precautionary principle
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Farmers fear ‘political’ court ruling on plant breeding techniques.
EU farmers have expressed concerns about an ongoing court case on plant breeding techniques, saying it might end up being a “political” decision that does not take into account scientific and economic arguments.
Farmers fear ‘political’ court ruling on plant breeding techniques
By Paola Tamma | EURACTIV.com 03-10-2017 (updated: 03-10-2017 )
New plant breeding techniques modify plant genes to enhance certain traits. [IAEA Imagebank/Flickr]
EU farmers have expressed concerns about an ongoing court case on plant breeding techniques, saying it might end up being a “political” decision that does not take into account scientific and economic arguments.
The European Commission revived the debate on genetic engineering on 28 September, during a meeting on modern biotechnologies in agriculture focusing on New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBTs). But its stance is still unclear.
The term NPBTs describes a number of scientific methods that genetically engineer plants to enhance traits like drought tolerance and pest resistance.
The debate revolves on whether these techniques should be classed as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and should therefore fall under the strict GMO approval process.
The EU defines GMOs as “organisms, with the exception of human beings, in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination”.
Supporters of NPBTs argue that plants obtained through these techniques could also be the product of conventional cross-breeding techniques that mimic natural processes and hence cannot be considered GMOs.
The Netherlands says there is “no need to wait” for EU-wide regulation and would like to push forward the development of NPBTs.
Amsterdam wants to revive talks on new plant breeding techniques
The Netherlands believes the new plant breeding techniques should not come under the GMO legislation as they are as safe as traditional breeding. It also insists that a discussion on the issue should be launched soon, even before the EU Court rules on the issue.
On the other hand, sceptics contest the claim that NPBTs mimic natural processes because the end product could not be obtained naturally. They say there is no knowledge of what happens when combining multiple NPBTs and repeating this over time, hence the precautionary principle should be applied and NPTBs should be regulated under GMO rules.
Playing it safe
In 2016, the EU executive commissioned an up-to-date scientific overview on NPBTs. But the review, published last April, did not take a position on the legal status of NPBTs.
Speaking at an event on 28 September, Health and Food Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said: “There is no single vision in the EU as to how far we could and should go to reap benefits from the use of human innovative interventions in agriculture.”
He said there is a need for further understanding of NPBTs: “In most science-related issues, people tend to look for ‘black and white’ answers where science is about risk and uncertainty.”
A European Commission spokesperson recently told EURACTIV that the executive’s legal interpretation is expected to facilitate harmonisation of EU member states’ approaches to new breeding techniques. “However, it is the sole prerogative of the European Court of Justice to provide a final and binding opinion on the interpretation of EU law.”
The court case
In 2016, France asked the European Court of Justice to clarify whether a variety of herbicide-resistant rapeseed obtained through NPBTs should follow the GMO approval process. The judgment is due in the first half of 2018.
The case concerns one type of NPTBs (mutagenesis) and it is unclear whether the judgment will extend to other NPTBs and what would be the impact of a negative ruling on genetic engineering in general.
It is also being disputed whether EU judges have sufficient scientific understanding to legislate on the matter.
“I fear that the court will make a political decision,” Thor Kofoed, head of seed policy at farmer organisation Copa-Cogeca, told EURACTIV.
“The new mutagenesis technique is a normal and natural breeding technique. I really fear the court will make the decision that mutagenesis is part of the GMO directive. Then we really have a problem because you cannot do anything – you break down the whole industry. And I feel that lawyers don’t understand a thing about biology”, he said.
Speaking at the Commission’s conference, Kofoed stressed that “farmers and breeders need to be increasingly innovative to deal with the challenge of feeding a growing world population with limited resources and increasingly variable weather events, ranging from floods to drought.”
“We need to develop new plant varieties which are for example resistant to water and heat stress, as a way to adapt to climate change, as outlined in the IPCC report on climate change,” he added.
According to Luc Vernet of Farm Europe, an agricultural think tank, for certain NPBTs, “we are on the safe side politically to go forward”, for instance, if no foreign DNA is used.
The American seed manufacturing company DowDuPont voiced confidence that the EU will come around to allow innovation in the field of NPBTs: “We remain confident that European farmers will have access to very important tools like this one”, DowDuPont’s Neal Gutterson told EURACTIV.
But organic farming body IFOAM expressed a different view. Jan Plagge, its vice president, said: “All new genetic engineering techniques should be, without question, considered as techniques of genetic modification leading to GMOs and fall within the scope of the existing legislation on GMOs.
“There are no legal or technical reasons to exclude these techniques from risk assessment, prior authorisation and mandatory traceability and labelling, which apply to current GMOs.”
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Why we should make room for debate about high-tech meat.
The burgeoning alternative protein industry is drawing new lines and making interesting bedfellows—all the more reason to stay engaged in the conversation.
Why We Should Make Room for Debate about High-Tech Meat
The burgeoning alternative protein industry is drawing new lines and making interesting bedfellows—all the more reason to stay engaged in the conversation.
BY GARRETT BROAD | Animal Welfare, Business, Climate, Commentary, Food Safety, HEALTH, Labeling
09.28.17
“We built a lab with glass walls. That was on purpose,” Ryan Bethencourt, program director for the biotech accelerator IndieBio, told me as we sat in the company’s wide open basement workspace in the South of Market district of San Francisco.
Glass walls—it’s a design philosophy that many animal rights activists have argued could turn the world vegan, if only people could see into the slaughterhouses that produce their meat.
But IndieBio is taking a different approach. “If we put a lightning rod in the ground and say we are going to fund the post-animal bioeconomy,” Bethencourt, a self-described ethical vegan, explained, “then we’re going to create foods that remove animals from the food system.”
He pointed me to two examples currently in the accelerator: NotCo, a Chilean startup using a mix of plant science and artificial intelligence to create mayonnaise and dairy products, and Finless Foods, a two-man team using “cellular agriculture” to create lab-grown or “cultured” seafood. The latter is just one of several new products in development that creates meat without relying on actual livestock, using only a few cell tissues from animals instead.
While the number of alternatives to animal protein has been growing steadily over the last several years, it remains a relatively niche market. Bethencourt and his colleagues at IndieBio are eager to get their food into the hands of the masses. “If we don’t see our products used by billions of people, then we’ve failed,” he told me.
But it’s not just altruism that drives this emerging industry. There’s big money betting on a future of animal products made without animals.
Just look at IndieBio alum Memphis Meats, a cultured meat company that announced late last month that it had raised $17 million in Series A funding. High-profile investors have included Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and ag industry giant Cargill, none of whom seemed deterred by the fact that no lab-grown meat product has ever actually been made available to consumers yet.
Mempis Meats’ Southern fried chicken. (Photo courtesy of Memphis Meats.)
Major investment has also been pouring in for high-tech products made solely from plants. Hampton Creek, best known for its eggless mayo and dressings—and numerous controversies involving its embattled CEO Josh Tetrick—has been dubbed a “unicorn” for its billion-dollar valuation. (The company recently announced that it’s getting in on cultured meat innovation, too.)
Products from Beyond Meat are now in over 11,000 stores across the United States, supported in part by early investment from Gates and a 2016 deal with Tyson Foods. