A talk with Leo Saldana

Leo Saldana

Leo Saldana

Leo F. Saldanha is full-time Coordinator of Environment Support Group (ESG). He has gained wide-ranging experience in the areas of Environmental Law and Policy, Decentralisation, Urban Planning and a variety of Human Rights and Development related issues, working across many sectors for over a decade. He is a keen campaigner on critical environmental and social justice issues and has guided several campaigns demanding evolution of progressive laws and effectiv action. He has creatively supported various distressed communities to secure justice through public interest litigations and advocacy efforts. He has argued as party in person several public interest litigations, many of which have resulted in remarkable judgments.

One of the more important court cases his organization initiated is to do with Monsanto and its Indian partner Mahyco, and a possible violation of an Indian law that could amount to biopiracy.

I had called him to learn more about it, and have converted the first part of that talk into a short video clip and an 11 minute podcast, linked at the bottom of this page. You can also find the podcast on iTunes. Search “Tony Mitra” for my podcasts. The rest of the conversation will come up in subsequent parts.

Leo Salndana of ESG, Part 1

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Dr. Ramu of Centre of Sustainable Agriculture, India

Here we include a podcast involving a talk with Dr. Ramu of India, on sustainable agriculture.

Dr. Ramanjeneyulu, or Dr. Ramu is short, is a noted agricultural scientist in India, and the executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, whose work involves finding solutions to, and helping the farmers to rediscover pesticide free, debt free model of agriculture that would make farming once again a profitable and sustainable profession.

CSA focuses on developing and promoting locally adapted farming systems, sustainable farming practices. Organic Farming, Non Pesticidal Management, Open Source Seeds, Ethno-veterinary practices water conservation etc are practiced to promote ecological and economic sustainability.

Dr. Ramu

Dr. Ramu

Dr. Ramu has been invited in late May 2013 to Charlotte, North Carolina, provide the keynote speech at the annual conference of Association for India’s Development (AID), a registered Non-profit Organisation in the US that are involved with, among other things, grassroots movements in helping farming to find a sustainable platform, away from the debt inducing and pesticide laden industrial agri-model that is proving to be disastrous to the Indian farmers as well as to ecology and rural economy.

I spoke with him on phone, to learn more of the current situation in India, of his remarkable work, and also about what he might speak about in his keynote speech in North Carolina later this month. We also discussed what might be a good topic for a tentative panel discussion involving Dr. Ramu as well as participants from North America, on topic such as importance of small family farm sustainability on a global scale as a buffer to ensure food security for the planet.

Below is the 13 minute podcast. For your feedback, you may write to tonu@tonu.org or tony.mitra@gmail.com.

Bee killing pesticide and other chemicals on our horizon – a talk with Dr. Shiv Chopra

Dr. Shiv Chopra

Dr. Shiv Chopra

What on earth is neonicotinoid pesticide ? And how is it linked to killing bees across the planet? EU is reportedly considering banning this manmade chemical for a while, so its effects on bees and other living organisms, including humans, can be better ascertained.

So whats the deal here? To find out, myself from British Columbia, and Rose Stevens from Manitoba, called up Dr. Shiv Chopra in Ontario, and asked him.

Dr. Shiv Chopra needs no introduction. Here he talks about the unfortunate development where the Canadian Government appears to be favoring products that could have a health concern but is siding with Corporations and not adopting a precautionary approach in testing products that might have a health concern.

The result of that conversation is attached here in this seven and a quarter minute audio podcast.

Dr. Thierry Vrain on faulty science behind GMO technology

Presenting an audio podcast and a series of video clips about Dr. Thierry Vrain, organic farmer and retired genetic engineer. He explains how the GMO technology is based on a faulty assumption that has since been proven wrong by more recent study of genome ecosystem of living organisms.

Tony, Thierry & Chanchal

Tony, Thierry & Chanchal

Thierry lives in lovely Comox Valley on the east coast of Vancovuer Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

In these video clips, myself, Anu, and Peggy visit the Innisfree farm, or Thierry Vrain and Chanchal Cabrera. Chanchal was busy teaching a class in her farm.

Dr. Vrain with Peggy and Tony in his farm

Dr. Vrain with Peggy and Tony in his farm

Thierry took us around Chanchal’s Teaching garden, and later around his organic farm and discussed how and why of organic farming.

The talks covered chemical free organic farming, sensible gardening practices, as well as a lot of science and experience. Peggy added value to the tour by adding her knowledge and experience into the discussion, including pointers to how things are in Assam, India and how things need to improve, so that pesticides can be taken out of the equation and healthy soil can be preserved and nourished without the need for factory produced toxic chemicals or fertilizers.

Thierry has been many things in his professional life. But for us, his most notable knowledge comes from plant pathology, molecular biology and his experience as a genetic engineer, along with his knowledge that the GMO science is based on old and wrong perceptions of the nature and function of genes. This knowledge is not discussed in this opening section of the video. You need to stay tuned and watch the rest as they are edited and put up.

Thierry Vrain – Part 1 : Thierry  talks to us on medicinal gardens, plants and food.  If chosen well, how our food and lifestyle can cure some decease, even repress or slowdown Cancer. Cancer, which might be considered a decease of old age, is coming up more frequently among the young, and is related to stress, though it has a genetic base. The stress can be from harmful chemicals, physical stress, emotional trauma, could be related to how one lives his/her life, etc.  Then Thierry goes on to describe the garden and its mulch, and how he makes compost out of rotting hay, seaweed, dead leaves etc. And then he shows us how to use natural ingredients to conserve soil health, and explains his own training and work background.

There are many more video clips to be added shortly, so watch this space.

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Thierry Vrain – Part 2: We get a tour around the farm, starting with the meditating labyrinth that they made in the corner which is full of gravel and not suitable for growing vegetables. The adjacent pond is blue-green from the minerals in the clay at the bottom of the pond. Moving on to the vegetable garden, Thierry explains how some medicinal plants are also good as source for mulch that keeps the sun from drying out the soil, and helps growth of micro organisms to work on the fallen vegetation and turn it all into soil nutrient. There is also a fast scene of Thierry’s cat surviving an eagle attack.

