Farmers Weekly Reports
On GMOs In The UK General Election
Party Positions On GM Crops
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/election2010gm.htm
Are You Ready For A GM 'Lobbygate'
Under The Next Parliament?
11 April 2010
It's Our Politics That Needs To Be Modified - Not Our Food |
|
Under the last
Conservative government Genetically Modified (GM) foods were allowed into Britain even
without any labelling. Only intense grass roots public
pressure to reign in the situation eventually changed this.
As a minimum the Conservatives are
expected to gain many seats in the current election. So when it comes to GM crops under
the new leadership of David Cameron are the Tories really offering 'change you can believe
in'?
Or will it be just more of the same
as endured under New Labour, whose policy on GM food was underpinned by the many millions of pounds donated to the party by GM crop
technology investor Lord Sainsbury - who is now courting the
Tories?
The Conservatives' relationship
with the Food and Drink Federation lobby group may also be an important factor that comes
into play in answering such questions after the election. In the meantime Farmers Weekly
has provided (see below) a summary of the main political parties apparent position on GM
crops. |
"Speaking at a Food and Drink Federation fringe meeting at the
Conservative party conference in Manchester on
Tuesday (6 October), Mr [Peter] Kendall [President of the National Farmers Union]... said
the organic sector should also be willing to consider the possible benefits of GM production as a solution
to meeting the country's food demands.... Jim
Paice, shadow food and farming minister, said it was 'a mistake' that views about GM
production had become so polarised. 'We have to do everything we can to encourage GM technology to be developed at a scientific level to see what advantage there is to food safety,
nutrition, conservation, inputs and so on,' he said.... Mr Paice believed GM technology would increasingly become part of
conventional British agriculture."
Conservatives 09: Soil Association must stop scare tactics
Farmers
Weekly Online, 6 October 2009
How 'Will We Have Credible Oversight' With So Many
Conflicts Of Interest?
"Almost everything we grow, everything
we eat is the root result of human intervention, human breeding and so on. But this [GM recombinant DNA] is unnatural in a different sort of way from the kinds of breeding programs that have
characterized humanity for ten thousand years.... So
the question which people have, I believe, not only a right but a duty to ask, is how
wisely will we use these unprecedented new powers? What
are the risks associated with doing something this new and this profound at the very wellsprings of life? How
are they going to be managed? How will we have credible oversight? How will we have credible and effective monitoring of the introduction of
this technology? Certainly, humanity's record for using technology wisely, sensitive to
its potential effects on society, on people, on environment is, at best, mixed and hardly
encouraging....We have not yet identified, yet alone cloned, the gene for wisdom, and some
skepticism about our ability to manage powerful new technologies is appropriate.... "
Robert Shapiro,Chief Executive of Monsanto
Speech
on genetic engineering presented at State of the World Forum, Fairmont Hotel, San
Francisco, CA , October 27, 1998
Farmers
Weekly Review
Of Party Positions On GM Crops
| As the British general election gets underway Farmers Weekly has reported
(see below) on the positions of the main political parties in relation to GM crops. In England, Labour and the Conservatives have the most 'GM enthusiastic' position. The Liberals want a fresh debate
on GM in the context of food security, whilst in the devolved regions the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties are unambiguously opposed to GMOs.
The Green Party, which
considers that "The [GM] risks to health and the environment are simply too
great", is not covered by the Farmers
Weekly review. Nor is UKIP, which
"is opposed to the production of GM crops in
Britain, but open to scientific research, advice and consumer demand".
nlpwessex.org
Will GM Crop Deliver Benefits To Farmers?
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/gmagric.htm |
"The General Election
will take place on Thursday 6 May, Gordon
Brown has announced. It is expected to be the
closest run election since the hung parliament of 1974. Agriculture spokesman from the three main parties in England have set
out their stalls knowing that any of them could take a seat in the next Cabinet if the
outcome of the vote is a hung parliament. Below Farmers Weekly has listed the policies
of the three main parties - Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat - on a
particular issue."
