This morning women activists - including one mum - put a stop to the controversial genetically modified (GM) wheat trial outside Canberra.

They felt they had no choice. The government is failing to protect Australia’s most important food crop and our health, environment and economy are under threat. 

Greenpeace’s recent report revealed that Australians will be in the world’s first GM human feeding experiment and it’ll take place without adequate safety testing. It also exposed the CSIRO’s links to  foreign biotech companies, like Monsanto, who want to patent and control Australia’s wheat. 

All the other major wheat producing nations, such as the US, Canada and Russia, have rejected GM wheat due to the risks involved. Yet Australia’s $4.7million wheat industry is up for grabs.

This GM wheat should never have left the lab. Once GM crops are released into the field, they are nearly impossible to contain. This means traditional wheat and other crops are at risk of becoming GM contaminated. 

So the women activists did the government’s job and unplanted the GM wheat crops this morning.Click here for news articles and photos.

We know it’s a strong action and will get a divided response. But we can’t shy away from this serious issue. Please join me on Monday 18 July 7pm (AEST) for a live online chat where you can ask all your questions about our campaign. Click this link to join the chat on Monday.

You can also send your thoughts or questions now by emailing us here - your feedback is always valued.

Thank you for helping keep Australian wheat safe and healthy.

Laura Kelly
Food Campaigner
Greenpeace Australia Pacific

PS Already written to the government? Thank you! Please forward this on to your friends too.

Today Greenpeace released their report outlining the controversy surrounding the GM wheat trials across Australia. Their investigations reveal the biotech takeover of our daily bread.

Australia’s national science body, CSIRO, has approved the world’s first human feeding trials of GM wheat. This is despite serious health, economic and environmental risks. We’ve detailed our findings in a new report titled ‘Australia’s wheat scandal: The biotech takeover of our daily bread.’

Our findings reveal that CSIRO is in partnership with GM biotech companies to commercialise Australia’s daily bread. It is these companies that stand to benefit – and it is Australian farmers and consumers that stand to lose – if Australia pursues GM wheat. The involvement of biotech companies in the field trials represents a clear conflict of interest. It also corrupts the kind of thorough risk analysis that would have prevented the release of GM wheat across Australia.

Health Risk

Australia is the first country in the world to test GM wheat on humans. GM wheat will only be tested on Australians in short-term and superficial trials that run for just 1 day. There is no stated intention to test for long-term effects or other negative health effects such as allergic or toxic reactions. Read the open letter from scientists and doctors around the world regarding human feeding trials of genetically modified wheat in Australia

Economic risk

GM wheat has been rejected by all the other major wheat producing countries in the world – including the US and Canada – due to the risks involved. Evidence shows that it is inevitable that GM wheat will contaminate traditional wheat crops. Australia is putting at risk its $4.7 million wheat industry, as our buyers refuse to accept GM wheat.

Environmental risk

Once released into the environment, GM crops cannot be recalled. They can reproduce indefinitely and unpredictably. Releasing GM wheat threatens our natural biodiversity and it also increases reliance on chemical pesticide use.

CSIRO has rejected Greenpeace’s Freedom of Information (FOI) request for documents outlining the health, safety and ethical parameters of its human trials. It is outrageous that CSIRO is testing potentially unstable GM organisms on Australians in secret, with absolutely no public knowledge or oversight of the risks involved.

With Australia’s most important crop under threat, it’s time the federal government stands up to the foreign biotech companies. We won’t sit idly by while Australians become the global guinea pigs for GM wheat.

TAKE ACTION: Write to the government and demand an end to the GM wheat trials

READ DOWNLOAD AND SHARE THE REPORT:Australia’s Wheat Scandal

Someone sent the following conversation through to me. It’s a must read. I love how comedy can cut through nonsense.

God: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

St. Francis: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers ‘weeds’ and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But, it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It’s sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it-sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. Francis: No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes Sir.

God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You aren’t going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It’s a natural cycle of life.

St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No!? What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

God: Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

St. Catherine: ”Dumb and Dumber”, Lord. It’s a story about….

God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

by Melissa Miles

Comfrey (Symphytum spp.) has been cultivated and valued by many cultures for almost 2500 years. A native to Europe and Asia, the comfrey plant with which most are familiar, Symphytum officinale, has been used as a blood coagulant, a treatment for maladies of the lung, and as a poultice to aid in the healing of wounds and broken bones. Consumed as a tea, comfrey is said to treat a variety of internal ailments by various folk medicine traditions.

The word comfrey is Latin in origin and means “to grow together”. Though research has recently linked the consumption of comfrey with liver damage in mice, thus halting the development of comfrey as a modern food crop, the plant was once widely grown for its medicinal, food and forage value. Today it is still valued for its use in salves and other topical skin preparations and for its use as animal fodder and fertilizer.

A fast-growing, herbaceous, perennial plant of the borage family, comfrey’s thick and tuberous roots create an expansive root system, allowing the plant to “mine” compacted soils for minerals and other nutrients which are often difficult for other plants to obtain. It is this ability to help cycle nutrients through the soil that has given comfrey its designation as a dynamic accumulator plant. Like daikon, stinging nettles, and other plants that function as dynamic accumulators, comfrey leaves make an excellent fertilizer, and provide a nutrient boost to compost mixes. Additionally, comfrey leaves are used as a green manure and mulch, being cut, then spread over planting beds and left to decompose on site, further helping to condition soils. Cutting and placing the first flush of comfrey leaves in trenches where potatoes are to be planted is thought to provide the tubers with nutrients that will result in an increased yield. It is important to use only the leaves of the plant when mulching, as any cut stems have the potential to take root.

A liquid fertilizer can also be made from the comfrey plant by “steeping” chopped comfrey leaves in water for several weeks (placing a rock or other heavy item on the leaves to keep them submerged) until they form a dark, thick liquid. The liquid should be diluted 12:1 – 15:1 prior to application.

Mature comfrey plants can be cut several times each season, prompting some to plant comfrey patches in proximity to compost heaps to take full advantage of comfrey’s use as an excellent compost activator. Adding leaves of the comfrey plant to a compost heap gives the compost added nitrogen, resulting in increased microbial decomposition of the compost. The addition of too much comfrey will result in an imbalance in the carbon: nitrogen of the compost, and can actually slow the decomposition rate.

A potting mixture can be made from leaf mold derived from chopped comfrey leaves and dolomite mixed together and left to sit in a lidded container for several months. Though not suitable for seeds, once well rotted the comfrey leaf mold mixture is suitable for use as a general potting soil.

Comfrey is hardy from zones 4 – 9, and will grow in full or partial sun. The ease of growth, tall stature and the small, yet attractive, bell-shaped flowers of the comfrey plant lend to its use as an ornamental in the landscape, but comfrey is not well suited to small garden patches where planting space is at a premium as the plants themselves can often grow to 24 – 48” wide.

Because comfrey will self-sow and is tolerant of most soil conditions, the plant can proliferate, potentially becoming a nuisance. The “Bocking 14” cultivar of Russian Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) has gained popularity in recent years, as this strain of the plant is sterile, and is thus unable spread by seed, vastly reducing the risk for this comfrey to spread out of control once planted. Developed in the 1950s by Lawrence Hills, of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (known today as Garden Organic), at that organization’s Bocking, UK research farm site, the Bocking 14 cultivar is propagated from root cuttings called “offsets” which can, initially, be purchased from nurseries and through on-line sources. Once the plants have become mature and established in the landscape, gardeners can obtain root cuttings from their own plants, giving them an almost unlimited supply of the hardy, fast growing and multipurpose comfrey plant.

Straight out of China, an extremely encouraging look into one of the world’s largest and most successful earth healing implementations I have ever seen. You can take a look and also learn about similar projects happening in Ethiopia and Rwanda.

Australia’s P.A Yeomans developed Keyline in the 1950s. At first interest in this system of farming was intense, with thousands visiting his farm to learn Keyline methods, however the green revolution and associated chemical fertiliser subsidies sidelined Keyline until now. Rising fertiliser costs and land degradation have set the stage for Keyline’s return to prominence as a regenerative method of land management that builds top soil and fertility rapidly.

By Maryn McKenna, wired.com | Published June 29, 2011 10:57 AM

There’s a new paper out in the CDC’s journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that makes a provocative claim: There is enough similarity between drug-resistance genes in  E. coli carried by chickens and  E. coli infecting humans that the chickens may be the source of it.

If it is correct—and it seems plausible and is backed by past research—the claim provides another piece of evidence that antibiotic use in agriculture has a direct effect on human health.

Here are the details:

The paper is a collaboration by researchers from several hospitals in the Netherlands, plus the Netherlands’ National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, the University of Birmingham and a section of the UK’s National Health Service. They isolated E. coli from patients in four Dutch hospitals over 2.5 months in 2009, and compared those with E. coli strains isolated from randomly chosen supermarket meat that was bought in the hospitals’ local areas during the same time period. They compared both those sets of isolates against a third set, of E. coli from blood cultures taken from patients in the hospitals during the same months.

In each set of samples, they were looking at the E. coli to see whether they harbored genes for the type of resistance known as ESBL, for “extended-spectrum beta-lactamase,” an enzyme that denatures a category of drugs used for serious infections that occur mostly in hospitals. When the extended-spectrum beta-lactams no longer work, only a few last-resort drugs are left. (Back in the 1980s, the most common genes for ESBL werebla_TEM or bla_SHV, but in the past 10 or so years there has been a rapid global increase in the occurrence of a different ESBL gene, bla_CTX-M.)

Here’s what they found:

• Out of 876 patients tested by rectal swab—because E. coli is a gut bacterium, carried in and spread by feces—45 (5 percent) harbored ESBL genes.
• Out of 31 blood cultures in the hospitals’ labs, 23 (74 percent) contained ESBL genes.
• Out of 262 meat samples, 79 (30 percent) harbored an ESBL gene. Broken down by type of meat, there was ESBL in 80 percent of the chicken samples, 5 percent of the beef, 2 percent of the pork, and 9 percent of ground or otherwise mixed meat.

