# More ... > Beekeeping and the environment >  GM again!  GM multi definition of bad science.

## Eric McArthur

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> http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2273
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> In February 2009, frustrated by industry restrictions on independent research into genetically modified crops, two dozen scientists representing public research institutions in 17 corn-producing states told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the companies producing genetically modifiinhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good" and warned that industry influence had made independent analyses of transgenic crops impossible.
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> Unprepared for the scientists' public protest and the press accounts that followed it, the industry, through its American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), met with crop scientists. Late last year, ASTA agreed that, while still restricting research on engineered plant genes, it would allow researchers greater freedom to study the effects of GM food crops on soil, pests, and pesticide use, and to compare their yields and analyze their effects on the environment.
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> Since the first GM crops were planted some 15 years ago, the companies that developed them have claimed broad control over their use. Farmers don't simply buy a bag of GM seed from Monsanto, Syngenta, or DuPont.
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> Instead, they enter into a "Technology/Stewardship Agreement" with the company that developed it, the fine print of which lays out, among other things, the terms under which the seed can be used, where it can be grown, where it can be sold (many international governments do not allow the sale of GM crops or products made with them), and the brand of herbicides that can be used. This "bag-tag," as it's known, also specifically restricts any use of the seed for research.
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> > "We used to be able to go into any farm store and buy seeds, test them in the field, and publish our results," said one researcher. With the advent of GM crops, however, even scientists working in public land grant institutions, whose extension services have long provided farmers with independent analyses, found their research ultimately subject to seed company approval.
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> If a scientist wanted to compare brands of seeds, for instance, or their environmental impact, he or she had to seek permission from each seed company or gene patent holder. Open access to the studys data and the right to publish that data had to be secured, while, for their part, the companies sought to protect their patents and intellectual property rights. Even if the companies did not object, contract negotiations, made on a case-by-case basis, could be extended and onerous. Making things worse was that with fewer public monies available for farm research, scientists, and their universities, found themselves increasingly dependent on the seed companies for funding.
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> The companies were not loath to press their advantage.
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> "I have talked to dozens of scientists who have gone through incredible machinations to do their research," says Charles Benbrook, the chief executive director of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture. And when their data presents a challenge to the companies, he says, these scientists "have found themselves under personal and professional threats." Among research that has faced industry disapproval, says Benbrook, are studies on evolving weed resistance, on plant pathogens, and on susceptibility of non-pest insects to the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)-derived toxins that protect the GM plants against insect pests.
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> "Scientists are clearly intimidated," says Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' Food and Environment Program.
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> In a paper co-authored (non anonymously) by nine of the 24 researchers and published last month in GM Crops, the scientists elaborated upon their grievances. Research restrictions, they wrote, preclude public scientists "from meeting their obligations to the American crop producer and ultimately the consumer." The system, as it now stands, "sets up an uneven relationship where industry partners may unduly influence the way research is designed and disseminated." Even once an agreement has been successfully negotiated, they wrote, there's no guarantee the company won't withdraw its participation if the results appear to be unfavorable to its product.
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> Their statement, they wrote, was "meant as a warning that the assumption of independence is not longer valid under current company-imposed restrictions on public sector research."
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> "We were just looking to pursue the questions that need to be answered," says Elson Shields of Cornell University's Department of Entomology, one of the formerly anonymous twenty-four.
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> For 10 years, Shields says, he and his fellow scientists worked around the companies' restrictions. But they felt that too many scientific issues were not being addressed. In particular, scientists could not be certain that multi-year studies would be renewed or that they'd be allowed to follow up on unexpected findings "which reflects the very essence of scientific inquiry." Such uncertainties, says Shields, meant that many experiments were never initiated.
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> When they submitted their letter to the companies, Shields says, "We didn't plan or anticipate the strength of the response." The industry, too, seemed to be caught unprepared.
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> "I think each company was hearing a little bit from relationships they had from individual universities and researchers," says Andrew LaVigne, president and CEO of the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), the industry's trade organization. "But we were a little surprised."
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> At a meeting in December 2009, the companies said that while they would not agree to remove the bag-tag restrictions on research "for reasons of
> competitiveness in the marketplace," they would agree to enter into blanket research agreements called Academic Research Licenses (ARLs) with public institutions. These ARLs would make it unnecessary for scientists to apply to do research on a case-by-case basis. The language in these agreements - approved by the companies, ASTA, and the Biotechnology Industry Organization  would supersede that of the bag-tag.
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> In a statement on the scientists' concerns, Monsanto said that it had for years had ARLs in place with universities and that although it believed the company's relationships with researchers had been "overwhelmingly positive," it realized "we can do more to communicate... the freedom they have to conduct wide-ranging research" on their GM crops. Monsanto said its intention was to "assure that the public sector research community is free to design robust, scientifically sound experimental protocols... derive independent conclusions," and "is free to publish findings... with reasonable notice to companies."
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> What is not included in the agreement with ASTA and the companies, are studies related to the patent-protected genetics of the plant itself, such as breeding, reverse gene engineering, and modifications to the genetic traits.
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> Universities must still negotiate terms of the ARLs with each company. Each company remains free to decide how fully it will adopt the principles. A single "non-player," the scientists wrote last month, could still prevent comparative studies or restrict entire categories of research. A divide already exists between those companies that will allow scientists to develop insect-resistant colonies for research purposes and those that will not.
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> "The agreement is broad and vague," says Gurian-Sherman. "It's voluntary, and there's no meaningful enforcement. I'm concerned that industry will allow scientists it favors to have seeds - which in itself will be some improvement - but that scientists industry is wary of will still have problems getting those seeds."
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> The result, he said, may be the illusion that research is now open to all, while creating a divide among scientists and the dilution of science on transgenic crops.
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> For instance, he points out that conducting experiments that test the yields provided by GM crops against yields using the original non-GM variety, or against crops grown using sustainable farming methods, will remain difficult. In a report for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Gurian-Sherman recently questioned the validity of industry claims that increased crop yields are the result of increased planting of GM crops. Improvements made by conventional breeding, he says, have had more effect on yield than any engineered genes.
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> "That a company with an interest in the outcome of a study should make itself arbiter of what's good science and what's not good science, I find offensive as a matter of principle," says Gurian-Sherman. "The scientific process is much more subtle than that."
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> Benbrook, too, remains unconvinced that the agreement will alter the research landscape.
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> "If you don't expect to still face vigorous challenges to the quality of your science," he says, "you're just naive."
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> Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, said the ASTA agreement, even if implemented, affects only already commercialized crops. It's vital, he says, to perform studies on GM seeds before they receive federal approval, because once a crop is approved it's almost impossible to get it pulled from the market.
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> Despite these concerns, Cornell's Shields is willing to see what happens as, over the next months, agreements are brokered between companies and universities.
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> "If the companies relinquish their gatekeeper role, if they don't decide to pick and choose who they want to negotiate with, if I publish a paper they don't like and I don't become a 'bad scientist,'" then, he says, he'll be optimistic.
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> As for his named and unnamed cohorts?
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> "We're scientists," he says. "We like to be left alone. Right now it's spring and we're just thinking of getting out into the fields."
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## Stromnessbees

Animals fed GM food pass on transgenic material through their milk:




> Transgenic target DNA sequences (35S and CP4 EPSPS) were not detected in blood and milk from control goats that received a diet containing conventional soybean meal. By contrast, transgenic DNA fragments were amplified from samples (blood and milk) from goats that received transgenic soybean.


from: http://www.global2000.at/module/medi...goats_kids.pdf

If it works with goats it will also work with bees collecting pollen from GM Mais and with humans eating GM soya.  :Frown: 

Doris

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## gavin

Hi Doris

As I'm sure you know, the transgenic DNA is stitched into the chromosome and looks like, behaves like and just is normal DNA.  

The implication of this is that if you can find 35S DNA fragments in goat blood and milk then you ought to be able to find pieces of any one of the other normal soybean genes in blood and milk too.  Is that just as scary, or is it necessary to have the 'transgenic' tag to be worried by this?

Humans will have been eating (relatively) enormous quantities of 35S DNA over all the time that Homo sapiens was eating brassicas, which must have been much of that time.  The cauliflower mosaic virus is a relatively common DNA virus which can be at very high titres in some of the foods we eat, so humans will have been interacting with the 35S promoter since long before man started tinkering with crops in this way.

best wishes

Gavin

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## Stromnessbees

Hi Gavin,

thanks for the explanation. You might be right and this could be perfectly harmless, but I'll be very unscientific now and tell you that I just don't like it. Why can't we leave our food as it is without the tinkering?

When you look at the oil drilling you could also say that for decades is was nearly perfectly safe and harmless, and suddenly we have an environmental catastrophy. It won't be easy to convince me that GM technology can't come up with it's own environmental disaster in good time. 

And there are other negative impacts associated with GM crops, like the licensing issues and the whole concept of roundup-resistance.

On our farm we have now used innovative organic methods which have led to bumper crops of grass and cereals. Our animals are doing better than ever before and the whole place is buzzing with insects and birds. It is possible to feed the world with organic agriculture, but those who make their money by selling fertilizers and pesticides will deny it.

I could post some pictures of our happy Highland cows if you don't think that's too far off-topic. :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 

Doris

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## gavin

Hi Doris

As to oil drilling, I've never thought it safe on so many levels.  The worst one is not the devastation of ecosytems when things go wrong during drilling, but the continuing pollution of the atmosphere (and indeed the oceans) with greenhouse gases from using that oil.  The planet will take a lot longer to recover from that insult.

Why can't we leave our food alone without tinkering?  We've always tinkered, agriculture developed because of it and only keeps going because we continue to do so as - for example - new forms of pests and diseases evolve or appear.  It sounds like you are tinkering with food production systems too, and that sounds like it is working and helpful!

I'm also happy to believe that your organic cows are very happy and healthy.  Are they healthy - and your fields alive with biodiversity - because you follow a sometimes strange set of rules to satisfy a certification authority, or because you manage your animals and your land sympathetically?  It isn't quite the same thing.

I see no need for GM to be forever associated with corporate, industrial agriculture.  It is just another tool available to make crop production more sustainable, if we were to use it for the right reasons.  In a world where by 2050 we will need 70% more food:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/foo...a-dfid1003.pdf

... and fertilisers will be either running out or generated by energy-intensive processes that themselves may not be sustainable, we will need every possible way to help produce food sustainably, unless the predicted population growth is reversed by wars, disease or something else.

I'm not saying that GM is *the* answer, I don't believe that it is.  But it is one tool amongst many that can help, and I don't think that we can afford to throw that tool away because campaigners have been very successful at raising suspicions about it.  Time for rational debate about GM amongst beekeepers and beyond I reckon.

best wishes

Gavin

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## beeanne

Oil drilling never has been completely safe. The BP disaster is on an incredible scale, and their safety plans /failsafes have never been adequate. Not all companies are the same though. At the moment almost everyone reading this forum will use fossil fuels on a daily basis, both directly and indirectly: it is near-impossible to avoid all reliance on them in the UK.  We can all choose to use less (much much less) and look for alternatives, and IMO we all need to do just that. 
Will GM be the same in 2050? Something that we rely on but nobody feels comfortable with?

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## Stromnessbees

> Time for rational debate about GM amongst beekeepers and beyond I reckon.


Not a good time for discussion for me, am too busy at the moment.

Just a few notes:

There was a very good discussion about GM foods on Radio 4 on Tue:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00snmbx
My own opinion goes along the line of Colin Tudge there.

Regarding the new GM tests for blight resistant potatoes: we have blight resistant potatoes already, no need for GM there, and it can be grown organically:
http://organicgarden.org.uk/?page_id=4707

... just a little challenge for our potato geneticists to get that resistance into our other types of spuds, the traditional way, please. :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): 

Another problem: with GM what you might end up with could be a blight resistant poato for which you have to pay a license fee every time you plant it.

And once the genes are out there and have spread to other plants you can't call them back.... genies out of bottles. (Which is also how I imagine the oil spilling out of the hole in the ocean floor.)

...back to work for me

Doris

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## Stromnessbees

One more quick reply:




> ... and fertilisers will be either running out or generated by energy-intensive processes that themselves may not be sustainable, we will need every possible way to help produce food sustainably, unless the predicted population growth is reversed by wars, disease or something else.


There is a way to fertilize the ground in a perfectly sustainable way, driven by solar power and without any nasty by-products: let the legumes do it for you! Actually, there's a very pleasant by-product: honey from the flowers! By growing clover you feed the bees while you feed the soil. That's what organic farming is all about, it's a lot more than a 


> strange set of rules to satisfy a certification authority


. 

Doris

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## gavin

Anne, by 2050 we will have had two generations of people since the GM fuss around 2000, even if youngsters like yourself will probably also be around (I doubt that I will!).  I think that most people will be wondering what on earth all the fuss was about.

Doris - I listened to the R4 programme, thanks.  

Sharpo spuds.  It is almost certain that they carry the same kinds of R genes that have failed time after time over the many decades that breeders have been breeding blight-resistant potatoes.  They are OK now simply because they have been grown on a small scale until now, and not for many years.  The people at the Savari Trust are well aware of this and are themselves worried that the next race of blight to come along will flatten the Sarpo varieties too.

Every time breeders and geneticists turn to wild species for more resistance genes it has taken 30-40 years to breed a decent potato from that stock.  We're doing that again right now, and no doubt we can speed up that process by focusing and using tricks, but not by that much.  With the blight resistant types which were trialled a couple of years ago, there were GM versions (only the gene desired was transferred) and non-GM versions (as these still have lots of genes from the wild species they are still a little mixed-up and barely useful as serious potato varieties).  Do we really want to handcuff ourselves in this way?  If so, why?!!  Just because we are frightened of something we don't understand properly, and have had that concern amplified by scare-mongers?!

Licence fees: well, yes, probably, but if someone has bred something significantly better, and paid the huge costs associated with the highly complex safety testing now required for GMs, then isn't there a reason for that?  No-one is forced to grow any one variety, you just choose the one that has the advantages you seek and if you don't like the price, don't buy.  Same thing with F1 hybrid seed.

And as for genies being out of bottles, well, if you fear some grand catastrophe I can see the concern.  But these are just essentially domesticated crops, and domesticated crops are not good at surviving on their own.  But what grand catastrophe?!

bye for now

Gavin

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## gavin

> There is a way to fertilize the ground in a perfectly sustainable way, driven by solar power and without any nasty by-products: let the legumes do it for you! Actually, there's a very pleasant by-product: honey from the flowers! By growing clover you feed the bees while you feed the soil. That's what organic farming is all about, it's a lot more than a .


I'm as enthusiastic about using legumes for sustainable soil fertility improvement as anyone, honest.  To me though, this is classic sustainable farming, not something specifically 'organic'.

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## Stromnessbees

> Do we really want to handcuff ourselves in this way?  If so, why?!!


So how far do you/we want to go? Just transfer genes between different types of potatoes?
... or transfer genes between other types of plants and potatoes
... or transfer animal genes into plants?
... or human genes into animals and plants, and the other way round?

Maybe it's all a futile discussion that we in Europe are carrying on with, while the rest of the world is just going to do it anyway.


Re. organic/conventional farming:




> I'm as enthusiastic about using legumes for sustainable soil fertility  improvement as anyone, honest.  To me though, this is classic  sustainable farming, not something specifically 'organic'.


Unfortunately this classic sustainable way is hardly practised amongst conventional farmers anymore. Do you really know a farmer who is not organic and doesn't apply NPK fertilizers?  Yes, the certification process is expensive and bureaucratic, but it's the only way for a consumer to find out what has been grown sustainably. If a product is not labelled organic you can be quite sure that it has had a number of applications of fertilizers, weedkillers, fungizides etc.




> a sometimes strange set of rules to satisfy a certification authority


So which are the the rules in organic farming which you find strange? Maybe I can clarify.
(here the link to the Soil Association Certification Standards again: http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkC...w%3d&tabid=353)

Doris

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## gavin

Hi Doris

How far should we go?  Not an easy one.  The example I gave is quite easy of course, what reasonable person could object to something you can do 'naturally' if inefficiently and too slowly for the problems facing us?!  At the other extreme, I sat in a conference room in Delhi about 18 months ago with my jaw dropping more and more towards the floor as I listened to a local scientist describing work putting a bovine gene into potato, in India of all places.  It was almost as if he *wanted* to rouse the public against the technology, but it was clear that it was simply an example of a naive scientist pushing ahead thinking that 'his' technology was going to do good and the possible public response just didn't feature on his radar at all.

Should we be putting animal genes into plants?  For now, I think not.  We need to have a proper debate on such things about what the limits should be, and when, why and on what scale to go that bit further.  But given that our domesticated plants (and animals for that matter) are all now monstrous deviations from what their wild relatives were, simply by selection by man, I wouldn't set an absolute barrier there that couldn't be crossed - but it doesn't seem sensible or desirable to go there now.  I also don't see how we can have that debate when everything has become so polarised.  

Try this abstract for some perspective on gene transfer as a process:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture01743.html

There is a lot more out there that suggests that gene transfer isn't quite the novel thing most people seem to believe.

Sustainable farming has to move towards reducing inputs of fertiliser and other treatments.  But to feed the growing population mainstream farming needs to move in that direction while maintaining and even improving production by a pragmatic approach.  Being too dogmatic brings dangers of its own, and it really worries me to see that the SA often has a voice in government these days.  I was at a bee research meeting in London last summer, and a SA representative was there - a nice and well-meaning young lady but totally out of her depth, and who really didn't understand beekeeping problems.  I think that she may have had a hand in that appalling anti-pesticide briefing paper that the SA released to accompany their call to ban neonicotinoids (I'll post a copy if I can find it).  They made a second edition with fewer mistakes, but it still wasn't right and seemed like a blatant attempt to use beekeeping problems to further their own agenda of forcing pesticides out of UK agriculture.  No doubt the ends seemed to justify the means in their eyes, but it a dangerous route to go down as once you've been found out you lose a lot of credibility.

You asked me to comment on the SA certification rules.  OK, compare the issue of neighbours being conventional or GM.  In the case of a neighbouring farm, a windbreak separating his/her field from yours is OK.  The pragmatic approach.  It isn't anything like water-tight as spray will drift over, around and through the windbreak and you *will* have some pesticide contamination in your otherwise pure organic product.  There will also be that 'diffuse pollution' that gets everywhere.  I'm happy to accept that the organic farm will be producing products with a lot less in the way of traces of pesticides, but I'll bet that you could identify them if you wanted to. I think that people have.

What about GM?  The various rules about GM seem silly to me.  Here the assumption seems to be that this is an evil abomination and the more complex and difficult it becomes to meet the rules become, the better.  If in the process, by chance, you end up applying pressure stop any kind of GM growing over wide areas by farmers who would like to give the new technology a shot, too bad (or perhaps, if you are a SA supporter, good).  

Is this appropriate and balanced when places like America are happily eating GM maize and soybeans on a large scale?

3.6.7
You must not use fertilisers, composts or manure or other nutrient inputs
containing GMOs or their derivatives. This includes:
• manure from animals that have eaten feed containing GMOs or their
derivatives within the previous three months, and
• manure from non-organic grazing animals that have eaten feed containing
GMOs or their derivatives within the previous three months.

Three months?!  Or this?

3.6.14
You must not use veterinary and health care products containing GMOs
or their derivatives. This includes the use of medicines, hormones, vaccines,
bacterial products, amino acids and parasiticides.
3.6.15
If there is no alternative but to use a GM derived veterinary product, you
must treat the animal. If you do not treat a sick animal we may withdraw ...

So it is accepted that medicines can be made via GM routes but in the case of veterinary medicines if that is all there is you *must* use it, then you can come back to being organic afterwards.  Pragmatism hits dogmatism big time.  Now that we've established that GM is just an evil thing that has to be excluded at all costs (except when the organic farmer needs it him/herself) what about diabetics using insulin.  Are you allowed to employ them?  Are you allowed to be an SA-certified farmer if you are yourself dependent on insulin?

I also found 3.6.20 rather interesting. 'The wind may carry GM pollen much more than six miles, but this has been taken as a reasonable and practical cut-off point to identify potential contamination.'   Hmmnnn, right.  What GM contamination are you expecting to find from a GM potato crop over that windbreak that is keeping out the pesticide sprays?  

I have to say that the nanoparticle section after the GM one was equally ... well ... interesting and well worth a read!  'There are many cases of naturally occurring nanoparticles, for example from volcanic eruptions or in wood smoke; these fall outside the scope of this standard.'  Just as well, eh?  Organic farming in the UK would be in crisis.  :-)

I now have visions of the heir to the throne turning up at SA committee meetings to offer his advice on what to tackle next.

Before I stop this ramble, I should say that, OK, there is a lot that is good and wholesome in the SA document.  By all means use it as a bible to make your food production wholesome and more sustainable than it may otherwise be.  Feel free too to use it as a marketing tool to tell your customers about the care you take in ensuring excellent food production practices.  But for me it is still dogmatic, and we should be wary of dogma when considering how to feed the planet.

best wishes

Gavin

PS  I'm absolutely certain that I'm speaking neither for the SBA membership not the SBA Executive ... and perhaps I should add that I'm not speaking for my employer either.  Eric seems to believe that because I am broadly supportive of technologies he doesn't like then I must be in the pocket of agro-industry, but that isn't the case either.

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