Consumers and their impact on food and farming systems in North America and Germany – Examples relating to GMO issues

Consumers in North America and Germany tried in different ways to impact their regional farmers, supermarkets, regional as well as national politicians, food related laws as well as food based land use systems in order to be able to continue consuming ge-free foods and to get sufficient information on all levels of the food chain enabling them to do so. As much success as consumers in the US and Germany had with the initiation and establishment of ge-free regions, US consumers did not succeed with their ge-food labelling campaigns. Only in Vermont a ge-seed Labelling law could be passed. In Germany ge-food, ge-feed and ge-seed have to be labelled by law. German Consumers and low input farmers tried to get also products derived from ge-feed included in ge-labelling laws. It seems a consumer influenced compromise that a new German legislation is about to be adopted which would allow for an easier Non-GMO-Labelling of food. Yet consumer opportunities to make informed choices about the food they eat seem to be still limited, especially in North America with the practical absence of federal ge-food, feed and seed labelling laws. Thus a few years ago, actors of the organic and natural food Industry teamed up to launch the so called Non-GMO Project, which shall soon open its Verification Program to the North American natural and organic food industry, offering a standard for ge-free or Non-GMO verification

Innovative Verantwortungsgemeinschaften durch nachhaltigen und Ökologi-schen Landbau – Beispiele aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Kalifornien

The term Innovation is nowadays more frequently used together with so called High technologies like Genetic engineering (BBAW 2005) and only rarely for rather soft and social-environmentally sound practices like organic farming (NIGGLI 2002). Some regions in Europe and North America try hard to protect their innovative regional development concepts of which organic farming is an important part. They improve their networking activities on a local, regional and sometimes even global level. The following paper highlights such innovative example regions in California and the Ger-man state Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania

Netzwerke nachhaltiger Landwirtschaft im GVO-induzierten institutionellen Wandel

In many countries of the world regional actors and their networks seem to be concerned about genetically engineered plants, food, feed and seed. Especially regional actors involved in organic and natural food and farming business seem to lead the way in wanting to know more about the source of their food, what it contains and how it is produced. Sustainable producing Farmers want to protect their plants and produce from the influence of pollen drift from GM plants. Thus the Introduction of GM plants requires complex innovations in regularizing ecological, social and economic relationships and it induces various institutional changes even on local level. This paper gives an inside over institutional changes which occurred in selected study regions of North America and Germany with respect to the introduction of GM plants

Product and process protection in the organic farming sector - organic terminology and image at risk

Abstract - Genetic Engineering seems to be one of the greatest threats to Organic and "low input" farming systems of our times for various reasons. This paper primarily focuses on the creep-ing dilution and takeover of organic Terminology by the Biotech sector in the fields of organic products, processes and re-search. It shows by means of a few selected case Studies from Europe and North America how consumers’ and politicians’ trust in organic processes, products and research may de-crease and the positive organic image may partly get lost over time if no adequate counter strategies are (further) developped and collectively implemented

Fibronectin is Synthesized as an Acute Phase Reactant in Rat Hepatocytes

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