When they broke down the organisms by type, they looked like this. Note the amount in each pie chart that is given over to the ESBL genes bla_CTX-M, and the significant correspondence of bla_CTX-M-1 in red.

When they put the genes through a second level of genetic analysis, multi-locus sequence typing, 57 percent of the rectal specimens and 57 percent of the blood cultures were closely related to the strains in the chicken meat.

There’s an important backdrop to this research. The Netherlands has one of the lowest rates of human antibiotic resistance in the world, thanks to especially stringent infection control and drug-conservation policies. Paradoxically, it has the highest rate of antibiotic use in agriculture in Europe. As a result, when something starts to move into humans, it is easier to distinguish, because there is no “background noise” of high rates of hospital and community drug resistance such as there are in the US. And because there are no competing resistance factors from other sources, it is easier to identify and explain.

Thus, the researchers can comfortably say:

We conclude that the high rate of ESBL contamination of retail chicken meat in the Netherlands, which involves many of the same ESBL genes present in colonized and infected humans, is a plausible source of the recent increase of ESBL genes in the Netherlands. The similarity of E. coli strains and predominant drug resistance genes in meat and humans provides circumstantial evidence for an animal reservoir for a substantial part of ESBL genes found in humans.

If something about this research sounds familiar, it’s because a similar study was published a few months ago, also from the Netherlands, with a partially overlapping analysis: chicken meat and blood-culture records, but no swabs from simultaneous patients. That study too found a high degree of correlation between ESBL-containing organisms in humans and in chickens.

These findings won’t come as a surprise to anyone who accepts—as most good science and a number of public health authorities do—that antibiotic overuse in large-scale farming creates drug-resistant organisms that affect human health. The question, for those who don’t accept such a link, is: how much evidence is enough?

(Footnote: In addition to being published in EID, this study was also presented by Dr. Jan Kluytmans, the senior author, during the World HAI Forum taking place this week in France. I’ll have more on the HAI Forum in a future post.)

Cite: Overdevest I et al. Extended-spectrum β-lactamase genes of Escherichia coli in chicken meat and humans, the Netherlands. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011 Jul. http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/17/7/1216.htm

1.The spuds don’t work. GM potato trial, Norwich
2.Jones backs down over Monsanto connection

NOTE: Item 2 is about the Monsanto connection of the head of the Sainsbury Laboratory who oversees the GM potato trial.
—-
—-
1.The spuds don’t work. GM potato trial, Norwich, 23 July
http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480991.html

*Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011*

British trials of genetically modified blight resistant spuds have been failing for the last ten years. But a conventionally bred variety of blight resistant potatoes has been available for 3 years. So why are we still paying for their dangerous experiment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trailor load of safe effective spuds as we go to deliver them to the Sainsbury Laboratory outside Norwich. It’s one of only two possible open air trials for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being publicly funded, it’s so secretive no one will even say if it’s been planted. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re looking for.

Meet outside the Forum in Norwich town centre at noon for free blight-resistant chips, followed by a bike ride (or coach trip, contact info [AT] stopgm.org.uk to book) to the research centre where we’re asking Sainsbury Lab reps to join us for blind spud-tasting and debate.

*********************************************************************

*A tale of two spuds…*

For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sainsbury laboratory at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have spent 1.7 million pounds of public money failing to develop a genetically modified potato resistant to the fungal disease blight. This project is so secretive and unaccountable that the laboratory has refused to even confirm if a trial has been planted this season, or if they’ve been forced to abandon any hopes of making the technology work. 

Public rejection of the risks associated with eating genetically modified food means that even if the engineering involved was successful, there would be no market for the crop. Meanwhile, 3 years ago a small Welsh research charity dedicated to conventional breeding techniques developed a spud that is spectacularly resistant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the environment, or neighbouring farmers; it works. Over 6 different varieties are now available, and being grown on a commercial scale.

*Delivering the answer to GM crops*

We think the Sainsbury’s laboratory and the government should be told that we’ve found the potatoes they’re looking for. So we’re going to deliver them to the doors of their research centre. We’ll be forming a carnival procession of families and farmers led by the next generation on pedal tractors, each towing a mini trailer of safe spuds. There’ll be pedal powered tunes, and a full sized tractor to jump on. There will almost certainly be chips.

*The rationale*

The campaign against GM crops ten years ago was so successful that GM almost completely vanished from our fields and supermarkets, and many people have forgotten the issues associated with the technology. But in many other parts of the world peasant farmers have been desperately fighting its spread, and laws are changing in Europe that would make it much easier for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-election promises to the contrary, the coalition claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this country has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an outmoded technology that continues to waste money in failing projects, while simultaneously threatening the very science that’s actually producing working alternatives quickly and cheaply. For too long the biotech companies have gone unchallenged in their claims that GM can create genuinely useful crops when in fact all the significant advancements in the last decade have come through conventional breeding.

With the renewed threat of GM on the horizon campaigners need to get together again to show the rest of the country (and each other) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even better case than ever. This is a chance to take the initiative with the media, to tell a story which explains clearly and practically why the pro GM lobby is wrong. That it’s us, and not the corporations that have the answers to the food crisis. And we know how to turn them into an irresistible photo shoot.

*Our Key media messages*

Genetic Modification is unaccountable, expensive, and it doesn’t work. We need to stop wasting public money on something that no one wants and start celebrating the real advances in agriculture.

*What we need*

You, and the people you know, and anyone you think might be interested.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in conjunction with the Genetic Engineering Network. It’s a grassroots initiative that evolved after one national gathering, several months of pondering and an over excited long weekend in Wales. Several experienced grassroots campaigners will be working on the project from now until the event, but we need help getting the word out. If you think you could help by distributing email
information about the event, dropping it about in any social media you may be involved in, letting your local growing projects or social justice groups know, distributing our soon to be produced ‘Little Red Tractor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even organizing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more information please check briefing to help you object to the proposed field trial of GM potatoes, and how to get hold of the solution www.sarvari-trust.org.

Please put it in your diary, forward this message on to anyone who might be interested, and hopefully we’ll see you there.

All the best,
The Stop GM Crew.
—-
—-
2.Jones backs down over Monsanto connection
GMWatch, 20 July 2010
http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12370

On Sunday (18 July) an article appeared in The Observer newspaper detailing Prof Jonathan Jones’s failure to make clear his busines links to Monsanto in a recent article for the BBC. (Scientist leading GM crop test defends links to US biotech giant Monsanto)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/gm-scientist-defends-monsanto-links

The article quoted GMWatch editor Jonathan Matthews as saying, “The frontman for the latest GM push in the UK is being portrayed as a dedicated public servant doing science in the public interest, but it now appears he not only has vested interests in the success of GM but even commercial connections to Monsanto.”

And Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK was quoted as saying that Monsanto’s “PR strategy relies on seemingly independent scientists making empty promises about the future benefits of GM crops”.

In a statement to the Observer, Prof Jones insisted: “It is not true to suggest I have attempted to hide my role as co-founder and science advisory board member of Mendel Biotechnology, which has contracts with Monsanto, Bayer and BP. The information that I am co-founder… of Mendel has been in the public domain on the Mendel website for at least 10 years.”

The publication of the Observer article prompted a storm of criticism of Jones online and in the Comments section of the Guardian/Observer website.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/gm-scientist-defends-monsanto-links?showallcomments=true#comment-51

One reader wrote:

“If Prof Jones cannot see that, no matter how fair and balanced his judgement in this case, his links with Monsanto will cast suspicion and doubt on a positive report on GM potatoes, he must be barking.”
 
Jones himself posted a comment saying he had disclosed his interest in Mendel:

“I told Jamie Doward [the journalist who wrote the Observer article] before today’s Observer article that in a commentisfree [article] in 2007 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/28/jonathanjonesscientist) I specifically pointed out that I had cofounded Mendel Biotechnology.”

Jones added: “My [recent] BBC website piece was invited in the context of my GM blight resistance potato trial, which has nothing to do with Mendel or Monsanto, neither of whom have any business in potato.”

A reader responded:

“Had to laugh that Jones thinks that declaring his interests in Mendel/Monsanto 3 years ago is enough. Try writing an article for any reputable scientific journal these days. You have to fill out a new conflict of interest form every time. This makes sense because how can you expect readers to look back at an author’s publication history every time he/she writes a new article?

“Also very funny is his claim that Mendel/Monsanto has no interest in spuds. It does have an interest in the acceptance of GM technology in the UK, and this spud trial will be used by GM proponents to leverage that. Also Mendel has patents on GM technologies that could be used in a variety of plants. http://www.mendelbio.com/newsevents/issuedpatents.php … Monsanto did create a GM potato which was rejected by consumers even in the US. Clearly the company is hoping for a turnaround in consumer feeling. This is from Monsanto’s current website: ‘Potatoes are an important crop and there may be a day in the future when Monsanto re-enters the potato business.’

“Monsanto also owns De Ruiter Seeds and Seminis Seeds, both suppliers of veggie seeds. It would be extremely funny if they made a vow that they would never deal in potatoes.

“Hilarity apart, I think it is a wise principle to know with whom one is in bed.”

Another reader disputed even Jones’s claim to have declared his interest in Mendel/Monsanto three years ago:

“Prof Jones seems to think that mentioning his connection to this company once in passing in an article on a website 3 years ago constitutes full and frank disclosure!

“What makes this worse is, if you look at the actual piece, Jones doesn’t even name the company he founded. You have to click a link to find out it’s Mendel Biotechnology and you’d have to dig around still further to discover Monsanto regards Mendel as a key collaborator.http://monsanto.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=544

“Even this indirect disclosure is a complete one-off. In Jones’ other Comment is Free article, there’s absolutely no reference to Mendel or his having any commercial interests: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/07/haltinggrowth

“Likewise in the recent BBC piece promoting GM, there’s absolutely nothing to suggest he’s a cofounder of a company that has Monsanto as its principal client. And any time I’ve heard Prof Jones speak on TV or radio, there has been no reference to his having founded Mendel or sitting on its board. His self-description is exactly like the BBC piece - he is a senior scientist at a non-commercial research centre.

“I would wager a guess that absolutely no one who interviewed Prof Jones, or offered him comment space during his recent wave of PR activities related to the GM potato trial had a clue about his involvement in a company with ‘very effective mechanisms of collaboration’ with Monsanto, ‘including the exchange of extensive proprietary information.’

“Yet it’s vital that people benefiting from the label ‘public science’ are completely upfront about the extent of any commercial interests. After all, if Jones were successful in gaining acceptance for GM potatoes, it would almost certainly open the door to Monsanto’s products.

“Unfortunately, Prof Jones’ failure to be completely upfront about his ties to Monsanto fits an all too familiar pattern with GM promoters: 
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=405427 ”

Another reader’s comment also confirmed that Jones’s failure to declare conflicts of interest was part of a consistent pattern rather than a one-off event:

“I found out about Prof Jones’ involvement in an American based biotech firm back in 2001 when someone told me there were jobs going there. I was quite surprised to find Prof Jones, and if my memory serves me correctly a couple of other leading British plant scientists on the directorial board. The thing that surprised me back then was that having worked in their field for over ten years and having heard them speak on numerous occasions at conferences etc that I had never heard them mentioned their clearly relevant commercial interests. If my memory serves me correctly they always stuck to their wholly impartial for ‘the public good’ scientist persona.

“Now following the thieving banks [and] the thieving politicians, I am not surprised at all. Our leading lights are all the same, out for number one.”

Placing the Jones/Mendel/Monsanto episode in a wider context, a reader criticised the public-private partnerships at academic institutions that inevitably give rise to often undisclosed conflicts of interest. The reader wrote that scientists who speak out against such deals are victimized:

“Scientists who point to the obvious conflicts of interest in the public-private partnerships that dominate American and British academic institutions these days are blacklisted from ever having senior appointments - and that’s why lead scientists on GMO trials have ties to the corporate agribusiness lobby. Those ties are encouraged by university presidents, who might hold stock in Monsanto, and who will give financial favors, lab space, and important positions to those who support their agenda. …

“For example, the University of California jointly controls the patent (with Monsanto) on rGBH milk production. The UC expects to receive $100 million in royalties from sales of rGBH. You think the UC administrators would be pleased if some associate professor published studies pointing to health problems with rGBH, or even wrote a grant to do that? Would they get tenure? Probably not - they’ve canned people repeatedly for similar violations of their ideological principles.”

Towards the end of the storm of comments from readers, Jones himself left a comment, saying he had asked the BBC to update his bio note on the BBC website to include his interests in Mendel and Monsanto.

Late yesterday the BBC did so – better late than never. Let’s hope this sets a precedent for media outlets to require full disclosure of interests when “experts” are given a platform for their views on controversial issues. As one reader commented:

“I congratulate Prof Jones on revising his affiliation information. I know that he regards his commercial ties as purely incidental but that’s really for his readers to decide. As Richard Smith pointed out when editor of the BMJ [British Medical Journal], ‘These competing interests are very important. It has quite a profound influence on the conclusions and we deceive ourselves if we think science is wholly impartial.’”
…
For the sake of clarity, GMWatch has made minor corrections of typos, spelling etc. to the Comments posted at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/18/gm-scientist-defends-monsanto-links?showallcomments=true#comment-51

More information can be found at
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Jonathan_Jones
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php?title=Mendel_Biotechnology

No-one is buying GM canola in WA
Media release: GM canola unsellable
Office of Lynn MacLaren MLC, 29th June 2011
 
The WA Agriculture Minister has admitted in Parliament that none of the genetically modified (GM) canola grown in Western Australia last year had been sold, sparking renewed calls for an inquiry into the lifting of the moratorium on GM canola from Greens spokesperson on GMOs Hon Lynn MacLaren MLC. [1]
 
Ms MacLaren says “When lifting the moratorium, Agriculture Minister Terry Redman claimed that the introduction of GM canola would have no impacts on markets - this revelation raises serious questions about that claim. Farmers should be asking why they weren’t told that there was a danger their canola couldn’t be sold before the current growing season, so they could make an informed decision about whether to plant GM canola or not.”
 
“At a recent forum in Manjimup, DAFWA’s executive director, David Bowran stated that last year’s GM canola had been sold to Pakistan. Farmers rely on DAFWA for reliable information, so I have to question on what evidence this claim is based,” added Ms MacLaren.
 
“Ninety-five per cent of WA’s canola went to Europe last year - a market with no tolerance for GM canola. Canola is an open pollinated crop, so now that GM canola has been introduced in the state it is only a matter of time before our non-GM shipments get contaminated and start being rejected,” said Ms MacLaren.
 
“Canada completely lost its canola exports to Europe and WA risks the same thing happening here if it continues down the GM path,” added Ms MacLaren.
 
“Questions also need to be asked about the WA Government’s ‘New genes for new environments’ program. Why is the Government wasting $9 million of taxpayers money developing GM crops when there is no market for them, and traits such as drought and frost tolerance can be more easily developed using other means?” concluded Ms MacLaren.
 
Ms MacLaren is supporting calls for an inquiry into why the GM canola ban was lifted and an investigation into the process behind the recent sale to Monsanto of a 19.9 per cent stake in the Government owned crop breeding company InterGrain.
 
Media contacts
 
Hon. Lynn MacLaren, MLC, Greens WA Spokesperson on GMOs: 0403 721 951
Louise Sales, Research Officer: 0428 207 007
 
1) Extract from Hansard: Question without notice 464 - Genetically modified food - honey and canola, avail

by Øyvind Holmstad

The goal of permaculture is to reunite man with nature and man with man through design systems, and here patterns play an important role. Still, patterns can only reunite humans with natural systems and with each other, not with the geometry of the universe. Surely in what I like to call permatecture, better known as biophilic architecture,biotecture or neurotecture, patterns are crucial. But for the creation of wholeness and life we need a whole range of tools.

When “A Pattern Language” was first published in 1977, architects immediately assumed that it was a design manual, and used it to generate some very interesting buildings. Those buildings, despite their positive human qualities, lack an overall coherence, and people did not understand why this was happening. The reason is that the Patterns provide essential and necessary constraints, and not a design method in itself. The actual design algorithm was developed by Alexander, but only many years later. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 106

The new book by Professor Nikos A. Salingaros, Twelve Lectures on Architecture; Algorithmic Sustainable Design, is like a Swiss Army Knife of tools for creating ultimate human habitats, or EEAs. Nobody cares about something they don’t love, and nobody loves anything that contradicts nature, because the human biophilia is nature!

Still, what Nikos has done is more like the work of an archaeologist, rediscovering old tools from the past, serving humanity through millennia. And he explains how to use these tools to rediscover the old form languages of our world, or even to create new form languages carrying the truth and poetry found in the form languages of all times. What do these thousands of form languages from throughout human history have in common? The answer is that they reflect the innate geometry of nature and that they don’t contradict the laws of physics.

This was the goal of human architecture, to become one with nature, to make our world whole! Until Le Corbusier and the realm of Modernism, when the nature of order got broken!

The Nature of Order as a “Pocket Book”

Afghan carpet

For those reading the groundbreaking Nature of Order — books by Christopher Alexander (I must admit I’ve not finished this series yet) — it must seem impossible that they can be compressed to a pocket book. And of course this is impossible, and Nikos’ book is somewhat larger than a pocket book too. Still, in a way it’s true. Twelve Lectures on Architecture is in many ways a compression of this work by Alexander. And this is both impressive and important — important for all those put off by the size and the long philosophical discussions of the Nature of Order books. For example, Alexander’s 15 properties of life cover a whole book in his work, while Nikos has “reduced” them to ten lofty pages. Here it’s just to grab the very essence and start using every tool immediately, creating new and life-generating design!

Human beings, with their evolved physiology and perception mechanisms, are the most perfectly-tuned instruments for detecting the presence or absence of the 15 properties. At this time, however, architecture critics and architectural academics value forms that violate the 15 properties. The paradigmatic “good” architecture in a contemporary style clashes with the 15 properties, they are immediately perceived as contradicting the dominant architectural aesthetic, and are dismissed as irrelevant to design. The fact that they are supported by massive scientific research does not convince architects. Persons trained to value a certain “look” cannot be forced to admit that the dominant style generates psychological and physiological anxiety. Our genuinely good examples are judged because they provide emotional nourishment, which is found primarily in traditional construction and artifacts. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 124

I’ll recommend everybody who plans to read Alexander’s The Nature of Order to first read Nikos’ Twelve Lectures on Architecture. A better introduction you can’t get!

Anti-Gravity Anxiety

A tree is anti-anti-gravity anxiety! And the older a tree, or a forest, the more relaxed we feel sitting beneath it, or walking through it. This is because this force grows in strength together with the tree, as the roots, the stem and the crown widens. Just like with a column, with a base, a stem and the crown. Throughout history mankind always obeyed the law of a tree, until the modernists got the idea of breaking this law making pillars with no base or crown — some even sharpened on the top like a pencil, in every way contradicting the powers of gravity visually. Unfortunately this is just one of many examples of anti-gravity anxiety found in modernism. In fact, it has become the world standard!

