Archived press release

Biotech industry distorts the facts on GM crops

10 February 2009

Misleading figures are being used by the European biotech industry to mask an overall decline in the growth of GM crops across the continent, a new study by Friends of the Earth reveals today (Tuesday 10 February 2009). The report comes the day before new industry figures on GM crop cultivation are due to be published (Wednesday 11 February 2009).

The Friends of the Earth report - 'Who Benefits From GM Crops?' - reveals that the GM industry has given a distorted picture of GM crop cultivation in Europe because its calculations do not include France - one of Europe's biggest agricultural producers - which last year banned the only GM crop grown in the EU.

The biotech industry claims that GM crop cultivation in Europe rose by 21 per cent in 2008 - but if France is included, it actually fell by two per cent. Overall, GM crop cultivation in the EU has fallen every year since 2005, with an overall drop of 35 per cent since this time.

Friends of the Earth's report, on the global status of GM, also exposes how biotech corporations are making record profits by raising the prices of GM seeds and their companion pesticides and herbicides. This is squeezing farmers at a time when the number of people facing hunger around the world has reached? Is nearing? one billion.

Friends of the Earth's GMO campaigner Kirtana Chandrasekaran said:

"The biotech industry is twisting the facts in a desperate attempt to push its products and make huge profits.

"European countries are right to reject GM crops - UN research shows that they do not increase yields or tackle hunger and poverty.

"The Government must ignore GM industry spin and back safe, sustainable and locally-produced food instead."

ENDS

NOTES:

1. The Friends of the Earth International report launch comes one day ahead of the annual release of the 'Global Status of Commercialized Biotech' report of the industry-sponsored International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) - which promotes GM crops as a key solution to hunger and poverty.

2. "Who Benefits' from GM crops: Feeding the biotech giants, not the world's poor" Friends of the Earth International, Full report:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/full_report_2009.pdf

Executive Summary: http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/Exec_summary_2009.pdf

3. The report also shows that globally the cultivation of genetically modified crops is still confined to a handful of countries with export-oriented intensive farming.The most widely grown GM crop - soy - is grown mostly as high protein animal feed for export to the UK and Europe. GM soy monocultures in South America are wiping out forests, causing massive climate emissions and forcing communities off their lands. Despite much pro-GM hype by the industry during the food crisis, there is still not a single commercial GM crop with increased yield, drought-tolerance, salt-tolerance, enhanced nutrition or other 'beneficial' traits long promised by biotech companies, with crops in the pipeline still pesticide promoting varieties.

4. Nearly 90 per cent of the area planted to GM crops in 2007 was found in just six countries in North and South America, with 80 per cent in the US, Argentina and Brazil. The United States alone, plants over 50 per cent of the world's GM crops. Just three per cent or less of cropland in India and China is planted with GM. In Europe, GM maize, the only approved GM crop, constitutes a mere 0.21 per cent of agricultural land.

5. Official data from major producer countries - US, Argentina and Brazil - confirms that pesticide-use rises with GM crops, including the use of toxic chemicals banned in some European countries. This causes massive increases in costs for farmers as well as agronomic, environmental and health problems, mostly affecting poor communities who live near intensive GM farms.

6. The biotech industry has still not introduced a single GM crop that has enhanced nutrition, higher yield potential, drought-tolerance, salt-tolerance, or other promised traits. As before, biotech agriculture consists of four crops with just two traits, herbicide-tolerance and/or insect-resistance. Of the 12 GM crops awaiting USDA commercial approval, nearly half (5) are herbicide-tolerant. Two (corn and soybeans) have dual herbicide-tolerance, while three others are tolerant to a single herbicide (cotton, alfalfa and golf-course grass). None of the others represent beneficial new traits. Three varieties of insect-resistant (IR) corn (2) and cotton (1) are minor variations on existing IR crops. Virus-resistant papaya and soybeans with altered oil content are already approved, though not grown to any significant extent. Carnations engineered for altered colour are a trivial application of biotechnology. Finally, corn engineered to contain a novel enzyme for "self-processing" into ethanol presents potential risks to human health and is a totally unnecessary development, given the huge amounts of existing corn already devoted to ethanol production.

7. http://www.europabio.org/documents/2008%20Cultivation%20chart.pdf
The European biotech lobby association dropped France - which banned GM crop cultivation in 2008 - from its calcuations so that an overall increase was shown rather than the actual decrease caused by the French ban.

8. Crops have been grown in seven European countries - Czech Republic, France (stopped in 2008), Germany, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Romania. EU briefing:
http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/Who_Benefits/EU_briefing_2009.pdf

9. Monsanto is the world's largest seed firm and holds a near monopoly in the market for GM seeds. It also markets Roundup, the world's biggest-selling herbicide, to be used in conjunction with its 'RoundupReady seeds'. Goldman Sachs recently projected Monsanto's total revenue increasing 74% from 2007 to 2010 (from $8.6 to $14.9 billion).The average price for soybean seed, the largest GM crop in the US has risen by more than 50 per cent in just two years from 2006 to 2008 - from $32.30 to $49.23 per planted acre. The price of Monsanto's triple-stack corn will reportedly increase by $95-100 per bag, to top $300 per bag in 2009. Retail prices for RoundUp Ready herbicide have increased from just $32 per gallon in December 2006 to $45 per gallon a year later, to $75 per gallon by June 2008 -a 134 per cent price hike in less than two years. Monsanto controls roughly 60 per cent of the market for glyphosate - the active ingredient of the herbicide RoundUp.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust