GM-free Scotland

LET THERE BE PREDICTABILITY

A fresh 'take' on what is driving the world down a GM route was supplied by GRAIN and the African Centre for Biosafety in 2006.

Next in line to the handful of biotech companies producing GM seed for the world, is a handful of grain-trading companies who control the global supplies of GM seed. Three companies (Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland in the US, and Louis Dreyfus in France) control over 80% of the global grain trade, making them by far the biggest influence over what seed is available for purchase.

In a global market, predictability is everything: world-wide transport is not economical if there is uncertainty over the size of a bulk load or the time needed for each operation.

To enhance predictability on this scale, the grain traders favour:

• large uniform supplies from un-segregated monocultures guaranteed by government support or subsidies
• a smooth flow of shipments unimpeded by trade restrictions, stringent controls or non-standardised safety regulations
• clear ownership of all produce afforded by patents and by controlling the scientists who develop the crops.

In case it has escaped your notice, ALL the above are features which GM regulation, or lack of it, can make or break .

GRAIN points to the “explosive rise in free trade agreements” and use of bilateral trade deals as Trojan horses for corporations to achieve direct, behind-the-scenes access to governments, and to arrange regulatory standards tailored to their interests.

OUR COMMENT

All this sounds like too much power in too few (and uncaring) hands. It also sounds a good case for self-sufficiency, especially in vulnerable developing countries which lack the EU's ability to absorb trading sanctions.

It is ironic, and may be the downfall of all these global companies whose need for predictability has made them support the GM agenda, that GM crops may turn out to be the one, fatal, unpredictable link in the chain. Check out DANGERS OF DNA TRANSFER ARE UNKNOWN – News, March 2008.

SOURCE:

GRAIN and the African Centre for Biosafety, Bilateral biosafety bullies, www.grain.org, Briefings 2006

NOTE - ABOUT GRAIN

www.grain.org
GRAIN is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge.

GRAIN was established at the beginning of the 1990s to launch a decade of popular action against one of the most pervasive threats to world food security: genetic erosion. The loss of biological diversity, undermines the very sense of "sustainable development" as it destroys options for the future and robs people of a key resource base for survival. Genetic erosion means more than just the loss of genetic diversity. In essence it is an erosion of options for development. Central to our approach is the conviction that the conservation and use of genetic resources is too important to leave to scientists, governments and industry alone. Farmers and community organisations have nurtured genetic diversity for millennia, and continue to do so. Any effort in this field should take their experience as a starting point.

Now entering its 16th year of work, GRAIN has witnessed and contributed to an enormous and ever-growing momentum of international concern, debate and action to redress the imbalances in the management and control of biodiversity. What started as a small and Euro-centred outfit in the early 1990s, has now grown into a dynamic and mature organisation with thirteen staff in nine countries and spread across 5 continents, carrying out a broad and challenging programme on local and global management of genetic diversity and the impacts of biotechnology on world agriculture, particularly in developing countries.

This evolution would not have been possible without permanent efforts to strengthen the growing network of partner groups in every continent of the world. The foundations of our work lie in the daily networking, communications and information activities of our small organisation. It is on this basis that we are able to strengthen our capacities and those of our many partners the world over in mobilising popular concern and constructive action for the safeguarding of the world's genetic diversity.