Why now for a Long Food Movement? What's the controversy over tech in food systems anyway? And how can social movements possibly alter the course of "agribusiness-as-usual" by 2045?

To mark the launch of the Long Food Movement report, we asked lead author Pat Mooney (ETC Group and IPES-Food) for his take on who the real stakeholders are when it comes to the world's food security.

This report calls for a ‘Long Food Movement’. But why are our food systems in need of such a radical overhaul?

New scientific publication shows the need for detailed investigation of ecological risks

30 March 2021 / A new scientific publication in the Environmental Sciences Europe journal provides an overview of the unwanted effects the release of genome-edited plants can have on ecosystems. These result from the intended properties induced by genome editing and can contribute to various metabolic processes. The publication is based on Project Genetic Engineering and the Environment (FGU) findings, and is one of the first worldwide to focus on ecological risks associated with specific CRISPR/Cas plant applications.

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has released a new report in collaboration with the ETC Group: 'A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045'.

We map out two very different futures for food systems, people and the planet. First, what do the next 25 years have in store under “agribusiness-as-usual”? The keys of the food system are handed over to data platforms, private equity firms, and e-commerce giants, putting the food security of billions at the mercy of high-risk, AI-controlled farming systems, and accelerating environmental breakdown.

BRUSSELS, 30 MARCH 2021 – Today, a large coalition of 162 civil society, farmers and business organisations calls on Vice President of the Commission Timmermans to ensure all organisms derived from new genetic engineering techniques continue to be regulated in accordance with existing EU GMO standards – upholding the precautionary principle, safeguarding a high level of protection and the right of farmers and consumers to choose what they plant and eat.

The call comes as the Commission is expected to present its views on the future regulation of “new genomic techniques” at the end of April, based on an in-house study mandated by the EU Council of Ministers. Since the European Court of Justice ruled in 2018 that organisms obtained with new genetic modification techniques must be regulated under the EU’s existing GMO laws, there has been intense lobbying from the agriculture biotech industry to weaken the legislation.

Political pressure aimed at deregulating the new generation of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) has been mounting in the EU since 2018 - when the European Court of Justice ruled that these new techniques still fall under the current framework dealing with genetic-engineering products.

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A new investigation by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), published on Monday (29 March), has uncovered how fresh lobbying strategies aimed at deregulating modern genetic techniques are driven by various academic and biotech research institutes with corporate interests - using 'climate-friendly' narratives.

Nina Holland, a researcher at CEO warned: "We should be extremely wary of the biotech industry's attempts to hype genome editing products as 'green' and 'climate-friendly'."

CRISPR-Files expose lobbying tactics to deregulate new GMOs

With the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Von der Leyen Commission has committed to a fundamental shift away from industrial agriculture as we know it today. With a 50 per cent pesticide reduction target, and a 25 per cent organic agriculture target by 2030, business as usual is no longer an option. This creates an existential crisis for those corporations that are dominant both in the pesticide and in the commercial seed market, notably Bayer, BASF, Corteva (DowDupont) and Syngenta (ChemChina).

African food sovereignty movement's victory over, and continued resistance against, the biotech industry

Despite two decades of biotech industry-backed lobbying, funding, relentless propaganda and backroom deals, supported by neo-colonial philanthropy-capitalists, such as Bill Gates; this machinery has very little to show. Only 2.9 million hectares of genetically modified (GM) crops are being grown on the continent, of which 93% is in South Africa, and then too, only in respect of maize, soyabeans and cotton.

Conclusions

SDN-1 and SDN-2 applications of CRISPR/Cas induce small-sized changes of the DNA sequence such as small insertions or point mutations at targeted genomic regions. These alterations are often considered comparable to naturally occurring genetic variants in crops. However, many genome-edited plants contain traits or complex genetic combinations that so far have not been established using conventional approaches and must be considered novel. This novel genetic variability can cause unwanted effects in the plants during their development or under stress conditions, and potentially disturb signalling pathways and ultimately plant-environmental interactions in case of a release.

Several countries have started issuing genetically modified (GM)-free certificates for imported food crop consignments, after initial resistance to India’s regulation seeking such certificates that became effective on 1 March.

The US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan, among other countries, had raised objections to the regulation, contending that it would create a trade barrier and add to the cost borne by exporters.

On 21 August 2020, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued an order requiring a “non-GM origin and GM-free certificate", issued by the competent national authority of the exporting country, to accompany all imports of 24 listed food products to India, to become effective beginning 1 January. The date was later revised to 1 March.

NEW DELHI: Bowing to the pressure of RSS-linked farm outfit Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and heeding to the unwillingness of some states, the Centre has junked its decision of allowing scientific field trials of transgenic crops including indigenously developed Bt brinjal.