Tuesday, May 7, 2013
All About The New EU Seed Law
Well, what a hectic week. Everyone we know has been lobbying hard, and thanks to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been emailing and writing about this, there were some important last-minute changes to the proposed law, even as late as Sunday night.
While it is still a bad law, it is much less bad than the first, second, or even third draft. This is only because so much pressure was brought to bear on them! We must remain vigilant to be sure it is not changed for the worse as it goes through the EU, and then is translated into UK laws. For now, here is a summary of the current situation. The law itself is linked at the bottom.
NEW EU PLANT LAW DIMINISHES SEED SUPPLY FOR HOME GARDENERS, RESTRICTS FARMERS’ CROPS
On Monday May 6th a draconian new law was put before the European Commission, which creates new powers to classify and regulate all plant life anywhere in Europe.
The “Plant Reproductive Material Law” regulates all plants. It contains immediate restrictions on vegetables and woodland trees, while creating powers to restrict all other plants of any other species at a later date.
Under the new law, it will immediately be illegal to grow, reproduce or trade any vegetable seed or tree that has not been tested and approved by a new “EU Plant Variety Agency, who will make a list of approved plants. Moreover, an annual fee must also be paid to the Agency to keep them on the list, and if not paid, they cannot be grown.
The key last minute concessions that were made – and this really was only due to public pressure, because they were not in the draft just 3 days previously – are as follows:
- Home gardeners are now permitted to save and swap unapproved seed without breaking the law.
- Individuals & small organisations can grow and supply/sell unapproved vegetable seed – as long as they have less than 10 employees.
- Seedbanks can grow unapproved seed without breaking the law.
- There could be easier (in an unspecified way) rules for large producers of seeds suitable for organic agriculture etc, in some (unspecified) future legislation – maybe.
We are checking out what the next step is. It appears that next it must go to Parliament for modification or approval, so there is still the chance of changes for better or worse. We must all campaign to make sure only improvements are made!
Ben Gabel, vegetable breeder and director of The Real Seed Catalogue, says:
The draft law was truly awful, and it is good to see that the Commission have responded to the hundreds of thousands of citizens who raised their voices against it. They have made important concessions for home growers and small farmers, though it is a shame they did not think of them in the first place.
However, it will still have negative consequences. It will halt the professional development of vegetable varieties for home gardeners, organic growers, and small-scale market farmers.
This is because the main registration system is no good for home gardeners – varieties suitable for home use don’t meet the strict criteria of the Plant Variety Agency, which is only concerned about approving the sort of seed used by industrial farmers.
Because of this, seed companies used to be able to register and sell “Amateur” varieties that didn’t pass the tests, for home growers. Under the new system, they are now called “Niche” varieties and there is no testing or registration at all, but there is a big catch: any company with more than 10 employees is now banned from producing them.
So new varieties for home growers can only be developed by tiny organisations, and they may not have the resources to do it well. There will be very little professional development of varieties for home gardeners or small-scale sustainable agriculture.
The law will reduce the choice available to large farmers too. In some cases it will only allow new varieties of vegetable if they are tested and proven to be better than ones currently on the list. This is foolish, often you don’t discover the benefits of a new variety until you’ve been growing it for several years, for example when a new disease comes along that it turns out to be resistant to. In a free market, it should be up to farmers to try out any new crop they like and decide what variety is best based on their own experience.
There’s no real need for this complex new regulation. We already had very strong consumer-protection laws that cover all this – seeds must be fit for the purpose sold, match their description, and perform as advertised. The old seed laws already covered health, traceability and safety. Anyone who produces seed is already inspected and certified by the Secretary of State.
This is an instance of bureaucracy out of control. All this new law does is create a whole new raft of EU civil servants being paid to move mountains of papers round all day, while interfering with the right of people to grow what they want, and charging fees for the use of plants that were domesticated and bred by the public over thousands of years of small-scale agriculture.
It is also very worrying that they have given themselves the power to regulate and licence any plant species of any sort at all in the future – not just agricultural plants, but grasses, mosses, flowers, anything at all – without having to bring it back to the Council for a vote.
This law was written for the needs of the globalised farm-seed industry, who supply seed by the ton to industrial farmers. It should not apply at all to seed used by home gardeners and small market growers, who have very different needs.
We call for a total exemption from the law for seed supplied in small packets directly to individual consumers.
New Cannabis vs. Cancer Patent Sought
One of those proven medical uses of marijuana is to defeat cancer. Several studies have decisively shown that cannabis is an effective treatment for cancer. A Harvard study revealed that cannabis use reduced tumor growth by half.
Less scientific experiments conducted by private citizens using Rick Simpson's hemp oil have also seen astonishing results.
One young lady, Kristina Marie, is documenting her treatment of brain cancer with hemp oil.
Other firsthand testimonials of concentrated cannabis extract defeating cancer can be viewed here and here, and visit Rick Simpson's official channel and website for more information.
Even the National Cancer Institute now openly acknowledges that cannabis is an effective treatment for cancer stating, "Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death."
National Institutes of Health (NIH), stated that marijuana "inhibited the survival of both estrogen receptor–positive and estrogen receptor–negative breast cancer cell lines." The same report showed marijuana slows or stops the growth of certain lung cancer cells and suggested that marijuana may provide "risk reduction and treatment of colorectal cancer." (Source).
This March, a new patent was applied for by GW Pharma to use cannabanoids for the treatment of prostate, colon, and breast cancer.
This invention relates to the use of phytocannabinoids, either in an isolated form or in the form of a botanical drug substance (BDS) in the treatment of cancer. Preferably the cancer to be treated is cancer of the prostate, cancer of the breast or cancer of the colon.The patent application takes conclusions from many studies to support their pursuit in treating cancer with cannabis:
Researchers however have discovered that some cannabinoids, including THC and cannabidiol (CBD) are able to promote the re-emergence of apoptosis so that some tumours will heed the signals, stop dividing, and die. The process of apoptosis is judged by observation of several phenomena including: reduced cellular volume, condensation of nuclear chromatin, changes in distribution of phospholipids in plasma membrane phospholipids, and cleavage of chromatin into DNA fragments called DNA ladders.
Another method by which tumours grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids may turn off these signals as well.
Cannabinoids have been shown to have an anti-proliferative effect on different cancer cell lines. The cannabinoids THC, THCA, CBD, CBDA, CBG and CBC and the cannabinoid BDS THC and CBD were tested on eight different cell lines including DU-145 (hormone-sensitive prostate cancer), MDA-MB-231 (breast cancer), CaCo-2 (colorectal cancer) and C6 (glioma cells). The data for each cannabinoid in each different type of cancer varied but generally the best data were observed with CBD or CBD BDS. The IC50 values for all the cannabinoids on the DU-145 were quite high inferring that none of the cannabinoids tested were particularly effective in the inhibition of hormone-insensitive prostate cancer (Ligresti, 2006).The patent is specifically seeking permission to create and sell a cannabis extract in the same vein as Rick Simpson's oil in that it has a high concentration of cannabanoids and THC. As such, their goal is to produce a botanical drug substance (phytocannabinoid) with over 80% CBDs, CBLs and THC.Although cannabis has proven health benefits when smoked or juiced raw, it is the high concentration of these active compounds that seems to show the greatest promise in defeating cancer.
This represents the 25th patent that GW Pharma has applied for to use cannabanoids for treatment of various ailments and diseases like neuropathic and general pain, epilepsy, nausea and motion sickness, cholesterol control, anti-psychotic, and inflammatory bowel disease.
If cannabis was only effective at treating these ailments it should be considered a miracle drug. Yet, if it's also indisputably proven to be an alternative cancer treatment, what can't this plant do?
Source: Activist Post
End is near: 'Catastrophic' euro should be abolished, says its architect
The same man who called for a united Europe and spearheaded the euro currency in 1999 , Germany’s former finance minister Oskar LaFontaine has formally retracted his support for the troubled currency, and is calling for its abandonment.
Consistently weak data and little upward momentum in recovery has caused severe doubts about the shared financial responsibility that comes along with the continent-wide currency.
The current trajectory of the euro, LaFontaine argues, is ‘leading to disaster’. Lafontaine wrote his remarks on Germany’s Left Party website, and urged the jettisoning of the euro.
"The economic situation is worsening from month to month, and unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt," he said.
