Super toxic Bt cowpeas

May 2022

In 1990, Monsanto scientists published their latest discovery about the new 'Bt' insecticides generated by GM crops which were soon to become every farmers 'must-have'.

Their exciting finding, with an "immediate commercial implication" was that the insecticidal power of Bt could be increased many fold if its degradation was prevented by the plant itself. Many plants produce substances which prevent the breakdown of proteins, such as the Bt toxin, possibly to keep herbivores at bay by interfering with their digestion. The authors suggested this would confer "significant and long-term implications and benefits" on Monsanto's "genetically improved" Bt-generating plants.

Safety assessment of the new Bt crops was based on two strands of evidence.

GM staples in Africa

February 2022

The vast continent of Africa has long been a key target for GM agriculture [1,2]. So far, three GM crop types (cotton, soya and maize) all with the standard insect-resistance or herbicide-tolerance traits have been released across six African countries, the most widely adopted one being 'Bt' insecticidal cotton. These are all commodity crops designed for maximum yield, and are promoted as a tool to boost agricultural productivity and alleviate food insecurity. There has, however, been a clear gap between the promises and the reality.

A study published in 2021 explored this problem.

Nasty GM surprises

March 2020

Farmers' knowledge about the cycles of nature, their land, their crops and livestock, their soil, and all the life that shares their estates seem to have been swept aside by reductionist 'solutions' sold to them by corporations with $-lined technological tunnel vision.

Simple, GM 'solutions' have a habit of leading to complex outcomes and nasty surprises.

Glyphosate attack by stealth

February 2020

As pointed out before, there's a huge scope for current GM foods to impact on the microbes inside our gut and, along with that, our health [1].

Besides the novel nature of the foods themselves, there's the glyphosate-based herbicides sprayed on and accumulated by most commercial GM crops. Glyphosate blocks a vital biochemical pathway in green plants, but the pathway is also present in many bacteria. This suggests a very real possibility that the herbicide in GM foods could be devastating our health by stealth.

What is the science telling us about this?

Mozzies ride the wind

January 2020

Efforts to control mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue virus, have focused on eliminating the vector. Long-standing mosquito control methods have involved insecticides and removing the open bodies of water necessary for breeding. More recently, releases of GM sterile males [1], GM fungal pathogens [2], and self-destruct gene-drives mozzies [3] have been trialled.

Yet, paradoxically, even in areas where extreme reductions in the mosquito population have been successfully maintained, and even in areas where the surface water, vital for breeding, is absent for three to eight months of the year, malaria persists.

Off-loading GM maize in South Africa

June 2019

A recent application for permission to sell and cultivate three types of GM maize in South Africa illustrates the biotech industry vision of the future Africa.

Corteva AgriScience (agricultural division of Dow DuPont) is seeking approval for three crops, all genetically transformed to tolerate 2,4-D herbicide using a gene which also confers tolerance to quizalofop herbicide.   Two of the new GM maize varieties are stacked with double genes for glyphosate herbicide tolerance (one of which seems to be an unintended mutant version of the other), and one of these is also stacked with two Bt insecticide-generating genes.  This sounds like a succession of increasingly stacked GM crops aimed at selling herbicides, with some Bt genes thrown in now and then to 'add value'.

Enslaving Africans again

June 2019

In 2005, the Head of the Ethiopian Environment Protection Authority suggested that GM crops would, once more, enslave the people of Africa.  Instead of being transported as slaves to grow crops in America, they would be forced to grow America's crops in African soil.

Also recognised even then was that the issue of GM food safety is a much bigger question in Africa than in the developed world.  This is because chronically malnourished people will be more susceptible to any harmful effects from their food.  In the case of GM maize, in particular, account must be taken of the quantities likely to be consumed: maize may be eaten three times a day by African populations, while it forms no more than two per cent of the American diet.

Indeed, the biotech industry's new frontier in GM crop expansion does appear to be Africa, and does appear to be focusing on GM maize.

Industry promises are, our course, yield, yield, yield, with a feel-good refrain of help the poor, feed the hungry, and improve efficiency and farmer livelihoods.

But, what does the GM-based agricultural dream model really offer the people and states of Africa?

Somewhat different crops for Africa

May 2019

The WEMA project to provide 'Water Efficient Maize for Africa' is a public-private partnership co-ordinated by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation, and involving among others, agribusiness multinational Bayer-Monsanto, and national research systems in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and most recently Ethiopia. It is largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Howard G. Buffet Foundations, and USAID. (African Centre for Biodiversity)

The US government / Gates Foundation project to provide 'Water Efficient Maize for Africa' (WEMA) is hitting some rocks.

Our CRISPR food future

March 2019

DuPont Pioneer scientists published a paper in 2017 which gives an insight into where the biotech crop market is planning to go next. This study demonstrated the "utility" of the CRISPR-Cas9 system [1] in editing maize DNA for breeding drought-tolerant crops.

The study focused on a 'key' gene which controls stress tolerance in maize by altering the plant's sensitivity to the plant hormone, ethylene. When this gene is active, the cells of the plant get bigger and multiply more. Under stress, however, plants tend to conserve their resources, the gene is switched off, and growth is reduced. By adding an artificial 'on-switch', promoter 'ARGOS8', the gene can be rendered uncontrollably over-active, thus overcoming the plant's natural reaction and increasing the yield despite the adverse environmental conditions. Enter the CRISPR-Cas9 trick to insert an artificial version of the ARGOS8 promoter DNA.

Gene-driven pollution

February 2019

When the notion that "site-specific selfish genes" (able to copy themselves into a particular target DNA sequence) suggested the possibility of gene drives, a technique to rid the world of malaria immediately presented itself. The author who described this warned that the technology "is not to be used lightly, and that containment issues and the desirability of eradicating or genetically modifying a wild species "ought to be addressed during development" with "wide-ranging discussions".

Then came CRISPR [1], which can be designed to target any desired section of host DNA to bring about any desired molecular alteration there, and can be coupled to a gene drive.

Mind the mozzie gap

February 2019

Mosquitoes can't bite you to death. In fact, half of them don't bite at all: only the females have a blood lust, and that's only when they're incubating eggs. Even then, most often, they'll home in on some other warm-blooded, non-human blood source.

Nevertheless, the opportunistic viruses and parasites able to hitch a ride from person to person in a mosquito kill some 850 thousand of us each year.

Golden Rice: a new definition of precision

October 2018

Two years ago, a group of Nobel laureates published a letter in support of "Precision Agriculture (GMOs)", or more specifically, Golden Rice to combat vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in Africa and Asia.

This begs the question, what's so precise about GMOs, or more specifically Golden Rice?

Novel golden substances

October 2018

Forcing rice to produce GM carotene (vitamin A precursor), a substance with no role in the grains of the plant, has long posed safety questions.

The genes to generate carotene are put into 'Golden Rice' to create a bio-fortified staple food for areas in Africa and Asia where vitamin A deficiency ('VAD') is all too common.

Because of the unpredictable nature of GM plants, and because rice grains aren't adapted to manufacture or store carotene, and because vitamin A-related substances are highly biologically active (see Note), Golden Rice could contain novel harmful elements, especially to the young.

A GM cure for toxic maize

July 2017

Each year, some 16 million tons of maize are lost globally to contamination by 'aflatoxins' after infection by some species of Aspergillus fungus.

In the US alone, wastage due to aflatoxins is estimated to cost agriculture $270 million per annum. Added to this is the expense of essential regulation for safety, because some forms of aflatoxin are the most potent toxins on the planet.

The substance produced by Aspergillus isn't, in itself, harmful. Ironically, when it reaches the liver, the main organ of detoxification, aflatoxins are transformed into derivatives which are toxic at levels of very few parts per billion. At very high doses, aflatoxins can cause acute liver damage and death. More usually however, their effects are chronic. They have been linked to birth defects, impaired immune system and, in the young, stunted growth.

Aflatoxins also have the sinister ability to target DNA and, in particular, attack a specific gene which protects against cancer. The result is liver cancer.

Duff GM cotton in Burkino Faso

November 2016

Burkino Faso has earned a global reputation for the quality of the cotton it produces. This has given the country a vital competitive advantage in the world cotton market.

Their secret is in their seeds, produced by a decades-long breeding programme which began during the French colonial era. This, coupled to hand-harvesting which keeps the fibres intact and retains their length and sturdiness, gives a high lint-yield per pound of raw cotton.

Cottonseed in Burkino Faso is controlled by three companies (the largest of which s state-owned), each operating in its own exclusive zone. The company provides seed and inputs on credit to farmers at the beginning of the growing season and then buys back the cotton at a fixed price at the end of the season. Farmers are spared the task of extracting seed for replanting, and are paid by weight for the cotton plus seeds.

This doesn't sound like the sort of scenario into which Monsanto's high-tech cotton varieties aimed at mechanised farming, royalties, contracts, and World Bank backing, are going to fit.

GM Africa now

May 2016

Echoing GRAIN's 2014 Report that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's philanthropic endeavours are promoting an industrial, global market- and biotech industry-driven model of agriculture in Africa, while bypassing local social needs and knowledge [1], Global Justice Now released a similar Report in 2016.

It warns:

"the Gates Foundation is in effect preparing the ground for (the biotech industry) to access new profitable markets in hitherto closed-off developing countries, especially in Africa. The Foundation is especially pushing for the adoption of GM in Africa."

Gates has an aggressive corporate strategy and extraordinary influence across governments, academics and the media. It seems that, shielded by its unarguable philanthropic purpose, and by its connections to corporations and international development agencies, or its self-created 'partners' [1], and by the loyalties required to gain and retain its funding and patronage, healthy dissent and criticism have been stifled.

So what's happening on the ground in Gates' GM-Africa?

The 'needs' of agricultural aid in Africa

May 2016

The Gates Foundation is probably the biggest philanthropic venture ever, distributing billions of dollars every year. Its traditional priorities are global health programmes and educational work in the US.

However, during the last 10 years, the Foundation has hugely expanded its funding for agriculture, especially in Africa where 19 out of the 25 most food-insecure countries in the world are (2014 Global Food Security Index).

In 2006, the Foundation set up the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa' (AGRA) as the "face and voice" to fulfil its guiding principles (see below).

GM cotton threat to Pakistan and Africa

August 2015

Photo Creative Commons

The situation resulting from inappropriate deployment of GM cotton in India [1] is, it seems, being played over elsewhere in the world.

Rumblings in Pakistan suggest Bt insecticidal cotton has been introduced without the necessary checks on quality. Critics allege that the first GM seed brought to Pakistan in 2005 was intended for research but instead was immediately introduced into farms. An expert from the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) recalls how, in 2005, the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering put seed on the market which it had made with stolen GM seed crossed / mixed with indigenous cotton varieties. In 2008, a Bt cotton expert and ex-employee of Monsanto pointed out that Bt cotton was irrelevant in Pakistan: the biggest threat to its indigenous cotton was cotton leaf virus, while insect pests were of little concern. In 2009-10, PARC imported and planted Bt cotton from China in violation of quarantine law.

As in India, new Bt-resistant pests are arising on cotton in Pakistan. And there doesn't seem to be any sign of the promised increase in yields over the record harvest of 2004 before Bt cotton was introduced.

African GM maize reality check

August 2015

Photo Creative Commons

Maize is the dominant staple crop in Africa, typically eaten several times daily.

A significant insect pest problem to many maize-growing smallholders is 'stem-borer'.

So far, South Africa is the only African country to introduce GM maize such as 'Bt' insecticidal maize to combat stem-borer. There is, however, considerable pressure being applied to African nations to adopt GM agriculture.

GM carotene-enhanced bananas

March 2015

In August 2014, a touch of déjà vu led GM-free Scotland to comment that "the safety and efficacy questions (of golden GM bananas) are going to be by-passed in favour of ignoring scientific ethics and hyping the product, as it seems to be the case with golden rice" [1].

The excuse for copying a gene from one banana into another is that, apparently, "Residents of Uganda and nearby countries don't favour the type of sweet banana that naturally carries the extra beta-carotene. So researchers put the gene into a less-sweet type of banana that East Africans often use in cooking".

Like golden rice, golden bananas are designed to provide beta-carotene which the body converts to vitamin A. Like golden rice, the GM bananas are planned to target poor, malnourished populations. Like golden rice, the GM bananas have not been safety tested on animals, will not go through clinical trials, and are going to be fed to a small number of well-nourished healthy individuals (this time female American university students) to measure how much vitamin A is produced.

Unlike golden rice, the US researchers are trying to avoid the ethics scandal which broke over the surreptitious feeding of experimental GM rice to Chinese children.