ARTICLES

GM FOOD by Bianca Madison-Vuleta

We all have the right to eat and plant GM-free food.

We at Sustainable Planet Foundation are fighting to protect your choices from corporate interests to secure safe, sustainable agriculture for all. We are calling for a moratorium on GM food and crops until it is clearly and independently proven safe. We are looking for public involvement in decisions about GM, laws to make GM companies liable for harm their products cause and independent safety research on GM and its impacts.

TEN MYTHS ABOUT GM FOOD AND CROPS

1. WE NEED GM TO FEED A GROWING WORLD POPULATION

The vast majority of the world's crops are not GM - GM is only planted on about 2.75% of global agricultural land. Most of this goes to animal feed, fiber and industrial scale agrofuels.
What's left is in processed food (primarily unlabelled in North America).
The current push for GM is about a falling industry trying to save itself. The world's underlying approach to food should not be about market control, patents and profit. Feeding the world means tackling poverty, improving access to the food we already produce, ending the waste of 30-40% of the world's food, reducing losses in storage, making trade fairer, curbing over-consumption and investing in effective research.
We don't need GM to do any of this.

2. GM HELPS FARMERS GROW MORE IN DROUGHTS AND FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

All crops need the right mix of sun, water and healthy soil to produce a good yield - GM cannot change this.
Despite many promises and billions of pounds spent over decades on research, not a single GM drought tolerant crop has been developed that farmers can grow.
Traditional plant breeding, using modern techniques, has produced successful drought tolerant crops in fields where farmers need them now.

3. GM DELIVERS MORE FOOD ON LESS LAND

No current GM crops have been shown to boost yields, independent US studies show up to 10% less yield in GM soya - manipulating a few genes gives unpredictable results.
Increased yields in the past decade are due to developments in traditional plant breeding, not GM.

4. GM HELPS FARMERS USE LESS CHEMICALS

Herbicide tolerant crops: initially GM did reduce the use of weedkillers, but weeds quickly developed resistance to the chemicals used on GM crops.
The resulting "superweeds" are forcing farmers to use more chemicals, including older, more dangerous ones, at considerable expense. Some US GM cotton farmers have to hand weed whole fields when chemicals stop working.

Insecticide crops: GM maize and cotton are engineered to produce toxins in every part of the plant - including the parts we eat.
This is a change in the way pesticides are used, not a reduction. The toxins kill some insects pests, but not all. and Monsanto now admits that pink bullworm in parts of India is resistant to GM cotton.
Yet emerging evidence shows Bt toxins may harm non-target insects (like butterflies), and there are serious concerns about the safety of the Bt toxins for human health.

5. EU OPPOSITION TO GM IS HOLDING BACK DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (or, it is only well-fed activists who oppose GM)

The Indian Government put an indefinite moratorium on GM brinjal (aubergine) - a flagship project for the GM industry - until safety questions are answered.
There are GM bans, active protests and legal opposition in Thailand, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, Argentina and elsewhere.
EU opposition to GM leads a way, showing that GM agriculture is not inevitable because citizens have the right to make our own decisions about what we grow and eat.

6. THE EU IS GOING TO BE LEFT BEHIND IN SCIENCE IF WE DON'T DO GM (or, we need GM for our economy)

GM hasn't delivered. Farmer training needs to be improved around the world, including in the UK. Rather than throw good money after bad, the UK should establish centres od excellence in areas like soil husbandry and advanced traditional plant breeding to lead the world in a more sustainable and equitable approach to managing farmland and forests.

7. GM IS SAFE - THEY HAVE BEEN EATING GM IN THE US FOR YEARS AND NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN HURT

GM is unlabelled and untraced in the US food supply, so there is no way to determine where GM is going or what health impacts it might be having, or even how much GM is actually been eaten.
It is impossible to study, so this claim has no scientific basis.

8. PEOPLE ARE CHANGING THEIR MINDS ABOUT GM

When US diaries started labelling their milk as free from GM hormones, they were so popular Monsanto went to court to get them banned.
They failed.
A 2010 NOP poll showed 89% support for labels on animal products in the UK showing where GM feed is used, like they have in Austria and Germany.
If the GM industry believes people are changing their minds, they have nothing to fear from using such labels and letting the market decide.

9. WE NEED GM TO KEEP FOOD PRICES DOWN AND THE MEAT INDUSTRY GOING

It was not a lack of GM that caused food prices to go up - GM was produced throughout the 2007/8. price rises.
Regional droughts, diverting food crops into industrial scale biofuels, financial speculation in food markets and the rising costs of fertilisers and fuel were key contributors, but GM cannot fix these.
The EU has become far too dependent on imported animal feed, much of it GM.
Policies favour a highly concentrated industrial farm model that has resulted in poor animal welfare and forces smaller farmers out of business.
We need a more accountable and responsible food production system.
Research across EU is helping us find the kind of crops and breeds we need to be less dependent on importing GM animal feed and exporting the damage it does to communities and the environment in far away countries.

10. OPPOSITION TO GM IS BASED ON EMOTION (OR POLITICS), AND NOT SCIENCE

The US and Indian courts are showing that the science behind GM is far from sound, particularly when approvals have been based in safety dossiers provided by the industry itself.
In any case citizens are not obliged to accept whatever is scientifically possible.
Non-GM alternatives do the scientific job better, with less risk and no public rejection, keeping farmers and consumers on the same side so everyone benefits.

WHY WE SHOULD SUPPORT THE GM FREEZE?

Despite growing scientific uncertainty about the safety and performance of GM and overwhelming public rejection, the UK Government still backed GM potato trials in England every year between 2007-2010 and at the same time supported every new GM application in the EU.
They still say GM will help tackle global hunger but:
400 global scientists in the biggest independent global scientific investigation on the subject (the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development) disagreed, saying: "Assessment of GM technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable".

In 2010 the Chief Administrator for the UN Development Programme said:
"I don't think GM is the solution to the food security problem."

We think it is time for modern solutions to modern problems.
When GM food reached supermarket shelves people rejected it.
Today it is hard to find food with GM ingredients - shops can't sell what people won't buy. There is a hidden exception: milk, cheese, meat and eggs from animals raised on GM feed do not legally need a GM label.
So there is no way to tell if your pint of milk or ready meal supported the GM industry.

Since people rejected GM as food, the vast majority of GM crops (around 80%) have no place to go except into animal feed.
Yet we simply don't know the extent of the many problems with GM crops, including:

GM not proved safe

Industry safety claims are based on their own, not independent, data.
National authorities are not testing food either to find GM or to confirm independent studies showing GM damage to animals' guts, lower nutritional value and allergic reactions or reactions in immune systems.
GM DNA from feed can pass into animals' blood.
Pesticides in GM animal feed are not routinely monitored, so we don't know what our livestock are eating.
We do know the maximum legal residue limi for weedkillers glyphosate in food was raised 200% when GM soya came on the market.

Environment damage

GM herbicide tolerant crops have accelerated the development of weedkiller resistance.
There are now 140 types of herbicide tolerant "superweeds" in 40 US states, with 13 species resistant to glyphosate, and even the industry admits it takes older, more dangerous chemicals to control them.

Corporate control

Patented GM crops give companies like Monsanto and Bayer unprecedented control over the supply of seeds and food.
They say we need GM animal feed to keep the costs down, but GM prices spiked just as steeply as non-GM in 2007/2008 - and we pay them even more to avoid it.

OUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE ANOTHER WAY

Without clear labels, you don't know where the GM feed is used.

While we look for better ways to feed our animals (like feeding cows grass and clover), Brazil alone grows enough non-GM soya for at least 80% of the EU needs without further damaging the Amazon - we don't need GM!

Austrian and German shoppers have labels on non-GM feed foods, and France and Ireland are introducing them soon.

Supermarkets say it is too confusing to give consumers the information about what they want.
Your supermarkets can and should insist that the diary, meat, fish and eggs they sell are produced without GM crops and back this up with clear GM-free labels.

OUTDATED GM OR MODERN SCIENCE?

Modern science shows genes have far more complicated interactions with one another and the environment than was first imagined.
Therefore many of the promises of the GM industry based on moving a few genes between species may simply prove possible.

Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) is an advanced genetic technique used to identify valuable traits in parent plants before fertilisation to ensure those genes are passed to offspring plants.
This cutting edge development of traditional plant breeding has already produced breakthroughs where GM has failed (including deepwater rice, drought resistant rice, high protein corn, pest resistant potatoes, disease resistant barley, millet and watermelon).

STILL NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR GM MULTINATIONALS

Like the cigarette industry, GM companies resist taking legal responsibility for their products.

In order to protect us and make them more responsible, it is time that the GM industry was made fully and strictly liable for all environmental, economic and health damage that may arise from GM food and crops, especially before we accept "coexistence" of GM crops with conventional agriculture.
If they believe their products are safe, the companies have nothing to lose.

Over 97% of the world's farmland grows non-GM crops.
Despite spending billions on research over decades, GM crops have not improved yields or solved drought tolerance, so they can't help feed the world any better than conventional crops.

The tide is turning against GM multinationals: at the time of writing US courts had ordered Bayer to pay farmers over US$53 million in costs and damages for the contamination of rice farms in 2006, with thousands more claims in the pipeline.

Governments and industry say we need GM crops to ease rising food prices, but in 2008 10% of GM crops went into biofuels, not to feed people.

Claims that GM is safe are based on the industry's own studies, and they rely on "commercial confidentiality" to prevent key raw data on safety being used by independent researchers.