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Thierry Vrain – Part 3: We spend 21 minutes out in Thierry’s farm and learn about soil biology and the role played by bacteria, fungi, and how photosynthesis was invented by the bacteria before implanting themselves into evolving trees that had the chloroplast. He and Peggy join talks with Tony in explaining how the sunlight and CO2 are worked on by the trees along with nutrients from the soil, and how the tree takes and also gives back into the soil sugars and proteins for the bacteria and fungi that in turn give the plants the minerals it needs. It is necessary to understand the relationship, so that agriculture can be understood and why industrial chemical or GMO are not the solution to either improve plant biology, or soil condition or nutrition value in our food.

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Exposing the faulty science behind GMO

Thierry Vrain – Part 4: In this video of under 12 minutes, Dr. Thierry Vrain comes to describe his profession as a soil biologist turned genetic engineer, and explained how, since the human genome project was completed in 2002, it dawned on folks on the complexity of genes that shattered the old idea of a one-gene one-protein theory. This also meant, the GMO technology used by the biotech industry was based on a faulty assumption of how genes work, and how dangerous the consequences of that faulty science can be.

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PODCAST : At bottom of this page, and also on iTunes, is the 12 and half minute audio podcast of the above video #4, on GMO.

Whats up with Comox Valley ?

I have to thank Dr. Debal Deb of Odisha, India, and the small farmers in the foothills of the Himalayas in the northeastern Indian province of Assam, for making it possible for me to meet up with so many remarkable organic farmers and anti-GMO activists in Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Peggy Carswell

Peggy searched for Dr. Debal Deb from Odisha, India, and found me, from Delta, Canada instead.

If you want to know how someone in India whose last name seems like a truncated version of is first name, and small farmers of the foothills of Himalayas could possibly have any connection with Comox valley – you need to speak with Peggy Carswell and her NGO the Fertile Ground.

The thing is – she was searching for her friend Dr. Debal Deb on the internet, and found me, Debal’s friend, who had interviewed him over the phone and made a few videos about Debal’s views on GMO, sustainable farming and seed preservation. And thus, she found me. And how did Peggy Carswell of Comox Valley know Debal Deb of India? Thats another story, and you might have to ask Ms Pompy Ghosh of Assam, India, about it some day. But, let me not get any deeper into that, and try to refocus on the Comox Valley. Assam, and Pompy, and Peggy, and Debal Deb and others will get into my blog more in future, I believe. Meanwhile this blog is about people from an island off the west coast of Canada, standing up for the quality of our food, who should grow it, and how it should be grown.

Ellen Rainwalker

Ellen Rainwalker

That was not all. There was also the matter of Ms Arzeena Hamir of the Amara Farm and Dr. Thierry Vrain and Chanchal of Innisfree Farm. If you are wondering who these people with strange names are – you need to visit Comox Valley some day. And if you like colourful, exotic names, you should also consider inviting yourself at one of the Comox Valley Food Round Table (CVFRT) meetings there. You might get to know wonderful ladies with names such as Ellen Rainwalker.

Okay, so what exactly is happening in Comox Valley? White Tailed Deer and Tonu figure each other out.For one thing, a couple of yearling White tailed deer fawns following a very pregnant mother might be browsing outside your bedroom window in the morning. If they have not seen you before, or heard your strange accent, they might fix their large eyes on you and turn their large ears to catch your words, before arriving at the logical conclusion that you were neither much to look at, nor to listen to, before turning around with an air of supreme indifference and proceeding with their browsing. That was happening in the valley often enough around Railway avenue, the River Road, and another road called the Headquarter road. There is no Headquarter there. Not even a Tailquarter. But the name was relevant, I am told, because the valley once had an operating coal mine and a mining town around the area.

A couple of peacocks kept yelling at the world from across the woods. I never saw any during my stay, but heard them often enough, and was told that a nearby resident had a few, and allowed them sufficient free speech so they could announce their existence a few dozen times a day. There were also less noisy resident belted kingfishers, mallards, rufous hummingbirds, woodpeckers, warblers and other birds.

Among the humankind, Peggy and Kel kept us enchanted with their beautiful home and hospitality. I came away with the knowledge that the two of them had a larger heart than I could muster, not to mention Peggy was a great organizer when it came to supporting sustainable farming in Assam, India, and Kel was way better a handy man than me.

Eduardo, partner, and hemp

Eduardo, Ann, and edible hemp.

There are lots of other things happening in the community. For example, there is a vibrant weekend farmers market. I did meet a lot of folks there, and made video clips of them talking about their products and feelings on the issue of organic farming and clean food. Eduardo and Ann had a stall, and they were selling edibles made from hemp. I tried a round sweet with hemp seeds in it, that was the shape of an Indian laddu, a round ball slightly larger than a ping pong ball. It tasted sweet and great.

Moss at her stall

Moss at her stall

Then there was Ms Moss, a young organic farmer selling her wares. It was wonderful noticing younger generation getting in on organic farming and re-linking with the food web. She had samples of farm fresh vegetables and pamphlets that encouraged folks to support local farm produce. Peggy told me about her efforts and goals, and so I went and recorded her talking about her work. She thought my camera was awesome. I thought she was awesome.

There were lots of other great guys at the farmers market, and all of them deserve special mention. They, collectively, are our food preservers and seed savers, a profoundly important task, though they remain in the fringes of the urban media radar, and at the periphery of our social consciousness. This needs to change.

Thierry points to where GMO might belog - far away from our kitchen.

Is Thierry pointing to where GMO might belong – far away from our food chain?

I was fortunate to meet Dr. Thierry Vrain and Chanchal and interview them at their Innisfree farm. All that will come up shortly, on another blog, as well as in podcast and video. Meanwhile, I got a few shots of expressive Thierry. Here he might be pointing where GMO should be – far away, over the hills and across the oceans, preferably outside of the gravitational field of the planet earth, and out of our market, fridge and kitchen.

Chanchal

Chanchal Cabrera of Innisfree Farm

Chanchal Cabrera, despite her Indian sounding first name and Latin sounding last name, is a Scotswoman with finely chiselled features and mischievous eyes. She carries the last name from her previous marriage. But her first name was adopted by her, and given by a guru in India long ago. She had agreed to see me Sunday afternoon for an hour, and talked about her learning, her passion and her work with Growing Wellness, with herbal tea, vegetable and fruits, apothecary and culinary gardens and meditating labyrinth. She is a medical herbalist, a clinical aromatherapist, and a horticultural therapist among other things, and is connected with the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine in New Westminster, BC.

I had the good fortune to visit quite a few organic and original farms. one of them was Eatmore Sprouts of Ms Carmen Wakeling and interviewed her in the morning of Sunday, April 28th. She was gracious enough to take time out from her day of rest, to show me around and have a chat with me and be recorded. Her farm was amazing, but she too was very concerned about the GMO issue, and especially the GM alfalfa that was bearing down over the horizon. Her farm sold sprouts that was for human consumption.

Carmen Wakeling

Carmen Wakeling of Eatmore Sprouts

She sells sprouted seeds, but her business model does not not leave room for her to save seeds for replanting. She therefore depended on importing non-GM organic seeds, and stood to lose both her source of seed, and her customers, if GM alfalfa was to contaminate naturally grown Alfalfa. She was also working with the large dairy farmers, who used GM corn to feed their cows and were the main opposition to turning the island free from GMO up and down the food web. Carmen had a progressive solution driven approach. She did not want to see the dairy farmers antagonized by fingers pointing at them. The idea was to find a solution by which all could exist, including dairy farmers, and without use of pesticides and genetically engineered ingredients in the cattle feed. A tall task, and something that perhaps needed the collective will and effort of everybody, including consumers, policy makers and investors. We all have our share of duty.

While I was sitting with her, a flock of blackbirds chased a Kestrel. She mentioned that a pair of American Kestrels were nesting on her property, and was the cause of much mobbing and chasing by smaller perching birds that considered the Kestrel an unwelcome intruder in their lives.

CVFRT meeting - April 29, 2013

CVFRT meeting – April 29, 2013. Can you locate Ellen Rainwalker, who had the best name among us all?

Comox Valley Food Round Table (CVFRT) meeting for the Comox Valley citizens was an interesting event where I was allowed to sit in, record the proceedings, take a few pictures, and even put in my two cents here and there. I found it very encouraging, and something that others should also do if not already in it, to discuss various issues relating to supporting efforts to grow local, organic food, to raise awareness on it, and to join hands in collective efforts to resist takeover by corporate invested industrial farming with sprayed pesticides and GMO. I found it refreshing to sit with them, and thank them for allowing a rank outsider to listen in.

Arzeena Hamir of Amara Farm

Arzeena Hamir of Amara Farm

The story of my visit to Comox Valley was to be bracketed by Peggy and Kel on one side, and with Arzeena Hamir of Amara farm on the other. A newcomer to the valley, she had a spanking new home that was heated by a combination of geothermal and solar energy. She was growing multiple kinds of vegetables, and leasing part of her land to UBC agricultural graduates to grow fruit trees. She and her busband where both agrologists that had worked around the world, and had vast experience and conviction on the value of good nutrition as well as rural grassroots level socio-economic development involving a model that included growing food that was chemical free and genetically untampered, non-industrial natural farming by small farmers, supported by their local communities. All this is going to come out in videos and podcasts. This is my first writeup, hurried as it is, within the first 24 hours since my return home from Comox valley.

I hope to be coming back to the valley again sometime, perhaps in the summer when things get more hectic. My parting words for the valley is – YOU ROCK.

Kel, Peggy, Anu and yours truely

Kel, Peggy, Anu and yours truely

A talk with Dr. Shiv Chopra on GMO

Dr. Shiv Chopra

Dr. Shiv Chopra

Dr. Shiv Chopra is a Canadian icon, a food and health scientist that was fired for doing a good job in health Canada, in resisting incursion of questionable food and agri-products patented by foreign corporations that did not meet required safety criteria.

He has explained his long service with health Canada, and circumstances under which he and his colleagues were fired for whistle-blowing, in a book – Corrupt To The Core, memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower.

Myself and Teresa Lynn of Port Coquitlam got Dr. Shiv Chopra on a conference call this morning, on April 25, 2013, and recorded the conversation. It was almost an hour long. Since it covered a lot more ground than just GMO, and since people do not usually have patience to listen through an hour of talk, I had to edit it and split the discussion into sections, and keep the GMO sections together to create a 21 minute podcast.

The take away lesson from Dr. Chopra for us was, just like the Occupy movement going on everywhere, we should occupy our health and our food chain and tell the Govt and the Corporations to leave our food and our body, alone.

Another take away lesson was – Economy and GDP is fine, but food should be out of the economic design where profit trumps good living and good health. Make money somewhere else. Leave our food alone.

You can listen to the Podcast at the bottom of this page. Alternately, you can also find this, and other podcasts from this blog at iTunes. Type “Tonu” in the search field in iTunes, which is my pet name, and the name attached to this blog, and hence the Podcast. iTunes will show a number of items in result. Scroll down to the Podcast section, and you should find Tonu – Tony Mitra, among a handful of podcasts.

Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower
Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower

You can either listen to this and other podcasts directly from there, or you can subscribe to it, and get it into your computer, or iPod or iPhone etc.

Your comments are welcome. If you do not have an account with WordPress blogging, you can get one. Alternately, you can send me an email at tonu@tonu.org, or tony.mitra@gmail.com or tonu@me.com

Thanks.

Letters to Vancouver Sun about GMO

4v208_VancouverSun

This issue covers letters written to Vancouver Sun rebutting an industry lobby group’s letter to editor that provides misinformation to promote GM seeds. People that wrote the letters read them out for the Podcast, such as Phil Harrison, Bobbie BLair, and myself. You can find it at the bottom of this blog page.

Not a dull moment. A few days ago, I was unaware of the existence of CropLife Canada or its link with GMO. By today, I have seen a dozen people write to the Vancouver Sun, protesting a letter published there on April 22, by the president of CropLife, Lorne Hepworth. I learned that in effect CropLife has financial incentive to see more sale of Monsanto agri-products in Canada.

I came to know if it through emails, linking the web page for the digital version of the paper. Then I found reference to it on Facebook and on Twitter. I finally saw the actual article on a hard copy of the paper at Mr. Tal Lee’s home.

The article promotes GMO for Canada, claims that modern plant breeding technology helps the farmer, is safe for humans and environment and makes food cheaper. It claims farmers across the world are rapidly adopting GM seeds. It also claims millions of farmers in 28 countries are planting biotech crops. It does not substantiate its claims, most of which could be considered as misinformation.

So, in response, a number of folks wrote back to the news paper with their views. I was one of them. We decided not only to write to Vancouver Sun, but to create our own news outlets. This blog is one of them. We shall also read aloud our letters and create audio files for podcasts that will appear in this blog and also on iTunes.

Here is the first response to it, from Ms Bobbie Blair of Langley, BC:

From: Bobbie Blair
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 6:00 PM
To: ‘sunletters@vancouversun.com
Subject: CropLife Industry Propaganda… masked as a story?
Hello,

I am a Langley resident who has a busy life, as a mom with a young child who also has a demanding career. However, since last summer, I have taken time that I DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE away from work and family, to try to create awareness in our community about the frightening implications of transgenic (GMO) crops. I came across this story you published today:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Genetically+modified+food+welcome+innovation/8275752/story.html

After learning about GMOs and then doing more research, I was absolutely shocked that our governments were allowing Biotech corporations like Monsanto to not only play with nature (genetic pollution cannot be contained once released into the environment), but to play roulette with our health as well.  We are not talking about hybridization, but activities are “invasive to the plant at a cellular level” inserting foreign DNA (animal, human) into plants, and even, as in BT corn and BT cotton, inserting the insecticide into the cells of plants, so that the plant “grows” its own insecticide from the inside out (and then we eat that corn in our processed foods, and eat the meat and dairy from animals fed this stuff… YUMMO!)  But Monsanto (the largest Biotech corporation) created DDT, Agent Orange, PCBs and RoudUp, so they are a chemical company looking to control the seed market and the chemical pesticide and herbicides used.  In Monsanto’s perfect world, all seeds grown are patented by them, and sprayed with their chemicals worldwide. This is their mission. CropLife works for them, promoting their products. Simple as that.

GMOs are patented seeds that have NEVER been independently tested for safety by either our government, not the US government. On top of this, many farmers have been destroyed by the patented seeds blowing into their fields. (Destroyed financially, emotionally and also literally due to farmer suicides).  Biotech corporations have been given the authority, under patent law, to sue a farmer for patent infringement when in fact he does not want their seeds, and their presence in his fields is unwelcome. (Any right- thinking person of average intelligence sees at once that this is not right, and not the way laws normally are written in a great country such as ours).  Why is it that the Biotech Industry is allowed to bully farmers, and put their untested (“scientific” studies paid for and conducted by the Biotech industry do NOT count) Franken foods into our food system UNLABELLED? Does any of this sound exaggerated?? I will tell you, I thought a lot of the stuff I came across online had to be exaggerated, as it was so outrageous, so I went to the SFU library, where I found books that supported the horrifying stuff I discovered online. I am not a Genetic Scientist or a professor of Biology or Environmental Studies or anyone with such credentials, but I can put you in touch with such experts, if you wish.

 I will tell you, it is EXTREME CONCERN that forces a busy working mom like myself, to take time that I do not have to spare, become an activist and take up a cause.  However, I realized that if we do not wake up and take back control of our food, our farmers are going to be reduced to serfs of corporations, and we will lose all choice and access to truly natural and organically grown food. I feel like I am fighting for my daughter’s future, and that we are actually standing at a crossroads right now.  It is hurtful and painful for someone like me, when I am trying so hard to expose the truth and spread awareness, to then see a respectable newspaper like the Vancouver Sun allow Crop Life to print pure industry propaganda, to further confuse a society that already lacks important information.

I can only assume that you were not aware of what you were publishing when you ran the above story created by CropLife. Please do an online search on Monsanto, because CropLife works for them, and present the real facts, to set the story straight.  As a respected and responsible newspaper, this is the only right thing to do. We rely on local media to be the voice of the people, and a vehicle of truth. I am sure that now that you know, you will set the record straight.

Bobbie Blair

 Next, is the letter written by Phil Harrison:
From: PHIL Harrison
Subject: Letter to editor
Date: 22 April, 2013 11:12:50 PM PDT
To: News <sunletters@vancouversun.com>
 
Dear editor:
 
I like to respond to the one sided article  “Genetically modified food is welcome innovation”.  It should be noted that Crop Life Canada represents Monsanto and the other companies making genetically modified organisms, GMOs. The information presented is very much the industry spin. 
  
The article talks about the claims of reduced herbicide use that these products allow.  Although this is true for the first few years, over time the weeds develop a resistance to the herbicide.  This has forced farmers to spray more and more herbicide for the same result.  The resistance now has developed to the point that many weeds are completely immune.  Monsanto has addressed this by developing new, more toxic versions of herbicide resistance plants.  I think this proves that the reduced pesticide use claim now being made is at best misleading, if not downright dishonest.
 
Another point I’d like to make is on the safety testing of GMOs.  There are no independent studies done on new GMOs being released into the market place.  All studies done in North America are done by industry.  The company standing to make an immense amount of money on the release of the GMOs can not be trusted to make an honest assessment of their safety.  However, Health Canada takes industry’s assurance of safety at face value and approves them.  This process does not give me any confidence in the integrity of the process.
 
I’d like to point out that 65 districts and municipalities in BC have been persuaded of their risks to pass resolutions opposing GMOs being grown in their area.
I hope that the paper will print an article that discusses the many health and environmental risks these products pose.
 
Phil Harrison

Next is my letter:

From: Tony Mitra
Subject: Genetically modified food is not yet welcome
Date: 23 April, 2013 1:06:56 AM PDT
To: sunopinion@vancouversun.com
 
Re: Letter to the editor dated April 22, 2013 – Genetically modified food is welcome innovation
 
 
The article declares opinion and not factual data on benefit of GM food. 
 
Since the technology is primarily poison related, with pesticide in the soil, or toxin in plant  DNA, precautionary principle calls for a thorough independent long term analysis of potential harm to health and environment and potential loss of biodiversity.
 
There is evidence that with the introduction of GM crop, alternative seeds slowly disappear, leaving the patented GM seed as the sole option in a model that promotes mono-culture. This in effect amounts to a loss of biodiversity, and a shrinkage of seed independence and food security of a nation.
 
The Irish potato famine is a good example where the whole nation was planting only one kind of crop, and when a specialized pest attacked it, it destroyed the entire nations potato and brought on their worst famine in history. There is a danger of that happening with mono-culture regime in any crop.
 
There is also the issue of food security and if Canadian farmers should lose the ability to choose what variety of crop strain they wish to plant, and only have one kind of patented seed available in the market, controlled by a foreign corporation. This can be taken as a nation losing its food independence.
 
Finally, the patent holders exert an unprecedented control over lab analysis of their products claiming intellectual property rights. Only with permission of the patent holder can scientific study be done on merit of GM seeds. Even then, the results must be shown to the patent holder before publication and if the result is not flattering, it cannot be published. In short, the patent holder has the veto power to stop any negative report of their product. In a letter published in Scientific American magazine in Aug 2009 the editors write that scientists must ask seed companies for permission before publishing independent research on genetically modified crops, and that this restriction must end. The very fact that analysis is restricted raises doubt about the usefulness of GM food.
 
There is an increasing body of evidence and data available from outside of North America, such as from Europe and India which raises doubts about Genetically modified seeds.
 
Further, there is a rise in obesity and other problems of health in the US over the past decade, along with similar increase in average intake of GM food per person. This does not definitively prove a link between GM food and ill-health. However, it indicates a possibility. Therefore, even more rigorous study should be made to check possible negative health effects of GM food.
 
It is important to remember that it took a hundred years to establish a definite link between smoking and lung cancer. Therefore, with just a decade of use of GM food products, and without serious independent scientific analysis of their effect, one cannot claim that GM crops pose no health risks to mankind.
 
Therefore, it stands to reason that Canada should consider a moratorium on any GM crop till such time as more definitive scientific analyses can be concluded that prove these crops to be either beneficial or otherwise.
 
Tony Mitra

And here is a letter written by Dr. Thierry Vrain, rebutting a different but related piece by Robert Wager of Comox Valley (http://www.canada.com/What+really+happened+AVICC+regarding/8280922/story.html). We got the rebuttal from Thierry himself in an email.

Dear Mr Wager,

I retired 10 years ago after a long career as a research scientist for Agriculture Canada.  When I was on the payroll I was the designated scientist of my Institute to address public groups and reassure them that genetically engineered crops and foods were safe.   I don’t know if I was passionate about it but I was knowledgeable.   Like you I took side and I defended the bright side.  The side of technological advance, of science and progress.  

  I have in the last 10 years changed my position.  I started paying attention to the flow of published studies coming from Europe, some from prestigious labs and published in prestigious scientific journals, that questioned the impact and safety of engineered food.  I was the speaker after you at the AVICC convention in Sooke.  Your presentation intended to reassure the audience that genetic engineering is necessary to feed the hungry world of the future, and that the food derived from engineered crops is not different from the non engineered food.  I thought it was bold of you to make the sweeping statement during the question period that all I had said was pseudo-science.  You appear to be a passionate man, emotional and knowledgeable about your topic.   And very dedicated to reassure the public in your opinion letters to the Globe and Mail and other newspapers.  

In my presentation following yours I refuted each of the claims of the biotechnology companies that their engineered crops yield more, that they require less pesticide applications, that they have no impact on the environment and of course that they are safe to eat.  My presentation was basically a review of over 100 separate published studies.   There is a good number of scientific studies that have been done for Monsanto by Universities in the USA, Canada, and abroad.   Most of these studies are concerned with the field performance of the engineered crops, and of course they find GMOs safe for the environment and therefore safe to eat.  There is however an overwhelming and growing body of scientific research done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries, showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats.  Mice and rats are the canary in the mine.  We use them to test the safety of a lot of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals.  We should all take these studies seriously and demand that the government agencies replicate them rather than rely on studies paid for by the biotech companies.

The Bt corn and soya plants that are now everywhere in our environment, are registered as insecticides.  But are these insecticidal plants regulated and have their proteins been tested for safety?   Not by the federal departments in charge of food safety, not in Canada and not in the USA.   There are no long term feeding studies performed in these countries to demonstrate the claims that engineered corn and soya are safe.   All we have are scientific studies out of Europe and Russia, showing that rats fed engineered food die prematurely, with breast cancer, and kidney and liver damage.   All these studies are compiled and referenced in a report published last June called GMO Myths and Truths – available for free at Earth Open Source.

These studies show that proteins produced by engineered plants are different than what they should be.   Inserting a gene in a genome using this technology can and does result in damaged proteins.  The scientific literature is full of studies showing that engineered corn and soya contain toxic or allergenic proteins.  

Genetic engineering is 40 years old.  It is based on the naïve understanding of the genome based on the One Gene – one Protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein.  The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong.  The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding, and ignoring of the new knowledge.  Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins.   Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic.  

It appears that many people in the Comox Valley are concerned enough.  Our latest local poll in the CV Echo was 95% of people in this valley want labeling or an outright ban of engineered product.   This is our local reality, I cannot speak for the rest of Vancouver Island but I suspect that the AVICC delegates voted “what their constituents want”.

Thank you for your consideration Mr Wager, I don’t suppose that we will ever reconcile our positions.   For my part I will keep pushing and writing to alert the public and government agencies until the safety studies are initiated.  I assume that you will keep your reassuring stance as well.

Respecfully,

Dr. Thierry Vrain

Next letter is from Brandie Nadiger-Harrop, which is expected to be published in Vancouver sun by Friday, April 26th.

Brandie Nadiger-Harrop to Vancouver Sun
 
My take on the GMO food in our food system
 
Recent stories, studies and suggestions have been surfacing regarding genetically modified organisms, and the confusion out there has inspired me to write what I have learned over the years in my own research on the subject.
 
There are no government agencies anywhere doing long-term testing on the safety of genetically engineered (or GMO) crops. Nearly all studies on the subject are funded and supported by the biotechnology industry and it’s peers. The USA called the engineered products “substantially equivalent” to their conventional counterparts, and that has been used, unquestioningly and blindly, as a scientific truth with zero independent research supporting the phrase. 
 
GMOs are NOT good for the environment. Cross contamination with conventional and organic crops destroys any options for people who do not want to consume GMO & for food companies that don’t want to use them. The diversity of our food supply is dwindling due to GMOs as older varieties fade away in the world of the monocultured GM fields and as contamination spreads. There is also the fact that since the excessive growing of GM crops, the bees and butterflies are dying. We need our pollinators for food, we MUST look into this! Herbicide being sprayed directly onto GM Roundup Ready crops is now being found in the air we breathe, the water we drink and in our food. The government’s answer to this? Raise the acceptable level of what the food contains! That is looking out for our health and well being?
 
Recent tests also show that the natural microbial balance in our soil is dying off, affecting worms and all aspects of our croplands. We are effectively killing our growing medium with these products! That is good for us or our environment? In David Suzuki’s documentary, the Silent Forest, he talks about how the toxins living inside the plant leach into the ground and eventually into our water. 
 
Biotech industries would have you believe that farmers are embracing GMOs but I beg to differ. The farmers at my farmer’s market have all lobbied the government in protest to no avail. If the farmers are embracing them, then why is the National Farmer’s Union doing mass protests like the Canada-wide Day of Action on April 9th to protest GMO alfalfa? That doesn’t really sound much like “embracing” to me. 
There are new studies coming out every week on the potential risks of GMOs, but no one seems to be listening. A long term study in France came out at the end of last year proving that GMO’s and glyphosate cause tumours, cancer and infertility. Take a look at the human cancer numbers before genetic engineering, and after it infiltrated 80% of out processed foods. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that something is dreadfully wrong with our food supply. Lack of labeling has made it impossible to directly tie GM ingredients to disease, and that is a wise angle the biotech companies spend millions on to defend.
 
Biotech companies would have the public believe that protesters are few and using old data to create fear mongering, that the majority of the public and farmers want this. If most are for this, why is Canada starting to protest? Canadians almost never protest. How are we able to organize country-wide protests and having good turnouts at every rally all across Canada, with the farmers AND the consumer? If the world really loves this then why are they banned or labeled in 61 countries?? Probably not because they think GMOs are safe. Also, if the world is “embracing GMOs”, why is there a worldwide protest happening on May 25th? 252 cities in 37 countries on 7 continents?? It is going to be the largest world protest ever seen. That once again doesn’t sound like the world embracing GMO, it sounds like the world is embracing their right to NOT have GMOs on their plates or in their countries. 
 
The biotech industry would love for the public to believe that anti-GMO supporters are a few crazy people belonging to special interest groups that are more concerned with fundraising than with health concerns. The people of many groups such as GMO Free Canada and Millions Against Monsanto all donate their time and efforts, using money out of their own pockets to fund their printing and travel. The organic industry pays with their own money to defend their livelihood from GMO contamination. 
 
BC now has 16 GMO free zones and Vancouver Island is now fighting to become a GMO free zone. That’s a lot more than just a select few crazy misinformed people…THAT is the GENERAL PUBLIC!
sincerely Brandie Harrop 
member of the board GMO Free Canada

 

PODCAST

We are trying to get folks that wrote the letter to read them out in their own voice, to prepare an audio podcast of it. So far we have only a few letters covered. But we expect the podcast to get longer as more contribute. You can find the podcast at the bottom of this page.

A talk with Rajesh Krishnan of Greenpeace India

Rajesh Krishnan, Greenpeace, India

On April 18, 2013, I spoke with Mr. Rajesh Krishnan, to learn about the current situation with GMO crops in India, from the perspective of Greenpeace.

Rajesh Krishnan is a sustainable agriculture campaigner at Greenpeace India.

The 29 minute conversation is included in the podcast link at the bottom of this page. A brief summary given below:

  1. India needs a shift in paradigm, away from industrial, input intensive, resource destroying model, to a sustainable one.
  2. Farmer suicide escalated since 1990s. To say farmer suicide have not been aggravated by GM crops would be like shutting your eyes from light. The suicide increased with industrial agriculture. With the last decade, adoption of MG crop has aggravated the need for more chemicals, more water input, more cost, and has increased the slope of the economic treadmill of the farmers. The need of pesticides have not gone down. It has increased. Along with need for more fertilizers. So GMO have increased the level of farmer distress, which was already bad since western agri-model was introduced here.
  3. Pesticide usage has had a serious impact on the environment. It kills various organisms in the soil, even beneficial ones that would themselves have attacked and controlled  pests. Pesticide spoils soil condition. The left over plant matter of the Bt. Cotton itself has also lead to harmful impact on the soil microbes, thus destroying the soil fertility.
  4. There are reports in Andhra Pradesh that sheep that browsed on the cotton plants after harvesting of Bt Cotton fields got sick or died. Animal husbandry department issued a notice advising against letting sheep graze on Bt cotton fields. But the genetically engineered crop appraisal body stated that the sheep death are not related to Bt Cotton. Several scientists have challenged this and claimed that there is not enough proof that the sheep death are not linked to Bt toxin, while circumstantial evidence points to a possible link.
  5. This may become an election issue. During the last election, the ruling party waived some farm loans as a temporary solution to farmer distress. This amounts to addressing the symptom rather than providing any real solution.
  6. The Govt is openly pushing for smaller farmers to leave farming, so that larger industrial farming can step in. But, there is no alternative employment available for the huge farming community. So they come to cities and become slum dwellers. There is evidence now that as soon as people lose their land, their food security falls drastically, and adds to the distress level of the internal migrants. It is going from bad to worse for the farmers in the country.
  7. Will there be an electoral backlash next year ? Well, there is no revolution yet from the distressed farmers – but there is a simmering swell of resistance ongoing for a while. Also, there has a very vibrant civil society that is pushing the Govt to seek long term sustainable solution to farming. This effort has cushioned the shock and in effect may be converting a potential revolution into an gradual evolution of farm policies.
  8. The moratorium on Bt. Brinjal (eggplant) has effectively stopped comercialization of all GM crops as well as its field trials, except for Bt. Cotton that is already in use.
  9. Agriculture is a federal issue according to the Indian constitution. However, provinces can say “no” to field trials. As such many provinces have complained to the federal Govt that field trials of GM crops have been started in their states without their agreement. Because of these oppositions, the central Govt has issued a directive that any application for field trial of GM crops in India would require a “no objection” certificate from the appropriate departments from the state Govt. This directive was enacted by the Govt of India in 2012. Since most provinces are showing reluctance to GM crop trials, even field trials are gradually coming to a halt.
  10. Civil society is now calling India to enact a bio-safety protection regime to safeguard India’s agriculture and environment from unintended harmful effect of badly designed GM crops. The idea is for the new law to adopt a “precautionary” approach to authorizing GM technology into the environment or the food chain.
  11. India will need continuous and sustained mass movement and public pressure to resist the enormous push by big money and corporations to take over the agriculture sector. India will need a continuous and wide ranging involvement of a lot of citizens in the country to be to maintain that public pressure to ensure food safety and biodiversity remains healthy and vibrant.
  12. There is an unfortunate situation in India were its traditional and homegrown knowledge is not given its due when compared to western imported industrial technics of agriculture. That is also why people who object to GM and industrial chemical dependent agriculture are branded as anti-science or back dated. But actually the civil society is not against science. There is a need to separate science from technology, and from tested, good technology from harmful tools. But the GMO lobby does not wish to get into those nuanced discussions. They simply paint every one raising questions as anti-science.
  13. India has moved in one decade from a place where there was no knowledge or debate on GMO to a place where there is a rising level of involvement and a very vibrant debate on GMO on agriculture. Latest is a strong group of scientists that have taken up this issue and criticizing the mindless way that the Govt of India is trying to push GMO for the benefit of corporations without regard to safety of the people.
  14. The agriculture minister, Mr. Sharad Pawar has been going around stating that if India does not adopt GM crop technology, then India’s food security may be compromised. Many different groups came out publicly opposing this view. The scientific community has come forward challenging this view and has pointed to scientific data how GM crops are not suitable for improving food security. Other civil society groups like “right to food” campaign, the farmer’s union, are all challenging that argument. It has been interesting to see how the debate on GM crop has evolved in India over the past decade, and all are now asking for a “precautionary” approach to GM crop, instead of a “promotional” approach.

There is no shortage of food. There is a shortage of humanity

Rajesh Krishnan of Greenpeace India, had sent out an email version of a report that first came out in Times of India by Devinder Sharma in Feb 2013. I got a copy of it through the group mailing list of India against GMO. I don’t know Mr. Sharma, but I do know Rajesh Krishnan, a sustainable agriculture campaigner from Greenpeace india. I am planning to call Rajesh up in the next few days, to record his views in his own voice on this issue, about the situation with India’s agriculture. Meanwhile, I thought I shall archive that report here on my blog, and ponder about a few paragraphs shown in red. Many readers commented there. A large number supported GMO and did not agree with the paper. A few did agree though. I did respond with my comments, to the paper, a screenshot of which is also inserted.

GM crops claim to increase yields, but the problem is of access and distribution, not production

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/GM-crops-claim-to-increase-yields-but-the-problem-is-of-access-and-distribution-not-production/articleshow/18716332.cms

By Devinder Sharma | Feb 28, 2013, 12.00 AM IST

Speaking at the annual Oxford Farming Conference a few weeks back, the rebel environmentalist Mark Lynas, who went over to the all-powerful GM industry, was quoted as saying: “Research published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests the world will require 100% more food to feed the maximum projected population adequately.”

It’s not the first time this argument has been used, but considering the emphasis Lynas laid on the capabilities of controversial genetic engineering technology to meet the growing demand for food, a flurry of articles and editorials appeared. The underlying argument is the same. The world needs to produce more for the year 2050, and therefore we need GM crops.

Well, what population projections are we talking of? The planet today hosts seven billion people, and all estimates point to population growing to nine billion by 2050. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), more than 870 million people were chronically undernourished in 2012, with almost 250 million of the world’s hungry living in India.

These appalling statistics generate an impression of an acute shortfall in food production. At every conference, the same sets of statistics are flashed to justify the commercialisation of GM crops. But how much food is globally available? Is the world really witnessing a shortfall in food production? Or, for that matter, is there a shortage of food in India? These are the questions that have been very conveniently overlooked.

Let us therefore take a look at the performance of global agriculture in the year 2012. Despite the severe drought in the US and Australia, where wheat production is anticipated to fall by 40%, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the world still harvested 2239.4 million metric tonnes, enough to feed 13 billion people at one pound per day.

In other words, the food being globally produced today can feed twice the existing population. According to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), against the average requirement of about 2,400 calories per capita, what is presently available is 4,600 calories. So where is the crisis on the food production front? The crisis is in food (mis)management, which surprisingly is being ignored.

In the US, Canada and Europe, 40% food is wasted. For example, Americans waste $165 billion worth of food every year, which could very well meet the entire requirement of sub-Saharan Africa. Food wasted in Italy, if saved, can feed the entire population of the hungry in Ethiopia. According to the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers, almost half the food produced globally is allowed to go waste. Studies show that 50% of fruits and vegetables stocked by supermarkets in US actually rot. If all the food wastage was to be appreciably reduced, hunger and malnutrition can easily become history.

In India too, it is not a crisis in food production. On Jan 1, India had 66 million tonnes of food stocks. As someone has said, if you were to stack all those bags of grain one over the other, you could climb up to the moon and back. That’s the quantity of food that has been available almost every year since 2001. 

While visuals of food rotting in godowns are fresh in the memory, the government has been merrily exporting the surplus rather than feeding its hungry millions. This fiscal, wheat exports are expected to touch 9.5 million tonnes; rice exports have already crossed nine million tonnes in 2011-12. Instead of propping up food procurement and distribution, the food ministry is actually toying with the idea of withdrawing from procurement operations and using surplus stocks in futures trading, leaving the hungry to be fed by the markets.

Meanwhile, GM crops are being promoted as the answer to growing food needs. In reality, there is no GM crop in the world that actually increases crop productivity. In fact, the yields of GM corn and GM soybean, if USDA is to be believed, are actually less than the non-GM varieties.

Nor has the promise of a drastic reduction in the usage of harmful pesticides proved to be correct. Charles Benbrook of the Washington State University has conclusively shown that between 1996 and 2011, the overall pesticides use in US has risen by a whopping 144 million kg. In addition, as much as 14.5 million acres is afflicted with ‘super-weeds’ — weeds that are very difficult to control. And such has been the contamination that 23 weeds now fall in the category of ‘super-weeds’.

Regarding safety, a few months back the revelations by Giles-Eric Seralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen in France, shocked the world when for the first time he demonstrated long-term studies involving rats fed for two years with Monsanto’s Roundup-Ready GM maize. The rats had developed huge kidney and mammary gland tumours, had problems with their body organs and showed increased mortalities.

Against the usual practice of such studies involving feeding rats with GM foods for 90 days, Seralini had for the first time ever experimented with rats for two years, which corresponds to the entire human lifespan. As expected, the shocking results, peer-reviewed and published in a respected scientific journal, have already created quite a furore internationally.My comment to TOI

I therefore don’t understand the need to take a huge risk with human health and environment when there is food available in abundance. The greater challenge is to curb wastage, provide adequate access and ensure judicious distribution of food.

The writer (Devinder Sharma) is a food and agriculture analyst.

Sent out by : Rajesh Krishnan, Sustainable Agriculture Campaign, Greenpeace India

===================

Meanwhile, I am searching for a way to contact the original writer Mr. Sharma, in a hope of establishing a contact, and hearing his point of view too.

Letters to the Green Party members of British Columbia

From: tony.mitra@gmail.com
Subject: Request for an interview with the Green candidate Mr. Hosein
Date: 14 April, 2013 10:54:06 PM PDT
To: richard.hosein@greenparty.bc.ca
Mr. Richard Hosein
Dear Mr. Hosein
I am an ordinary retired engineer that is trying to engage with the politics of Canada at the grassroots level. I have strong views on preservation of natural bounties of



the planet and to look for a sustainable future for the humankind, without destroying the environment in the name of progress.
I have posted a comment on your Green party web page, requesting for a citizens interview. Perhaps that was not the best place to present the request – hence I found your email address on the same page, and am sending you this message as a follow up.
I wish you good luck in the coming election. I like some of the Green Party policies. It is unfortunate that the party appears to be n the fringes of public eye. One of my friends is standing for election on the Green platform from Langley riding.
I’d like to interview Mr. Richard Hosein – a citizen’s interview, with my home video camera, asking questions mainly about the Green Party plan for the nations well being, focussing on a few items such as:
1. GMO in our food chain and in the countryside.
2. Carbon footprint for BC and Canada – and Global Warming.
3. Reducing environmental damage rather than increasing it in name of progress.
4. What should be the definition and criteria, in calculating “progress”.
I am not a journalist, but a retired engineer. I’d like to interviewyou, to edit and put up on the U tube and perhaps on my blog (www.tonu.org), as part of citizen journalism.
Please respond if acceptable. I can be found at:
Email: tony.mitra@gmail.com
Twitter: @tonymitra
Facebook: Tony Mitra
Mobile: 604-649 7535
Best wishes
Tony Mitra

Note : Richard Hosein has agreed to arrange for an interview soon.

==================================

I am hoping that Mr. Hosein would agree to the interview. Meanwhile, I also sent out a second email to Ms Jane Sterk, the leader fo the Green Party in BC. The text is as follows:

Ms Jane Sterk

From: tony.mitra@gmail.com
Subject: Request for an citizen’s interview with some Green candidates
Date: 15 April, 2013 7:13:13 AM PDT
To: office@janesterk.ca
For Ms Jane Sterk,
BC Green party
 
Good day.
I am a recently retired engineer and concerned about the the future with regard to climate, sustainability, food security, governance, even the functioning of democracy.
I have admired some of your blog posts.
I have lately been trying to engage with the grassroots volunteering for good cause as well as engaging with the political process that shapes the nature of social debats at provincial or federal level.
I write a blog time to time as a hobby : www.tonu.org
I have been attempting to conduct citizens interview of some of the candidates from the lower mainlands area, to record and perhaps convert into either an audio podcast or a video, to freely circulate through U tube etc, for interested parties, as part of citizen journalism and social service.
I am keen to find Green party candidates from the lower mainlands that might spare me a half hour for the same. Issues I should like to raise with them are, for example:
1. GMO in our food chain and in the countryside, along with the pesticide tide.
2. Carbon footprint for BC, for other provinces and for Canada – and global warming
3. Stopping environmental damage in the name of economic progress.
4. Re-thinking of what should be ideal datum and criteria to calculate “progress”
5. Tweaking of the democratic system, such as proportional representation, multi-party alliance, or citizens direct input on parliament issues through internet referendums etc.
6. Taxation without representation – BC govt taxes legal residents of other nationalities, but does not allow those tax payers any voice in how their tax dollars are spent. This (taxation without representation) was the issue that triggered US colonies move to independence from British control. I am told UK is the only country which allows all tax payers to vote at all levels, though only citizens can be elected.
Issues of these kind.
I request you, through this email, to see if you can help me contact a few of the Green party candidates of this region (I live in Delta, BC), for such interviews.
Thanking you, and wishing the Green party best of luck.
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E3L7, Canada
604-649 7535
 =================

ACT054_GreenParty

Here too, I am hoping that Ms Sterk would respond. I like some of the policies of the Green Party. It would be interesting to ask her views on things.

===========

I have subsequently asked similar questions to following Green candidates:

Sara Sharma, Candidate from Surrey-Panorama
Regan-Heng Zhang, Green Candidate – Vancouver – Langara
Tim Binnema, Surrey-Fleetwood

I hope to get some positive response from them in due course. So WATCH THIS SPACE.