Having problems with message search?
Agnet April 15/04
Voluntary standard for labelling of genetically engineered foods becomes national standard
CropLife Canada supports voluntary labelling of GE foods
Lesson of trans fats applies to GM foods
Despairing GM firms halt crop trials
'GM farmers mishandling technology'
Bush a piker at manipulating science, compared to Clinton, Gore
Belgium introduces stricter GM food labeling
China looks to take its hybrid rice global
Director General resigns
Farmers threaten environment, says new book by Izama Angelo Kampala
Mexican fruit fly; interstate movement of regulated articles
how to subscribe
Voluntary standard for labelling of genetically engineered foods becomes national standard
April 15, 2004
From a press release
OTTAWA - The Government of Canada today announced the official adoption by the Standards Council of Canada, of the Standard for Voluntary Labelling and Advertising of Foods That Are and Are Not Products of Genetic Engineering, as a National Standard of Canada. This means that consumers could start to see more labels on some food ingredients and food items indicating whether or not they are a product of genetic engineering. Adoption of the voluntary standard is the result of a thorough development and approval process - via a multi-stakeholder committee - facilitated by the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) and started in 1999. The process was reviewed by the Standards Council of Canada, the body that administers Canada's National Standards System.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency,
Public Works and Government Services Canada and Health Canada were among the
six federal departments that participated in the process for the development of the voluntary standard.
"The CGSB and the consumer groups and industry groups that participated in the Committee should be commended for doing an excellent job and working through a number of challenging issues. This is an important step and I believe that this standard will help respond to consumer demand by developing meaningful criteria for the labelling of foods derived through biotechnology," said Agriculture and Agri-food Minister Bob Speller. "I commend the Committee members - the numerous producer, consumer and other organizations, as well as representatives of six federal departments - for committing a tremendous amount of time and effort into the development of a workable voluntary labelling standard," said Doryne Peace, Chair of the Committee on Voluntary Labelling of Foods Obtained or Not Obtained Through Genetic Modification.
"No solution will please everyone, but this standard represents a broad consensus on the part of consumer groups, farmers, industry and government. It sets a framework for meaningful claims about the presence or absence of genetically engineered food ingredients. As a voluntary standard, the speed at which labelling appears in the marketplace will ultimately be driven by the importance of the issue to consumers," said Jeanne Cruikshank, Vice-President, Atlantic Region, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, whose organization sponsored the initiative.
The standard for voluntary labelling is intended to provide further guidance for food companies and manufacturers, which could help consumers make food choices.
The standard may be accessed free of charge over the Internet at Canadian General Standards Board Web site located at http://www.cgsb.gc.ca. General information and Frequently Asked Questions on the process followed by the Canadian General Standards Board leading up to the adoption of the national standard, is available at http://www.pwgsc.gc.ca/cgsb.
For more information on food labelling and food safety in Canada please
see the respective Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada websites
at www.inspection.gc.ca and www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/protection/novel_foods.html Media backgrounder:
Highlights from the National Standard
National Standard of Canada -- Voluntary Labelling and Advertising of Foods That Are, and Are Not, Products of Genetic Engineering Highlights The Standard is voluntary and is intended to provide consumers with consistent information for making informed food choices while providing labelling and advertising guidance for food companies, manufacturers and importers.
The application of the Standard relates to claims about foods that have been "genetically engineered," that is foods obtained through the use of specific techniques that allow moving genes from one species to another.
Applies to the advertising and labelling of food (pre-packaged, bulk, and food prepared at the point of sale) to distinguish whether or not such foods, or food ingredients, have been genetically engineered. Defines terms, and sets out various criteria for making claims about whether or not a food contains ingredients that are products of genetic engineering.
Limits to less than 5 per cent the amount of accidental co-mingling of genetically-engineered and non genetically-engineered food when a labelling claim is made.
Provides examples of acceptable and non-acceptable labelling statements.
All labelling claims must be understandable, informative, not false or misleading, verifiable and compliant with all current Canadian regulations.
