable USDA rulings usually mean subsequent rubber-stamping in Canada, this puts us at risk too.

The reason we should all be concerned is because alfalfa is a widely used rotation crop – in both conventional and organic agriculture – and is also a hugely important animal feed, for livestock and dairy producers among others. And it is consumed directly, as alfalfa sprouts, juice or teas. Importantly, alfalfa is a perennial, unlike all other licensed GE crops in this country.

If GE alfalfa is planted, non-participating farmers are at high risk of cross contamination, and ending up, like Canadian canola farmers have done, with an almost entirely contaminated product. Once cross-contamination happens, organics go out the window, because no organic farmer who uses alfalfa can claim to be GE-free as the certification requires, and even conventional exports suffer because many countries don't want to import or eat GE foods. This would mean Canadian milk and cheese products as well as meat would be unexportable to those countries. (More information on the organic trade arguments here)

Here, from The True Food Network (who helpfully offers a handy downloadable GE-free shopping guide on its website), is the US campaign, which includes a template for a lobbying letter you might like to customize and send to the USDA and to your favourite Canadian politicians. They need to know we care.

GM day - hello US GM beet ban - goodbye organic corn?

Excellent news this morning about sugar beets south of the border: a federal court ruling that the US government illegally approved genetically modified sugar beets, on the grounds that they cross-pollinate easily, making it impossible for those who wish to grow non-GM beets to continue doing so.

Which begs the question about the approval of SmartStax GM corn: one might question the approval of a wind-pollinated member of the grass family in countries where the only GM labelling permitted is that of its negative: certified organic food cannot contain genetically modified ingredients.

Monsanto/Dow Chemical's SmartStax GM corn was approved in the US and Canada in what I hope is record speed (I would hate to think this is the turnaround for all product approvals).

It took the EPA and the CFIA about a month to approve the stuff, from the time Monsanto submitted its documents on June 16 until the official registration July 20, which rather suggests they didn't bother overmuch with doing their own messy safety checks or independent evaluation of environmental risks, preferring to accept Monsanto's research. Is such haste normal? If it's not, it appears to mark some new dodge on Monsanto's part, that they have figured out how to outmaneuvre those pesky regulations.

Approval in Canada was announced the same day as in the US; I'm told it's normally just a matter of rubber-stamping such products once they've been approved in the US. Canada certainly hasn't demonstrated much interest in reining in the environmental or health risks of GM in the past: look at the trade pickle we ended up in recently with contaminated flax seed. Health Canada has a lovely flow chart that shows the steps required, officially, to assure our safety, but it's hard to match all these steps to the approval of SmartStax. Here's a full list of the GM products we already have on our tables here. So far, SmartStax doesn't appear on the list.

Whether our legislators will attend to US court rulings, or somehow maintain that our winds don't blow the same as theirs is another question. As is whether Canada will respect the very similar US court judgement that ruled GM alfalfa posed undue risks of cross-pollination to farmers who didn't want to grow it, resulting in a nationwide ban in the States.

Meantime, GM sugar beets have been planted in Canada for the first time this year; your sugarbowl will certainly contain some GM sugar if you buy Rogers sugar. Vote with your dollars, folks.

"SmartStax" GM Corn

They've really done it this time. A new GM corn variety has been approved for planting in Canada by CFIA without being subjected to any safety testing.

CBAN's campaign asks us to let our government know this is not ok, and they have an email form you can send to Canada's minister of health, Leona Aglukkaq, right this minute, while you're thinking about it. Or you can send your message through Health Canada's contact form.

This is what Health Canada's own website promises, regarding the introduction of GE and other "novel" foods:

Health Canada assesses the safety of all genetically-modified and other novel foods proposed for sale in Canada. Companies are required to submit detailed scientific data for review and approval by Health Canada, before such foods can be sold.

The Globe & Mail did a good piece on the new variety that's been approved without testing. This bit pretty much nails the problem:

The health agency said in response to questions from The Globe and Mail that it didn't have to [assess the seeds for safety], because it is relying on the two companies making the seeds, agriculture giants Monsanto Co. and Dow AgroSciences LLC, to flag any safety concerns. But the companies haven't tested the seeds either, because they say they aren't required to.

