EU APPROVES MONSANTO, BAYER GENETICALLY MODIFIED SOYABEANS

Business Recorder, July 24th 2016

CHICAGO: The European Commission on Friday approved imports of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready 2 Xtend genetically modified soyabean variety, after months of delays that had derailed the US seed giant’s product launch this spring.

The decision now clears the way for widespread planting next season and removes a hurdle for North American farmers and grain traders, who have to keep close track of unapproved biotech traits that can disrupt trade. Top importer China approved the soyabeans earlier this year.

US grain trader and processor Archer Daniels Midland Co told Reuters on Friday its elevators and processing plants will now accept the Xtend soyabean variety. Rivals Cargill Inc, Bunge Ltd and CHS Inc, which had also refused to accept the variety without EU import approval, could not be immediately reached for comment.

The EU is the second largest importer of soyabeans and its approval is not expected to have a major impact on merger talks by German suitor Bayer AG, whose sweetened $64-billion buyout offer of Monsanto was rejected last week, as it had been widely anticipated, analysts said on Friday.

“It would have been a big deal if it hadn’t been approved, but this was the expected outcome, although it took longer than anyone thought,” said Bernstein analyst Jonas Oxgaard.

Still, the approval marks a key victory for Monsanto in the wake of months of regulatory delays over this launch, and swirling controversy over whether glyphosate, the chemical in its popular Roundup herbicide, is carcinogenic.

Monsanto expects Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soyabeans, designed to tolerate applications of glyphosate and dicamba weed killers, to be planted on 15 million acres next spring and 55 million acres by 2019. The company is still waiting the US Environmental Protection Agency to approve dicamba use on crops.

The European Commission also approved a Bayer CropScience soyabean variety. The EU executive branch took action after EU member states failed to reach an agreement on whether to licence them.

The approval will allow these GMO soyabeans to be used in food or animal feed, but not for planting within the EU.

“Any products produced from these GMOs will be subject to the EU’s strict labelling and traceability rules,” the European Commission said in a statement.

The EU imports tens of million tonnes of GMO crops and products every year for use in animal feed.

The authorisations, which cover Monsanto’s soyabean MON 87708 x MON 89788 and soyabean MON 87705 x MON 89788 and soyabean FG 72 of Bayer’s CropScience division, will be valid for 10 years.

Monsanto shares were little changed on Friday at $106.07.—Reuters

http://epaper.brecorder.com/2016/07/24/15-page/778956-news.html

FARMERS PROTEST LAND ACQUISITION FOR INDUSTRIAL ESTATE

Dawn, July 21st, 2016

GUJRAT: Scores of farmers and landowners from different villages along the Gujrat-Sargodha road on Wednesday staged a demonstration in front of the district government complex against a proposal to acquire land for the establishment of phase II of the industrial estate area.

At least 480 acres of agricultural land between Saroki and Sheikh Sukha along Sargodha Road have been earmarked by the local land revenue department and approved by stakeholders, including the Punjab Small Industries Estate Department and local business community.

A large number of people from Jhandewal, Mund, Dhudra and Sheikh Sukha — the villages to be affected due to the proposed land acquisition — gathered at the district government and staged a demonstration.

The protesters demanded the authorities select another site since the proposed site comprised rich fertile land, which should be spared for agricultural purposes only.

Later, representatives of the protesters met with District Coordination Officer (DCO) Liaquat Ali Chattha and local PML-N MPA Haji Imran Zafar to convey apprehensions of the villagers over the project.

They asked the district government to shift the project to the other side of Sargodha Road where at least 200 acres of government land was also available, which they claimed had been occupied by some influentials.

They project could also be shifted to the previously proposed site along Gujrat-Bhimbher road where a huge chunk of barren land owned by the provincial government was available, they suggested.

The DCO told them that at least 400 acres were required for the project, which was why the southern side of Sargodha road was not an option.

Both the DCO and the MPA asked the protesters to render this sacrifice for the uplift of the country as well as economic growth of Gujrat.

They also sought suggestions from landowners if the matter could be resolved by enhancing the price of land or sparing a part of affected villages.

The protesters dispersed peacefully when the DCO assured them of visiting the proposed site with them on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the district government in consultation with officials of the Gujrat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GTCCI) proposed that phase 2 of the planned industrial estate be named Chenab Industrial Estate Area of Gujrat.

This was decided in a meeting held at the district government complex presided over by DCO Chattha with GTCCI President Mian Muhammad Ijaz leading a delegation of local industrialists.

The meeting was told that officials of the Punjab Small Industries Estate Department had also declared the proposed 480 acres feasible for the project, which would be linked with the GT Road by a 120-foot wide dual carriage way.

The DCO said following completion of the initial procedural work, a formal summary was being prepared for approval of the chief minister, which would be followed by the issuance of a notification of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act so that the district Land Revenue Department could acquire the land.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1272151/farmers-protest-land-acquisition-for-industrial-estate

Climate Change Impacts: From the Farmlands to Squatter Settlements.

Azra Talat Sayeed, Roots for Equity

July 13, 2016

In Pakistan, the word climate change-related disasters are generally related to upheaval of rural communities, especially riverine communities. However, what has happened today in a squatter settlement of Guslhan-e-Iqbal, Karachi belies this belief. National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on July 10, issued a warning about the “weather in Karachi and Coastal Areas of Sindh.” Though the warning did not state what kind of ‘weather’ the citizens of Karachi were to expect, the result was that officers from District Commissioner offices were demanding squatter settlement communities living along sewerage flows/water canals to evacuate the area. Today (July 13, 2016) a number of senior official with police escort came to this particular squatter settlement (generally known as kacchi abadi) living under bridge that is passing under the Northern Bypass Bridge on Rashid Minhas Road in District East, Karachi, near Moti Mahal and just a stone’s throwaway from the very recently opened Imtiaz Super Store.

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The police destroyed a temporary abode of a family that was in front of a major sewerage pipeline and other squatters (after much pleading) were given three hours to evacuate – they were threatened that the police and District East officials would return at 6:30 pm and at that time if the squatters were still there, their belongings would be bulldozed and they would be forcefully evacuated. The families were forced to pack their very meager belongings – the women, a majority of whom were domestic servants in the homes around the abadi running in every which direction searching for a shelter for their children at least for the night; a woman among them worried about keeping her children’s school books in a safe place; another on her way to storing her sewing machine and her daughter’s trousseau in her malikan’s (employer) home if she would allow her to do!

No doubt, the evacuation being demanded was fair and in preparation of possible flooding of the sewerage canals and the small stream highly polluted with very toxic-looking effluent flowing through it. However, the abusive behavior and show of force was not at all needed. But the hallmark of authority in Pakistan is of course first verbal abuse, and if need be, physical abuse.

However, our focus is not only on the atrocious behavior of our so called government servants, who are paid to serve us, the people of this city; The question is that why are so many people living in kachi abaids. Why have these families living in such inhuman, abysmal conditions? Where did the y come?

Almost every family in this abadi is a rural migrant from the Rahimyar Khan District in Punjab having migrated to Karachi in search of work. Most of them are landless agriculture workers who due to very poor enumeration of their work end up in Karachi. According to the women in the abadi, hardly anybody has any land. Of the 20 families, 2 families have just one or two canals (1 acre has 8 canals). Ghafurra, a domestic worker explained that even when families work as agricultural workers, they get paid seasonally. So, no doubt there is wheat stored at home but there is nothing else to eat apart from roti. According to her “there is no money to buy vegetables or any other stuff for food till the next season.”

 After wheat harvest, the next crop would be cotton picking which would be six months away. Sugar cane stands for 12 months so this crop only provides mazdoori (labor) once a year. One family has just come to this settlement– about 15-20 days ago, they had sown moong dal (lentils), which got washed away with the current floods. This family is suffering from hunger.  We asked the families if they have such shortage of cash how do they find the money to travel from Rahimyar Khan to Karachi? One family had sold their donkey to pay for the travel expenses.

Others sell stored wheat that they have earned during the wheat harvest. It was also explained that daily expenses are also met by selling small quantities of wheat during the ‘no work’ season.  This is the basic reason that these families come to Karachi in search of whatever work they can find. One woman who has recently come to Karachi has been telling the families here that they are lucky to have cooked meals every day. According to her “we only subsist on roti – even vegetables are hard to access as they cost money.”

Even in the extremely abysmal conditions of this community, it is important to point out that the patriarchy is rife and the burden of providing for the families, particularly the children is with the women. Almost all of them are working as domestic servants, therefore basically living a life of toil and abuse hour by hour. It was clear that the food in this abadi of which a recent rural migrant was so envious of, is dumped food from the homes where these women spend their day cooking, cleaning and washing.

A woman told us that even when the police was in their area threatening to throw away their things, her husband was on his way to Rahimyar Khan, for some family business; she had entreated him not to go at least till this issue was settled but to no avail. She has seven children whom she is putting through schooling by working almost 10 hours a day – backbreaking work of sweeping and mopping at least 4-5 homes daily. She told us “a small room which would include a kitchen and the washroom would have to paid Rs 6,000 in rent per month. Where would I pay for the rent?” For two hours of work daily she gets paid Rs 3,500 in one home – and in the whole month is only able to earn no more than Rs 14,000. If she pays Rs 6,000 for rent how would she pay for the family’s food, schooling, other expenses? Another woman is living with her daughters. Her husband has divorced her because she had given birth to only to daughters. So each woman has a story to tell. Each story has its root in the oppressive systems of feudalism, capitalism and patriarchy.

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The living conditions of the kachi abadi are beyond belief. The Karachi municipality has not been recycling garbage for the past months and a huge garbage dump is just next to the unkempt ‘homes’ under the bridge. The closed in space was causing the place to stink even more so as the air was dank and stale with no sunlight reaching the area even during the day. The small ‘stream’ is a black colored flow of effluent most probably carrying waste from factories and homes – the area was invaded by an awful smell – from the garbage, sewerage lines and of course the evil looking flow of water. Flies were like small pellets covering nearly every surface, swirling up and about like small whirlpools. And against this backdrop of extreme poverty – next door was the massive Imtiaz Super Store – thank you Globalization – just opened a month ago.

The area was full of private security – there to make sure that their customers had no trouble in accessing parking. There was a good stretch of area just in front of the abadi which would have a been a much better place for the abadi inhabitants to avail themselves of – but of course they knew very well that if they tried to sit there – they would be immediately removed. Such is the stinking class system of the ‘civilized’ society we live in. It is okay to live in rabid holes – for which these families pay bhata (bribe) to certain groups but not okay to live where they would get away from the stinking stream, the garbage, their children partially safe from falling into the polluted water. One woman mentioned that they were able get water from the nearby apartments but after Imtiaz Store has been operational – the store authorities have are not allowing them to carry water across.

In short, the working class of this country is constantly thrown from one end to another – all this because our feudal landlords have control over land and are living like the nawabs of the Mughal Dynasty – of course all thanks to the British Colonizers – our government in cahoots with the feudal landlords unwilling to carry out equitable land distribution; under the atrocious arm-twisting by the IMF and World Bank policies, our government is unwilling to stand with its people and provide them with decent, regular job security, social welfare and social security.

This short case study showcases how in Pakistan, climate change impacts come ‘searching’ for the people and communities so far away from flood areas; as has been constantly detailed by peoples groups and organizations: climate change is the manifestation of the exploitation of our resources by capitalist systems of production and results in the poor being the frontline victims.

This case study highlights the sick manifestations of all the oppressive production and reproduction system: feudalism, capitalism and patriarchy. It portrays not only the living conditions of this kachi abadi; it is the story of thousands of squatter settlements in Karachi as well as all mega cities of the third world. All over the world, the worsening conditions of the people, the living misery of our people is due to the life-draining clamp of the rich and the powerful class of feudal landlords and capitalist who are extracting every cent of profit that they can by taking control of land and other resources leaving the people to scrounge for each meal that they are lucky to access for the day.

