| Monsanto's "Terminator seed" comes to Pakistan
Quote:
MINFAL and Monsanto sign Letter of Intent
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: To introduce the certified BT Cotton seed, the Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL) Tuesday signed Letter of Intent (LoI) with Monsanto.
The agreement would help Pakistan to expand cotton production through introducing Monsanto derived insect-protection technology ‘Bollgard’. Secretary MINFAL, Muhammad Ziaur-Rehman and Monsanto Company Asia Pacific Vice President, Andre Dias inked an agreement here on Tuesday.
Speaking on the occasion Secretary Minfal said, “the agreement would provide an opportunity for introduction of BT Cotton varieties in Pakistan on mutually agreed arrangements. He said that LoI defines in general the basis for the parties to extend cooperation to advance transgenic technology in agriculture sector of the country.
“Under the agreement, both parties would pursue collaborative efforts to evaluate, develop and implement practical solutions to expand cotton production in Pakistan through the commercialisation of BT technology in the country,” he added.
This was a joint effort between MINFAL and Monsanto to evaluate potential collaboration in cotton and also other crops to provide information and education regarding the safety and benefits of the technology to the Pakistani farmers, the secretary informed.
“The agreement would also help to develop business models and market services to achieve the parties objectives and meet the Pakistan cotton industry’s needs to build a long-term strategy to innovate and expand agriculture production in the country,” the secretary said. Andre Dias, speaking on the occasion said that Monsanto was a leading global provider of transgenic technology-based tools and agricultural products that had successfully improved farm productivity. ijaz kakakhel
| Quote:
Pakistan: GE-ed cotton alarms farmers, NGOs
Pakistan: GE-ed cotton alarms farmers, NGOs
by Muddassir Rizvi
Islamabad, 24 Oct 2000 (IPS) -- Pakistan’s government is set to introduce genetically engineered crop cultivation in the country, amid fears that this will hurt not only tens of thousands of small farmers but also lucrative cotton exports to Western markets.
A ‘transgenic’ cotton variety, also known as “Bt cotton”, with in-built resistance to pests that can destroy one of Pakistan’s main foreign exchange earners, has been developed not by a foreign agribusiness company but by the government’s own farm research institutions.
Government officials here say the seeds will be available in the market before the next sowing season. “We have conducted a three-year biosafety impact assessment of this variety and found it safe for introduction to the farmers’ field,” says Kauser Abdullah, who heads the premier Pakistan Agriculture Research Council in Islamabad. The Bt cotton has been tested against strict international norms, he adds.
“We are the world leaders in developing Bt cotton,” claims Abdullah.
Research work on transgenic cotton was begun in the mid-1990s by Pakistan’s Nuclear Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) after successive cotton harvests were hit by a pest, causing extensive damage to the country’s cotton-based farm economy.
Cotton is Pakistan’s major cash crop and accounts for almost 60 percent of the country’s $10 billion annual foreign exchange earnings. More than 20 million people depend on the crop for their livelihood.
Pakistani scientists claim the NIBGE cotton variety will ensure a disease-free crop and stabilise export earnings. The Bt cotton can resist some of the most damaging pests like tobacco bollworm, bollworm and pink bollworm. The genetically engineered cotton variety will reduce use of chemical pesticides and lower farming costs, they point out.
But those opposed to such crops say that once the government allows the use of Bt cotton developed by its farm scientists, it will have to allow similar crops designed by global agribusiness companies.
“If we allowed one genetically modified variety, we’ll have to open our markets to foreign companies under the World Trade Organisation’s agreements,” says Mohammad Arshad, an Islamabad-based consumer rights activist.
The US-based Monsanto is already pressing the Pakistani government to be allowed to introduce its Bt cotton variety. Monsanto claims that its transgenic cotton will boost farmers’ profits and cut down environmental pollution.
