29/December/21

 

The UN Food Systems Summit put biotechnology at centre stage, although agroecological innovations offer greater promise for sustainability, write Aniket Aga, environmental studies expert, and Maywa Montenegro de Wit, assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in an important evidence-based article that is highly critical of GM crops and foods. The authors write, "A narrow focus on technology to address the complex structural problems of farming and food has an astonishingly poor track record. In more than two decades of GM crops’ cultivation, nearly every aspect of GM crop research, development and application has stoked scientific controversy. At its base, GM crops are rooted in a colonial-capitalist model of agriculture based on theft of Indigenous land and on exploiting farmers’ and food workers’ labour, women’s bodies, Indigenous knowledge and the web of life itself." Scientific American

 

 

Maywa Montenegro de Wit commented on Twitter on the process of getting her and Aniket Aga's article (see above item) into print in Scientific American: "@AgaAniket & I wrote this in August when golden rice's approval was 'news.' Due to litigious biotech boosters, factchecking x100. Grateful for editor's unflagging support to air a position that is structural, anticolonial, *and* scientific." @MaywaMontenegro on Twitter

 

 

Europe’s environment ministers discussed for the first time the deregulation of a new generation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) when they met on 20 December. On the same day, Friends of the Earth Europe published a new investigation on what lies beneath big agribusiness corporations’ push for EU deregulation of new GMOs. The briefing debunks the notion that the new generation of GMOs is just an easy and cheap solution to speed up progress in plant breeding techniques. In reality, new GMOs are driven by big agribusiness firms to increase their control over the food and farming sector. GMWatch

 

 

Thailand's Criminal Court has ruled in favour of Witoon Lienchamroon, founder of BioThai, a conservation group that promotes sustainable farming. The case stems from a post that was published on BioThai’s Facebook page and statements made during an TV interview, in which Witoon warned about the danger of using chemical products. The Weed Science Society of Thailand and its president, Chanya Maneechote, dragged Witoon to the Criminal Court of Thailand. But the Criminal Court ruled that "BioThai's message was couched in academic terms and was not considered false information under the Computer Act." BioThai’s campaigning has helped achieve restrictions on glyphosate, paraquat, and chlorpyrifos. BioThai

 

 

In Switzerland, Bayer will have to pay over 34 million francs of Monsanto uncollected taxes. Monsanto, which markets agricultural seeds and the controversial weedkiller Roundup, benefited from a tax exemption from the canton of Vaud, for ten years, when it was established in Morges. But in 2018, it was bought by Bayer and left Morges for Basel two years later. However, in the conditions of its tax exemption, there is a so-called "claw-back" clause: It requires that a company remain on site for another ten years after the end of the exemption if it does not want to have to pay taxes for those years. For Monsanto this means that it should have stayed in Vaudois until 2024. But it left in 2020. The lawyer and Green MP Raphaël Mahaim said he was pleased because Monsanto were "predators" who tried "to use the tax rules to optimise their situation, but in a shameless way!" RTS (French text)