GM research promising "GM jam tomorrow" continues to soak up public funding that should be spent finding sustainable solutions that work.

Restaurants, canteens and fast food outlets are legally obliged to tell you if they use any GM ingredients, like cooking oil.
In York 25% of caterers are violating this law, and in Norfolk it is 42%!

THE NEXT HOUR by Ian Chambers and John Humble

It is worthwhile to look at the changes that are taking place on Planet Earth, and why we urgently need solutions for the planet to ensure that we successfully implement it. These can be captured by looking at the changes that will take place over the next hour.

Within the next hour, the following changes will have taken place on Planet Earth:

POPULATION

Within the hour the population of Planet Earth will have increased by more than 9.000 people. This translates into an increase of an additional 220.000 people every day - and over 80 million people every year!
Over the last 70 years, less than one average lifetime, the human race has more than trebled from 2 billion to 7 billion people.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Within the hour over 1 million extra tons of CO2 will have been released into the atmosphere - translating into over 10 billion tons per year.This is contributing significantly to the damaging greenhouse effect and therefore the potential for further global warming.
Global warming in turn has been linked to reduced crop yields, changes in weather patterns, and increasing draughts and storms. Events which we have already been observing.

ENERGY

Within the hour an additional 3.5 million barrels of oil will have been used. This means we continue to consume more than 30 billion barrels per year, yet we are aware that at least half of the easily accessible oil reserves may have already been consumed. This is contributing to increasing uncertainty about long- term production capabilities. It has been estimated that Planet Earth without fossil fuels could only support 2 billion people, due to the importance they play in agriculture and food production.

WATER AND FOOD

Within this hour over 1 billion people will not have had enough food to eat or access to safe drinking water.
Women and children in Sub-Sahara. Africa will be spending on average more than 2 hours a day collecting water, with journeys of six to seven hours not unusual.
At the same time, the EU has estimated that over 40 percent of its water resources are being wasted.

GLOBAL RESOURCES

Within this hour an area the size of 900 football fields will have been destroyed in the Amazon Rainforest - a major source of oxygen production for Planet Earth.
In South East Asia and in the virgin Siberian forests there is similar devastation.
Forests that have stood for millions of years are being destroyed at an alarming rate.
Financially, the EU has estimated that the total cost of environmental damage is well more than $8 million every hour.
However, we are all aware that the impact is much more than economic. It is devastating other species who also call Planet Earth home. More than 100 species are currently on the endangered species list.

EXTREME POVERTY

Within this hour more than 2 billion people will be struggling to survive on less than $1 a day and a further 2.5
billion people will be living on $2 a day.
Within this hour, over $300.000 of International Development Aid will be provided to try to tackle this inequity, yet less than half of this funding will reach those for whom it was intended.

GLOBAL HEALTH

Within this hour over 250 people will have been infected with HIV, but only 20 per cent of these people will have access to treatment. More than 200 young children will have died from diseases associated with poor hygiene and lack of sanitation, and over 50 women in Sub- Saharan Africa and Asia will have died from
preventable complications during pregnancy or childbirth.

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION

Within this hour over 70 million children will still not have access even to basic primary education and there will be over 800 million illiterate people, many of whom will struggle to find work.

CONFLICT AND PEACE

Within this hour a further $130 million will have been spent on global military expenditure - contributing to a total cost of over $1200 billion per year.
In contrast, the United Nations expenditure within this same hour on Peacekeeping will be less than $1 million, despite the fact that there are currently at least 18 significant unresolved conflicts taking place on Planet Earth.
Global expenditure on Peacekeeping is therefore less than$7 billion a year, compared to more than $1200 billion military expenditure.

GLOBAL FINANCES

Global GDP turnover will be over $70 billion within this hour, or over $65 trillion per year - arguably more than sufficient funds to address all the global issues.

These examples give a sense of the scale of the global challenges we are facing on Planet Earth: unsustainable population growth, climate change, energy supplies, water and food supplies, planet sustainability and biodiversity, extreme poverty, global health, universal education, conflict and peace and financing the sustainable world.

As we review these challenges, the scale of investment, the coordinated global action required to address them and the urgency with which they must be addressed appears very daunting.
The issue of climate change has moved from "It is real." to "Is it too late?" in less than five years.
Many of the other global challenges, such as developing alternative energy supplies, addressing increasing food and water shortages, and our devastation of the planet's biodiversity resources are equally urgent.
The question also remains - why is there no required political will, commitment and capability to tackle these global challenges?

The good news is that from the time immemorial the human race has demonstrated a great capacity for creative response to the challenges it has been confronted with on Planet Earth - to adapt.
As the British historian Arnold Toynbee said: "The quality of human nature on which we must pin our hopes is its proven adaptibility."

