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Advanta

Last edited by crocodyl on April 22, 2008 - 4:55pm
Company Snapshot: 

Advanta Seeds is a joint venture between chemical/pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and seed company VanderHave. In 2000 it was the world's 6th largest seed company. In the UK and EU it has been involved in field trials of a range of GM crops. Elsewhere in the world it markets GM crop lines as well as conventionally bred crop lines. In the EU they have been involved in a major scandal when conventional seed stock they had supplied was found to have substantial levels of GM contamination. They have also been involved in the intimidation of UK anti-GM activists. Should GM crops be commercialised in Europe, it is likely that Advanta Seeds would be one of the companies at the forefront of marketing GM to farmers. Advanta Seeds is currently heavily involved in the UK GM crop regulatory process, and are pushing the EU to relax their position on levels of GM contamination in conventional crops.

Advanta’s mission statement: Worldwide breeding, production, processing, conditioning, sales and distribution of seeds for major agricultural field-crops and amenity grasses.

The company's areas of expertise include: plant breeding; research and development; tissue culture; DNA finger printing - molecular markers; genetic modification; Seed technology/processing; seed production; marketing and sales.

Chief executive officer: 
Ad Huige
Website: 
Advanta
Corporate accountability
Accountability overview: 

Advanta shrouded in secrecy

It's hard to identify the real nature and extent of corporate influence and control in agriculture because of the rapid changes taking place. The names and ownership of corporations change frequently due to a unprecedented level of (de)mergers and acquisitions. Since the 1970s there has been an intense monopolisation of the seed industry worldwide, with big corporations (e.g., pharmaceutical, chemical and agribusiness companies) taking over small and medium sized seed companies. Cross-linkages between companies complicate the picture further. Biotech and seed companies make cross-licensing agreements to be able to supply a full technology 'package' to clients. Even at the basic level of sales, it is difficult to get a clear picture. Advanta adds to the confusion. The company does not produce an annual report, but only a few sheets with figures. And the company does not reveal any specific data about seed sales.

Environment and product safety: 

GM contamination of UK and European landscape

Last year (2000), Advanta made headlines in Europe when oilseed rape seeds it had sold were found to contain small amounts of genetically modified material unapproved in the EU. On April 17, Advanta Seeds UK told the UK Government that GM contaminated oilseed rape seed had been sold to farmers across the country. It claimed that the GM contamination happened in Canada, when pollen from a GM 'Roundup' resistant crop was blown onto conventional oilseed rape being grown for seed.

The seed was also used in Sweden, France and Germany. Dominique Voynet, France's Environment Minister, immediately called for the destruction of the crop. Sweden's government also considered this. But British Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown -- in the face of similar demands from environmental groups -- said the government had no plans to destroy the contaminated crops. In addition, the government was accused of sweeping the scandal under the carpet.

After the food scandal had come to light, Conservative MPs claimed that the planting of GM seeds in the UK was covered-up by the government. When Advanta went to the government to make a clean breast of their blunder --one month before the information was eventually made public-- they were asked not to say a word about it. Conservative agriculture spokesman Tim Yeo said Advanta had told him that they would have liked to warn their customers about the contaminated oilseed rape. 'The only reason they did not do so is that they were asked by Ministry of Agriculture officials to keep the whole matter secret', Tim Yeo said.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown denied the allegations, 'Advanta had no advice from government not to tell their customers what had happened.' Mr Brown then sought to reassure the public over the crops, some of which were planted in 2000 and some in 1999. 'There is no risk to public health in this accident. There is no risk to the environment in this accident.' However, there seem to be little support for this statement. The GM seeds have been released over thousands of acres of the UK countryside, and it is impossible to guarantee that there are no risks involved.

It remains unclear whether the UK government tried to keep things in the dark. It is clear though that it took a long time before the UK government used the information Advanta had given them to inform farmers and the public - a gap long enough to allow seeds to planted which might otherwise had been destroyed prior to planting.

The newly established Food Standards Agency (FSA) issued a press release stating that there was no risk to public health. However, no consultation with consumer or producer groups preceded this and their detailed advice to ministers on the issue was not made publicly available, despite a pledge that this would happen. The release also made no reference to consumer choice.

Bryan Johnson, English Nature's top GM expert, said: 'None of the statutory consultation agencies knew anything about this until the story broke on Radio 4. We were not asked for our advice in advance of the decision being made and were not consulted at all, I am afraid. We are not very happy about it, as you can imagine.'

The UK government was obviously greatly inconvenienced by the scandal, which meant bad publicity and a blow to the its ambitious biotechnology project. The government tried hard to trivialise the contamination and its consequences. Initially both Advanta Seeds (claiming the GM contamination was not their fault) and the government said they were not willing to help or compensate the affected farmers.

But before the farmers could undertake legal action -the only option open to them-Advanta decided to deliver the goods and prevent any more bad publicity, although the company still does not admit legal liability.

Advanta plays down contamination scandal, and blames external factors, such as lack of regulations, the media hysteria and the wind!

'Lack of guidance' Instead of putting on the hair shirt themselves, Advanta probably thought it was more convenient to blame external factors (like the regulatory authorities in the UK and EU, journalists, and the wind!) for the contamination fiasco (see above). Advanta Seeds UK criticised British and European authorities for failing to set legal guidelines on seed purity. The company stated:

'Early political action to create a comprehensive regulatory framework would have at best prevented this incident from occurring or at worst managed public expectations about seed purity and averted further media hysteria.' [Reuters 2000]

Advanta urged the government to 'create a regulatory framework with no further delay'. 'At a minimum, thresholds for accidental GM impurity need to be set, standard testing methods need to be stipulated and results should be analysed by an approved and consistent statistical method.'

'Whatever the standards, they need to be reasonable,' says Klaas van der Woude, senior sugarbeet breeder at Advanta. 'If standards are reasonable, we can work on it, and at least we know what we're up against. But we cannot guarantee zero risk. Seed companies cannot guarantee GMO pollen is not flying around in the air.'

A technical and profit-driven approach to nature Advanta thinks of seeds as 'technology carriers'. 'Accept no limits', is their credo, referring to the elimination of limits on technological interventions in the genetic make-up of nature. Advanta aims to produce seeds which lead to 'stable and increasingly uniform' yields.

Advanta is eager to use biotechnology in order to create 'seed that sells'. 'Seed that excels is seed that sell' says the company.

Anti-competitive and consumer protection: 

Control of the Seed Market

Advanta, currently the world's fifth biggest seed company, is a major player in the game of dividing the world seed market amongst big multinational corporations. Since the 1970s there has been an intense monopolisation and consolidation of the seed industry worldwide. This process has taken place through the acquisition of small and medium sized seed companies, regionally or locally based, in various countries by huge pharmaceutical, chemical and agribusiness companies. Consolidation of the seed market (and consequently the strengthening of corporate control of the entire food chain) has many harmful consequences.

Political influence: 

Government (US)

The USDA, FDA, EPA and a few other federal institutions share responsibility for agricultural biotechnology and food safety.

Marc Lefebvre, biotechnology research manager for Advanta, talking about a project aiming to improve sugar beet output traits: "There is relatively few researchers in the world working on transgenic beets. That’s why it is important to collaborate with others. We have a nice relationship with USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and others from a technical perspective."

Social responsibility: 

'GMOs of vital importance to secure global food safety' Advanta is among the first to promote biotechnology in agriculture, since they expect to benefit from it enormously. Ad Huige, president of Advanta, spreads the familiar but seriously flawed story that, 'GMOs will help food production capabilities in a world with limits of land and water resources and an ever-increasing population', says Huige. 'The unfortunate and ironic point about biotech is that it results in less inputs and chemicals, making it environmental friendly. It's a real pity that the argument against biotechnology is based on emotional fear and not scientific facts' (Vanderhave Seed Facts.

Because this story is repeatedly being spread around by the biotech stakeholders (and the industry is very well able to reach the public through their multi-billion PR machines and the corporate controlled media), the danger exists that this reasoning becomes part of public consciousness. In other words, that it becomes a myth hard to discredit, in spite of all the solid arguments against it. Comprehensive critiques can be found on the Internet.

History

Imperial Chemicals Industry (ICI) was established in 1926 by amalgamating Britain's 4 largest chemical companies: Nobel Industries, the British Dyestuffs Company, the United Alkali Company, and Brunner, Mond Limited. By the early 1990s ICI was selling 15,000 products in 150 countries. ICI was:

-the 3rd largest chemical group in the world -the 2nd largest agrochemical producer and -the 5th largest seed producer

After an unsuccessful hostile take-over bid in 1991 ICI reduced its vulnerability to such events by splitting the company in 1993 into a chemicals company and a bioscience group, Zeneca. On June 1, 1993, Zeneca became a separate company from ICI. The concept of life science has always been an important part of the Zeneca's thinking and rationale.

Zeneca/ICI acquired a number of seed companies in the 1980s and in 1996 these were combined into a 50:50 joint venture with VanderHave B.V. (part of the Dutch Co-operative Cosun) to form a new company called Advanta. Advanta has a role in the development of the new seed varieties with Zeneca.

In 1998, Zeneca announced a merger with Swedish pharmaceutical corporation Astra. The merger was completed in 1999, and created a company - AstraZeneca - with $10bn/yr sales which ranked 2nd in European and in UK sales and 3rd among world drug companies, after Merck and Glaxo Wellcome. The merger was driven by a desire to reduce costs (by $1.1bn annually, or 6,000 jobs) and to obtain better access to the US drug market.

In December 1999 AstraZeneca and Novartis of Switzerland announced that they were merging their agrochemical operations, and Novartis's seed business, to form Syngenta of Switzerland. Advanta was not part of the deal. Novartis received 61% of the new company and AstraZeneca 39%. Syngenta is the world's 3rd biggest maker of seeds, after DuPont (Pioneer) and Pharmacia (Monsanto).

In 1999, Advanta was in the red. The controversy surrounding the use of genetically modified seeds caused the company considerable inconvenience: it lost 30% of its sales in the US. In spite of this setback, Cosun CEO Menkhorst foresees a bright future for GM seeds. "With the global population growing at high speed, there is a need for more food. In addition, if genetic engineering can create products with improved traits, the use of GM seeds will boom."

On January 1, 2000, one corporate company was established in the United States for all of the Advanta Companies. The new company is Advanta USA, Inc. which owns Interstate Seeds, AgriPro Wheat, AgriPro Seeds and Garst Seed Co.

The same year, Advanta made headlines in Europe when oilseed rape seeds it had sold were found to contain small amounts of genetically modified material forbidden by the EU. The seeds, grown in Canada, were contaminated by windblown pollen from other GM oilseed rape nearby.

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