There is no doubt that the answer lies in politicized, organized communities willing to fight for their rights to life, living and dignity!

DUTCH FIRM BUYS ENGRO FOODS FOR $450M

Dawn, July 5th, 2016

Karachi: Engro Corporation has finally entered into an agreement with a Netherlands-based dairy cooperative to sell up to 51 per cent shares in its subsidiary Engro Foods at an estimated cost of $448 million.

The transaction has been billed as the single largest private sector foreign direct investment (FDI) in Pakistan in recent years.

The Dutch acquirer FrieslandCampina said on Monday it would partner with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Dutch development bank FMO in the share-purchase agreement (SPA).

Earlier on March 3, FrieslandCampina announced that it intended to acquire up to 51pc of voting shares of Engro Foods in line with local takeover laws.

Engro Corporation affirmed on Monday that it would remain a significant partner and shareholder under the new company structure.

Citibank, the financial adviser, said on Monday that FrieslandCampina planned to undertake acquisition directly and/or through a special-purpose vehicle (SPV). Subject to completion of public tender offer and relevant procedure under the law, IFC and FMO would acquire an equity interest in the SPV, resulting in FrieslandCampina holding around 80pc of SPV’s equity.

FrieslandCampina affirmed that it would make a tender offer to the remaining shareholders of Engro Foods from public shareholders. The actual number of shares purchased in the tender offer will be deducted from the number of shares acquired from Engro Corporation.

Analysts at Topline Securities said the sale price under the SPA has been agreed on a cash-free, debt-free basis with an enterprise value of $933m to be adjusted for certain items including debt-like items, cash and cash equivalents and working capital.

The sale price as of this announcement is estimated at around $448m (Rs120 per share). The final sale price will be calculated within 40 business days of closing after preparation of the closing statements. The analysts said that although the acquisition price of Rs120 per share was at 26pc discount to last closing, the discount was scarcely surprising for the market.

The sale is expected to result in a one-time cash flow impact of Rs90 per share (at deal price of Rs120 per share). “Engro Corporation will generate cash of around Rs47bn,” analysts calculated.

FrieslandCampina said in a statement on Monday that the acquisition of Engro Foods would enable it to obtain a key position in Central Asia. “Pakistan is the third-largest milk producing country in the world with an annual production of 38 billion litres of milk.”

The proposed buyer expects to benefit from the conversion of the market from loose to packaged dairy consumption that will drive the volume growth of packaged dairy products.

Hussain Dawood, the chairman of Engro Corporation, commented: “The partnership enables us to provide a wider array of affordable high-quality dairy products for a healthier Pakistan, especially of its younger population.”

http://www.dawn.com/news/1269078

 

A Small Farmer’s Advocacy for Agroecology!

The short documentary is witness to the knowledge of small farmers belief in traditional agriculture systems which are now being often referred to as agroecology.  In this documentary Rasheed Khan, a small farmer and a member of Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) from Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkwa not only talks about the hardiness of crops grown from indigenous seeds but also ‘actively demonstrates’ their tenacity and deep roots in the ground. According to him, the stalk is also strong and even a buffalo would find it hard to take out the crop; whereas for hybrid varieties a simple pull would lift the crop off the ground.

Rasheed Khan has used oxen to prepare the land; according to him using a tractor cost him at least Rs 10,000 and he would much rather use his oxen than the tractor. He elaborates on the benefits of traditional sustainable agriculture practices which are based on the used of animal manure and traditional seed varieties. The corn flour is not only tasty but has much more energy than the hybrid varieties. Rasheed Khan states, “a roti made from the traditional corn varieties is as rich as eating butter.”  In addition, the traditional varieties are tall yielding plentiful fodder for animals which they relish; the milk also has a much better taste than when animals are fed with fodder from hybrid corn varieties.

Rasheed Khan has come back to traditional agricultural production practices after becoming a member of PKMT. According to him, people from the surrounding areas come and see him using traditional methods and he hopes that they will also convert once they understand the benefits.

Vicious Circles: Dyeing Babies In Pakistan

A documentary, more than 20 years old but tragically still true portrays the truth of entrenched corruption in the capitalist frame of development. The documentary Vicious Circles aired by Yorkshire Television in its program First Tuesday is a heart-wrenching true story of how transnational corporations such as Johnson & Johnson and Nestle are capable of making profits at the cost of extremely malnourished children in Pakistan.

13432345_840278089439442_2367882224663155209_nThe advertisement given by Baby Food Manufacturers and Marketers Association (BFMMA) in a Pakistani newspaper Business Recorder on June 15, 2016, is making an appeal to the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to reverse regulatory duties on import of powerder milk. They go further explaining that infant milk formulae are imported in Pakistan as milk powder which, according to them is an important food for fighting malnutrition. Their claims include that malnutrition among children under 5 will get worse if a high regularoty duty is imposed. It is important to watch the documentary Vicious Circles to understand the role of infant milk formulae in not only causing diarrhea among infants but recurrent diarrhea leads to thousands of infant deaths across the world. According to the World Health Organization,1.7 billion children are treated for diarrhea every year; and 760,000 children die of diarrhea every year.

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In Pakistan, the extremely unhygienic conditions of our squatter settlements and rural communities, as well acute shortage of potable water are as rampant today as 20 years ago. The constant marketting efforts of the sales force of corporations ensure that not only physicians but also mothers use infant milk formulae for infants. It is well known that infant milk formula is given through bottles; both bottles and bottle-niples are a main cause of infection in an environment where it is impossible to fight dirt and infection by flies.

In light of such conditions, the appeal by BFMMA asking for a decrease in regulatory duties should be summarily dismissed by our government. The increased regulatory duties will not only add to the government’s revenues but also force mothers to opt for healthier, cheaper, home-made nutrious meals for infants and children; a practice that was the norm before the advent of profit-making propoganda of mega corporations such as Nestle and others.

Tax Free Pesticides

Muhammad Mujtaba

May 24, 2016

On 24th May 2016, a glance of an advertisement from Pakistan Crop agency in the two major Newspapers of Pakistan, Dawn and Urdu newspaper Jang pass on from my sight. This leads to the combine impression of regret, sadness, anger and astonishment on my heart and mind.  In an advertisement the mentioned association was urging to end general sales tax on the agriculture inputs and agriculture pesticides from Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and federal Minister for Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Boson. The first line of the advertisement shows that “Farmer is in worst condition due to the low rates of commodities” surely there is no doubt in it but question arouses is that Why??

The second line says “the decrease of farmers’ buying power, The cotton crop ruins because of so much increase in the result pesticides’ attack on crop” here, also the question arises that why there is decrease in buying power of farmers and the farmers also faces such loss as they were doing a lot of hard work than before and why pests attack when the pesticides were properly sprayed. In the current productive system the agriculture outputs and, pesticides and other increase the cost of production so much that a small farmer can’t even get his cost of production rather thinking about his profit. According to the statistics  given in the advertisement the financial loss of 125 hundred million rupees, and in the production of these poisonous pesticides, water and environment also become polluted including the land, crops, farmers, cultivators, peasants, consumers and livestock even the birds also get effected by it.

The third line was the most humorous and seems to be the conspiracy to hide the facts. “High prices of agriculture inputs and tax rate make the country’s agriculture stand on the edge of destruction.” In this line the depravity of crops is cleverly imposed on prices and tax rate. In fact the price and tax rate are the sub issues, the real problem is the existence of these inputs and pesticides which lead to and are the reason of destruction of crops, farmer, society, health and environment. The text of this advertisement shows that this advertisement is published on behalf of some big agriculture pesticide and inputs companies because according to this add farmer should purchase  agriculture inputs and pesticides so that companies would get a lot of profit and the official relief in tax rate is to greed the farmer. It should be clear that this organization have believed on the usage of agriculture output and pesticide on crop and keeping aside the destructive element of modern ways of agriculture. The reason behind all of effort for its accomplishment just because this organization is not only supported by some agriculture input companies and pesticide companies but also formed by the officials of these companies. In the front of these facts then why this organization would work for the benefits and rights of cultivators, farmers and farm labors.

A question also arises for the concerned association that the toxic and hazardous for health and environment inputs were used in previous destructed cotton crops then why these crops did not give those much good expected results? Price fluctuation does not affect more or less effect of pesticides. Indeed, these inputs gave those results which were expected and if these practices in agriculture continues in future the result would be more or less same due to use of these toxic and hazardous inputs because it is in their structure. Whenever, farmers would use these inputs abundantly to increase their production it would ultimately increase the profit of companies but the end result would be destruction of land, crop, farmer, health and environment.

If we closely overview the content of advertisement and above mentioned questions then answer would be the farmers are concerned with high price of production not with the amount of agricultural inputs. We strongly appeal to the government and judiciary that stop the import and export of commodities, mill owner’s refusal to buy these commodity, monopoly in market, destructive hybrid and genetically modified seeds and use of agricultural inputs for increasing production. This kind of advertisements are indeed is like misguiding the farmers. We demand from government of Pakistan to take actions against these types of advertisements and organizations as soon as possible.

PCPA

Free Tax copy

Statement of the Farmer’s Major Group at UNEA 2 during COW (Committee of Whole)

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May 24, 2016

Respected Chair, Excellences, Delegates. Colleagues from the UN Agencies, Major Groups and the CSOs

I am Wali Haider from Roots for Equity, Pakistan representing farmer major group

Unstainable practice of over extraction and overproduction is at the heart of unsustainable consumption and production. Agriculture and food production being marked as a lucrative sector has resulted in a tsunami of land grabs. At the same time, the pursuance of mega development projects for economic development and climate change mitigations such as mega dams, mining, oil exploration, creation of national parks, high voltage transmission and distribution lines and pursuance of extractive industries and special economic zones in indigenous territories and other rural communities with subsequent militarization process has led to land alienation and destruction of survival sources, cultures and identity of indigenous peoples, small scale farmers, fishing communities.

These patterns of production and consumption are not just wasteful but also increases inequalities. The world consumes more than half the world’s resources, but half the world’s wealth is in the hands of only 2% of the population. Despite millions of tons of food produced each day, with 1.3 billion tons going to waste each year, around 1 billion people worldwide suffer from acute hunger.

We can only speak of sustainable production when natural resource extraction is not defined by the profits earned by corporations, but by the needs of our communities and our peoples to survive, develop, and with a view to ensure their availability for generations to come.

We call upon states to support right to land, promotion and development of traditional occupation that conserves and sustains biological diversity and also brings in livelihoods to communities.  Traditional knowledge systems and practices of indigenous peoples and local communities on agro-ecological farming and diverse production systems that have minimal dependence on chemical and technologies like GMOs, will address reduction in GHG emissions from agriculture. This contributes to attaining sustainable land use, healthy people and healthy environment.  Today these sustainable resource management faces challenges of the unregulated globalized market systems and the invasion of extractive industries.

To minimize adverse impacts of hazardous chemicals on the environment and human health, governments must take measures to achieve by 2020 the sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle as envisioned in the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM).  The phase out of marketing and use of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) and the promotion of and support to sustainable ecological agriculture would greatly contribute to secure a healthy environment and promote good health in both rural and urban communities.

Thank you Madam!

RISKING AGRI-OUTPUT: BIOSAFETY BODY APPROVES GM SEEDS WITHOUT CONSULTATION

The Express Tribune, May 20th, 2016

Shahzad Anwar

ISLAMABAD: Commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) seeds, which could cause cancer according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), has been approved without consultation with key stakeholders such as farmers, environmentalists and consumers.

The National Bio-safety Committee (NBC), which examines seed varieties for approval, gave the go-ahead to GM seeds of wheat, peas, sugarcane, potato, mustard, corn and cotton three weeks ago in its 14th meeting.

According to documents available with The Express Tribune, most of the cases approved by the NBC were submitted by the institutions whose representatives were also members of its Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).

These institutions include National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Central Cotton Research Institute, Multan and Forman Christian College, Lahore. Multinational companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Dupont also sought approval for their GM seeds.

In the meeting, Ministry of Climate Change Secretary Sayed Akif Ahmed told the NBC that they had been criticised for not following proper procedures and taking hasty decisions due to growing commercial interest in genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency Director General Irfan Tariq recalled that the committee had approved 70 GM seeds out of the 119 under scrutiny in its previous meeting. The committee had permitted Monsanto and Dupont to commercially use GM corn without conducting large-scale trials and risk assessments and by by-passing biosafety laws.

The government has now reversed this decision.

Despite the criticism, the committee approved 49 cases of laboratory genetic manipulation, import, field trials and commercialisation of GM crops in the 14th meeting and also gave the green signal to 22 varieties of BT cotton.

The NBC also allowed some companies exemption from field trials of their GM seeds.

According to the documents, the NBC granted approvals according to TAC’s recommendations.

However, anti-GMO lobbyists are questioning the composition of TAC.

“It was a deliberate attempt by the National Bio-safety Committee to engage in low-profile discussions and proceedings on GMOs to avoid any outcry from the farmers and conscious citizens,” a source privy to the matter said.

He added large-scale cultivation of GM corn and BT cotton, a genetically modified variety of cotton which produces an insecticide for bollworm, could potentially threaten local seed varieties through cross-pollination. On the other hand, GMO lobbyists argue that genetically engineered seeds are high yielding and insect resistant.

However, their argument has not withstood the test in countries such as India, China and Australia where the per-acre yield has gradually dropped and new pests have emerged.

These countries have now banned cultivation of GM corn or other transgenic food crops.

The source said there were similarities in agro-climatic conditions between some Indian states such as Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, and Pakistan where BT cotton was being cultivated.

He said more than 86% of BT cotton was cultivated in Sindh and Punjab where pink bollworm infestation had been reported since 2011.

He said Pakistan had failed to meet its cotton production target of 15 million bales in 2015-16 and had only harvested 9.5 million bales.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1106701/risking-agri-output-biosafety-body-approves-gm-seeds-without-consultation/

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?

Friday 15 April 2016

George Monbiot

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

Inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.

Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.

Neoliberalism has brought out the worst in us.

Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology has been most rigorously applied, is the loneliness capital of Europe. We are all neoliberals now.

The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.

In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.

With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes inMasters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of thinktanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia.

As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.

Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative.

At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: John Maynard Keynes’s economic prescriptions were widely applied, full employment and the relief of poverty were common goals in the US and much of western Europe, top rates of tax were high and governments sought social outcomes without embarrassment, developing new public services and safety nets.

But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream. As Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change … there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”. With the help of sympathetic journalists and political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter’s administration in the US and Jim Callaghan’s government in Britain.

It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have been promoted with the slogan ‘there is no alternative’

After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.”

It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom should have been promoted with the slogan “there is no alternative”. But, as Hayek remarkedon a visit to Pinochet’s Chile – one of the first nations in which the programme was comprehensively applied – “my personal preference leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism”. The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows.

Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments. Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty.

As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, which Friedman described as “an opportunity to radically reform the educational system” in New Orleans.

Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating “investor-state dispute settlement”: offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes, protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre.

Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one

Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one.

Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980 in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich. Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents, privatisation and deregulation.

The privatisation or marketisation of public services such as energy, water, trains, health, education, roads and prisons has enabled corporations to set up tollbooths in front of essential assets and charge rent, either to citizens or to government, for their use. Rent is another term for unearned income. When you pay an inflated price for a train ticket, only part of the fare compensates the operators for the money they spend on fuel, wages, rolling stock and other outlays. The rest reflects the fact that they have you over a barrel.

Those who own and run the UK’s privatised or semi-privatised services make stupendous fortunes by investing little and charging much. In Russia and India, oligarchs acquired state assets through firesales. In Mexico, Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all landline and mobile phone services and soon became the world’s richest man.

