PLEASE SUPPORT ACB TO FORCE GOVERNMENT TO DO AN ENVIRONAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF A GM CROP.

Please email Minister Buyelwa Sonjica at wateradmin@dwa.gov.za and tell her that you want Goverment to carry out an indpendent environmental impact assessment on the Syngenta GA21 application.

Below is a summary of the letter being sent by African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) which you could use, or write your own.

Your support could pressure the Minister of Environment to demand the first ever Environmental Impact Assessment of a genetically modified crop.

Background: Our government relies on safety data supplied by the applicants (corporations) that are developing and selling GMOs who clearly have vested interests. Government has never carried out their own independent assessment and South Africa has been growing GM crops since 1997.. We need your support to pressurise Minister Sonjica of Department of Water and Environment to do an EIA on an application by Syngenta.

Syngenta has recently applied to government for a permit to commercially release a new event of genetically modified maize, called GA21. This maize is resistant to their herbicide, Touchdown Forte. The technology gives farmers the freedom to spray poisonous herbicide indiscriminately, as the poison will kill everything except the crop, which is modified to survive the poison. The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has called on the Minister to use her power to call for an EIA for this event. We hope you will support us in this call.

Below is an excerpt from our letter to the Minister, the full text can be found at http://biosafetyafrica.org.za/dir/request to minister.pdf

You can also find our full objection to Syngenta's application, which covers our concerns on the science, health, environmental and socio-economic impacts at http://www.biosafetyafrica.org.za/index.php/20090828238/Objections-to-Syngentas-application-for-commodity-import-of-triple-stacked-maize/menu-id-100023.html

France Finds Monsanto Guilty of Lying

France's highest court has ruled that US agrochemical giant Monsanto had not told the truth about the safety of its best-selling weed-killer, Roundup. The court confirmed an earlier judgment that Monsanto had falsely advertised its herbicide as "biodegradable" and claimed it "left the soil clean." Roundup is the world's best-selling herbicide.

In the latest ruling, France's Supreme Court upheld two earlier convictions against Monsanto by the Lyon criminal court in 2007, and the Lyon court of appeal in 2008, the AFP news agency reports.

Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.

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SOUTH AFRICA: Chickens NOT Duped by GM Feed

Strilli Oppenheimer's indigenous African chickens were refusing to eat the mealies in the chicken feed bought from a large supplier. The chickens' diet was changed to include organic vegetables, Oppenheimer stopped consuming the home-grown eggs and the maize was sent to a GM testing facility. The results confirmed Oppenheimer's suspicion - the maize had been genetically engineered to produce Bt toxin and contained Roundup weedkiller.

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Brazil becomes Biggest Consumer of Pesticides as GM Acreage Expands

Brazil's consumption of pesticides and herbicides grew by 25% in 2008 to 734 million tonnes, worth US$7.1bn. For the first time ever, the country overtook the previous world champion, the USA, which consumed 646 million tonnes, worth US$6.0bn. In what few would see as a coincidence, that same year Brazil recorded its largest area ever planted with GMOs, almost of all of which are crops that have been genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides. Indeed, 45% of the herbicides and pesticides were used in the cultivation of soya, most of which is GM.

Alert of the Week

Don't Let Obama Put Monsanto Cheerleaders in Charge of Food Safety

The Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety. Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior advisor to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff, is rumored to be President Obama's choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto's (now Eli Lilly's) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).

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GMO Amendment Bill

Web Video of the Week

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising-and often shocking truths-about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

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