LaFontaine took particular aim at Chancellor Angela Merkel,
writing that she will only "awake from her self-righteous
slumber" after Germany itself becomes a victim of the
crisis.
The dichotomy of the financial crisis dialogue borders along Germany’s severe austerity measures, and the rest of the EU’s general rejection. Germany’s efforts to ‘re-balance’ the euro zone aren’t working.
The southern economies, including France, Italy, and Spain, are shrinking. Unemployment has risen to 12.1%, according to Eurostat’s data released on May 1. In Greece and Spain, the numbers are sobering: 3 out of every 5 people under the age of 25 are unemployed.
LaFontaine chastised Germany’s strong-handed tactics in carrying out internal devaluations in Spain, Portugal, and Greece, labeling such efforts as a ‘catastrophe’. The wage ‘squeezes’, according to LaFontaine, are actually just self-serving tactics to improve their own export niche.
"The Germans have not yet realized that southern Europe, including France, will be forced by their current misery to fight back against German hegemony sooner or later," he wrote.
The strains of the eurozone crisis, coupled with the most recent bail-out scare in Cyprus, have drawn in a wide array of criticism from all political platforms, but some still remain positive.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Finland’s Europe Minister
Alexander Stubb defended the euro as the most stable currency
Europe has ever seen, and doesn’t foresee a break-up in his life
time:
“The human mind has a tendency to forget, but look at the devaluations, revaluations, the peggings to the Gold Standard, the inflation rates and the monetary instability that we’ve had throughout European currency history,” said Stubb.
Fridges could be switched off without owner's consent to reduce strain on power stations
Fridges, washing machines and other electrical goods could be switched off automatically in British homes without the owners’ consent under EU proposals to help power stations meet demand for electricity.
White goods such as electric ovens would be affected by the proposals to fit all new appliances with sensors that could shut them down when the UK's generators struggle to meet demand for power.
The measures proposed by the UK’s National Grid, along with its counterparts in 34 European countries, to install the controversial devices are backed by one of the European Union's most influential energy bodies.
They are pushing for the move because green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations, increasing the risk of blackouts
The proposals are outlined in documents drawn up by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), and has been agreed by the EU-wide body of energy regulators.
The proposals were sent to the European Commission on March 27, and it is set to deliver its verdict on the proposals within three months, the Mail on Sunday reported.
They could then go to the European Parliament to be turned into legislation that would force manufacturers to install the monitors, which could see new appliances containing the sensors hitting the shops within three years.
Critics condemned the ‘Big Brother’ proposals, attacking the energy giants who they said would make millions of pounds extra profit under the scheme, as it would save them from firing up reserve generators or paying factories to switch off furnaces to quell demand.
There is no suggestion in the measures that consumers will be compensated for having their appliances shut down.
The sensors, which will automatically detect spikes in demand for power that the grid is struggling to meet, and temporarily shut off the appliances, could also add £40 to the average price of white goods for consumers, critics warned.
David Davis, the former Tory leadership candidate, said: “There is a Big Brother element to this - and it also shows the energy suppliers passing down their incompetence to the customers.
“They should be supplying energy as customers need it, not the when they want to give it.
'There is something Soviet about this. It's a ridiculous idea and it should be opposed. I hope the government puts its foot down.”
Viktor Sundberg, energy strategy manager at Electrolux, warned: “This is Big Brother technology on a grand scale. The device inside the fridge or freezer will automatically change the way the appliance operates in response to the output of the grid.
“This method of shutting down household appliances could to be carried out almost instantly, saving the energy companies millions because they won't have to start up the turbines or pay huge industrial companies to cut production.
“Consumers are not benefiting at all and will be left paying more when they buy the appliances, as well as having their private goods controlled by outside forces.”
The National Grid, a private company that made £2.6 billion profit in 2011, is required by law to balance supply and demand in the network.
The EU has set a target that 20 per cent of all electricity will be generated from green sources by 2012, but these are unreliable, making the task more difficult.
The National Grid supplies alternating current to homes at 240V and an frequency of 50 hertz (Hz), but because electricity cannot be stored in bulk, there are fluctuations in this.
When demand starts to outstrip supply, the frequency drops - when there is more power than needed, it rises.