The Standard does not apply to processing aids, enzymes used in small quantities, substrates for micro-organisms, veterinary biologics and animal feeds.
As with all Canadian standards, both industry and governments will benefit from a clear understanding of the acceptable framework surrounding the making of food claims.
All Canadians will likewise benefit from knowing that a Standard exists to help them make informed food choices.
CropLife Canada supports voluntary labelling of GE foods
April 15, 2004
CropLife Canada News Release
TORONTO, ON -- CropLife Canada joins fellow committee members in applauding consensus reached on the voluntary labelling of foods obtained or not obtained through genetic engineering. The Standards Council of Canada has announced the publication of the National labelling guide for retailers and food manufacturers. The Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) committee that developed the labelling standard involved 53 groups including consumers, grower groups, food processors and biotechnology developers.
“It’s the Canadian way to reach consensus on tough issues and that’s exactly what we achieved during the development of this standard,” says Denise Dewar, Executive Director, Plant Biotechnology. “We support consumer choice and believe that this standard will meet the needs of all Canadians.”
Right from the start, everyone agreed that labels must be informative, understandable, not false, not misleading and verifiable. With those guiding principles, the committee determined that food labelled as not genetically engineered must demonstrate 95% purity. This matches the National Organic Standard, which also requires 95% purity.
Canada’s key biotech crops – canola, corn and soybeans –produce oils and starches, which are used as ingredients in food manufacturing. “Using this standard to label will not be cost-free,” explains Dewar. “Manufacturers that chose to label will need systems in place right from the farm all the way through food chain. They must be able to demonstrate that they have followed the rules in the standard and that there claims meet the purity requirements.”
For a copy of the Standard please visit:
http://www.pwgsc.gc.ca/cgsb/032_025/standard-e.html
Lesson of trans fats applies to GM foods
April 15, 2004
The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
A16
Nina Morey of Saskatoon writes that some 40 years ago, the food science industry developed a new edible substance by combining liquid vegetable oil with hydrogen to change it into a solid fat that has come to be known as trans fat.
A popular food product created with this hydrogenation process was called margarine. The food industry sold this new scientifically altered food product to unsuspecting consumers through a clever advertising campaign designed to convince them that this margarine was a much superior and more "healthy" substitute for butter, that quaint, old-fashioned and natural dairy product.
Today, we are being told by health and nutrition experts to eliminate food products containing hydrogenated oils from our diet because they are detrimental to our health. The trans fat they contain contributes to the development of heart and vascular diseases.
Initially, this concern about the health risks associated with hydrogenated oils was addressed through labelling, but now they are being removed from manufactured food products.
Morey says that Janice Tranberg, manager of communications for Ag-West Biotech Inc. in Saskatoon, argues in SAHO call for mandatory labelling disappoints (SP April 2) that mandatory labelling of genetically modified food products is unnecessary because we have been consuming them worldwide for more than eight years with no diagnosed health problems
It took medical professionals up to 40 years to discover that trans fat was the cause of many of the health problems they were seeing in their patients. Therefore, Tranberg's argument does nothing to reassure me that they do not constitute a food safety concern.
Despairing GM firms halt crop trials
April 15, 2004
The Guardian
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
All the major biotechnology companies have, according to this story, abandoned GM trials in the UK this year and only one crop - a GM pea - has been granted a licence to be planted this summer.
The story says that the lack of applications, which peaked at 159 in 2000-01, shows a dramatic change in the fortunes of a technology which had the backing of the government but remains unpopular with the public.
Although the figures of field trials were inflated by the bio-tech companies' three-year trials of oilseed rape, sugar beet and maize, the slump to 140 in 2001-02, 42 last year and only one trial this year is a remarkable decline for what the government claims is a sunrise industry.
The one crop that will be grown this year is a herbicide-resistant pea being tested for drought resistance in polytunnels at the John Innes research centre, Norwich. The trial began last year.