General Election set for 6 May
Farmers
Weekly Online, 6 April 2010
Are You Ready
For GM 'Lobbygate'
As New Labour's GM Supremo Switches To The Tories?
"A senior member of David Cameron’s frontbench team was last night
forced to pull out of an appearance as the guest of honour at a reception for a corporate lobbying firm at the Tory
conference. .... Many of the private interests will be
represented in Manchester next week where, according to one party insider, 'wealth and power is stampeding in a way not seen since the collapse of the Berlin
Wall'. Such comments
reflect the unease felt by some senior members of the party at the bombardment from firms
seeking to influence the next [Conservative] manifesto."
Francis Maude cancels lobbying appearance at Tory conference to avoid conflict of
interest
London Times,
3 October 2009
Are You Ready
For 'Lobbygate'? |
"David
Cameron demanded yesterday that Gordon Brown
investigate a boast by the former Cabinet minister Stephen Byers that he had used his
influence to change policies to favour businesses. The former Transport Secretary, who was
secretly filmed offering himself 'like a sort of cab for hire' for up to £5,000 a
day, will be referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog today. Mr Byers told an undercover
reporter that he had secured secret deals with ministers and said that he received
confidential information from No 10 and was able to help firms involved in price fixing to
get around the law. The claims gravely embarrassed Labour, which rushed forward a promise
to introduce a compulsory register of lobbying which it said had been planned for the
election manifesto.... The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said they would table
parliamentary questions about the claims in an attempt to see if there had been breaches
of the ministerial code. 'I have been warning for
some time that lobbying is the next scandal to hit British politics,' Mr Cameron said. 'These are shocking
allegations. The House of Commons needs to conduct a thorough investigation into these ex-Labour ministers.'”
Calls for inquiry into 'MPs for hire' scandal
London Times,
22 March 2010
As Power Drains From New Labour
Lord Sainsbury - Ex-Labour Minister GM Supremo - Shamelessly Moors His Boat Alongside The
Tories
"He’s the supermarket baron who
has bankrolled the Labour Party for more than a decade, Tony Blair’s most loyal
minister, who survived more reshuffles than almost anyone else and has donated £4.5
million under Gordon Brown. Now Lord Sainsbury of
Turville is helping David Cameron
to prepare for power. The Institute for Government, which
he set up last month, is running training sessions for Shadow Cabinet members. His staff
are acting as match-makers between senior Tories and the Civil Service. There have been
breakfast briefings for Conservative frontbenchers with retired permanent secretaries, and
seminars for serving mandarins on how to handle a new government. On the day we meet him
at the institute’s white stuccoed house overlooking St James’s Park, 15
permanent secretaries, including Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, have just
been there for a meeting, according to the visitors’ book.... It is rather extraordinary that Labour’s biggest donor is now
training the Tories.... Senior Conservatives and
mandarins have been attending a series of seminars on public spending cuts, organised by
the institute....His only motive for giving money to Labour was, he says, public service
— the reason he is also spending £15 million of his family fortune on the institute.
'My main interest in life is that the country is run better,' he says. So will he give
more money to Labour before the next election? 'I’m sure that’s a question
they’re interested in too,' he replies."
Lord Sainsbury turns back on Labour to help David Cameron win power
London Times,
18 July 2009 |
Lord Sainsbury Of Turville
Leading Champion Of GM Crops And The Largest Individual Donor To New
Labour
Click Here |
"Dozens of Conservative
parliamentary candidates are working in the lobbying industry that seeks to influence their party’s leadership. An investigation
by The Times has found that 28 prospective candidates who have a good chance of becoming
Tory MPs are working as lobbyists or public relations consultants on behalf of businesses
and other interests. More than a quarter got their jobs after
being selected to fight seats. Several acknowledged that they
had set up meetings for clients with Shadow ministers, MPs and officials. More said that
they had been asked to provide advice on the party’s direction. A few admitted to
having pressed clients’ cases to Tory frontbenchers. The
disclosure challenges David Cameron’s promise to usher in a 'new politics'. More than a fifth of his 150
candidates most likely to win seats for the first time will have done public affairs work,
although a handful have since left the industry. By contrast, only seven Labour and three
Liberal Democrat prospective candidates with realistic hopes of victory have jobs in
public affairs or communications. The influence of
paid consultants was thrown into sharp relief this year when President Obama announced that he would block the revolving door through
which lobbyists moved in and out of US administrations. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have issued any such edict....Last
night the party declined to comment on the disclosure that so many candidates were working
in the industry or the evidence that lobbying firms were keen to build bridges with a
party on the cusp of power. Senior Conservative sources have told The Times of their
unease over how former party advisers have moved into lobbying before the election.
Several firms now advertise their Tory credentials; others have been hired to change
policies on gambling and home improvement packs."
Hired guns take aim at target Tory seats
London Times,
25 September 2009
Who Are The Food And Drink Federation
(FDF)?
And What Is Their Interest In GM Food And The Conservative Party?
"The food-and-drink
industry employs 500,000 people and has a turnover
of £65 billion. Its exports alone are worth £9 billion, and its largest companies are big donors to both main political parties. The
industry has never been shy of wielding its power. In 1983, the groundbreaking National
Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education report, which marked a long-overdue change in
public-health advice from an emphasis on food deficiencies to an acknowledgement of the
problem of overeating, had to be rewritten 13 times to mollify industry lobbyists. In 1994,
a Department of Health report on nutritional aspects of cardiovascular disease raised the
industry's ire because it suggested an 'illustrative healthy diet' in which the average
consumer might halve soft-drink and biscuit consumption to eat more healthily. A
delegation of industry executives was reported to have met ministers and civil servants to
ask for a change because of the danger to their business. When that was unsuccessful, they were reported to have asked civil
servants to leave the room and to have threatened to withdraw Tory
Party donations (some later did)."
Healthy diet? Eat your words
Times
Higher Education, 15 March 2002
Gambling
With Fundamentals - The Banking Crisis Version II |
Given
what it managed to do with trans fats, once the junk food
processing industry is fully armed with genetically modified biological derivatives, it
should be capable before too long of doing to the world's food supply what the bankers
managed to do to the world's money supply when armed with financial derivatives.
Likewise, it will most likely be
the public and taxpayers who pay the cost when things go wrong, not those who introduced
the new risk into the system - who will merely claim that they were using the 'best science available'
at the time when their products' safety was 'assessed'.
And all this is to say nothing of
the sector's emerging additional enthusiasm for the use of nanotechnology (involving minute
man-made substances) in the food chain.
For More On The Largely Hidden Trans Fats Foods
Disaster That Took Millions Of Lives
Click Here |
"The next Government must
support the UK’s food and drink sector as a strategic priority in its own right,
according to the Food and Drink Federation
(FDF), which today published a checklist of 20 ways to safeguard
the future success of the country’s biggest manufacturing industry. The checklist sets out the measures that FDF believes the next
Government could adopt to maintain the competitiveness of the food and drink sector. The
measures are set out in simple steps across five themes: create a vision for food; back us
in going green; cut the red tape; support manufacturers; and protect innovation (2).
Speaking at a fringe event organised by FDF with the National Farmers’ Union and the
British Retail Consortium at the Conservative
Party Conference in Manchester (3), FDF
Director General Melanie Leech will say: 'Our checklist sets out the ways in which we
think the next Government should support an economically important, high value
manufacturing sector. All our ideas are easy to implement and should be cost neutral for
taxpayers. But we believe they will help to safeguard the future success of the UK’s
biggest manufacturing industry – a sector that has an excellent track record of
generating wealth for the nation, providing employment opportunities nationally and
responding responsibly to societal concerns about diet, health and the environment.'”
UK's Biggest Manufacturing Industry Should Be Given
Strategic Priority says Food and Drink Federation (FDF)
eGov monitor, 6 October 2009
And What's Buried At The Bottom
Of The FDF Manifesto Checklist?
"Show leadership in the debates about the use of new technologies such as GM
and nanotechnology."
Point No 20 in 20 point manifesto
by the British Food And Drink Federation (FDF)
Launched At The Conservative Party
Conference, October 2009
And What Exactly Does FDF
Mean By That?
"FDF believes that modern
biotechnology such as genetic modification offers enormous potential to improve the quality and quantity of food
supplies around the world....the time has come when serious consideration should be given
to reopening a free and unbiased public debate about GM."
Genetic Modification (GM)
and Biotechnology
Food and Drink Federation, 18
May 2008
FDF Has Been Keen On GM
Foods For Years
"A spokesman for UK Prime
Minister Tony Blair has insisted genetically
modified food is safe despite the growing
public outcry....The Food and Drink Federation, which represents the food manufacturing industry, welcomed Mr Blair's
statement."
Food fears 'frustrate' Blair
BBC Online, 15 October 1999
The
Food and Drink Federation
A Corporate Profile
By Corporate Watch UK
Completed November 2002
The FDF is a corporate-controlled lobby group
which promotes corporate interests in three ways:
1. Producing biased information for the public
domain
2. Lobbying government for corporate-friendly legislation and regulation
3. Placing industry people on relevant government panels to ensure that industry itself
decides how or if it should be regulated.
There is ample evidence for all three of these
processes. A more subtle current running through the promotion of corporate interests, is
the placing of industry representatives on research funding councils and in supposedly
independent research institutions. |
To Read The Rest Of The Corporate Watch UK Profile On FDF
Click Here |
Mixed GM
Messages From The Tories Before The Election
But Where Will They Stand On The Issue After Polling Day?
"Speaking at a Food and Drink Federation fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference in Manchester on
Tuesday (6 October), Mr [Peter] Kendall [President of the National Farmers Union]... said
the organic sector should also be willing to consider the possible benefits of GM production as a solution
to meeting the country's food demands....Jim
Paice, shadow food and
farming minister, said it was 'a mistake' that views
about GM production had become so polarised. 'We have
to do everything we can to
encourage GM technology to be developed at a
scientific level to see what advantage there is to food safety, nutrition, conservation,
inputs and so on,' he said.... Mr Paice believed GM
technology would increasingly become part of conventional British agriculture."
Conservatives 09: Soil Association must stop scare tactics
Farmers
Weekly Online, 6 October 2009
"The Conservative Party, which is
tipped to win power in the UK next year, would stop short of embracing genetically
modified crops despite farm productivity, its top agriculture spokesman has said. Nick Herbert, the favourite to become UK farm
secretary should the Conservatives win next year's elections, said that raising crop yields is the best way to secure supplies ahead
as the world approaches a 'perfect storm' of population growth, climate change and
pressures on arable land. However, while highlighting the importance of improved
equipment, seeds and fertilizer, he stopped short of
endorsing a push in genetically modified technologies
which hold potential for huge yields increases. 'Science has to take
a lead' in establishing the virtues of the technology, Mr Herbert, shadow agriculture
secretary, told a City dinner. The technology is hugely controversial in Europe over
concerns for its broader environmental impact. Indeed, there was little point in farmers
growing it until consumers are prepared to buy it, he added, while making a comparison
with nuclear power, which has gone from pariah status to widespread acceptance.' The
speech indicated that the political climate for seed companies would change little even if
the Conservatives succeeded in ousting Labour, said Icap, the broker which organised the
event. 'It would appear that the Conservatives are adopting a similar policy
stance to that of the current Labour government on GM,' the broker said. This meant
'encouraging trials and research and development but stopping short in lobbying for
widespread EU GM adoption'. Current UK
agriculture secretary Hilary Benn came suggested in August that GM could have a role in
raising UK farming, but also failed to endorse it."
