Japan rice ban worries some California farmers-Sign on San Diego 8/22 2pm

[fed-up]

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060822-1354-wst-riceban.html

Japan rice ban worries some California farmers

By Robin Hindery
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:54 p.m. August 22, 2006
SACRAMENTO – A recent Japanese ban of long-grain rice from the United States has set off alarm among California farmers and added fuel to a debate over genetically modified rice....

...But others worry that restrictions on the biotech industry are insufficient, and that contamination is a near certainty in a state where hundreds of crops are grown in close proximity.
“Biotech does not recognize a fence line where one farmer's property ends and another begins,” said Bryce Lundberg, a rice grower with Lundberg Family Farms.

The farm, based near Chico in the northern Sacramento Valley, supports keeping California free of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Lundberg said the situation surrounding the Japanese rice ban “points at the heart of the reason the farm opposes them.”...


Japan is the biggest foreign market for California rice – a $500 million industry that relies on exports for 50 percent of annual sales....




We tried to stop biotech crops from growing in Butte County in 2004, but unfortunately lost with only 39% of the vote. ;(

[dipsydoodle]

1. EEC is considering the situation too

The European Commission said it was seeking information from US authorities "with the utmost urgency".

snip

Antonia Mochan, a European Commission spokesperson for science and research told the BBC: "This is a matter of utmost urgency for us and we will be looking to act as soon as we can once we have the knowledge that can inform that decision."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5271384.stm

[fed-up]

2. local CA paper says Southern long-term rice futures had fallen $150M

http://chicoer.com/newshome/ci_4223119

GE rice discovery retriggers debate
By HEATHER HACKING - Staff Writer

Rice Producers of California was recently resurrected to be an advocate of rice producers and to promote economic viability. Massa said the group opposes GE rice unless there is widespread market acceptance, the rice is kept segregated, rapid testing is available and there is legal liability established.

"If Japan shuts its doors, the industry will go south very quickly," he said. "In that case farmers need liability protection from those who grow GE crops."

He said he got a call from a colleague on the board of the U.S. Rice Producers Association and was told that as of Monday afternoon, Southern long-term rice futures had fallen $150 million.

snip

A few counties, such as Butte, have tried to pass ballot initiatives to ban GE crops. Butte's failed but efforts to get bans passed in other counties continue.

snip

[Vidar]

3. Some countries actually don't approve of poisoning their own

citizens. Good for Japan.

[robcon]

4. Poison? Any scientific basis for that?

We shouldn't be growing rice, the crop with the most need for water, in a desert. The subsidy, in the form of low cost water in California, is unconscionable, IMO.

But your poison statement undermines the credibility of the fight against unsustainable agriculture. The science shows no poisoning... nor any other ill effects from the rice grown there.

[fed-up]

5. There have been NO long-term human health studies done to back-up your

statement that there are NO adverse health effects from geneetically engineered foods. There are studies done that show that rats have suffered ill effects and even died from having genetically engineered foods in their diets. Of course the scientists that have done those studies have been laid off. Arpad Pustzai to name just one.

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html
Safety tests on commercial GM crops

GM tomatoes

In acute toxicity studies with male/female rats, which were tube-fed homogenized GM tomatoes, toxic effects were claimed to be absent. In addition, it was concluded that mean body and organ weights, weight gains, food consumption and clinical chemistry or blood parameters were not significantly different between GM-fed and control groups. However:

The unacceptably wide range of rat starting weights (±18% to ±23%) invalidated these findings.

No histology on the intestines was done even though stomach sections showed mild/moderate erosive/necrotic lesions in up to seven out of twenty female rats but none in the controls. However, these were considered to be of no importance, although in humans they could lead to life-endangering hemorrhage, particularly in the elderly who use aspirin to prevent thrombosis.

Seven out of forty rats on GM tomatoes died within two weeks for unstated reasons.

These studies were poorly designed and therefore the conclusion that FLAVR SAVRTM tomatoes were safe does not rest on good science, questioning the validity of the FDA's decision that no toxicological testing of other GM foods will in future be required.

much more at above link

It is proven that genetically engineered crops have cross-contaminated neighboring crops (Canola in Canada, corn in Mexico, Papayas in Hawaii) resulting in farms being unable to be certified as organic farmers since there crops have been contaminated.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/pollution072005.cfm

Pollution from Genetically
Engineered Crops Now Global

GM WATCH daily http://www.gmwatch.org July 18, 2005
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In the context of the current scnadal over Austrlalian non-GM canola being GM contaminated, note the telling Bayer quote below (item 3) which claims some level of GM contamination is now "a reality in agricultural production systems around the world".

Why might they be happy to admit that?

Remember the comment of the vice-president of the international consulting firm whose client list included not only the likes of ConAgra and Unilever but Aventis - the company whose crop science business, including its GM canola, was taken over by Bayer?

"The hope of the industry is that over time the market is so flooded that there's nothing you can do about it." - Don Westfall, Promar International, January 2001 A year later in April 2002, Dale Adolphe, former head of the Canola Council of Canada and executive director of the Canadian Seed Growers Association, told Canadian canola growers at their annual meeting that despite growing public opposition to genetically engineered crops around the globe, there was hope:

"It's a hell of a thing to say that the way we win is don't give the consumer a choice, but that might be it." http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6157 If you want a choice, the implications are clear - we have to fight right around the globe to stop this technology. 1.Australian GE canola contamination found in Japan 2.GE canola contamination found in Australia 3.Australian GE canola contamination found in Japan excerpts: