From ETC Group [link and blockquote added by biscuit]:

the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils etc… BASF, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont and biotech partners have filed 532 patent documents (a total of 55 patent families) on so-called “climate ready” genes at patent offices around the world. In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene mongers are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviors, pushing genetically engineered crops as a silver bullet solution to climate change.

According to a new report,

patented techno-fix seeds will not provide the adaptation strategies that small farmers need to cope with climate change. These proprietary technologies will ultimately concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research, and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds.

Beyond the U.S. and Europe, patent offices in major food producing countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico and South Africa are also swamped with patent filings. Draw your own conclusions.

The “corporate grab” of genetically engineered “climate tolerant” seeds means that just a handful of companies could end up controlling the price and access to technologies which guard against environmental extremes, according to the ETC Group, which assesses the impact of new technologies on socioeconomic and ecological issues.

“The patent grab on so-called climate-ready traits is sucking up money and resources that could be spent on affordable, farmer-based strategies for climate change survival and adaptation. After decades of seed industry mergers and acquisitions, accompanied by a steady decline in public sector plant breeding, the top 10 seed companies control 57% of the global seed market. As climate crisis deepens, there is a danger that governments will require farmers to adopt prescribed biotech traits that are deemed essential adaptation measures.”

As reported late last year Monsanto (now the world’s largest seed company) and BASF (also the world’s largest chemical firm) have forged a $1.5 billion partnership to engineer stress tolerance in plants.

From Food Navigator [link and blockquote added by biscuit]:

Food insecurity is understood to affect some 850m people around the world and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has raised concerns about the impact of climate change, food prices, and biofuels.

To recap: the top 10 seed companies control 57 per cent of the global seed market and farmers in the US already pay premium prices for biotech seeds that are loaded with up to three genetic traits.

One example highlighted by ETC is Monsanto’s “triple-stacked” biotech maize seed which sells for about $245 per bag – compared to $100 for conventional maize seed.

A Monsanto spokeswoman said it aimed to be generous, whilst recognizing its obligations to shareholders.

She added: “Currently Monsanto products are used by 25 million farmers globally and our biotech enhanced seeds reach 5 to 7 million farmers. We are active in humanitarian efforts and will work to help address food security problems, whether through the sharing of scientific information generally or a partnership focused on sharing germplasm and technology.”

As for their “generosity“, ask some disgruntled farmers: “Monsanto is the only company I know of that is suing individual farmers and putting them out of business.”

Last year, for the second time in five months, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected patents key to Monsanto’s dominance in bioengineered seed, casting suspicion on its science and weakening the argument that helped the company prevail in dozens of lawsuits against farmers. Additionally, the Public Patent Foundation said that the U.S. patent office sided with it in its case against Monsanto, saying at least four patents should not have been granted because the gene technology was either not new or so obvious it wouldn’t require patenting.

However, the increasing presence of GM crops in the US food chain has led to a growing resistance movement. Several activists groups have filed lawsuits in California calling for the USDA to review its approval of the GM sugar beet, while planting of Monsanto’s alfalfa, also genetically modified to resist Roundup, has been delayed after a major campaign against the crop in 2006 calling for a federal environmental review.

GMO sugar beet seeds, supplied by Monsanto, have an inserted gene to make the plant resistant to the company’s Roundup herbicide. Monsanto already once postponed intro of the sugar beet (ready since 2004) when candy makers and other companies fretted – rightly so – that consumers would reject products with sugar from the beets.

Citizens for Health, a US consumer advocacy group, has launched an online campaign to warn consumers about the dangers of genetically engineered sugar beets in food products. The campaign is particularly aimed at several large firms, including Hershey’s, M&M Mars, and the company mentioned in the intro, American Crystal Sugar. According to Citizens for Health, these companies in 2001 pledged not to use sugar from genetically engineered sugar beets in their products. However, with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet now allegedly ready for planting, these companies pledges have not been renewed, said the advocacy group.

The group fears that the use of sugar beet seeds that have built-in resistance to the Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide could create new and unpredictable health and environmental risks.

American Crystal Sugar confirmed that there had been no planting of GE sugar beet seeds yet. However, the company was unable to comment further. Sugar beets are grown on about 5 665 million square meters (1.4 million acres) by about 12,000 farmers in the United States, mainly in northern states from Oregon to Michigan, according to figures published in Capital Press Agriculture Weekly.

Although a minor crop compared with corn and soybeans, sugar beets account for about half the US sugar supply, with the rest coming from sugar cane. In the same context, farmers, food safety advocates, and conservation groups filed a suit in the federal court on 23 January 2008 in San Francisco, challenging the deregulation of “Roundup Ready” sugar beets by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

According to Citizens for Health (take a look at their website, quite informative, plus you can take action as well – see at the end of this diary), as these sugars are found in hundreds of everyday food products, such as candies, cereals, and cakes, “the infiltration of GE sugar beets could represent a significant alteration of our food supply”.

Well, look no further than Japan.

Japan’s leading chocolate maker Meiji Seika has recalled a range of confectionery products, after it was discovered that they contained a novel sweetener made with an unapproved genetically modified enzyme.
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace is now calling on the company to issue a list of other firms that are buying the sweetener developed by Meiji for use in their products. Sweeteners are seeing booming demand around the world as consumers seek to avoid sugar for weight loss reasons. Selling sweeteners made with GM ingredients is a different story however. Japan has approved 36 different varieties of GM corn for human consumption as well as other food ingredients. But Greenpeace claims labeling laws are weak and confusing to consumers. Under Japanese food labeling laws, only the top three ingredients by weight in a food product are required to be labeled if they are genetically modified, and then, only if they are above a 5 per cent threshold. Highly processed products such as soy oil are not required to be labeled. The GF2 sweetener is described as a sugar alternative and targeted at the weight loss foods market.

In Europe, a request for placing products produced from sugar beet H7-1 on the market was submitted by KWS SAAT AG, a German plant breeding company and Monsanto Europe to the authorities of The United Kingdom on 12 November 2004.

On 20 December 2006, the European Food Safety Authority gave a favorable opinion and concluded that

“it is unlikely that the placing on the market of the products produced from sugar beet H7-1 as described in the application will have any adverse effects on human or animal health or the environment in the context of their intended uses.” Yeah, right.

Back on US soil, a coalition of ethical stock market investors have called on 63 US food, beverage and restaurant companies to stop using genetically modified sugar beet. The coalition of nearly 300 faith-based investors with over $100bn in invested capital, which goes under the name of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), has launched a web-based campaign against the planting of GM sugar beets from the April 2008 planting season.

The campaign, claims that allowing GM sugar into the US food chain would affect thousands of the most widely consumed products in the US.

What you can do: visit the ICCR’s website and take action, also join OCA’s Campaign to Mobilize One Million Consumers to End Monsanto’s Global Corporate Terrorism here!

This is not a very well known fact: prior to being the Supreme Court Judge who put GW Bush in office, Clarence Thomas was Monsanto’s lawyer. I rest my case.

Much has been written in these boards about the causes of rising prices and it should be noted that one of the major culprit is the shadow of “a new hunger” that has made food far too expensive for millions. Rising prices for all the world’s crucial cereal crops and growing fears of scarcity are sending shivers through international markets, creating turmoil and, as GWB is fond of stating his newly found word, uncertainty.

Uncertainty creates panic buying. Brokers know this well.

The sharp rise in raw food prices in the past few months will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India, as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry. The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 or more oil, it’s going to be about getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically, and more importantly, avoiding falling into the trap of biotech companies like Monsanto whose drive for global domination of its GM products is near total.

Here’s why some US growers may be seduced by Monsanto’s logic: a quick math calculation will tell you that crop yields around the world need to increase to something close to what is achieved in the state of Illinois, which produces more than 200 corn bushes an acre (compared with an average 30 bushes an acre in the rest of the world). How can that be achieved, you may ask? That can only be done with more fertilizer, with genetically modified seeds, and with advanced machinery and technology. But, between you and I, the real reason for promoting GM products has not been to end world hunger as previously touted but to increase the stranglehold multinational biotech companies already have on food production. One dirty word: monopoly.

What to do, what to do? There are a number of avenues open to governments since the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation states that there is more than enough food on the planet to feed everyone, in fact there’s enough to feed one and a half planet Earth’s. The problem is distribution:

Seventy percent of the world’s hungry live in rural areas. That is where it is most critical to provide food and employment. The seed planted by a farmer leads to a flourishing agribusinesses that pay taxes, and help build rural schools and roads. Agricultural development is the first step of a long-term sustainable economic growth. Everyone gains from investment in agriculture.

To properly address hunger, governments need to support sustainable farming that meets the needs of the local people and environment. Successive studies have documented the social and environmental benefits of sustainable low-input and organic farming in both the Northern & Southern hemispheres. These offer a practical way of restoring agricultural land degraded by industrial farming with chemicals and over-production, allowing family farmers to fight poverty and hunger. Again political will is needed to put into place policies that will help farmers worldwide. Greenpeace has a few words to say about GM:

Sustainable agriculture leads to better soil, a varied locally grown diet, increased harvests, a better environment and increased food security. Like illusionists using sleight of hand tricks, the biotech companies are diverting resources away from these more sustainable solutions and towards GM technologies simply to further their own interests.

Another source of funds that seems to be working is the International Fund for Agricultural development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, which was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. I’m impressed at their record. So far nearly $30 billions have been spent in various countries to promote better farming, rural poverty reduction, hunger and malnutrition and raise productivity and incomes as well as improve the quality of their lives. Its local-level operations in 115 countries and territories keep them in continuous and direct contact with the rural poor.

But the real change will have to come from the next President. And that is why I would urge voters to petition their chosen candidate, and ask the hard questions: how will poverty be tackled, when will the food imbalance be restored, will subsidies be given to organic farmers etc… the list is long, very long.