Tories would stop short of embracing GM foods
Agrimoney.com,
7 December 2009
"Speaking at the Oxford Farming
Conference today, Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for Defra, launched Labour's futuristic Food 2030 document,
which has a strong emphasis on health and public awareness, including making more land
available for people to grow their own food, and establishing a ‘Healthier Food
Mark', plus reducing greenhouse gas emissions through anaerobic digestion and improving
recycling. ‘It's a big challenge, but also a big opportunity for farming,' he said.
‘We need to do three things: produce more food; do it sustainably, and make sure that
the food we eat safeguards our health.' His opposite number, Nick
Herbert, hit back with the Conservatives' plan for a
supermarket ombudsman to enforce accurate food labelling..Both minister and shadow
minister stressed the future importance of science and technology - Mr Herbert rejected calls for a reduction in livestock and said that
farming must be led by science and that there should be a radical debate on new
technology, including GM..."
Future of farming debate at Oxford conference
Country
Life, 5 January 2010
"Conventional farmers will have to
look to the skills of the organic movement if the industry is going to meet targets to
produce more while cutting emissions. Speaking at the Soil Association conference in Birmingham on
Wednesday (3 February), DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn said the organic sector had learned a
lot from science about how to improve yields while cutting inputs.... Shadow farm minister Jim Paice said both
sectors also had to maximise their use of science - which did not automatically mean
looking to GM technology - to learn about how to
produce more while impacting less."
Lesson to be learned from organic farmers
Farmers
Weekly Online, 3 February 2010
'Let Me Tell You,
None Of This Is True'
So Do We Really Need GM Crops?
'Trust Us'
"[Monsanto CEO Bob] Shapiro has this messianic sense about him. If
he said it once, he said it three or four times:
Put us together and we'll rule the world. We're going
to own the industry. Almost those exact words. We
can be a juggernaut. Invincible."
Tom Urban, Former CEO of leading seed company Pioneer
Hi-Bred on Bob Shapiro's business strategy for Monsanto
Lords of the Harvest
Charles,
D. (2001), Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus
The Campaign
To Ban GM Crops Globally
"Bulgaria's
parliament voted on Thursday to tighten a law that effectively banned cultivation of genetically modified
(GM) crops for scientific and commercial reasons in response to public fears. The ruling centre-right GERB party decided to drop a planned moratorium
on GMO production because the new law would keep the European Union member GMO-free,
deputies said. 'There will be no field on the country's territory where GMOs can be
cultivated,' Kostadin Yazov of GERB's parliamentary group, said. Non-government
organisations, farmers and citizens have rallied for over two months against the government's
initial plans to replace a ban with a licensing regime, which they feared would flood the
Balkan country with GMO crops. The new law bans GMO cultivation in nature protected areas
and large buffer zones around those areas and fields with organic crops which effectively
means scientific experiments and commercial cultivation will be impossible in the Balkan
country. The amendments also forbid growing crops approved by the European
Commission such as the genetically modified potato, Amflora, developed by German chemical
maker BASF, and three genetically modified maize types, made by U.S. biotech firm
Monsanto. Under the law, fines for perpetrators were
raised to up to one million levs ($698,300). Protesters said they were happy with the new
law."
Bulgaria approves law to ban GMO crops
Reuters,
18 March 2010
The Campaign
To Ban GM Crops In Europe
Under a new rule a request from one million citizens constitutes an official request to
the European Commission. The Avaaz petition to ban GM
crops in Europe pending proper research is already
well on the way, having collected hundreds of thousands of signatures. Sign up now and ask all your
colleagues, friends and relations to do the same.
Click
Here To Sign Petition |
What
You Need To Know About GM Crops And Food
Visit The Campaign To Ban GM Food Globally
www.bangmfood.org |
There
Is No Need To Feel Powerless
The Skelmersdale 'Small Acorns' GM Story Of 1996
Shows How Global Effects Can Emerge From Local Actions
Click Here |
