Does Your Organic Tee Contain GM Cotton?
source: http://environment.change.org/blog/view/does_your_organic_tee_contain_gm_cotton
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- jmsrmy
- added this
H&M and other fashion retailers have been selling clothes marked organic that were in fact contaminated with genetically engineered cotton, a story broken by the German edition of the Financial Times and rendered in English by Ecouterre.
The FT's investigation showed that nearly a third of products marked organic contained fiber from genetically engineered plants.
The retailers relied on fraudulent certifications conducted in India, which supplies half the global supply of organic cotton. Yet, it appears that even after the frauds began to be uncovered H&M and C&A continued to buy the cotton. Naughty H&M!
Consumers, however, are not the biggest victims here, as Ecouterre would lead you to believe; Indian cotton farmers are. The Indian government has backed the expansion of GM cotton, but it doesn't live up to promised yields and, at least according to one study, has more rather than less pest infestations.
If you're an organic cotton farmer in a sea of GM cotton, all it takes is one cross-pollinated plant for you to lose the organic price premium on your crop. It's easy to understand the temptation to seek out a lenient certification.
And, yes, the GM cotton in India is patented by Monsanto.
http://environment.change.org/blog/view/does_your_organic_tee_contain_gm_cotton
The FT's investigation showed that nearly a third of products marked organic contained fiber from genetically engineered plants.
The retailers relied on fraudulent certifications conducted in India, which supplies half the global supply of organic cotton. Yet, it appears that even after the frauds began to be uncovered H&M and C&A continued to buy the cotton. Naughty H&M!
Consumers, however, are not the biggest victims here, as Ecouterre would lead you to believe; Indian cotton farmers are. The Indian government has backed the expansion of GM cotton, but it doesn't live up to promised yields and, at least according to one study, has more rather than less pest infestations.
If you're an organic cotton farmer in a sea of GM cotton, all it takes is one cross-pollinated plant for you to lose the organic price premium on your crop. It's easy to understand the temptation to seek out a lenient certification.
And, yes, the GM cotton in India is patented by Monsanto.
http://environment.change.org/blog/view/does_your_organic_tee_contain_gm_cotton
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- groups:
- Green, The Retail Sector
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- tags:
- Organic, GM, Cotton, Genetically Modified