Elsewhere this unbelievably careless approach to public safety is correctly but inadequately likened to putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Indeed.

Bees knees and labelling of GMO produce - it exists!

I was trying to regain a bit of poetry in my life by looking through a birds & bees-ish poetry collection that's been by my bed for a few weeks now. I belong to the Poetry Book Society which brings surprising books into my life every few months. This one was Weeds and Wild Flowers, by Alice Oswald, which is a beautiful-looking book as well as another skilled collection of poetry. See how she describes a snowdrop:

A pale and pining girl, head bowed, heart gnawed,
whose figure nods and shivers in a shawl
of fine white wool, has suddenly appeared
in the damp woods, as mild and mute as snowfall.
She may not last. She has no strength at all,
but stoops and shakes as if she'd stood all night
on one bare foot, confiding with the moonlight.
...

And as for bees, Seeds of Diversity Canada has a campaign going to try to find out just what pollinators we have out there. Pollination Canada has a downloadable kit to allow you to be a Pollinator Observer and take measure of the bees, beetles, birds and other critters out there helping plants to propagate. There's another organization, the North American Pollinators Protection Campaign, which also aims to help endangered pollinators.

Back to the battles with crawlies: Haliburton has been fighting wireworms



for a while. Lately these little devils have developed a technique of attacking cucumber seedlings by crawling up the stem and sucking the life out of them, so they end up keeling over like this:



The organic solution is to use potato bait, for a wireworm loves nothing so much as a nice feed of spud. So the farmers have been cutting potatoes into pieces, skewering them with wooden skewers, and burying them near the seedlings they're trying to protect. Every so often you just pull them up by the skewer and pick out any perpetrators for a swift dispatch. Results:



Meanwhile, I was thunderstruck - delightedly so - to learn that despite the best efforts of our legislators, there is in fact labelling of genetically modified foods in North American produce sections! Who knew? But if you check the Produce PLU - A User's Guide 2006, you will find the following right there on page 17:

Q How is organically grown produce coded on a PLU label?
A The number 9 is added to the front of the regular four digit PLU code. (e.g. an organically grown banana would be 94011.)

Q How is genetically engineered produce coded on a PLU label?
A The number 8 is added in front of the regular four digit PLU code. (e.g. a genetically engineered vine ripe tomato would be 84805.)

We owe this to the International Federation for Produce Standards, for establishing PLU (Price Look-Up) codes, which are 4- or 5-digit numbers primarily used on fresh produce items and typically appear on a small sticker applied to the individual piece of fresh produce (info from the Produce Marketing Association). My lingering question is how much GMO produce actually gets labelled in this way, when it's still something that is only, by law, done voluntarily in this country.

Good Friday to you all

Started mine by listening to Vandana Shiva spell it out, again, in words of splendid simplicity, on CBC's The Current. The poverty and suffering inflicted by globalised trade - poor countries unable to compete with subsidised imports from wealthy countries; massive Indian farmer suicides caused by industrial debt; the destructive nature of fuel-based agriculture; and the madness of growing crops to feed livestock or fuel cars (and subsidised commodities) while people are starving..

And she referred to the IAASTD report on the future of world farming, a year after the release of its 2500 page report, compiled by 400 scientists from 64 countries (including Canada). Its findings were never ratified by our noble country, not surprisingly since they state pretty plainly that if the world is to be fed, we must radically change farming policies and practices: large-scale industrial (fossil-fuel-based) farming, agricultural subsidies and GM do not work as a sustainable way to feed the world. In a nutshell, small-scale organic farming is the way forward.

Can't wait till she rocks the G8 in July this year; as we were told by Carlo Petrini, an invitation has been extended by this year's Italian presidency of the group, to have a presentation to G8 leaders by Terra Madre.. and surely Vandana must be the first voice in food sanity. They will have a chance to hear, and we must hope they listen.

Here's an amazing poem by Alaskan poet Olena Kalytiak Davis.

Valentines wishes

GE Free BC reports that our biggest sugar processing company, Rogers/Lantic, the last GM-Free sugar beet processing company in North America, is about to decide if they will accept GM sugar beet this growing season. This sugar beet has been genetically modified to resist Monsanto's herbicide Roundup. Because sugar beets are wind-pollinated, there is a huge risk of cross-pollination between GM and conventional varieties, as well as related crops such as organic chard and table beets.

And as always, of course, there's the overriding safety concern about genetically-modified plants intended for human consumption, which is that we simply don't know enough about the long-term health risks of eating such foods. To paraphrase what I heard one seed grower say about it, do we really have the right to perform this kind of science experiment on our grandchildren?

It is suggested, therefore, that you send a special valentine to Rogers/Lantic's CEO, Edward Makin, asking that he keep our sugar GE free.

Another sweet thought this week might include sending a submission to a new publication, Food & Sex (a new independent quarterly that explores the history, nature and culture of food and sex) from The Bouwerie, "a collective of visual linguists, wayfaring wordsmiths, agricultural artists, and culinary arbiters" who also bring you the very useful Eat Well Guide, a fun search tool to keep you sustainably nourished in Canada and the U.S.

Obama's food agenda (not) & grrrl power at the Eliot

In the wave of optimism surrounding Obamarama, it is sad to discover that he's not as smart about food as one might hope. His appointment of pro-GM, pro-biofuel former Iowa (the corn state) governor Tom Vilsack for secretary of agriculture doesn't suggest a mandate that actually addresses food issues (in fact, as Michael Pollan observes, the word 'food' wasn't mentioned at all when the appointment was announced). And what is agriculture but food production? This business seems to push us farther down the road of viewing agriculture as a commodity industry, like bricks or metals, instead of a means of producing our most basic need -- and right.

The absence of "food" in the US agricultural discussion leaves unaddressed so many important things -- including the use of food for fuel (and how corn-fed biofuel production contributes to world food prices, as well as the waste of fuel involved in producing this environmentally-unfriendly product), and the damage to food production of corn subsidies and genetically modified foods. Though we know how many thankless challenges he'll be facing, may Obama live and learn and manage to impose some kind of positive action on the situation before he's done.

Though I managed to be out of town when she visited, UK poet Jen Hadfield made a bit splash among Victoria's poetry community. And there will be more dancing in our snowless streets now that she's won the TS Eliot prize, whose manly tendencies were irreversably altered after its first eight years by our own Anne Carson, the first woman to win it since its inception. Others have written their way through the breech since then: Alice Oswald, Carol Ann Duffy, and now Hadfield.

The future of fish

Seafood is as confusing a topic as any these days. Trying to get to the bottom of what is and isn't a good choice of seafood is baffling and contradictory. Here's an attractive guide for Europeans from The Guardian; and here's some information from the Suzuki Foundation, complete with informative videos and links to sustainable seafood lists, adapted to different geographies.

But is it as simple as eating only this or that fish, when they do not exist in isolation? Humans are persistent in choosing to believe they can pick and choose from nature with no effect on its complex interrelationships. There is a whole aquatic food chain involved, and deeply affected by our choices; eating our way through multiple links in it is bound to cause unknown effects on all the ocean's stocks.

Today I listened to a report on NPR about a study of acidity in the coastal waters just south of Victoria. It seems CO2 emissions are being absorbed at such a rate by our oceans that they are turning acidic much faster than supposed, bad news for acid-sensitive marine life like mussels, while ideal for acid-friendly life forms like algae; and down the line will corrode the shells and kill off other vulnerable shellfish including coral and plankton, way down at the bottom of the food chain - and what more important place is there? (Lots more on this in a 2006 report called Impacts of ocean acidification on coral reefs and other marine calcifiers)

Meanwhile, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has published a new and interesting page of information for people wishing to peddle so-called "novel fish and fish products" in this country. Novelty is not so cosy a word as it used to be; nowadays this is food-regulation-speak for genetically modified and otherwise oddly manipulated food items. (A list of the "novel food decisions" going back to 1994 makes for uneasy reading.)

This led me down some time consuming side-tracks... I find myself wondering if the appearance of this information sheet might herald some potential movement on Canada's part in allowing genetically engineered fish to be farmed here, just as the FDA has offered up some procedures for companies wanting to market genetically modified animal products in the US; and what happens next door usually spills across our border without a fight or much delay at all.

The 2008 March Status Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development hints that this might be coming, even as it states that this country has no intention of developing a policy on transgenic aquatic organisms because it feels that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (with its Animate products of biotechnology section, and the Domestic Substances List (DSL)) covers the matter nicely thank you. Lots of reading there for interested parties.

And the complexity of all of that regulatory verbage explains why most of us haven't a clue what genetically modified foodstuffs are and aren't being fed to us; unfortunately for us, the politicians are as confused as the rest of us. And this CBC story from 2002 is as mercilessly true today as it was when it was broadcast. Beans and rice for supper, I think...

Anyway. Nancy Willard has written a great tribute to seafood in A Wreath to the Fish.

Organic Islands, featuring Percy Schmeiser

The Organic Islands festival took place last weekend, and we went for a sunny Saturday afternoon of tastings and talks and music. Found some Emmer (aka Farro, in Italy) an ancient wheat now being grown for the first time on Vancouver Island.



There were interesting causes to support, like this one where you can register your fruit tree and have others pick and use your fruit if you don't want all of it.



A lost tree being tormented by small children.



One of the events we wanted to catch was the GE Free BC panel, featuring Yukon farmer Tom Rudge,



Powell River politician Colin Palmer,



activist Josh Brandon from Greenpeace,



and special guest Percy Schmeiser,



whose story I knew from CBC coverage and films like The Future of Food and Life Running Out of Control.

Schmeiser impressed me with his speaking skills. I hadn't known he was a former MLA as well as a farmer. I did know he was a life-long seed developer who had spent $400,000 and 7 years of his life fighting Monsanto on the grounds of patent infringement when Monsanto found GM (Roundup-Ready) canola growing on Schmeiser's field in 1998.

The rather alarming issue of GM canola crossing itself with non-GM canola is something Schmeiser talks a lot about: "You can't contain nature" is his mantra, and the message he dearly wants to deliver to regions tempted to introduce GM crops alongside non-GM.

Canola, a Canadian cross-bred (not genetically-modified) brassica plant that was developed in the 1970s, is an important crop because it is used for vegetable oils (lower in saturated fats than any other oil) and animal feed as well as a rotation crop.

Canola has proven it doesn't obey corporate laws of ownership and whether through wind, rain, pollen drift, flood or spillage, GM and non-GM canola have interbred right across Canada and pretty much killed the country's organic production of canola (no GM crops or products are allowed in Canadian organic production).

Not only does being GM make the contaminated crops unexportable to the many countries which do not allow GM imports, it also - from Schmeiser's experience - makes those crops, and their seeds, the property of Monsanto, since you have, willingly or not, and no matter to what degree, ended up growing a Monsanto-engineered plant. This is anathema to farmers who have traditionally saved seed from their own crops to plant the next year. But if you grow GM plants, Canadian patent law prevents you from saving and sowing or trading or selling that seed, since it includes Monsanto technology and is therefore not yours to do with as you please. To reinforce this message, farmers who buy the seed are required to sign Technology Use Agreements which forbid farmers from re-using seed, and require that they purchase new seed each year

Schmeiser also talked about the promises Monsanto had made: higher crop yields, better nutritional content, decreased use of pesticides (insecticides and herbicides), an end to world hunger. Instead, the crop yields from GM crops are lower, nutritional values from industrial crops are demonstrably down, and the potency of today’s Roundup is 4x what it was ten years ago because glyphosate-resistant strains of weeds (superweeds) have evolved; the content of new herbicides currently used in Saskatchewan includes Dioxins, which have toxic effects on human health and are largely passed to humans through the food supply.

Standing ovation...



Also discussed by the panel was the point about there being no research about GM crops aside from what Monsanto itself funds, selects and publishes, and how that just might be a problem in terms of credibility and human safety.

The GE Free BC campaign aims to make BC a GE free region. They're also linked with campaigns to promote that seemingly elusive goal of requiring food containing genetically engineered substances to be labelled in this country, and another worth-while movement to ban Terminator technology, which would allow corporations to genetically sterilise their crops, ensuring farmers would have no choice but to purchase seed from them each year.

After that we needed a hot dog, from the eternally popular organic hot dog stand where we managed to get the last three hot dog buns on offer for the day.



Then we wandered beneath the attractive drystone arches of the Green Drinkery



for a glass of local wine



and a prime location to hear former Victoria resident Jeremy Fisher play us out.