Financialisation, as Andrew Sayer notes in Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, has had a similar impact. “Like rent,” he argues, “interest is … unearned income that accrues without any effort”. As the poor become poorer and the rich become richer, the rich acquire increasing control over another crucial asset: money. Interest payments, overwhelmingly, are a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. As property prices and the withdrawal of state funding load people with debt (think of the switch from student grants to student loans), the banks and their executives clean up.

Sayer argues that the past four decades have been characterised by a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy: from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned income has been supplanted by unearned income.

Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk.

The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector.

Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics.

Chris Hedges remarks that “fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the politically inactive, the ‘losers’ who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to play in the political establishment”. When political debate no longer speaks to us, people become responsive instead to slogans, symbols and sensation. To the admirers of Trump, for example, facts and arguments appear irrelevant.

Judt explained that when the thick mesh of interactions between people and the state has been reduced to nothing but authority and obedience, the only remaining force that binds us is state power. The totalitarianism Hayek feared is more likely to emerge when governments, having lost the moral authority that arises from the delivery of public services, are reduced to “cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them”.

Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the zombie doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of anonymities.

The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by invisible backers. Slowly, very slowly, we have begun to discover the names of a few of them. We find that the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has argued forcefully in the media against the further regulation of the tobacco industry, has been secretly funded by British American Tobacco since 1963. We discover that Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world, founded the institute that set up the Tea Party movement. We find that Charles Koch, in establishing one of his thinktanks, noted that “in order to avoid undesirable criticism, how the organisation is controlled and directed should not be widely advertised”.

The nouveau riche were once disparaged by those who had inherited their money. Today, the relationship has been reversed

The words used by neoliberalism often conceal more than they elucidate. “The market” sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations. What “the market wants” tends to mean what corporations and their bosses want. “Investment”, as Sayer notes, means two quite different things. One is the funding of productive and socially useful activities, the other is the purchase of existing assets to milk them for rent, interest, dividends and capital gains. Using the same word for different activities “camouflages the sources of wealth”, leading us to confuse wealth extraction with wealth creation.

A century ago, the nouveau riche were disparaged by those who had inherited their money. Entrepreneurs sought social acceptance by passing themselves off as rentiers. Today, the relationship has been reversed: the rentiers and inheritors style themselves entre preneurs. They claim to have earned their unearned income.

These anonymities and confusions mesh with the namelessness and placelessness of modern capitalism: the franchise model which ensures that workers do not know for whom they toil; the companies registered through a network of offshore secrecy regimes so complex that even the police cannot discover the beneficial owners; the tax arrangements that bamboozle governments; the financial products no one understands.

The anonymity of neoliberalism is fiercely guarded. Those who are influenced by Hayek, Mises and Friedman tend to reject the term, maintaining – with some justice – that it is used today only pejoratively. But they offer us no substitute. Some describe themselves as classical liberals or libertarians, but these descriptions are both misleading and curiously self-effacing, as they suggest that there is nothing novel about The Road to Serfdom, Bureaucracy or Friedman’s classic work, Capitalism and Freedom.

For all that, there is something admirable about the neoliberal project, at least in its early stages. It was a distinctive, innovative philosophy promoted by a coherent network of thinkers and activists with a clear plan of action. It was patient and persistent. The Road to Serfdom became the path to power.

The left has produced no new framework of economic thought for 80 years. This is why the zombie walks

Neoliberalism’s triumph also reflects the failure of the left. When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the 70s, there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was … nothing. This is why the zombie walks. The left and centre have produced no new general framework of economic thought for 80 years.

Every invocation of Lord Keynes is an admission of failure. To propose Keynesian solutions to the crises of the 21st century is to ignore three obvious problems. It is hard to mobilise people around old ideas; the flaws exposed in the 70s have not gone away; and, most importantly, they have nothing to say about our gravest predicament: the environmental crisis. Keynesianism works by stimulating consumer demand to promote economic growth. Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental destruction.

What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is that it’s not enough to oppose a broken system. A coherent alternative has to be proposed. For Labour, the Democrats and the wider left, the central task should be to develop an economic Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the 21st century.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot