Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Fair food for all Australians

STOP the sale of GM Golden Rice in Australia

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Recently, Food Standards of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) approved an application (A1138) to permit products containing GM golden rice to be sold in Australia and New Zealand.

We are asking Ministers on the Ministerial Forum of Food Regulation to call for a review of the approval in order to safeguard community health and food sovereignty in Australia and globally. Head over to the campaign page here to add your name to the letter.

What is GM Golden Rice?

Golden rice is a genetically engineered line of rice that produces pro-vitamin A (beta-carotene). It was developed by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) as a technocratic, quick fix for vitamin A deficiency (VAD) occurring in some countries of the ‘global south’.

What’s the big deal?

1.   Golden rice is not as effective as a healthy, varied diet and has less Vitamin A than other food sources such as carrots.

Vitamin A deficiency, and malnutrition in general, cannot be addressed through golden rice or other forms of genetic engineering. It is a socio-economic issue that requires structural changes to improve standards of living and ensure people have access to a diverse range of healthy, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods. Further, a single carrot contains more vitamin A than nearly 4kg of cooked GM golden rice. Vitamin A degrades in storage, which means a person would need to eat 31 kg of golden rice within 75 days after harvest to get the same amount as in a handful of fresh parsley.

2.   FSANZ approval will lead to the production of GM Golden Rice in the Philippines, thereby undermining local food sovereignty and democracy.

By permitting golden rice to be sold, FSANZ is thereby supporting the global GM regime that undermines regional food sovereignty. Filipino farmer-led group, MASIPAG have spoken out about how Australia’s decision will mean the Philippines will automatically approve the production of GM rice without democratic participation. They note that there are no studies comparing this rice with locally available Vitamin A rich food or with the government programme of supplements. GM golden rice is set to benefit major corporations, like Syngenta, rather than farmers and communities. Filipino farmers, along with farmers in India and Bangladesh, could be seduced into growing GM golden rice under unfair contracts, rejecting traditional varieties that are nutritionally diverse and suitable for the environment.

3.  Products containing GM golden rice will not be labelled appropriately

GM golden rice will not be directly imported into Australia but it has been approved so that a recall is not required if it is found in imported rice. Its status as a contaminant means GM golden rice will also not require labelling. The Australian consumer will be unaware of how much GM golden rice is in their food and what that means for the food’s nutritional properties. We ask for thorough labelling and complete transparency so that consumers are fully informed.

4.   FSANZ have not adequately assessed the safety of GM golden rice.

The application to permit the sale of golden rice in Australia has been assessed using unpublished applicant data. FSANZ did not receive, or request, any ingestion/feeding studies with the application, so there are no publications on whether GM rice would cause allergic reactions or even anaphylaxis in children, immune compromised people or the elderly. The Golden Rice crop is unstable, as is shown by the wildly varying b-carotene yields. FSANZ cannot do an adequate assessment on nutritional safety due to this instability, especially in the levels of nutrients and anti-nutrients.

What do we want?

Genetic modification is a powerful technology with potential detriments not yet fully understood, and it should not be permitted in our food system. GM foods are wholly inappropriate given we already have more than enough food to ‘feed the world’ and the means to produce healthy food, utilizing regenerative, agroecological practices.

We are asking the Ministers on the Ministerial Forum of Food Regulation to review the FSANZ approval of GM golden rice (A1138) under section 21 of the FSANZ Act. We ask for comprehensive 90 day feeding trials, peer-reviewed evidence that the GM golden rice can be stored and cooked without nutrient loss, and data demonstrating that the GM golden rice produces a stable level of Vitamin A. We also demand complete transparency and process based labelling so that all products containing potential traces of GM Golden Rice, including highly processed foods like rice bran oil, are labelled clearly.

Head over to the campaign page here to add your name to the letter.

Filed Under: GMO

The way to a healthy and sustainable food supply and where does GM2 fit in?

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By Fran Murrell

This blog post was originally published on MADGE.

It is essential to have a sustainable food system; people want healthy, safe food to feed themselves and their family. The government is putting our food at increased risk by considering the deregulation of controversial gene editing techniques which may have a catastrophic impact on our already fragile food system.

Twenty years ago, industrial agriculture released GM crops. One type is engineered to withstand sprays of herbicide, usually glyphosate based ones like Roundup, while the other type produces toxins that kill insects by destroying their stomachs.

There have been large numbers of claims and counter claims about the success or otherwise of these crops. It is frequently framed as a scientific discussion with neither side able to resolve the controversy. Many people are unaware that approval of these GM crops is based almost exclusively on unpublished studies done by the GM companies. There have been minimal animal studies and no human trials.

Pesticide usage has risen dramatically with GM crops (Benbrook)1. Argentina has decimated mixed agriculture and rainforest to grow vast acreages of GM soy for export as animal feed 2.

These growing areas are experiencing increases in birth defects, cancers and other illnesses 3. A recent UN report says pesticides aren’t necessary to feed the world, in fact, they are killing 200,000 people a year by acute poisoning and causing numerous diseases 4. Pollinators, including bees, are also killed by pesticides and without pollination the production of many crops collapses. Only a minor increase in yield is due to GM breeding, the majority of increases are due to conventional breeding and changed farming practices.

Now the seed breeding industry, which is dominated by chemical companies’ like Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and Du Pont 6 says that new breeding technologies, like gene editing and CRISPR, will solve current agricultural problems. Industry claims that, although these techniques fall under the Cartagena Protocol and Codex definitions of biotechnology, they are not GM. I refer to these techniques as GM2 to highlight that they the next generation of GM breeding.

I have been following the GM debate and the relevant science for over 20 years.

Back then no one knew that a gene could produce several different proteins, or that many genes working together could produce one protein. It was assumed that one gene only ever made one protein. We didn’t know there was an epigenome that directs the expression of genes or that DNA is not the master molecule but that all parts of the cell influence each other. GM2 may say that it is only ‘editing’ the existing genes. It has been compared to cutting and pasting text in a computer. Genes and the cells that contain them are not a linear story line but complex interlinked networks that act, repeat and alter what they do depending on what every other part of the cell is doing.

GM2 is a fantastically interesting and useful set of tools that are also extremely powerful. But how genes operate needs more study and GM2 ‘editing’ is an activity that should be confined to the lab and not used to produce food. Decisions about their use needs to be subject to democratic discussion and transparency. Considering their power, they need to be regulated.

The level of regulation of GM2 is currently under consideration, although almost no one knows this. The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator has asked for submissions on what it calls a Technical Review 7. FOI requests have revealed that the OGTR has been in consultation with the biotechnology industry for at least two years asking them to “make the case” for deregulation of these technologies. This means that plants, foods, animals and microbes developed using GM2 techniques would enter the food system with no safety testing, assessment, labelling or post market monitoring.

To end on a more positive note, it is exciting that if we change the way we grow what we eat, we can heal our warming planet. Ways in which the earth is already benefiting from a new form of agriculture were outlined in The Guardian last year:

A study published recently by the US National Academy of Sciences claims that regenerative farming can sequester 3% of our global carbon emissions. An article in Science suggests it could be up to 15%. And new research from the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, although not yet peer-reviewed, says sequestration rates could be as high as 40%. The same report argues that if we apply regenerative techniques to the world’s pastureland as well, we could capture more than 100% of global emissions. In other words, regenerative farming may be our best shot at actually cooling the planet. 8

Huge improvements to our soils and lives can be made. Regenerative farming allowed fig trees to begin fruiting within four months in salty, arid soils two km from the Dead Sea in Jordan 9. The degraded Loess Plateau 10, known as the cradle of Chinese civilization, was brought back to life using the same regenerative techniques. Both projects used trenches to capture rainfall, so it soaked into the earth, allowing plants to survive. As the plants grew they shielded the ground, slowing evaporation and enabling more plants to thrive. When the plants die they return their carbon to the soil. The carbon feeds the organisms in the soil that flourish and encourage more plant growth. The land is enlivened and animals, birds, insects and streams return.

