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GENETICALLY ENGINEERED COTTON
source: www.organicconsumers.org/
newsletter/biod41.doc
www.ota.com/organic/
benefits/generic.html
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'Frankencotton'
Playing on concerns about the fatal harvest of pesticides, Monsanto has pushed genetically engineered cotton seeds onto the market in more than a half-dozen countries as the 'green alternative' for cotton growers:- In terms of human health hazards, herbicide-resistant or Bt-spliced genetically engineered cotton plants - and their oil and seed derivatives - contain foreign proteins, bacteria, viral promoters, and antibiotic resistant genes - food ingredients that humans have never eaten before.
- USA: over 10 million acres of genetically engineered cotton are now being grown across the States. These vast mutant fields already account for more than 60% of all US cotton.
- While the acreage devoted to genetically engineered crops such as corn, soybeans, and rapeseed (canola) has started leveling off in the US and across the world - due to the growing global opposition to genetic engineering - the acreage of genetically engineered cotton is increasing.
- In India, about 10,000 hectares of a genetically modified variety of cotton that had not been approved were illegally cultivated in Gujarat and had to be destroyed in 2001.*
* Source: Financial Times Information Limited, Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, Oct. 16, 2001, and Oct. 21, 2001.
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