The story says that all the big companies - Novartis Seeds, Aventis CropScience and Bayer CropScience - have told the government that no crops are being grown this year. The largest British research centres, including the Natural Environment Research Council, which uses the Rothamsted research establishment at Harpenden in Hertfordshire, have also stopped GM trials.
The testing of crops in British conditions is necessary before commercial planting. After years of effort, only one crop, Chardon LL maize, has been given the commercial go-ahead by the government, and that was withdrawn last month because Bayer said the conditions were too arduous.
The failure to test further varieties of crops is interpreted by industry watchers as despair at ever getting the technology accepted in Britain. Sue Mayer, of Genewatch, was quoted as saying, "It is a sign of how fully the British public has rejected GM, and how the companies are giving up. It is reflected across the rest of Europe. Research is now being directed elsewhere to other ways of improving crops which do not involve GM."
'GM farmers mishandling technology'
April 15, 2004
The Scotsman
Vik Iyer, PA News
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2783349
According to the New Scientist journal, genetically modified crop farmers in South America are using weedkiller so heavily that it is destroying neighbouring produce and causing sickness.
The story says that farmers in Argentina, who began growing herbicide-resistant soya crop in the late 1990s, are now facing the prospect of soil becoming inert because of the herbicides.
In 2002, almost half of Argentina’s arable land, 11.6 million hectares, was planted with soya, with almost all of it GM.
The main benefit to farmers is that by making the crop herbicide resistant, all weeds can be wiped out by one single broad-spectrum substance.
However, seeds from the previous season will still have to be killed with a different weedkiller.
Furthermore, if a crop is grown in the same field over a period of seasons, weeds which are naturally resistant to the main herbicide take over.
Bush a piker at manipulating science, compared to Clinton, Gore
April 11, 2004
The Union Leader
Henry I. Miller
Via AgBioView at www.agbioworld.org
The political silly season has spawned a flurry of attacks on the Bush administration for “politicizing science.” To be sure, some of the criticism is justified. It appears political for the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit over-the-counter sales of the morning-after contraceptive, for example.
But the critics seem to have become overnight converts in wanting public policy to be science-based. Not one of them was publicly censorious of the Clinton administration’s blatant and heavy-handed abuse of science. Moreover, the primary force behind the condemnation of the Bush administration, the Union of Concerned Scientists, is notorious for its anti-technology zealotry.
When political fortunes change and a new party comes into power in the executive branch, one must expect pervasive changes in the philosophy of government. This is part and parcel of the political process. However, the improper coercion and influence on governmental, science-based activities that we saw during the Clinton administration were outside the recognized rules of the game, and in some cases illegal.
As President Clinton’s science and technology czar, Vice President Al Gore chose many high-level appointees to regulatory agencies, and thereby obtained the leverage to politicize the administration’s policies and decisions.
And what a collection of yes-men and anti-science, anti-technology ideologues they were: Presidential science adviser Jack Gibbons, whose primary qualification seemed to be mastery of the phrase, “Yes, Mr. Vice President”; Environmental Protection Agency chief and Gore acolyte Carol Browner, whose agency was condemned repeatedly by the scientific community; Jane Henney, appointed FDA commissioner as a payoff for politicizing the agency’s critical oversight of food and drugs while she was its deputy head; State Department Undersecretary Tim Wirth, who worked tirelessly to circumvent Congress’s explicit refusal to ratify radical, wrongheaded treaties signed by the Clinton administration; and Agriculture Undersecretary Ellen Haas, former director of an anti-technology advocacy group, who deconstructed science thusly, “You can have ‘your’ science or ‘my’ science or ‘somebody else’s’ science. By nature, there is going to be a difference.”
Never has American government been burdened with such politically motivated, anti-science, anti-technology, anti-business eco-babble. Yet those who now criticize the Bush administration were silent. As troubling as the substance of the Clinton-Gore policies was, the mean-spirited nature of their practices was as bad. Gore brooked no dissension or challenge to his view of policy or scientific rectitude and went to extraordinary lengths to purge his “enemies” throughout the government. In order to rid the civil service of dissenting views, Gore and his staff interfered in federal personnel matters in ethically questionable ways.
Gore himself dismissed Will Happer, a senior scientist at the Department of Energy, because he refused to ignore scientific evidence at hand that conflicted with the vice president’s pet theories on ozone depletion and global warming.
Gore’s staff interfered in civil-service hiring and other personnel actions at the departments of state, energy and interior, and at the EPA and FDA. In these departments and agencies, prominent civil servants were moved to less visible positions or substituted with other officials during interactions with the White House for their own “protection.” Gore and his staff even positioned “political commissars” at the agencies, to intimidate and sometimes override government experts. There appears little likelihood that in the foreseeable future science policy will become less politicized or more rational and progressive. There is no important constituency for sound science policy. On the contrary, politicization often represents merely pandering to the fears, which sometimes verge on superstition, of a scientifically illiterate and statistics-phobic public.
Federal regulator-bureaucrats have learned to confer legitimacy on almost any policy, no matter how flawed or antithetical to the public interest. Skepticism about the motivations and actions of those in government is healthy. But for criticism to be credible, it should be consistent, even if not wholly apolitical. It is instructive, therefore, to ask: During the Clinton-Gore years of egregious excesses and abuses, where were those who now accuse the Bush administration of politicizing science? Henry I. Miller, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA from 1989 to1993. His latest book, “The Frankenfood Myth: How Protest and Politics Threaten the Biotech Revolution,” co-authored with Gregory Conko, will be published later this year.
Belgium introduces stricter GM food labeling
April 15, 2004
Expatica News http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=24&story_id=6661
Via AgBioView at www.agbioworld.org
BRUSSELS - Sales of food in Belgium containing more than minute traces of genetically modified (GM) ingredients will from Sunday, according to this story, be illegal unless indicated on content labels.
The story says that a new law introduced on 18 April stipulates that any food containing 0.9 percent or more of GM substances must display details of the amount on packaging.
Adopted by Belgium following its approval by the European Union's Council of Ministers in November last year, the new law also demands that the same information is clearly displayed to consumers of non-packaged foods, such as bread sold in bakeries.
Howevere, the law does not affect the sale of meat, milk or eggs from animals which have been fed GM foods, which is largely still not indicated to consumers.
China looks to take its hybrid rice global
April 15, 2004
AsiaPulse via COMTEX
SANYA, Hainan-- China's hybrid rice technologies will, according to this story, help build the world's food security with higher yield potential by using less farmland and diversifying agricultural production, said agronomists and agricultural officials. Some Chinese researchers hold that they have found an effective way to resolve the world's grain issue and increase farmers' income in developing countries through exporting its crossbred rice technologies. Liang Anqiong, deputy director of the southern breeding office of rice under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture
Liang Anqiong, deputy director of the southern breeding office of rice under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, was quoted as saying, "To those needy countries with inadequate arable land and growing population, China's hybrid rice technologies promise great potential to raise their grain output."
Liang made the remarks at a new hybrid rice varieties exhibition set to open Thursday in Sanya, a coastal city of China's southernmost Hainan island province.
Liang said China has maintained its lead in the world's research on crossbreeding rice technologies with two of its new rice varieties reaching a maximum output of 1.5 tons per hectare.
Director General resigns
April 14, 2004
IRRI-Press Release
www.irri.org
Los Banos, Philippines - The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has announced the resignation of its director general, Ronald P. Cantrell, effective December 31, 04.
In a statement to the Institute's staff, the new chair of IRRI's Board of Trustees, Keijiro Otsuka, said Dr. Cantrell was stepping down for health and family reasons. Dr. Cantrell took up the position of director general in September 1998 and - over the next five and a half years - led the Institute through many major challenges and decisions.
"Ron Cantrell provided the steadying hand, strong leadership and intelligent management IRRI needed," said Dr. Otsuka, a respected Japanese agricultural economist. "For those who remember, the Institute went through an uncertain period in the mid- to late 1990s, with one director general departing unexpectedly to be replaced by a temporary appointment. But, within a year or more of his arrival, Dr. Cantrell had got the Institute back on track."
However, he then had to deal with two of the biggest challenges facing agricultural research in the developing world today. The first was a continuing decline in funding for rice research that hit IRRI especially hard in 02, when Japan cut its financial support to the Institute by almost 50 percent, causing painful staff cutbacks.
The second major challenge was, of course, the debate over biotechnology and how it could be used most appropriately to benefit poor rice farmers and consumers. At the center of the international storm over biotechnology was vitamin A-enhanced Golden Rice, which officially arrived at IRRI in January 01.
"Under Dr. Cantrell's farsighted leadership, IRRI not only managed to successfully weather the disappointing downturn in donor support and the difficult staff cuts this caused, but it also played a very important role as an honest broker in the biotechnology debate," Dr. Otsuka said. "Both situations were very challenging, but the Institute under Dr. Cantrell handled them well - especially the biotechnology debate."
The challenge for IRRI now, according to Dr. Otsuka, is to find new candidates of a caliber similar to Dr. Cantrell's. "We especially want to encourage good candidates with outstanding expertise in rice science and who fully understand the international rice industry," he said. "The position is one of the most important and influential in the rice industry today, so the successful candidate should be someone who really understands rice and its vital importance to so many countries and cultures."
Dr. Otsuka also stressed that many big challenges remain for both Dr. Cantrell and the new director general, once he or she is finally selected. "The transition to the new leadership will be especially important, and I look forward to working with Dr. Cantrell in making sure the best possible candidate is chosen to replace him," he explained. "Considering what he has learned over the past five and a half years, we will also need his advice and guidance on the important issues IRRI will have to deal with over the next few years."
Dr. Otsuka also listed some of the other important developments Dr. Cantrell, as director general, had already contributed to:
Helping to ensure that one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in the history of rice research - the recent sequencing of the rice genome - would benefit those who need it most, poor farmers and consumers.
Placing greater emphasis on the importance of household food security after the Institute helped many rice-producing nations achieve the key goal of national food security - historically one of the Institute's most important objectives.
Helping countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos achieve sustainable improvements to their rice productivity and better livelihoods for their poor farmers.
Overseeing the continued development of aerobic rice, or rice varieties and technologies that would help farmers reduce their use of water in the face of Asia's looming water crisis.
Leading efforts to place greater emphasis on grain quality and nutrition after decades of focusing only on increased production. Under Dr. Cantrell, IRRI has decided to establish its first-ever grain quality and nutrition facility.
Holding the inaugural International Rice Congress in Beijing in September 02, with the next one to be held in 06. The first event ever organized for the entire international rice industry, the congress was opened by the then-President of China, Mr. Jiang Zemin, and included an unprecedented Ministerial Roundtable on Rice chaired by Dr. Cantrell.
Establishing formal relations between IRRI and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three, the world's largest official grouping of rice-producing and -consuming nations that includes the ten nations of ASEAN plus China, Japan and Korea.
Dr. Otsuka said that these achievements, while impressive, were only a summary of the many things Dr. Cantrell had contributed to during his years at IRRI. "The Board and I are very grateful for the excellent
leadership and vision provided by Dr. Cantrell. Despite many difficult challenges, he has always put the interests of IRRI and its staff first, and the results are there for all to see."
"Clear and emphatic evidence of this success came this year, when IRRI was successfully reviewed by an outside team of experts," Dr. Otsuka said. "Dr. Cantrell is certainly leaving IRRI in a much stronger position than when he arrived.
"Not only is the world celebrating the International Year of Rice this year - an idea first proposed to the United Nations in 1999 under Dr. Cantrell's leadership - but several important donors such as Canada and the UK have signaled a renewed commitment to rice research," Dr. Otsuka added.
"For all of this, the Institute owes Dr. Cantrell an enormous debt of gratitude."
Farmers threaten environment, says new book by Izama Angelo Kampala
April 15, 2004
The Monitor/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX
Agriculture uses half of the habitable area of the earth, employs 1.3 billion people but poses the biggest threat to the environment. These are claims contained in a new book by the environmental group, World Wide Fund for Nature.
The book titled: World Agriculture and the Environment, says that inefficient food production and harmful agricultural subsidies are causing deforestation, water shortages and pollution.
The book, to be released today and published by Island Press, argues that pressure from agriculture, which produces approximately $1.3 trillion worth of goods annually, also contributes to serious environmental, social, and economic problems, particularly in developing countries.
Mexican fruit fly; interstate movement of regulated articles
April 15, 2004
[Federal Register: (Volume 69, Number 73)]
[Page 19950]
[DOCID:fr15ap04-14]
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
[Docket No. 03-059-2]
AGENCY: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA.
ACTION: Proposed rule; reopening of comment period.
SUMMARY: We are reopening the comment period for our proposed rule that would amend the Mexican fruit fly regulations by, among other things, removing a provision that allows regulated articles to be moved interstate from a regulated area without a certificate or limited permit when they are moved into States other than commercial citrus-producing States. This action will allow interested persons additional time to prepare and submit comments.
DATES: We will consider all comments that we receive on or before May 17, 2004.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
Postal Mail/Commercial Delivery: Please send four copies of your comment (an original and three copies) to Docket No. 03-059-1, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3C71, 4700 River Road Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238. Please state that your comment refers to Docket No. 03-059-1. E-mail: Address your comment to regulations@.... Your comment must be contained in the body of your message; do not send attached files. Please include your name and address in your message and ``Docket No. 03-059-1'' on the subject line.
Agency Web site: Go to http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppd/rad/cominst.html for a form you can use to submit an e-mail comment through the APHIS Web site. Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the instructions for locating this docket and submitting comments.
Reading Room: You may read any comments that we receive on this docket in our reading room. The reading room is located in room 1141 of the USDA South Building, 14th Street and Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC. Normal reading room hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 690-2817 before coming. Other Information: You may view APHIS documents published in the Federal Register and related information, including the names of groups and individuals who have commented on APHIS dockets, on the Internet at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppd/rad/webrepor.html.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Michael B. Stefan, Director of Emergency Programs, PPQ, APHIS, 4700 River Road Unit 134, Riverdale, MD 20737-1236; (301) 734-4387.
Agnet is produced by the Food Safety Network at the University of Guelph and is sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Plants Program at the University of Guelph, Agricultural Adaptation Council (CanAdapt Program), AGCare, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, ConAgra Foods Inc., Meat Livestock Australia, Pioneer Hi-Bred Limited (Canada), Monsanto Canada, National Pork Board, Syngenta Seeds, Inc. USA, JIFSAN, CropLife Canada, Canadian Animal Health Institute, Burger King Corporation, Southern Crop Protection Association, Ag-West Biotech Inc., Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, Syngenta Crop Protection, Feedlot Health Management Services, Institute of Environmental Science Research Limited , National Food Processors Association, Tactix Government Consulting, Inc., CanAmera Foods, Global Public Affairs, and Agri Business Group, Inc.
To subscribe to the html version of Agnet (subscription is free), send mail to:
listserv@...
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
subscribe agnet-L firstname lastname
i.e. subscribe agnet-L Doug Powell
(replace agnet-L with agnettext to subscribe to the text version of agnet)
To unsubscribe to the html version of Agnet, send mail to:
listserv@...
leave subject line blank
in the body of the message type:
signoff agnet-L
(replace agnet-L with agnettext to unsubscribe to the text version of agnet)
For more information about the Agnet research program, please contact:
Dr. Douglas Powell
Associate Professor
dept. of plant agriculture
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ont.
N1G 2W1
tel: 519-824-4120 x54280
cell: 519-835-3015
fax: 519-763-8933
dpowell@...
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca
The Food Safety Network's bilingual toll-free line for obtaining food safety
information: 1-866-50-FSNET (1-866-503-7638)
archived at "http://131.104.232.9/agnet-archives.htm
Send Email