Once we have protected the safety of our food we need to liberate it from the industrial system. Many farmers, people, businesses and organisations are already working towards this. Shoppers can support the farmers, food growers, shops, swaps,community gardens, seed banks, bee keepers and local food producers who are improving the world through agro-ecological methods. We also need to work together to effect change and ensure that political will, money and research time accelerates this transition to regenerative agriculture.

  1. Charles Benbrook 2012, Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S. -- the first sixteen years. Environmental Sciences Europe Bridging Science and Regulation at the Regional and European Level201224:24 DOI: 10.1186/2190-4715-24-24
  2. Amalia Leguizamon 2014, Modifying Argentina: GM soy and socio-environmental change. Geoforum Vol 53, May 2014, Pages 149-160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.04.001
  3. Declaration of the 3rd NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PHYSICIANS IN THE CROP -SPRAYED TOWNS. 26th November 2015 Faculty of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires. October 17, 2015. Viewed 24.3.2017 http://reduas.com.ar/declaration-of-the-3rd-national-congress-of-physicians-in-the-crop-sp...
  4. Damian Carrington, UN experts denounce 'myth' pesticides are necessary to feed the world. The Guardian 7th March 2017. Viewed 24.3.2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/07/un-experts-denounce-myth-pesticides-ar...
  5. Union of Concerned Scientists. Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops (2009). Viewed 24.3.2017 http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering/fai... H. Howard, Seed industry Structure 1996-2013, Viewed 24.3.2017 https://msu.edu/~howardp/seedindustry.html
  6. Jack A. Heinemann , Melanie Massaro , Dorien S. Coray , Sarah Zanon Agapito-Tenfen & Jiajun Dale Wen (2013): Sustainability and innovation in staple crop production in the US Midwest, International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, DOI:10.1080/14735903.2013.806408 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2013.806408
  7. Australian Government Department of Health, Office of the Gene Technology Regulator 2016-17 Technical Review of the Gene Technology Regulations 2001 http://www.ogtr.gov.au/internet/ogtr/publishing.nsf/Content/reviewregulations-1
  8. Jason Hickel, Our best shot at cooling the planet may be right under our feet. The Guardian 10th September 2016. Viewed 24.3.2017 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/sep/10/soil-our-...
  9. Greening the Desert. YouTube. Viewed 24.3.2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk
  10. Hope in a Changing Climate by John D. Liu 2009. Viewed 24.3.2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLdNhZ6kAzo

Filed Under: GMO

GM News

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Greens MP Mark Parnell's bill to extend the moratorium on growing GM crops in South Australia until 2025 has passed the Upper House. It is expected to pass the Lower House. Jay Weatherill's Labour Government is supportive of the ban. It creates a “significant price premium for our state’s farmers compared to GM crops grown in other states” and consumers benefit too.

Farmers in the US are suing Monsanto, the patent owner of most GM crops and the creator of Roundup. They claim to have developed cancer due to using the weedkiller. The court case is revealing internal Monsanto documents showing how they ghost write science, have paid scientists to promote their interests while appearing to be independent, are sabotaging regulation and are creating attacks on independent scientists and bodies who show their product causes harm.

Existing GM crops have failed but new GM techniques have been developed including gene editing or CRISPR. Three reviews into regulation are currently underway in Australia. The industry wants full deregulation meaning GM microbes, plants, animals, fish, trees and humans would require no oversight, pre-market testing, labelling or monitoring. The reviews are taking place over summer and it is essential that these techniques are regulated.

Join Friends of the Earth and help regulate new GM techniques on animals, plants, humans, crops, trees and microbes. ​

Three reviews on GM technologies in Australia will have huge effects on our food, health and environment:
  • Forums on the Review of the national Gene Tech Scheme are in Sydney and Adelaide this week and other capital cities later. Register here. This review has the potential to: remove the ability for States to have GM Moratoriums, remove GM labelling requirements, avoid any pre-market approval by using a product instead of process based regulation and allow GM contamination in Organic food.
  • OGTR review of the rules on new GMOs. Sign this petition to ask the Assistant Health Minister to regulate them. New GM techniques including CRISPR, RNA interference could be used to create GM animals, microbes, crop plants, fish, humans, trees etc. The Gene Technology Act 2000 defines gene technology as "any technique for the modification of genes or other genetic material" therefore all GM techniques and their products should be regulated. This review proposes deregulating the most popular new GM techniques. It would mean no pre-market testing, no register of what is GM and no labelling. Farmers would not know if the seed they are using was produced using these techniques or not. There is no history of safe use for these techniques. For example, CRISPR was first used for gene editing in 2013 yet it could be in our food, lives and environment with no oversight.These new techniques are as unpredictable and hazardous as the old GM. Scientists have stated that these techniques should be regulated as GM. IFOAM, the international organic body wants regulation as well. Last year the US Intelligence community’s annual worldwide threat assessment report found these new gene editing techniques to be “weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.” More information on these techniques are in this fact sheet and longer report here.
  • Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is deciding whether to regulate new GM foods. FSANZ is conducting a review into whether it will require pre-market approvals for the new GM breeding techniques. It says there will be a public consultation before the review is completed mid 2018.
It is essential that the public has a voice in these discussions and that these techniques are strongly regulated.

Civil Society Calls for Agroecology not GMOs at FAO Meeting in KL

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Following is the final statement made by civil society organisations at the recent FAO meeting in Kuala Lumpur:

FAO Regional Conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition in Asia-Pacific

13 September 2017

Civil Society Statement

 If we see biotech as part of a small farmer's 'toolbox', then we must ask what it is we are 'fixing':

  • Ensuring resilience in the face of climate change
  • Ensuring smallholders’ livelihoods are maintained & promoted
  • Ensuring everyone has access to nutritious and culturally-appropriate food produced in ethical and ecologically sound ways, and their right to democratically determine their own food and agriculture systems.

The focus of our discussion here was proposed to be on “sustainable” “food systems” for “small farmers” not “high yield” to generate “more money” from “small pieces of land.” And yet the meeting has presented many solutions that are still in the lab, and products with very initial results. The current supply of food already exceeds demand but there are serious issues around good governance and equitable distribution of food. Merely securing a high yield of a few select crops does not solve the problem of hunger nor secure livelihoods for smallholders, and leads to high levels of post-harvest spoilage and food waste.

There has been a lot of discussion about what we mean by biotechnology, and yet the majority of the focus of the conference has been on GMO products. It is malicious and deceptive to refer to GM crops as "biotech crops".

Those technologies that manipulate DNA artificially increase corporate control over seeds, diminish rich, diverse diets of local communities, promote monoculture, increase biosafety risks to health and environment, and need high investment and complicated regulatory frameworks which many countries lack. We ask those from the private sector who are calling for international acceptance of their products once approved in one country whether they are prepared to accept global liability for their products once disseminated?

We’d like to remind the group that 80% of the world’s food is produced by small farmers and farmer autonomy is critical to maintaining current and future food security and food sovereignty for everyone. We reject solutions that increase the cost of production for farmers due to the high cost of inputs from transnational corporations. We respect farmers as true in-situ innovators and not as passive consumers of the ‘biotech toolbox’.

All present should keep in mind the FAO Policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples which includes Indigenous rights to:

  • Self-determination;
  • Free, Prior and Informed Consent;
  • Participation and collaboration;
  • Rights over land and other resources; and
  • Gender equality.

Governments and scientists must take a holistic view of addressing the negative consequences of industrialised agriculture and avoid a ‘bandaids on cancer’ approach when it is imperative to address the causes.

Rather than being distracted by the shiny technocratic solutions of the GMO industry, FAO should continue its important work on promoting farmers’ access to native and locally adapted seeds and breeds, markets and value chains, and on promoting agroecology as the best way to feed the world and face the challenges of climate change.

 

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

La Via Campesina

FIMARC

Mouvement International de la Jeunesse Agricola et Rural Catholique (MIJARC)

Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP)

Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group)

Assembly of the Poor, Thailand

Thai Poor Act (TPA)

Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA)

SEACON

 

 

 

Farmer Profile: Neil from The Atherton Farms

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Photos by Nick Lawrence

Where and what do you farm?

We’re from South Australia, and have two small properties. One is the few acres on which we live, which is at Templers, just north of Gawler.  The other is our larger, but still not large, production place out at Lochiel.

We farm pigs, sheep, and cattle.  We breed the pigs and sheep, but buy cattle in and feed them on.  The cattle are agisted elsewhere as we don’t have the room for them.  Our primary focus is the pigs, and we are fully set up to breed and grow them.

How is food sovereignty important to you?

Food sovereignty speaks to one of our most basic human rights and need – the ability to grow food in a way that benefits us and our land, and the right to choose how we do that.

Right now we are at the mercy of corporations whose entire focus is profit.  They care nothing for the consumers or the land, and certainly nothing for the animals they grow.  Land and stock are commodities, consumers have dictated to them what their produce should look/taste/feel like and what it should cost, and farmers are forced into sometimes abhorrent practices to make money.

To me, food sovereignty is taking back control of what we eat, how it’s produced, how those poor animals are treated, and our ecological future.

What are the main issues that concern you as a farmer?

Our focus is the ethical breeding and growing of stock animals, particularly pigs, but also sheep and cows.  The main issues that concern me around those things are:

  1. How those animals are treated.  97% of pigs produced in this country are bred and grown in intensive systems. For the most part, those animals are denied their natural behaviours and are often miserable. Eating meat is a choice, and I fail to understand why we inflict misery on those animals when we can choose a better way.
  2. The sustainability of growing stock animals. Growing grain for the express purpose of feeding animals in order to then consume their meat is in no way sustainable.  We’ve chosen a different route where we feed waste products and screenings (seconds grain, not used for human consumption) for the most part, with only a small part of the ration being human-grade grain.

Another aspect of sustainability is the carbon footprint and food miles on some of the processed food.  We’ve had nutritionists suggest that we include fish meal from South America!  Even meat meal is problematic as it is highly processed and therefore has a large carbon footprint.  We combat this by milling our own feed, sourcing it all locally, and keeping the diet entirely natural.

Don’t even get me started on GMO…

How and why did you get into farming?

Several years ago we had a place in the suburbs and our 600 square metre block was at critical mass for fruit trees, veggies, chooks, and ducks.  We wanted to move to the country and aim for self-sufficiency.

When you’re faced with the choice of either eating ethically or becoming a vegetarian, both of which have their roots in pretty much the same ethical dilemma, then you either find a trusted source or you do it yourself.  We chose to do it ourselves.

We had 2 litters of pigs inside of around 15 months, and quickly found out that even one litter is too much for one family.  We reached out to like-minded friends with the aim of not only being self-sufficient but also becomming cost neutral.  The meat was snapped up, and we discovered that we could probably do this on a larger scale with the aim being making a living from what we love.

How do you market your produce?

We sell in bulk over the internet and via a couple of markets.  Our marketing is entirely via social media, which has worked very well for us.  We have a Facebook page and Instagram, and make sure we’re active and responsive.  We have a blog as well, the aim being to give people assurance around our practices as they can go and read about exactly how we do things.

More than that though, we try to genuinely engage with people.  We give flyers out at the markets that contain a blurb on us and all of our social media information.  We talk to people about the animals, not just the product, and have found SO many that actually care.  They care about how the animal lives, what it eats, how they’re bred, how they’re transported.  They appreciate that we can answer all of those questions with authority, as we control the entire supply chain, and those engagements last.  We build relationships with people, rather than just facilitate transactions.

How do you care for the land you farm on?

We have a rotational system for our paddocks, where we plow and plant to absorb the excess nitrogen left by the animals. We’re experimenting with what we plant, and are looking at brassicas.  That’s as much for the stock as it is for the land though.

We use a rotational cropping system, but are limited to exactly how that works as we need to use a share farmer.  We’re looking at changing that over the next few years.

What’s the context of the land you farm on? Are you surrounded by a supportive community?

We’re surrounded entirely by broad-acre farmers.  We’ve managed to garner some good support though, even from local intensive piggeries.  We even had a small local piggery contact us a year or so ago to offer to sell us some Large Black pigs.  They’d experimented with them, found that the breed doesn’t work in an intensive context (“the fattiest pig we’ve ever seen”), and so called us to see if we’d want them.  They understand what we do and we’ve explained why we do it.  They may not share the entire ethos, but they at least respect it.

We’ve also connected with some people who do what we do, but on a much smaller scale.  For the most part they’ve found us and have come to get tips and pointers.  It’s still a nice little network that we enjoy being part of.

What do you see as the biggest issues in our food system? And what do you think is required to change this?

The need to adhere to unethical practices in order to make money.  I’ve had long conversations with a local intensive piggery, and I know the owner genuinely cares for his pigs and is actively trying to change his practices. However, his is a low margin/high volume business, and he needs to guarantee maximum productivity in order to survive.  He has no control over the pricing of his product – it all goes to one company (I won’t name them), they slaughter the animals, and then tell him what they’ll pay.  If there’s 7mm of back fat rather than exactly 6mm, then they’ll dock the price.  How does that make sense!?

We need to break the back of our dependence on big corporations to produce our food, thereby removing ourselves from their revenue calculations, and then we’ll be able to affect real change.  Until then, farmers will focus more on their outcomes (e.g. output volumes) and less on their methods.

How do you think farmers could be better supported?

Farmers right now aren’t free to change or be innovative.  They need to toe the line and do whatever gets them the largest volume.  This leads to giant intensive pig farms and millions of acres of mono-culture.  It also leads to a dependence on herbicides and more and more GMO.

Farmers have relatively few markets for their goods, and those are controlled by the big players, like our supermarket duopoly.  That means they can’t set their own prices, but rather have prices dictated to them.

I’m not sure how to fix any of that.  Encouraging innovation and removing the dependence on herbicides and GMO is easy to say, but there are giant corporations spending millions on lobbying to make sure none of that happens.  How do we change that?  We act locally, buy direct from the farmer, get involved in not just their outcomes but their methods, we ask questions, we suggest changes, we stop buying fruit/veggies/meat/eggs from the supermarket.

Do you have any plans or goals for the future on your farm?

Yes. We plan on probably doubling our production and expanding our market.  We want to build our own boning room so we can be our own butchers.  We also plan on expanding to be able to plant our own crops.  We only have a little over 50 acres on which to do that, but the equipment for even that much isn’t cheap.  We’re getting there though…

What do you love about farming?

The animals and spreading their message to people.

What is most challenging about farming?

Right now I work fulltime in order to support us.  The farm pays for itself, but isn’t yet at a point where it can sustain us.  That means that I work 7 days a week, and that can be wearing.  It’s rewarding too, but there’s only so much a body can do.  We proactively try and combat that by doing things like forced post-market Sunday afternoons off.  That means that my entire weekly relaxation is compressed into several hours on Sunday afternoon/evening, but it really does help.

What does a fair food system look like to you?

People not only knowing where their food comes from, but knowing how it was produced and being active participants in what that looks like.  People either growing their own food or having a relationship with the person who grew it.  Not picking up a packet of meat in a supermarket that was unpacked by one of their “butchers” that came out of a box that came from a billion dollar corporation, where no one can talk to the provenance of the animal.

When people ask me how our animals are bred, what they eat, how they’re transported, our stocking rates, how they’re housed etc., I can look them in the eye and answer their questions with authority because I am the one who does it (“I” in that context also includes my family of course).  We know our animals, we know their personalities, we know what makes them happy, because we about work ourselves to death giving them the best lives we possibly can.  People who buy from us aren’t just paying for a superior product, they’re also paying for the provenance of the animal and the assurance that it led the best possible life.  That’s what a fair food system is.

http://www.theathertonfarms.com/
If you're a farmer member of AFSA and would like to share your story, fill out the interview here and email your responses to admin@afsa.org.au.

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