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A New Briefing Paper From the Oakland Institute Questions the G8's Political Intent to Combat Hunger

G8 Italian Gala: Will it Feed the Hungry or Fuel Hunger?

This briefing paper was first published by the Foreign Policy in Focus

Oakland, CA: The latest G8 extravaganza in L'Aquila, Italy from July 8-10, 2009 will highlight a new initiative to fight hunger that seeks a more coordinated approach to food aid and development. Reports suggest that the United States will announce a "significant" increase in funding for agricultural development aid along with multi-year commitments from other G8 countries to reach a $15 billion target that will be pooled in a global agriculture and food security trust fund and administered by the World Bank.

Proposals to challenge hunger have become a key agenda item at international conferences since the 2008 food crisis. The G8's performance on past commitments, however, casts a shadow on the sincerity of its intentions. At the height of the 2008 food crisis, G8 leaders highlighted food security at their summit in Hokkaido, Japan. The summit cost over $600 million - compared to the $400 million annual budget of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) with nearly half of the budget spent on a massive security operation involving some 21,000 police officers, coast guard, and soldiers. With much fanfare, the G8 communiqué on global food security committed $10 billion for food and agricultural aid to increase agricultural production in developing countries. Despite the media glitz around the announcement, this was not new money, but a mere adding up of aid already pledged by the G8 countries. The G8 communiqué also made a commitment to "reverse the overall decline of aid and investment in the agricultural sector..." But the commitment failed to list any specific dollar amounts and with no timeline. Similarly, at the 2005 summit, the G8 promised to double aid to Africa by 2010, but members have failed to fulfill their pledges.

Despite commitments, pledges, and grandiose communiqués by rich nations to challenge hunger, 2009 has witnessed a historic high in hunger - 1.02 billion people are estimated to go hungry every day. The problem lies in the fallacy of explanations offered to explain the hunger crisis and in the promotion of market and technology-based solutions. The latest G8 effort is more of the same. Recommendations that focus on sustainability and boosting poor peoples incomes have yet to make it to the G8 agenda. If the G8 is indeed committed to ending hunger, the member countries must stop the steady drumbeat of proselytizing for free markets and technological solutions to hunger and instead implement the findings and recommendations of IAASTD, for instance. More important, a genuine commitment will require recognizing the need for developing countries to have policy space to determine agricultural policies that meet the needs of their populations; implement a genuine agrarian reform that will ensure farmers' rights to land, water, seeds and other resources; ensure that the local products are competitive; see that farmers' livelihoods and incomes are sustained; and assure national food security. In short, instead of promoting their old failed "development" formulas in new clothing, the G8 need to take responsibility and support governments in developing countries to put in place or restore sustainable and resilient agricultural systems.

Click Here to Read the Briefing Paper (http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=node/view/512)

For more information contact Anuradha Mittal (510) 469-5228

From the Food First web site:

The Farmers’ Organizations of Africa Open Letter to G8

July 8 2009

The major world powers have created the food and climate crises and should not be the ones to decide global food policies.

The four regional networks of farmers’ organizations (EAFF, PROPAC, ROPPA, UMAGRI) that represent tens of millions of African Farmers have sent an open letter to the G8. They say that the major world powers should not be the ones to decide global food policies. These countries have created the climate and financial crises, and they have implemented the structural adjustment policies and created the Bretton Woods financial institutions that have allowed multinational corporations to hobble rural people in Africa.

The G8 are thus largely responsible for the current global food crisis and now they want to “solve” it with industrial export agriculture, GMOs, and chemical inputs. This open letter declares that it is time for Africans to take charge of agricultural and trade policies, and recognize family farming as the route to food sovereignty in Africa.

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http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2488

Película el próximo 15 de julio

Película el próximo 15 de julio

Saludos,

El miércoles 15 de julio a las 7 pm se presentará en El Local en Santurce el documental francés LE MONDE SELON MONSANTO (El mundo según Monsanto). La película es en inglés- lo siento, no hemos podido conseguirla en español. Será precedido por una presentación por Carmelo Ruiz Marrero, director del Proyecto de Bioseguridad de Puerto Rico. Estén pendientes para más detalles.

Para más información sobre este extraordinario documental:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swVjzIVqRUA

Entrevista con la cineasta en español: http://www.rel-uita.org/agricultura/transgenicos/el_mundo_segun_monsanto.htm
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/monsanto_movie080307
En francés: http://www.arte.tv/fr/1912794.html

El Local en Santurce es un lugar extrañísimo y super cool en la avenida Fdez Juncos cerca del cruce con el xpreso Las Américas. http://www.ellocalensanturce.blogspot.com/, ellocalensanturce@gmail.com

******

http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/
http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/
On Facebook: Ruiz Marrero
On Twitter: carmeloruiz

Contaminación transgénica y despojo campesino

Silvia Ribeiro, Investigadora del Grupo ETC

Publicar entrada

Un nuevo informe científico muestra que la contaminación transgénica del maíz en México está más extendida de lo que se creía, pero además, que el gobierno ha contribuido activamente a aumentarla a través de sus propios programas.

El estudio publicado en mayo de 2009 en la revista PLoS One, fue presentado en México por la Unión de Científicos Comprometidos con la Sociedad (UCCS). Se titula Dispersal of Transgenes trough Maize Seed Systems in Mexico (Dispersión de transgenes a través de los sistemas de semillas de maíz en México) yes producto de un equipo de investigadores mexicanos y estadunidenses. Los autores principales son José Antonio Serratos y George Dyers y fue coordinado por Elena Álvarez Buylla de la UNAM; también participaron Alma Piñeyro y Hugo Perales, entre otros.

El estudio tomó cuatro años de colectas y análisis y muestra por primera vez contaminación transgénica en maíz de Veracruz, Yucatán y Guanajuato. A nivel nacional, 5 por ciento de las semillas muestreadas tuvieron presencia de transgenes. Regionalmente, el mayor porcentaje –13 por ciento– se mostró en el sureste, mientras que en el centro-occidente dio un promedio de 3 por ciento.

Los autores estiman que esta diferencia se debe a que en el sureste se usa mayoritariamente semilla campesina propia, que ocasionalmente es mezclada con semilla recibida o comprada en tiendas locales, a través de programas del gobierno. Por esta razón, la mayoría de los predios campesinos en esa área están libres de contaminación, pero muchos que aceptaron programas del gobierno, como Kilo por Kilo, se contaminaron directamente o por medio de vecinos que las mezclaron con sus propias semillas.

Un amplio muestreo que realizó la Red en Defensa del Maíz en 2003 y años posteriores, también mostró contaminación en semillas campesinas que están alejadas de campos comerciales, por lo que la Red alertó desde entonces que los campesinos debían ser mucho más cuidadosos en el tipo de semillas que aceptaban y solamente usar semillas de las que se conoce su historia. En un Foro de la Red en febrero 2009, se denunció que semillas provistas por el gobierno o compradas en tiendas locales con recursos del PROMAF (Programa de apoyo a la cadena productiva del maíz y el frijol) también estaban contaminadas.

En el occidente y norte del país es común el uso de semilla comercial. Allí el proceso de erosión de soberanía de semillas y la dependencia con semillas de empresas está mucho más avanzado: los agricultores están obligados a comprar semilla cada año ya que los híbridos sólo mantienen el rendimiento una sola estación. Pese a este cambio estacional, se detectó de todas formas contaminación transgénica. Ambos casos indican por tanto que las semillas híbridas de las empresas y las que utiliza el gobierno en sus programas están contaminadas con transgénicos.

Es un dato alarmante pero no sorprendente: la mayoría de las semillas comerciales de maíz provienen de Estados Unidos, y según mostró la Unión de Científicos Preocupados de ese país, la mayoría de las semillas híbridas (vendidas como no transgénicas) de maíz, algodón, soya y canola, están contaminadas con transgenes.

La UCCS denuncia que esto es una amenaza a las variedades de maíz en su centro de origen, y que si no se detienen las fuentes de contaminación transgénica, se coloca en riesgo permanente y fatal la integridad del grano, por acumulación de transgenes que pueden provocar deformaciones, falta de rendimiento y otros efectos que podrían ser aún peores con el aumento de siembras a campo abierto en Estados Unidos de maíces biorreactores, manipulados para expresar sustancias industriales no comestibles.

A esto hay que sumar la contaminación por otras vías, como la contaminación intencional en Chihuahua y las plantaciones ilegales de maíz transgénico, que esparcen polen transgénico a través del viento, insectos, etcétera.

La UCCS reclama que se restablezca inmediatamente la moratoria contra la siembra de maíz transgénico, una demanda altamente relevante cuando el gobierno está considerado las solicitudes de liberación a campo de maíz transgénico de las trasnacionales Monsanto, DuPont-Pioneer y Dow. Señala además, que el proceso de estudio mostró la enorme complejidad y dificultad para detectar la contaminación y alertan que las redes de monitoreo que el gobierno montó para ese fin, son mayoritariamente privadas y parcializadas ya que dependen de tecnologías patentadas y propiedad de las mismas empresas transnacionales que generan la contaminación.

La Red en Defensa del Maíz denunció a principios de este año que ese monitoreo digitado desde el gobierno, es una nueva forma de promover la eliminación de las semillas campesinas y entrometerse dentro de las comunidades, para culpabilizar a la víctimas, acelerar la eliminación de sus propias semillas y aumentar la dependencia con las trasnacionales. Así se completa el ciclo que iniciaron las empresas con ayuda del gobierno para apoderarse de las semillas, llave de toda la red alimentaria: sustitución de las semillas campesinas por programas y nuevas leyes restrictivas, contaminación por polen y semillas importadas, y ahora monitoreo privado –cuando todos los años anteriores no hicieron nada–, seguido de limpieza étnica de semillas, provocando mayor erosión de la diversidad de maíces campesinos.

Contra estos ataques, la Red en Defensa del Maíz exige parar la liberación del maíz transgénico, en una declaración apoyada por más de 800 organizaciones y miles de individuos de todo el mundo, y llama a todas las comunidades a seguir cuidando la diversidad de semillas nativas, base de la alimentación, de las culturas y las autonomías.

The other “pandemic”

GRAIN

The food crisis that exploded in 2007–8 has not gone away. It is tightening its hold in many countries and threatening to rear its ugly head in the form of new price hikes later this year, according to experts. The United Nations estimates that more than one billion people are now permanently hungry. [5] That’s one in six people, every day – most of them in Asia (62%). According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the financial crisis alone added 104 million people to this pit. [6] And, in the words of their Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, 80% of the hungry are either farmers or farm labourers, those who produce our food. How can this have come about?

When you look at what has been done to address the food crisis, more than a year on, the picture is rather depressing. It is true that some governments have been open enough to invite farmers and social organisations into a planning process that would achieve some plurality of thinking. But in most places, the responses have been one-sided and top-down. As GRAIN documented amply last year, the food crisis has been misrepresented as basically a production problem, and all the answers amount to the same imperative: produce more food. In monopoly capitalist thinking, that means commercial seeds, vast uniform lands for monoculture, lots of chemicals and unfettered trade and investment routes. As a result, a lot of money is being thrown at this recipe to “feed the world”, even though that recipe got us here in the first place.

Throughout the latter part of 2008, donors and UN agencies called incessantly for “more investment in agriculture” as the solution to the food crisis. A lot of conferences were held and some pledges were made. [7] This year brought more of the same, though the funds are becoming more sophisticated. The French government has just set up, through the African Development Bank, a new private equity fund to invest in African agriculture. With a starting capital of €200 million and a goal of €500 million, the Agence Française de Développement will channel money from private investors and sovereign wealth funds into the new fund against a guaranteed rate of return of at least 5%. The African Development Bank is putting its own capital into private equity funds, such as Agri-Vie, to spur agribusiness ventures on the continent; the Asian Development Bank is doing the same. [8] The World Bank is increasing its agricultural spending from US$4 billion in 2008 to US$12 billion in 2009–10. [9] At the same time, its commercial arm, the International Finance Corporation, has teamed up with Altima Partners to create a US$75-million fund to invest in agribusiness “to increase food supplies”. [10]

It is true that more donors are talking about the importance of small farmers and family farms in this new investment rush. A number are aware that large-scale plantation-type agriculture is likely to bring environmental and socio-economic problems. A few are even specifically concerned about threats to biodiversity from monocultures and genetically modified (GM) seeds. But the big picture is that most of this food crisis money is being targeted to develop agribusiness in developing countries, not family farming or local community-oriented markets, which many believe are the only way forward if people are to feed themselves well. The same is true of the massive land-grab deals being pushed to produce basic food crops abroad. [11]

With all of this going on, the impression may linger that these official initiatives to end the world food crisis amount to public money for public benefit. This impression should be dispelled. In reality, most of the investment is going into agribusiness development. There’s a barrage of new agribusiness funds and investment vehicles that do things like channel pension savings into farmland across the world, drawing in the big pool of dollars desperately seeking alternatives to stocks. The agricultural adviser to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) recently stated that foreign investor interest in African farming is so strong today that it is “almost a social movement”. [12] Overall private sector figures are hard to come by, but in the meantime we can see that official development assistance itself is increasingly going private. All these funds and programmes emphasise getting corporate seeds, a handful of Western livestock breeds, and crop chemicals (especially fertilisers) on to the fields, so it is not hard to see who the big winners are. The agricultural input suppliers must be rubbing their hands with glee over these new indirect subsidies.

From the Bilaterals.org web site:

EU-Central America The European Union has been negotiating a free trade agreement with six Central American countries — Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama — since mid-2007. The draft negotiating plan from the EU’s side is available here. The background logic to this is clear. As soon as the US signed NAFTA, the EU followed suit and made its own bilateral trade agreement with Mexico. Now that the US has signed CAFTA, here comes an EU deal for the same countries (minus the Dominican Republic, which is part of the ACP grouping that the EU is already negotiating an EPA with under the Cotonou Agreement). The deal is dubbed an “Association Agreement” in which the FTA is one component alongside others (concerning cooperation and political dialogue). It is also a “progressive” agreement in that its provisions are phased in over time. But analysts concur that such association agreements are even worse than FTAs: “The agreements are notable for their broad scope and their ‘open’ and ‘ongoing’ nature; in other words, they oblige the signatory countries in years to come periodically to extend the agreement and to undertake an undefined number of judicial, administrative, economic and social reforms, the aim of which is to provide ever more favourable investment conditions for European companies. As they accumulate, the changes will amount to constitutional reforms, which will be decided at ministerial level, far from the eyes of Parliaments and public opinion in the countries concerned.” The social movements of Latin America have made their position clear: “The Association Agreement is nothing more than a continuation of free trade agreements. These texts are a farcical denial of democracy from the word go. Like the DR-CAFTA, the FTAA, and NAFTA, they are all tools used by big capital to exacerbate and deepen the poverty and exploitation of those who produce wealth by their labour. DR-CAFTA has been in force for two years and already we see our countries being inundated with imports, afflicted by rising consumer prices, and starved of tariff revenues, leading to reduced public spending. On top of this, the US has blockaded Central American agricultural products on spurious phytosanitary grounds. Meanwhile, the inhuman deportation of our compatriots continues. The enforcement of the FTAs and the neoliberal model is bolstered by criminalization and repression of indigenous and peasant agendas — particularly, the struggle for Mother Earth — through the enactment of antiterrorism laws. Therefore, we say NO to the negotiation and signing of the Association Agreement between Central America and the European Union: it is contrary to the interests of our peoples.” last update: April 2009

ESPACIO 1414, en la avenida Fernández Juncos en Santurce

Con el objetivo de contribuir al desarrollo de las artes visuales en Puerto Rico, la colección Berezdivin en el espacio 1414, bajo los auspicios de Kress Stores of Puerto Rico, abrió sus puertas al público general en enero de 2005. La colección, construida a partir de un especial enfoque e interés en el arte contemporáneo de América Latina, se ha diversificado recientemente para poder cubrir el amplio registro de prácticas y complejidades discursivas del arte contemporáneo internacional. Además de mostrar las obras de la colección al público, el espacio 1414 espera constituir un foro activo para la difusión del arte contemporáneo a través de sus programas expositivos y educativos.

Informe de biodiversidad de CIP Programa de las Américas—junio 2009 Carmelo Ruiz Marrero | 29 de junio de 2009
Programa de las Américas www.ircamericas.org
Cuba: ¿Transgénicos socialistas? México: Polémico mapa genómico Uruguay: Contra el modelo agrícola dominante Centroamérica: No al TLC con la Unión Europea Costa Rica: Escepticismo ante el discurso del carbono neutral

g727

se habla poquito español

g727 seeks to generate dialogues on artistic representations and interpretations of the urban landscape. The building blocks of a city comprise more than simply buildings, streets, and sidewalks. They equally encompass personal experience, collective memory and narratives. These are the less tangible, but no less integral elements that transform mere infrastructure into place. Through photography, painting, writing and video installations, artists open our eyes to these elements and heighten our awareness of what makes a place a place. g727 welcomes these artists to its space to help us all better understand the complex nature of cities and the urban condition.

Uruguay: Contra el modelo agrícola dominante

CARMELO RUIZ MARRERO

El pasado 5 de junio, Día Internacional del Medio Ambiente, los ambientalistas uruguayos encontraron poco que celebrar. En una carta abierta pública firmada por sobre una docena de organizaciones, defendieron la producción agrícola familiar en pequeña escala como indispensable no solamente para la estabilidad social y económica de la nación, sino también para preservar la biodiversidad y combatir el cambio climático.

El documento fue enfático en repudiar el modelo dominante de agricultura, basado en vastas plantaciones de monocultivos. "Ese modelo predominante es un modelo de agricultura sin agricultores, basado en el gran capital transnacional y en las grandes maquinarias y uso masivo de agrotóxicos, que desplaza y contamina al pequeño productor y lo deja sin otra alternativa que abandonar su campo."

"Combatir el cambio climático es combatir este modelo de monocultivos que resulta en la destrucción de nuestros suelos, de nuestros montes y praderas naturales, de nuestra agua y de nuestros productores familiares."

La carta termina: "Las organizaciones firmantes llaman a toda la población a unir fuerzas y apoyar a los pequeños productores para que puedan permanecer en sus tierras. Si ellos permanecen en los campos nos aseguraremos que nuestras tierras se destinen a producir alimentos para nuestros habitantes y no para monocultivos agrícolas y forestales que solo dejan desolación y destrucción del tejido social y degradación ambiental."

Una de las organizaciones firmantes, RAPAL Uruguay, está consternada con la noticia de que el gobierno está dispuesto a autorizar la entrada de la transnacional estadounidense Monsanto, que domina el campo de la biotecnología agrícola a nivel mundial, para que produzca semilla transgénica en el país. "Mientras se habla de un Uruguay natural, se continúa haciendo un uso masivo de agrotóxicos y cultivos transgénicos que nada tienen de 'natural'", declaró la agrupación en un comunicado el pasado 29 de mayo. "Mientras se habla de un Uruguay productivo, nuestra agricultura queda a merced de empresas transnacionales como Monsanto."

Fuentes:
Organizaciones uruguayas, "¿Día del Medio ambiente o Ambiente partido al Medio?", 5 de junio 2009, http://www.biodiversidadla.org/content/view/full/49699.
RAPAL Uruguay, "Del Uruguay natural al transgénico y del Uruguay productivo al de la Monsanto", 29 de mayo 2009, http://webs.chasque.net/~rapaluy1/transgenicos/Uruguay/Monsanto.html.

Ver también:
http://carmeloruiz.blogspot.com/search/label/Uruguay

Fuente: http://www.ircamericas.org/esp/6219#4

DATA FROM THE USDA

Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.

U.S. farmers have adopted genetically engineered (GE) crops widely since their introduction in 1996, notwithstanding uncertainty about consumer acceptance and economic and environmental impacts. Soybeans and cotton genetically engineered with herbicide-tolerant traits have been the most widely and rapidly adopted GE crops in the U.S., followed by insect-resistant cotton and corn. This data product summarizes the extent of adoption of herbicide-tolerant and insect–resistant crops since their introduction in 1996. Three tables devoted to corn, cotton, and soybeans cover the 2000-09 period by State. See more on the extent of adoption...

SOURCE: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/BiotechCrops/

Fundacion GoodPlanet : http://www.goodplanet.org/en

Estamos viviendo un periodo crucial. Los científicos afirman que solo tenemos 10 años para cambiar nuestro modo de vida, evitar que los recursos naturales se agoten e impedir una evolución catastrófica del clima de la Tierra.
Nos jugamos nuestro futuro y el de las siguientes generaciones por lo que cada uno de nosotros debe participar en este esfuerzo colectivo. HOME ha sido creada para hacer llegar este mensaje de movilización a todos los habitantes de nuestro planeta.
Es por esta razón que la película HOME es gratuita, gracias al mecenazgo del grupo PPR y la distribuidora Europacorp, que ofrecieron su apoyo de forma desinteresada.
HOME se ha creado para ti. Corre la voz y colabora con el planeta.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Director de la Fundacion GoodPlanet

ACTUAR Y DEBATIR EN EL GOODPLANET FORO : http://www.goodplanet.org/en

Home es una pelicula compensada carbono : http://www.actioncarbone.or...

Sitio web: http://www.home-2009.com

Naomi Klein: Oppose The State, Not The People

By Yotam Feldman - July 2nd, 2009

Published in Ha'aretz

NOTE: Ha’aretz made a translation error in a previous version of this article. This is a corrected version [correction in bold].

Ramallah's intellectual elite, foreigners and curious spectators gathered last Saturday at the Friends School in Ramallah to hear writer and political activist Naomi Klein lecture to a packed auditorium.

Following a musical interlude by a string quintet, one of whose members is blind, Klein took the stage. She chose to speak in Ramallah about her Jewish roots.

"There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way," she said. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say, 'Never again to anyone.'"

It seems that during her brief visit, which began last Thursday night, Klein has not rested for a moment. Straight from the airport, she set out for a tour of Highway 443 that runs through the West Bank between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, connecting them to Modi'in and the adjacent Jewish settlements.

She went on to the demonstration against the separation barrier at Bil'in, where there was a press conference on the civil suit in Quebec against Green Mount and Green Park, two Canadian companies that are providing construction services to the Jewish settlement of Upper Modi'in.

In the evening she attended an event at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

At the beginning of this week, Klein went to the Gaza Strip, where she interviewed residents. Wednesday she appeared at the Almidan Theatre in Haifa.

Since her 1999 book "No Logo" become an undisputed textbook of the anti-globalization movement, Klein, 38, has lectured at hundreds of meetings around the world. A celebrity journalist, political activist and commentator, she came to Israel to launch the Hebrew translation of her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine" (Andalus Publishing).

Klein, who supports an economic and cultural boycott of Israel as pressure to end the occupation in the territories, thought long and hard about publishing her book in Hebrew, as well as visiting Israel. She finally decided to issue the book with Andalus Publishing, which specializes in Arabic literature, and to contribute her royalties to the press. Klein and Andalus publisher Yael Lerer carefully planned Klein's itinerary in Israel to avoid the impression that she supports institutions connected to the State of Israel and the Israeli economy.

"It certainly would have been a lot easier not to have come to Israel, and I wouldn't have come had the Palestinian Boycott National Committee asked me not to," said Klein in an interview before her arrival, at her Toronto home. "But I went to them with a proposal for the way I wanted to visit Israel and they were very open to it. It is important to me not to boycott Israelis but rather to boycott the normalization of Israel and the conflict."

READ THE REST:
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/07/naomi-klein-oppose-state-not-people

DESARROLLAN YUCA TRANSGENICA EN UNIVERSIDAD DE PUERTO RICO

Published in Counterpunch on June 23

Published in Counterpunch on June 23

PUERTO RICO: BIOTECH ISLAND

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero

In the global debate regarding genetically modified (GM) foods and organisms (GMO's), the little-known role of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in testing and propagating GM crops has gone largely unnoticed and unexamined. The agricultural biotechnology activity in this tropical US colony is simply massive.

"Puerto Rico attracts agricultural biotechnology companies because of the tropical climate that permits up to four harvests yearly and the willingness of the government to fast-track permits", according to professors Margarita Irizarry and José Rodríguez Orengo, of the University of Puerto Rico's Medical Sciences Campus. "Furthermore, the opposition to GM foods is almost non-existent on the island and no particular environmental group is protesting the presence of Dow, Syngenta Seeds, Pioneer HiBred, Mycogen Seeds, Rice Tech, AgReliant Genetics, Bayer Croposcience, and Monsanto."

Since 2004 we at the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety have been trying to find out just what is going on in our land regarding GM crops. We have obtained very little information so far, but what little we have managed to get is quite worrying.

The most recent US Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Regulatory Services (BRS) data we have obtained show that as of January 2005 it had authorized 1,330 field releases for experimental GM crops in the island, which resulted in 3,483 field tests. Of the field releases, 944 were for corn, 262 for soy, 99 for cotton, 15 for rice, 8 for tomato, 1 for papaya and 1 for tobacco. According to the documentation, these releases were being authorized as early as 1987, almost a full decade before US authorities permitted GM foods for human consumption. Where in Puerto Rico exactly? What traits have been tested? The BRS says it's all "confidential business information".

With the sole exception of Hawai'i, no state in the USA has had so many GM crop experiments per square mile. The only ones that had more field tests than Puerto Rico's 3,483 were Hawai'i (5,413), Illinois (5,092) and Iowa (4,659). Keep in mind that Puerto Rico has less than 4,000 square miles, whereas Illinois and Iowa each have over 50,000 square miles. Puerto Rico surpassed California by far, which had only 1,964 field tests, although California is 40 times larger.

These data, of course, must be updated. We have been walking around with these and showing them to everyone for four years now. But we do not see any reason to believe that the situation has significantly changed since 2005.

It must be pointed out that not all the GM crop activity in our territory is experimental. There is also commercial GM production, about which we know even less. Commercial GM crop production is exported to the US- and who knows where else- for use as seed.

Most of these crops are planted in the southern plains, between the municipalities of Juana Díaz and Guayama, and especially concentrated in the stretch of land between the towns of Santa Isabel and Salinas, south of expressway 52 and north of route 1. Various eyewitnesses have told us that security in these lands is extreme. You cannot even stop your car alongside these fields without having policemen show up and ask you what your business is. And no, you cannot film or even take photos. They claim to be concerned about theft of crops. While we acknowledge that theft- of both produce and machinery- is one of the most serious problems facing Puerto Rican agriculture today, we also note that no other farming operations in the island enjoy such dilligent police protection.

GM crops can also be found in the northwest town of Isabela, where Monsanto Caribbean has an experimental station right on the south side of highway #2. Plus, we would not be surprised at all to find more of these crops in the fertile and bountiful Lajas valley, in Puerto Rico's southwest, possibly the very best farmland in the whole island.

Successive governments of both major political parties, the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and the New Progressive Party (NPP), have put biotechnology at the center of their strategies for attracting investment. From the Cold War days of the manufacture boom, known as "Operation Bootstrap", we have moved on to biotechnology, both agricultural and pharmaceutical, with pompous slogans like "The Knowledge Economy" and "Mentes a la Obra" (Operation Mindstrap?). The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corporation markets Puerto Rico as the "Bio-Island" and agressively sells investors on the advantages and desirability of setting up biotech operations in the island.

The life sciences industry, which is how the biotech corporate giants like to call themselves, are very grateful for Puerto Rico's fine investment climate. In 2006, then-governor Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá (PDP) was named "governor of the year" by the Biotechnology Industry Association in its annual convention in Chicago.

In January 2009 senator Berdiel Rivera (NPP) introduced bill #202, which aims to promote agricultural biotechnology. As if the biotech corporations needed any more support than they have already gotten from the PR government in the last 20+ years!

Mr. Rivera and his fellow senators who support Senate bill 202 should take notice of GM-related developments outside the island. Just in May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine declared that GM foods pose a serious health risk. Referring to a number of studies, the Academy concluded that "there is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects" and that "GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health."

And 2008 saw the release of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development report (IAASTD), a unique, unprecedented and definitive report on the state of world agriculture. It was authored by over 400 international experts, subjected to two independent peer reviews, and was the product of an inclusive and participatory process in which industry, governments and civil society participated as equal partners, with the support of UN agencies and the World Bank.

The report concluded, in a nutshell, that the model of industrial, corporate, globalized agriculture cannot continue, as it is unsustainable and is literally eating up the planet's patrimony, and favors in its stead small-scale agroecological production that uses local resources and minimizes the use of fossil fuel-based inputs- precisely what environmentalists and organic farmers had been advocating for decades.

With regards to biotechnology and GM crops, the IAASTD report was cautious and unenthusiastic. Instead of the uncritical cheering one hears from governments and the mainstream media, the report counseled caution and called for further studies regarding GM foods' safety.

And while all over the world the safety and necessity of GM crops and foods is increasingly questioned, over here in Puerto Rico our government is selling us this technology as if it were the last coke bottle in the desert.

Some well-intended folks have argued to us that Senate bill 202 will regulate GM crop activity in Puerto Rico and that this is preferrable to having these crops without any regulation or control. But this technology cannot be controled. Once planted outdoors, GM crops cannot be controlled or recalled. They proliferate and multiply, as living things will. No country that has allowed the entrance of GM crops has been able to control them. Therefore, bill #202 will only further legitimize and entrench this dangerous and unnecessary technology in Puerto Rico.

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, journalist, author and unintentional comedian, directs the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety. The Puerto Rico Biosafety Project's bilingual blog can be accessed at: http://bioseguridad.blogspot.com/

SOURCES:

American Academy of Environmental Medicine. Position paper on genetically modified foods, May 2009. http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html

Biotechnology Industry Organization. "BIO names Puerto Rico governor 'Governor of the Year'", April 10 2006.

IAASTD Report, 2008. http://www.agassessment.org/

M. Irizarry and J. Rodríguez-Orengo. "Biotechnology in Puerto Rico: Educational and Ethical Implications", 2009.

TexPIRG Education Fund. "Raising Risk: Field Testing of Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States", 2005.

LINK: http://counterpunch.org/ruiz06232009.html