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Glyphosate ECI — Fake News

This is a follow-up post to one I made a few weeks ago.

Fake News

Fake news is on people’s minds at the moment.  It’s a very powerful tool for controlling public opinion and manipulating politics.  It’s been around for a long time now, only people are just starting to see it for what it is and it’s becoming less effective.  Social media platforms like Facebook have recently been criticized for spreading fake news, especially during the recent election campaign in the US, where some people blamed it for influencing the outcome and unfairly favoring Donald Trump.

Glyphosate European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer Round-Up, is a disgusting chemical.  There’s no doubt about this.  Of course it should be banned.  The root of the problem however is not a single product that we all hate so much, but the entire industrial food industry, who develops, markets and uses a chemical like this.

The issue at stake is the ability to patent glyphosate.  It has now been on the market for 43 years, and the patents have all expired.  It’s not profitable to sell any more, and no one is using similar but more profitable products, because glyphosate is too cheap and is widely sold as a generic product.  It’s simply time to ban glyphosate, like traditional light bulbs and square TV screens, so the food industry can make more money by selling expensive alternatives.

Bayer already has a patent on a very similar product, called glufosinate, and there are many other products in the development pipeline.

The other part of this ECI, that the process of approving chemicals like this should be reformed, has no political meaning.  To reform something might be a good thing, it might make matters worse and it might mean nothing at all.  It’s just not something tangible like ban glyphosate is.  Since there are no known independent groups, that might be able to stand up to the food industry and lobby for a positive outcome, it’s reasonable to assume a reform process like this could make matters much worse.

To support this campaign, and this ECI, is simply to support the food industry.

Good Side?

There are a number of risks associated with running an ECI.  The most obvious is that you may get far fewer signatures than expected, making your cause look like it doesn’t have much support.  There are also several other risks.  I was involved in discussions on a possible ECI, so I have some experience with this.

ECI’s are very expensive to run.  In general the advice is that it may cost as much as €1 per signature, so by starting an ECI you are pretty much committing to spending €1,000,000.  This however is assuming things go well, and you are sponsoring a fairly popular initiative.  If you are struggling to get signatures, you may have to spend a lot more money for a positive outcome.  For example, if you have to pay a student legal minimum wage to collect signatures, you may have to pay €10-25 per signature, or more.

An ECI is a 1 year process, and cannot be stopped.  You simply have to see it to the end.  It’s very possible you get in the middle of it, and find yourself having to throw good money after bad, in order to avoid an embarrassing outcome.

It’s reasonable to assume the food industry will pay whatever they need to to get this passed, and a lot of money will be spent in the process.  No independent organization, with good intentions, has this much money to spend on something like this.

Keep an eye on how the money is spent.  For example, there are openings now advertised on the internet for country managers in Romania and France.  Think about who is spending that money, and why.

Infiltration

If you support an activist organization, who is promoting this ECI, you should ask yourself what’s going on.  You should ask them why they are supporting industrial agriculture, and think about the answer they give you.

Most environmental and activist organizations receive large financial support from corporations, or the worlds wealthy families, and as a result try to promote their interests.  Maybe these are causes you don’t need to support any more?

Have a look at the ECI page on the Internet, and all the organizations who have let their logo be used for promoting it.  At the very least these organizations were very careless, and at worst there are bad intentions.  If you know these organizations, talk to them and find out the reason.

Above all else, talk with others.  Talk with the people gathering the signatures and their organizations.  Explain the situation to others who might give their signature.  Talk about where the money is, and why it is being spent.

Together we can stop fake news in activist causes, and we can put pressure on activist organizations to support our causes, instead of telling us what to believe and support.

update: 12 march

Analysis of the Text

Subject-matter: We call on the European Commission to propose to member states a ban on glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use.

Main objectives: Ban glyphosate-based herbicides, exposure to which has been linked to cancer in humans, and has led to ecosystems degradation; ensure that the scientific evaluation of pesticides for EU regulatory approval is based only on published studies, which are commissioned by competent public authorities instead of the pesticide industry; set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use, with a view to achieving a pesticide-free future.
  • “mandatory reduction targets” A target is an approximation.  A mandatory approximation?  This won’t have much meaning in practice.  If these mandatory approximations are EU-wide, even estimating them will be a big challenge, and local authorities may not have the authority to enforce them.
  • Banning one herbicide by name, glyphosate, will not benefit anyone.  There are many others with other names, both on the market and under development.
  • “approval is based only on published studies” This means taking into account public opinion is explicitly ruled out.  Also unpublished studies will not be considered, for example when the manufacturer or patent holder refuses to give permission for a study to be published.  Published studies nearly always reflect the wishes of the company that pays for them, which in this case will be the one seeking the approval for marketing the pesticide.
  • “competent public authorities” In the era of privatization and industry self-regulation, these are controlled by the food industry.
  • There is no pesticide industry. Pesticides are sold together with seeds, and are part of the food industry.  Barring the pesticide industry from participating doesn’t accomplish anything.
  • “a view to achieving a pesticide-free future” This is like a view to achieving a future free of nuclear weapons.  We certainly all hope it happens, but the chances are pretty small.  This statement has no political meaning.
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The BBC and their Fake News Problem

I’m probably one of those people Donald Trump referred to recently as ‘Obama’s People’.  I don’t work for Obama, am not any sort of henchman, don’t know him personally, don’t have anything to do with him except I broadly supported his term in office, and certainly don’t like anything about Trump.

I don’t know what the BBC was thinking when, referring to this comment by Trump, they proudly proclaimed in a headline “…Trump Blames Obama for Protests and Security Leaks“.  In fact Trump was blaming ‘Obama’s People’, and probably not Obama himself or his henchmen.  Is this a mistake?  The BBC’s lack of understanding of Americanisms?  Fake news?

In the context of the BBC recently being excluded from a presidential news conference, this almost looks like an attack on Trump.  The idea of excluding the BBC or any major news organization in this way is unconscionable, but this headline makes the BBC look very clumsy, even like they are trying to fabricate news.

Over the last month or so, the BBC has launched an attack on fake news.  This is not only on it’s headline news service, but for example visiting classrooms and talking with children about things like an old newspaper article proclaiming the arrival of UFOs.  The BBC has not only themselves declared something of a war on fake news, they’ve taken it upon themselves to define what exactly fake news is.  Their overriding message is trust major news outlets like the BBC, and trust peer reviewed scientific research.  Be suspicious of everything else!

As a blogger, I really find all of this, and all of it’s inherent contradictions, completely unacceptable.  For all intents and purposes, there are no independent scientists in the world any more.  All peer reviewed scientific research has sponsorship, and someone is paying for a particular focus and specific outcomes.  If a study doesn’t have a desired outcome, it can be discarded, modified or ignored.

For a few years now, the BBC accepts ’embedded advertising’.  In plain and simple terms, this means the BBC accepts payment to write specific items, even what some of us might call ‘fake news’.  These are stories no ad blocker can save you from, and usually there’s no disclaimer to warn you.  Just like banner advertising, these fake news items are mixed in with real items, to make it as hard as possible for readers to tell the difference.

In many ways this has been a major aspect of this blog, not creating fake news, but rather spotting it in main stream press, and identifying it.  One of the main sources of fake news is the food industry, and the BBC has always been one of my favorite places to look for it.

It’s always been a focus of mine, to avoid posting any information I thought was wrong or misleading.  Bloggers are sometimes euphemistically referred to as pajama journalists, sometimes in a derogatory way, like we are unprofessional people you can’t trust.  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have the resources or commitment professional journalists have.  At the same time, I think, as a whole, you are less likely to find fake news on blogs than you are on major news sites.  You need to of course make use of webs of trust, and pick and choose your blogs carefully.

An interesting thing has also been happening.  Since I started blogging, the public has on it’s own become more aware of fake news.  Almost so much so, there’s less reason for me to be so active.

So let’s consider a recent article on the BBC, Swedish mum’s battle against sugar goes viral.  First, the reason this was supposedly viral was a few thousand likes on Facebook, not really viral in my opinion.  Secondly, the core reason why this mother seemed to be against sugar, was in connection with her child’s behavior.  The BBC was very quick to point out that no scientific and peer reviewed connection has been made between children’s behavior and sugar.  The BBC then went on to make a number of claims themselves, some sort of vaguely citing research, and others making their own assertions.

I think for most people like me, ordinary sugar is a normal part of our diet.  It is a minimally refined product, mostly coming pretty directly from sugar cane or sugar beet.  It is a hunger suppressant, can help people eat less and avoid weight gain.  It’s been around for a long time, longer in fact than many diseases like diabetes and obesity have been major health concerns.

On the other hand, many of us find reason to be suspicious of newer formulated sugars like those found in processed foods, or sugar substitutes like aspartame.  Many of these have a different effect on hunger, some seemingly stimulate hunger and cause us to gain weight.  The introduction of some of these on the market, notably aspartame and high fructose corn syrup, seem to coincide with the obesity and diabetes epidemics we have now.  Many of us also do not feel scientific research on these products have been taken seriously, often being incomplete or ignored.

There also seem to be strong commercial issues behind this topic.  Sugar has been around a long time now, and is no longer covered by patents.  It’s not commercially interesting any more.  The food industry would like to sell us more profitable alternatives.

Is there some reason the BBC is suddenly so concerned with our health?  Could it be the BBC is generating their own news?  Was the BBC paid to write articles like this?  Is this fake news?

I think the BBC needs to get it’s act together, and address it’s own contradictions.

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No Patents on Seeds

To be clear, I’m against patents on seeds and all other forms of life.  At the same time, I’m against the goals of the campaign called No Patents on Seeds.

All Seeds

The website of this campaign makes it appear as though they are against all forms of patents.  The petition they are asking people to sign, also appears to oppose all patents on life.  Privately however, they are lobbying for an end to patents only on conventionally bred seeds, arguing this is a necessary starting point.

Note that nothing on the website, not the petition or their statements, exclude the possibility of them lobbying solely for the removal of patents on conventionally bred plants.  It all comes down to trusting or not trusting the people behind the campaign.

If GMOs are excluded from this campaign, as it appears now, this will mean GMOs have an enormous marketing advantage over traditionally bred plants.  This will be a much worse situation than what we have now.

An Error in Implementation

Patents on seeds were more or less forced on the seed industry from the pharmaceutical industry, who wanted to ensure their inventions were fully patentable.  This came about by way of more or less secret negotiations between the EU and US, in a similar way TTIP and other trade agreements have been arranged.

In a similar way, the EU patent office was created.  The EU patent office has more or less diplomatic status.  Technically speaking, even police are not allowed to enter the building uninvited, and it exists outside of EU law, almost like a foreign embassy.  The reason for this was to insure there could be no ‘political interference’ in the issuing of patents.

As it turns out, there was a mistake in the implementation of seed patents, and conventionally bred plants were accidentally included.  What happened was they did exclude seeds resulting from conventional breeding, but forgot to exclude the resulting products grown from the seeds.  Now the seed industry itself is caught in the middle of this legal construction that was intended to prevent any changes to the operation of the EU patent office.

Plant Breeding

Plant breeders everywhere depend on the free exchange of genetic materials.  Here in the Netherlands are a number of companies involved in industrial plant breeding, and they all more or less freely exchange genetic resources with one another.  Independent plant breeders also usually exchange material.

As soon as patents are allowed on conventional breeding, determining exactly what’s patented, and who owns the patents, becomes almost impossible.  This is an enormous problem for the seed industry.  It’s also an enormous problem for independent plant breeders, but given the problems for the seed industry are more serious, I think we should accept this for the time being.

Industry Lobby Efforts

The campaign No Patents on Seeds was started in the Netherlands by Bionext, the lobby organ for industrial organic food, and is supported by the non-organic industrial food sector as well.  There are intense lobby efforts by these groups in Brussels now, but only concerning conventionally bred seeds.

If you support this campaign, you are supporting the lobby efforts of the food industry.

Webs of Trust

One of the issues here is who do you trust.  Since by reading this, you know this campaign is flawed, it’s really a good idea to familiarize yourself with the organizations behind it.  The people and organizations who signed the petition are not necessarily bad, as the petition itself is not all that bad.  The organizations that are putting themselves forward for the purpose of misrepresenting the intentions of the petition are the ones to be concerned with.

The food movement in general does not need these blurring of lines between the food industry and activist movements.

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Spam, Salt, Sugar, Spam, Spam, Fat and Spam

The Netherlands is a tiny country, but even still is the worlds second largest exporter of food.  Chances are, if you eat a tasteless tomato, cucumber or gouda cheese, that’s been imported, it’s probably from here.

When the WRR issues a report [in Dutch], a think tank which advises the government on food policy, the chances are good the consequences of this will be heard around the world.

The report goes into some detail on how production of meat and dairy are bad for the environment.  Basically the problem is the animal feed here is based largely on GMO soy imported from Latin America, at great expense to the environment and livelihoods of people there.  It’s then fed to the farm animals here, which live in factory farms and poop it out.   It’s then spread all over the country, which contaminates pretty much everything.

Many farmers are extremely unhappy, because there are actually EU rules on how much animal waste can be disposed of in this way, and they are regularly at or over these limits in the Netherlands.  These rules make it much more expensive for the farmers, because they have to export the waste to other countries.

As well as polluting the environment, diets based on this food are making people fat and causing health problems all over the world.  This type of food production is also one of the major contributors to global warming.

After a reasonably good general analysis of the problem, the report advises the Dutch government to use their influence around the world to oblige people to eat less dairy, meat, sugar, salt and ‘bad’ fats.

Where did the sugar, salt and fat come from?  As far as this report is concerned, it seems to have come out of the blue.  The report has a number of citations for different things, but nothing that seems to lead to any credible justification for this.  It just is, because, well they are a think tank and so must be awesome.

Of course trying to eat less salt, sugar and ‘bad’ fat, can only lead you to more industrial processed foods.  It’s no problem to make processed foods without these ingredients.  It may really taste bad, but when you make foods in a laboratory or factory, you can make it any way you want.  Small farmers on the other hand, depend on these ingredients.

Nothing in this report suggests people should eat more locally or naturally produced food.  Could it be that the people’s message, demanding higher quality and sustainable food, is being spammed by governments and the food industry?

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Sugar, Salt, Saturated Fat and the War Against Small Farmers

It’s in the news again.  The three evil foods; salt, sugar and saturated fat.  As if these were really foods in the first place.   We all know we are supposed to be distracted from caring about the quality of our foods, if it’s natural and if it comes from a trustworthy place, by focusing on the ingredient label for a look at it’s component parts.  The reason of course is that food companies don’t want to fundamentally change the way they produce food, to make it more natural or healthy.  Processing food a different way is however no problem, and generating consumer demand based on the ingredient list means they can just keep making small changes to their formulas, and make more processed foods to meet these demands.

A few months ago the EFSA declared aspartame safe, the chemical name for the NutraSweet sweetener.  A few minutes searching on Google will show all manner of scientific studies (like a recent one in Italy that proved it can cause cancer) or that it’s approval in the US was seriously procedurally flawed and was never proven safe, or places like New Mexico and Hawaii that have also proposed bans.  There are numerous people on the Internet complaining of serious medical problems linked to it’s consumption.  The EFSA however could find no evidence that it was unhealthy.

Aspartame is also a product of genetic engineering.  It’s not itself genetically engineered, but it’s produced with genetically engineered micro-organisms.

And the reason why sugar, salt and saturated fat are all unhealthy?  Yes, anyone??  Any credible scientific studies or even a reasonable explanation?  I personally have not seen any.

Now however, our attention is on salt, sugar and saturated fat.  One of the recent people to declare these ingredients bad was Oliver de Schutter in a recent report to the UN.  Worse than tobacco he says!  Until recently, de Schutter was one of the loudest proponents for small farmers, but if he wanted to pick three ingredients to more directly attack small farmers could he have done better?

Saturated Fat:  This is in almost all unprocessed animal products.  It’s more or less a naturally occurring byproduct of the meat and dairy industry.  It’s only by processing the dairy or meat in ways not normally done by small farmers that this is removed.  ‘Tropical oils’, like coconut and palm kernel oils are the only other major source of saturated fats, and these are a pretty small part of most people’s diets.

Not only is there not a lot of proof saturated fat is linked to health issues, but you will really only find it in unprocessed meat and dairy products, like would be produced by a small farmer.

Salt:  This or sugar are used in almost all traditional processing of food.  All pickled or fermented products (like sauerkraut), most cured meats and almost all cheese, require salt in their processing.  Other foods, like breads or potatoes, depend on salt for flavor.

Sugar:  If anything, modest consumption of sugar may be important for health.  For example, it’s known as an appetite suppressant.  For traditionally and naturally processed foods like jams or jellies, not using enough sugar can result in a runnier product with a shorter shelf life.

To declare these ingredients bad is to attack small farmers, plain and simple.  If you don’t eat salt, sugar and saturated fat, that means eating mass produced industrial foods.

Use your common sense.  Is aspartame healthier for you than sugar?!  We need to simply reject this sort of argument for our food, and punish any politicians who support it.  If overwhelming evidence that the safety of aspartame is uncertain is not enough, then empty claims over sugar, salt and saturated fat are not enough either.

One example of this manipulation at my local supermarket is with potato chips.  We are all supposed to think potato chips are bad, because they are salty and well just junk.  Right?  Actually, they are just fried potatoes.  Certainly you can buy better or worse brands, and better or worse potatoes can be used, but the principle is not a bad one.  During times when salt is supposed to be bad, my supermarket changes the formula on the house brand and increases the salt to make them almost inedible.  In this way, people who eat them in a normal way are supposed to find them too salty and look for something ‘healthier’ to eat.

In hindsight, I remember this going on in the US when I was growing up, and one of the reasons most Americans think of potato chips as a ‘bad’ food.

It’s time to return potato chips to something made by people we trust, that don’t manipulate the salt levels.

No more attacks on small farmers.  No more rules for school lunches that force kids to eat processed and mass produced foods.  No more reasons that kids (or anyone else) should be encouraged to eat dangerous chemicals like aspartame.