Anti-anti-gravity anxiety in action

There is something profoundly disturbing about buildings that consist of horizontal slabs. We can understand this physiological/psychological reaction because of anti-gravity anxiety. A large number of horizontal buildings have been built around the world, their architects ignoring our negative reaction to them. In addition to affecting our senses, this method kills architectural design in three dimensions, since building facades cannot be created within this narrow design paradigm. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 52

Fractals and Symmetries

Is there more to learn from a tree? Yes, among its fruits are fractals and symmetries, needed to create sustainability and stability. Fractals are patterns or parts repeated on every scale, from the largest to the smallest, where the largest fractals dominate in size and the smallest in numbers. From the tree as a whole to the smallest leaf and the smallest part of a leaf we find a repeating structure and symmetry.

Every sustainable system consists of a fractal structure. In a tree these fractals are made up by visual patterns, while in a system design they consist of pattern languages. This is why in an agricultural pattern language the smallest farms should be more prevalent than larger farms, and again vegetable gardens (pattern 177) to be more prevalent than small farms. The same thing goes for an economical pattern language and so on. This way a fractal society creates life on every scale, where people can thrive and not feel lost (the human scale), like so many do today.

A fractal view (pattern 238 & 239)

Modernism, on the contrary, is anti-fractalism! (No wonder why corporations have embraced their ideology.) For windows, for example, they claim that large panes lacking fractal properties help to bring nature into your house. The opposite is true! A fractal structure is strengthening the view, whether it consists of small panes or plants filling up your window. Alexander discovered this truth a long time ago!

Universal Scaling

Nikos A. Salingaros has studied a lot of buildings from all continents and times, and his conclusion is that there exists universal scaling or fractal hierarchy.

I’m giving out a challenge by claiming that the vast majority of buildings all around the world before the industrial age obey universal scaling (and actually continuing into early industrial years). This holds for all different cultures, all different periods, and is not restricted to a few carefully-selected buildings that I might refer to here. This claim can be documented by on-site measurements, and then the term “universal” becomes apparent, since it applies to indigenous architectures, both vernacular and monumental. Universal scaling is therefore innate to how human beings create forms, and is not a feature tied to any culture. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 25-26

To apply universal scaling to what we make Nikos has given us several tools, some very accurate but which take more time, and some more approximate but faster. They all come out with about 2,618, and are so related to the golden mean. Scaling coherence is essential, because all natural environments obey this law, and if we contradict it we contradict ourselves. It’s essential to pay extra attention to the human scale, ranging from two meters down to two millimeters. One of the many tragedies of modernists is that they are completely neglecting the human scale, regarding it as “clutter”. And even worse, their hero Le Corbusier even thought of children as “clutter”!

Generative Codes are a Kind of Algorithm

The creation of complexity has to go stepwise, this is a fundamental law!

And the fundamental answer is, that there is a fundamental law about the creation of complexity, which is visible and obvious to everyone – yet this law is, to all intents and purposes, ignored in 99% of the daily fabrication process of society. The law states simply this: ALL the well-ordered complex systems we know in the world, all those anyway that we review as highly successful, are GENERATED structures, NOT fabricated structures. – The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 180

Generative codes follow this law, like the DNA in the creation of an embryo, following an encoded instruction for each step. Or like an algorithm following certain rules going stepwise. But unlike for a mathematical algorithm the end result is not set; the code helps us to reach one out of several desired end results, while avoiding undesirable end results.

Codes used to create life:

• DNA is coded information for all biological structure
• Create life through genetic codes
• Same process as with urban codes
• Developing embryo uses both DNA information, and the existing geometry of the configuration at each step – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 196

Life is not a blueprint but an algorithm

The need for adaptive algorithms:

• Architects should apply algorithms that adapt structure to human needs
• Simple algorithms connect pattern languages to form languages
• Process successfully generates adaptive design, and corrects irrelevant forms that have corrupted memory
• Use a proven memory bank that archives evolved solutions
• Often just as good as computing a new solution
• When architectural memory banks are corrupted, however, we need to recompute the solutions over again
• Pattern languages prevent corruption – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 142-143

The goal is always identifying and strengthening centers, where the many smaller centers focus upon the larger centers (like for a tree) to make a coherent, living whole!

Centers strengthens centers to make strong centers and a coherent
living whole, here seen in snow crystals

The theory of centers:

• A “center” is a visual field that is the focus of a region
• The region that focuses on a “center” can be of any size
• Centers help to tie space together by reinforcement
• Recursion leads to fractal properties – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 97

Another strong center, Hamandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib (also known as the
Golden Temple). The holiest shrine in Sikhism located in
the city of Amritsar, India

The Form Language

A pattern language is system design or interactions, while a form language is what makes the pattern language beautiful. A pattern language has to be the basis of any neighborhood, while the form language is what brings the pattern language alive and makes the place distinct. Only when you mesh the form language with your pattern language your design is complete, or a living whole. Patterns are universal while form languages are local, still all reflecting the innate geometry of nature, which is so complex that millions of form languages can be created. Another name of Nikos’ book could have been A Form Language, and when you have A Form Language and A Pattern Language, you have the power in your hands to create the ultimate living design.

In old times the form languages changed from one valley to another, from one town to another, giving each place its innate poetry. While modernism (the International Lie) has in its arrogance rejected the very existence of a form language, this is why modernistic typologies look the same the world over. Making a global monoculture of architecture!

Poetry written in stone! Florence, Italy

With one stroke, we have hopefully laid to rest the common terror that traditional form languages restrict architectural creativity. This statement is mathematically false. We can use an adaptive design algorithm with a traditional form language to design different buildings depending upon different initial conditions. Classical and traditional architects know that. By adapting to local conditions, buildings and cities become unique while using the same algorithm. And there exist many distinct adaptive design algorithms that have evolved over the millennia of human existence. Using these algorithms with different local conditions makes possible an infinity of innovative results. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 85

A Better Focus

There are so many tools I should like to introduce for you from Nikos book, but as I don’t know how to draw I would have to copy the whole book for its illustrations. This is one of the strengths of the book, the many illustrations. I’m in no way an expert on how to use the tools of this book, and to become a master you need many years of practice. Using them was for generations a natural part of people’s cultural genetic code. We should be very grateful to Nikos for picking up the broken pieces, restoring them and giving them back to us. Sadly too many can’t admit that what we did over the last 100 years is fundamentally flawed, giving them cognitive dissonance.

This book by Nikos gives you a better perception of the world, both for what is ugly and what is beautiful. And while it can even break your heart when you realize the ugliness that modernism has created within it, you are more than compensated by gaining a new appreciation and acceptation of the innate beauty of our world.

When I wrote my article “Modernism & Disconnection from Life” I didn’t know really why I loved so much more being on a glacier than on the Norwegian Opera image of a glacier. There are of course many reasons, but one very important is that Engabreen, a glacier arm of Svartisen, consists of a very strong horizontal compression, just like the fluting on a column.

Two examples of horizontal compression:

Compression is a force that correlates to human biophilia. The image of a glacier lacked this force. But it also lacked another fundamental part of biophilia, the fractal dimension.

Space is perceived according to its fractal dimension, as established by the British architect Andrew Crompton (Environment & Planning B 28, 2001, pages 243-254). I believe this to be a property of our perceptual system that applies to all animals. We seek the protection of a fractal environment that has scales corresponding to our body and its parts and avoid non-fractal open spaces. Survival originally depended upon being able to physically fit into the environment. Whenever possible, children create fractal play environments using furniture and toys: for example, cubbies, dollhouses, and secret spaces in which they and their toys fit. By adding smaller components to the existing adult space (or by subdividing it), they experience a LARGER spatial complexity. On the urban scale, historic city centers with fractal structure are experienced as LARGE, whereas in fact they are dwarfed by contemporary non-fractal urban spaces that no one wishes to use. – Twelve Lectures on Architecture, by Nikos A. Salingaros, page 65

Toward a New Permatecture Future

By now the permaculture movement has focused upon patterns (pattern languages), and that’s good, but now it’s time to focus more upon forms (form languages). With this new toolbox from Nikos we have the tools needed to truly reunite man with nature both through innate biophilic patterns and geometry. To respect and care for nature we have to create nature through infusing all we create with the geometry found in nature, and to obey the laws of nature. A reason why so many don’t care about nature today is that our cities and towns are anti-nature. Modernism and modernistic ideology is pure hatred against nature!

Sunrise, Manaslu, Nepal, Himalaya. Photo: Ben Tubby

The machine aesthetic:

• Ideology of the machine society
• Crude mechanistic world view is not healing but does the opposite
• It negates the complex mathematical properties of nature
• Reduces nature and detaches human beings from the biosphere – Nikos A. Salingaros

If we don’t understand how to build nature into everything we create, then our pocket neighborhoods, ecovillages, village towns and transition towns will be both inhuman and anti-nature. For the future I hope these tools well be a part of every Permaculture Design Course!

I’d love to see a future with a permatecture institute in every city! The International Society of Bio-urbanism, where Professor Nikos A. Salingaros is a member of the Scientific Committee, is already highly influential in Italy. I’m sure they’ll help us to get started.

Twelve Lectures on Architecture can be used as a template for, just as the title says, twelve lectures of architecture. It could be held through a weekend. But it can easily be extended to a twelve week course to get in-depth training for using all the tools of the book.

We are now given the tools needed to reunite the man-made world with the natural world, so let’s start the work!

Watch the original lectures from which the book has evolved:

• Archived videos, slides and notes of all the lectures

Buy the book:

• Twelve lectures on architecture: algorithmic sustainable design, Umbau-Verlag, Solingen, 2010 (252 pages) is available in the USA HERE, HERE, and HERE, in the UK HERE, and in the EU from Germany HERE and HERE. Comment by David Brussat in the Providence Journal, 7 March 2011. Review by James Kalb onTurnabout. Review in Polish HERE.

Join the Salingaros Group:

• The Salingaros Group

Further reading:

• Neuroscience, the Natural Environment, and Building Design