According to A Rehman Khan, Managing Director of Monsanto Pakistan Agritech (Pvt) Limited, Pakistani farmers will find its product more environment-friendly and cheaper. “Monsanto company developed Bollgard cotton, commonly known as Bt cotton, as a novel approach to controlling pest injury in production agriculture,” Khan wrote in a letter to Pakistan’s government.
“The goal was to provide cotton farmers with more environmentally friendly and efficacious insect control at a reduced cost.”
Government officials told IPS that Monsanto’s Bt cotton would be approved for use only if it clears the country’s strict biosafety standards.
“We will first ascertain that the transgenic variety does not have any adverse impact on the country’s rich biodiversity,” says Akhlaq Hussain, Director General of the Seed Certification and Registration Department. “Protecting the environment and people’s health is our foremost priority,” he adds.
Pakistani laws require the owner of a transgenic seed to guarantee that the crop variety will have no harmful biosafety impact, he says. But opponents of genetically engineered crops are not satisfied and say that such plants are developed without giving sufficient attention to the actual environmental circumstances in which the crops will be grown.
These crops must be subject to compulsory monitoring for at least 10 years to ensure that there is no harmful ecological impact, before commercial cultivation is allowed, they say.
“We are concerned that transgenic varieties will also result in the loss of biodiversity, which small farmers in developing countries maintain,” says Mushtaq Gadi of Sustainable Agriculture Research Group, a national coalition of Pakistani farmers’ groups.
Large-scale farming of such crops will replace the “richness of local varieties with vast monocultures of a single variety”. This will actually make the crop more vulnerable to attack by pests or disease, says Gadi. Farmers’ rights groups are also worried that the introduction of the genetically engineered crops will deprive farmers of their traditional control over seed.
The government is set to enact a plant breeders rights law in keeping with Pakistan’s obligations under the new world trade rules. “Such a law is necessary for protecting our cotton variety from piracy,” says a Ministry of Commerce official.
However, farmers’ rights activists allege that under this, farmers will not be able to save, exchange or share seeds for commercial use. At present, more than 85 percent of farmers in the country set aside a portion of the annual harvest for future use as seed.
Opponents of transgenic cotton also argue that it would hurt exports of the crop. “The introduction of transgenic cotton will badly hurt the export earnings as such varieties have failed to earn acceptance in many countries where Pakistani exports of cotton and its products are destined,” says a member of Pakistan Kissan (Farmers) Board, a leading cotton farmer’s group.
“Why is the government allowing such a cotton variety, which it cannot export to the countries of the European Union?” he asks.
According to official statistics, the bulk of Pakistani cotton exports go to western European markets, where genetically engineered crops are facing severe resistance from consumer groups.
The European Union has sent missions to Pakistan in the past few years to look into reports that the country was commercially growing Bt cotton, say some government officials.
| Monsanto - Genetically modified BT Cotton ‘terminator’ seeds being introduced in Pakistan
Last week, while the country was besieged with crippling food and energy shortages, the government authorised the Ministry of Agriculture to finalize a deal with Monsanto for the introduction of BT cotton. BT cotton’s global record, failures and dangers were not adequately publicised in the media. There has been no public debate to discuss its viability nor was it raised in parliament, but instead a deliberate attempt is being made to squeeze this final agreement into the agricultural crops of Pakistan, under the table very quickly.
Monsanto
Monsanto is a chemical company posing as an agricultural company specializes in toxic, dependency-creating, genetically-engineered crops and pharmaceuticals. Monsanto is one of the world’s most notorious multinationals that has been caught red-handed for bribery, false studies and evaluations, and paying off scientists for favourable reports. It has been responsible for over 10,000 farmer suicides and thousands of poisoned sheep in India alone. Its GE products are banned in countries including in Europe after painful experiences.
“Terminator” seed controversy
In June 2007, Monsanto acquired Delta & Pine Land Company, a company that had been involved with a seed technology nicknamed “Terminator”, which produces plants that produce sterile seed to prevent farmers from replanting their crop’s seed, and are instead forced to continue purchasing seeds from Monsanto for every planting. In recent years, widespread opposition from environmental organizations and farmer associations has grown, mainly out of the concerns that these seeds increase farmers’ dependency on seed suppliers (having to buy these each year for seeding new crops).
Ed Note: Mind you, im not against using GM seeds for high yield, but it seems Monsanto’s variety off GM Terminator seeds have been proven to have far more disastrous consequences proven repeatedly world from India, Brazil, Argentina and Europe
India & Brazil Reject Monsanto
Over the past month there have been countless protests all over India and Brazil demanding Monsanto be thrown out of their countries. In their other products that have turned sour for Monsanto is their Soya Bean product it increased their Soya Bean yield from 75% to 175% almost equal to a £3bn profits for farmers but the genetically modified soya bean seed has contaminated the soil in other neighboring lands making cultivation of other agricultural products nearly impossible while also doubling the need for herbicidal in those areas,as the soya bean exhibits itself as a very damaging weed
Bovine Growth Hormone in Milk
Monsanto sparked controversy with the introduction of Bovine somatotropin, it is a hormone that is injected into cows to increase milk production, causing a number of problems with the milk, among them, raising levels of pus, antibiotic residues, and a cancer accelerating hormone called IGF-1. IGF-1 is a natural hormone found in the milk of both humans and cows causing the quick growth of infants. Though this hormone is naturally found in mothers to be fed to their infants it has an adverse affect on non-infants.
In 1997, Fox News reportedly bowed to pressure from Monsanto to suppress an investigative report on the health risks associated with Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone product, Posilac, a synthetic drug used to increase milk production in cows, is banned in most first-world countries, with the exception of the United States, where it can be found in much of the milk supply. Fox pressured its reporters, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, to alter their report, despite evidence that Monsanto had lied about the risks of contaminated milk and infected cattle. The reporters refused to comply, and were eventually fired. Wilson and Akre then sued Fox News in Florida state court, claiming they could not be fired for refusing to do something that they believed to be illegal.
Monsanto in Pakistan
In Pakistan the deal is intriguingly being made under cover of expressing concern for the food shortage in the country. Reports from top circles have indicated that their is a great deal of urgency within the Ministry of Agriculture to finalize Monsanto understanding to an extent that the Min of Agriculture approved the contract within a day of it having been floated and it is now in the planning stages of implementation and disbursement.
Genetically Engineered crops have been frequently used in agriculture, for example Pakistan Tobacco uses a special seed which it provides to its growers here in Pakistan in exchange for a high quality yield that caters to its signature blend of tobacco being used in their cigarettes. GM products if manufactured and distributed responsibly can help increase the yield and quality but it is quite apparent that the Monsanto’s version of Terminator seed is fundamentally flawed to cause our country more harm then good.
Monsanto has been known to bribe its way into contracts and I suspect some serious finger pointing might be undertaken to question the usage of this product in Pakistan specially when it has been proven to have extensively failed worldwide, why should we permit its usage in our country?
Monsanto is literally being handed the opportunity on a silver platter to take over our agriculture wholesale. Our biodiversity stands to be wiped out. Far from extending long-denied land rights and food security to peasant masses and women, it will mean handing overriding rights and control of our food supply to Monsanto — the fox guarding the hen-house.
It would appear that vested interests in Pakistan are pushing the Monsanto deal while people were diverted and overwhelmed by the judges’ issue, food shortage, and high food and petrol prices. Lets ensure that we are not at the receiving end of such failing technologies which may threaten the agricultural industry simple so that a few people can rep the befits while the rest of the country goes to the dogs.
Monsanto - Genetically modified BT Cotton ‘terminator’ seeds being introduced in Pakistan - NaiTazi.com  |
13-06-2008, 05:35 AM
Linear Mode
