Consumers Union of Japan – Page 18 – Sound and Healthy Future for Our Children

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Sound and Healthy Future for Our Children

Wild-growing GM Canola Still a Problem

Activists have for many years participated in actions around harbours all around Japan. They collect and test wild-growing canola along roads and near food oil factories. The import of Genetically Modified canola, which started in the late 1990s, led to GM plants growing wild, an unintentional effect that poses a risk to the biodiversity of similar plants. Canola is a member of the Brassica genus and many other edible plants are grown in Japan, thus increasing the risk that cross-contamination will occur of related foods like cabbage or broccoli.

In 2006, the government started taking an interest in this issue, after intense lobbying by CUJ and the No! GMO Campaign, who are helping to organise the testing. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (MAFF) has again this year announced that they have found GM canola growing wild around seven harbours (Tomakomai, Kashima, Chiba, Nagoya, Yokkaichi, Kobe and Hakata). They also found wild-growing GM soy at one harbour (Hakata).

It is believed that the imported seeds easily fall off conveyor belts and lorries as they are transported from the ships that enter the harbours. According to Bio Journal, when 165 individual seeds of Brassica napus were tested, 20 were discovered to have resistance to both glyphosate and glufosinate.

Read CUJ’s 2010 report about wild-growing canola

By fridfrid | 01/10/2020 | Biodiversity, Biotechnology, Food, Trade |

Questionnaire Regarding Vaccination Against COVID-19

CUJ has submitted the following questionnaire to the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, Mr. Katsunobu Kato.

On 31 July 2020, your ministry announced that it had reached a basic agreement with Pfizer Inc. of the United States to supply 60 million people with a new coronavirus vaccine by June of next year, if the vaccine is successful. Your ministry also announced on 7 August that it had reached an agreement in principle with AstraZeneca of the United Kingdom to receive 120 million doses of the vaccine, if successful, by early next year. Developed countries are working to secure the vaccine, and your ministry is actively working to secure it. This is a major agreement at a time when vaccines are not yet available and their effectiveness and safety are not even known.

Vaccines are causing health problems, especially among children, due to adverse reactions. Vaccines, unlike drugs, are administered to healthy people. We must be cautious as well as careful. In order to hasten the development of this new biotech vaccine, they are being developed in a different way than the traditional method of development, and the way the vaccine works is completely different. Moreover, large-scale vaccination is being considered. We can’t help but be very concerned about the damage caused by adverse reactions. For this reason, we would like to ask the following questions:

(more…)

By fridfrid | 09/09/2020 | Biotechnology, COVID-19, Vaccines |

Japan Resources – 178

Please click here for our latest English newsletter: CUJ-JR-178

We hope you will continue to stay updated with CUJ’s activities and news on our English website, and support our campaigns!

Contents:

From the Editors: Stay Tuned for More to Come!

Request to Stop Using Pre-harvest Glyphosate on Soybeans

CUJ Blog: What is the Future of Japanese Agriculture?

CUJ Supports “Defend Our Rice, Fight for Our Rights” Campaign Across Asia

Request for Opinion Exchange on Genome-Editing Foods

Over 9000 People Replied to CUJ’s Questionnaire About Fragrances

Campaign Against Railway Glyphosate Use

By fridfrid | 31/08/2020 | Japan Resources |

Request to Stop Using Pre-harvest Glyphosate on Soybeans

To:

JA Toyama Prefecture

From:

No! GMO Campaign

Consumers Union of Japan 25 August 2020

Request to stop using pre-harvest glyphosate on soybeans

We are a consumer organization working for food safety. We are engaging in a number of initiatives to oppose genetically modified foods and genome-edited foods and demand prudent use of the herbicides and pesticides associated with them. In recent years, we have strengthened our monitoring of glyphosate herbicides, especially in light of the recent revelations of their harmfulness and the progress of global regulations.

In the midst of this situation, we were informed that the glyphosate was detected in soybeans and processed foods shipped from your prefecture’s JA plant. Glyphosate is a suspected carcinogenic with other toxic effects. We are concerned to learn that it is being sprayed as a wilt agent before the wheat harvest in North America and that pre-harvest spraying is being carried out on soybeans here in Japan as well. We are concerned that the spraying of harmful pesticides has a high risk of harming the health of farmers, and that spraying just before harvest can lead to significant residues in the harvest. While the Pesticide Control Act allows for the application of herbicides and pesticides in the field of soybeans prior to harvest, the purpose of using glyphosate is solely for weed control. We believe it is illegal to use glyphosate for soybean wilt or to use them in such a way that they affect the soybeans.

We, as consumers, used to think that domestic soybeans were safe because many imported soybeans are now genetically modified and new genome-edited soybeans have appeared in the United States. However, we are concerned that the detection of glyphosate in domestically produced soybeans may make it impossible to say that such soybeans are safe because they are domestically produced.

We would like to ask you to instruct your prefecture’s JA to stop using glyphosate in soybeans prior to harvest, and ask the following questions. We would like to ask you to respond in writing by 8 September. We plan to publish your answers on our website.

Questions:

Have your prefecture’s headquarters ever advised JAs in your prefecture to recommend or allow spraying with glyphosate before the harvest of soybeans?

Do you know whether or not your prefecture’s JAs apply glyphosate before the harvest of soybeans?

Are you aware that in 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer evaluated glyphosate as a possible carcinogen for humans, and that in the United States, a large number of plaintiffs have won lawsuits against glyphosate manufacturers?

Could you instruct JA in the prefecture to stop using glyphosate before harvest? When, if at all, will you instruct them to stop? If not, please tell us why you will not do so.

By fridfrid | 25/08/2020 | Environment, Food |

CUJ Blog: What is the Future of Japanese Agriculture?

Every year at this time of the year, I feel depressed. It’s the time of year when aerial pesticide spraying for rice stink bug control takes place. After a few years of living in rural areas, I’ve seen one aspect of the dwindling number of farmers. They have to rely on aerial spraying to save labor. There are many elderly people who don’t want to use herbicides who can’t cope with the vigorous growth of weeds, so they are dependent on them.

Not only in the town where I live, but also in neighboring towns and villages, young people are leaving for the big cities, and those who are engaged in farming are mostly in their 70s or 80s. The number of abandoned fields is increasing year by year due to the lack of manpower, so fields are in disrepair. Satoyama (mountainous farm areas) are no longer maintained, and damage from monkeys, deer and wild boars is increasing.

Most urban residents think that they can get food at convenience stores and supermarkets anytime, but due to the effects of the new corona virus pandemic and climate change, the number of countries exporting food to Japan may decrease dramatically in the future. I really wonder what will happen to Japan then, as our food self-sufficiency rate is only 37%. Large cities with “dense” populations and rural areas that are exhausted by the outflow of population… I can only hope that the unbalanced distribution of human beings in this country will be restored through the pandemic.

By Matsuno Ryoko (August 6, 2020)

By fridfrid | 19/08/2020 | Biodiversity, Chemical pollution, Environment |