The US is importing millions of dollars worth of Australian bees to pollinate its food crops . US bees are dying from antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria , likely to be the result of widespread genetically modified (GM) crops. At the same time, the Australian Federal government is pushing for the adoption of GM crops here , despite widespread concerns from many agricultural groups including beekeepers.

In a detailed article published this week, Robert supports the NSW Greens call for a legislated moratorium  on the general release on GMOs as a matter of urgency.

"Our food supply could be under serious threat because antibiotic resistant genes from genetically modified crops are killing bees," he argues   .

The ABC 7-30 report “ Bee keepers appeal for industry help”, aired on 18 April, documented the export of Australian bees to the US. “Australia is presently one of the few places in the world where honey bees are mainly disease free,” it reported.  

America needs to import bees because of pests such as Verroa mite, and diseases like American foulbrood. Wild bees and bumblebees are in decline in the USA, Europe and UK and their decline is linked to modern intensive farming, the widespread use of herbicides and GM crops.  

Friends of the Earth in the UK, reports “Concerns [have been] expressed by English Nature, the Government's own wildlife advisor, as well as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the Wildlife Trusts [that] the widespread use of GM herbicide-tolerant crops is likely to threaten wild bee populations.”

There is increasing concern that genes giving resistance to antibiotics can be passed from the GM plants through bees into bacteria and viruses. It has been found that DNA from pollen can survive for up to seven weeks in honey and could be transferred to humans and other animals.

A submission to the N.Y. Assembly task force on food, farm, and nutrition policy on October 3, 2000, by Joe Rowland, quoted German research showing that “a gene used in GM canola is transferred to bacteria in the guts of bees [in] the first publicly documented case of horizontal gene transfer from GM crops to bacteria within any animal. This discovery may have major implications for the future of GM crops.”

One of the greatest dangers of such horizontal gene transfers comes about from the use of genes for resistance to antibiotics in the gene manipulation process. Antibiotic resistant "marker" genes are inserted into the target plant as “markers”. These genes help researchers determine which plants have been succesfully modified because they do not die when antibiotics are sprayed on them.

Within the plant, the antibiotic resistant gene is harmless. However, if this gene were able to transfer out of the GM plant and re-enter a bacterium, this bacterium would become antibiotic resistant. This might render commonly used antibiotics useless against diseases attacking humans and livestock, including honeybees.

Joe Rowland testified that bees in the U.S. and Argentina were both suddenly afflicted with a strain of antibiotic resistant American Foulbrood (AFB) shortly after the introduction of genetically modified crops.

“Before the advent of antibiotics, this bacterial infection was the most serious bee disease in the world. Tetracycline had been used effectively against AFB for 40 years until 1996. In that year, tetracycline resistance was confirmed in both Argentina and the upper Midwestern states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Since then, it has spread to at least 17 states, including New York. During the 1990's, millions of acres of Round-up Ready crops were planted in the U.S. and Argentina. According to my information, the antibiotic resistant gene used in the creation of Round-up Ready crops was resistant to tetracycline. After 40 years of effective usage against an infective bacterium found in the guts of honeybees, suddenly 2 geographically isolated countries develop tetracycline resistance simultaneously. A common thread between the U.S. and Argentina is the widespread and recent cultivation of GM crops containing tetracycline resistant genes. “

Source: http://www.biotech-info.net/JR_testimony.html

This evidence spells out the complex and unpredictable nature of the potential problems caused by widespread adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops.

Insufficient Safeguards

Advocates of GM food claim that there are a range of safeguards in place. One of these is the separation of GM crops from other farms. The official “safe” distances established to protect bee populations appear to be insufficient.

Friends of the Earth again. “Honey bees commonly forage up to 2km from the hive, but oilseed rape fields are such an attractive source of nectar that bees may travel at least five km to get to them.” http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/bees_honey_gm_crops.html

The Friends Of the Earth (foe) goes on to describe a study where bee hives were placed at various distances from GM oilseed rape crops. GM pollen was found in all hives up to 4.5km away! This study shows that honey and bee pollen can be contaminated with GM pollen up to 4,5km away, which suggests crops up to 9km away could be polluted with GM pollen.

The Pandora's Box of gene manipulation is well and truly open.

Inverted responsibility

More alarmingly, companies selling GM crops have perverted the onus of proof to force people complaining about GM contamination to prove their complaint, alleviating them of responsibility for ensuring the safety of their product.

In the UK, farmers planting GM crops do not have to consult with neighbouring beekeepers. This means these bees could easily make honey contaminated with GM pollen. Under present UK laws the beekeepers are responsible for testing their honey for GM contamination. This is an expensive process that can cost thousands of dollars.

Even more alarmingly, the courts are finding the innocently contaminated parties guilty of theft, using patent laws in a way they were never intended. In test cases in Canada and Minnesota, courts have found against crop growers whose fields have been contaminated without their knowledge. They have been found guilty of infringing the patents of the corporation which owns the patents on the seeds, even though their crop may have been accidentally polluted with the proprietary genes from miles away.

This is like someone driving past your house and spraying it with their proprietary black paint, thus vandalising your house, and then suing you for having their patented product on your house without a license. Not only have they have polluted your house with impunity; you are regarded as having committed a crime, and have to pay damages to them as well as paying to repair your house.

Federal government blind and stupid

Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the northern hemisphere, and create a high value export market in GM free food, the Federal Government is wantonly choosing the destruction of Australian agriculture, insisting on the adoption of genetically modified organisms. On the 28th of April 2006, Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Christopher Pyne, said “States should drop GM bans … state policies are putting Australian farmers at a disadvantage.”

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1625646.htm

The ABC also reported Australian apiarists (bee keepers) as “appealing for urgent action to stop a serious decline in Australia's bee-keeping industry. The research needs to address parasites, disease and lack of new people entering the industry.”

The call is in response to the closure by the federal government of Australia's only two bee training courses.

Bees pollinate an estimated 60 percent of our crops as well as wild plants. In Australia, this is a mostly free service, from both wild bees and those managed in hives. It is worth up to $2 billion a year to agriculture.

Next time you see a bee, thank it for its selfless service to humanity. It may be among the last of its kind!

Legislative and judicial support for corporations promoting genetically modified crops at the expense of independent farmers, endangers not only bees, but agriculture itself and therefore our future. Support the Greens opposition to GM food .

More links on this issue
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30028/story.htm
http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/policies/GEFoods.php

By Robert Hart.