We clearly live at the time when we have the unprecedented power - and the unprecedented responsibility - to decide our destiny.
We are facing the spectre of a global breakdown - economic, social, as well as ecological - but it is not fated:
We have the option of taking a brighter path. We have a window in time, a few decades, perhaps a few years to avert the breakdown and build a civilisation capable of bringing peace, sustainability and an acceptable level of well- being to all people on this planet.
Nothing is keeping us from shifting our evolutionary path toward a peaceful and sustainable civilisation but our will and vision.
The kind of foundation we need to create a holistic new civilisation has already emerged at the creative frontiers of society.
Over the last decade there has been an increasing recognition and the understanding of the global challenges we are facing at every level and improved coordinated action to address them.
The UN has given leadership through the Global Compact and the Millennium Development Goals which set specific targets to the year 2015, addressing a number of the global challenges.
The Prince of Wales has established important programmes to improve issues such as deforestation and climate change, drawing on the leadership and funding of major businesses.
The World Economic Forum, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), The World Bank, the Green Economics Institute and many other NGOs are deeply involved.
Indifference has clearly given way to new initiatives and exciting "on-the-ground"initiatives - as well as increasingly coordinated global action.
Businesses are increasingly seeing these challenges no longer as threats, but as opportunities presented by the new "green revolution."
There has been increasing investments in research and development in "green"products and technologies, solar energy, improved control of emissions in coal power stations

As we learn to adapt to the world which now confronts us, these are important starting points, and much progress is being made. However. There is also an increasing recognition that much more needs to be done, and quickly, if the challenges are to be effectively addressed within the extremely limited timeframes available.
Climate change is taking place faster than initially anticipated, and needs to be properly managed within the next decade if we are to avoid the potential disasters of an overheated planet.
Potential food, water and energy shortages similarly need to be addressed urgently, as does population, which continues to increase at an unsustainable rate.
These factors in turn are contributing to the rate if forest, wildlife and biodiversity destruction which must be stopped before there are no more resources to destroy and there is no inheritance to pass on to future generations.
We need to begin acting a lot smarter and faster.
The greatest challenge we therefore face, whether in government, in business or in the community, is "how can we achieve this?"
How can we achieve the "step change acceleration" required to drive the coordinated changes across the planet?
Can we work together on a global scale to implement this coordinated action, delivered at a local level, and in the limited timeframes required to avert the potential devastating impacts on the Planet Earth of the global challenges?
Can we combine our efforts and actions fast enough to deal with these challenges before they combine together into what some are already terming "the perfect storm?"

We at SPF believe that a coordinated planned approach to the global issues is possible and can be implemented at every level- government, business, community and individuals.
If we commit ourselves to using known solutions and best practices - leverage our ability to innovate and adapt - and work together to implement these capabilities in a coordinated and cooperative manner - we can build a sustainable future - not only for our generation, but also for future generations.
There are a number of key requirements:
An understanding of the global challenges and solutions
An understanding of the inter connectivity of the challenges - and both the threats and the opportunities that these interconnectivities provide.
An understanding of the key global management practices which can be used to develop and successfully implement a global course of action

And finally the involvement, cooperation, commitment and sense of urgency and drive from all stakeholders - international and national governments, business and Non Governmental Organisation (NGO). Communities and every individual in the community - drive forward the necessary changes required to ensure the future of the Planet.

REPLENISHING THE EARTH
By Bianca Madison-Vuleta

In today's world, even striving to be healthy has become an uphill battle. We’ve come to realize that it’s not just about making the right choices selecting fresh produce, eating balanced meals, or exercising regularly. The truth is, the very foods we rely on for nourishment are often compromised long before they reach our plates.

Pesticides, chemicals, and other toxins have infiltrated our food supply, making it increasingly difficult to truly nourish our bodies. These substances don’t just sit on the surface; they seep into our food, our water, and ultimately, into us. They cause chronic inflammation, disrupt our immune systems, and impede our body’s natural ability to heal. Even when we think we’re doing everything right, these invisible threats sabotage our efforts, turning what should be sources of health into potential dangers.

The struggle for genuine health has never been more challenging. It’s not enough to eat healthy—we must now contend with the very environment in which our food is grown. The soil is depleted, the water is contaminated, and the air is filled with pollutants. As we face these challenges, it’s clear that the path to true health is no longer just about individual choices; it’s about addressing the bigger picture.

To truly reclaim our health, we need to look beyond our plates and focus on replenishing the earth. We must restore the natural balance that has been so deeply disrupted, nurturing the soil, cleansing the water, and healing the ecosystems that sustain us. Our well-being is intrinsically linked to the health of the planet, and as long as we continue to damage the environment, our efforts to be healthy will be in vain.

Being healthy shouldn’t be this hard, but it’s the reality we face. The power to change this lies in our hands—not just in the foods we choose, but in the way we choose to care for the world around us. It’s time to go beyond personal health and commit to healing the earth itself.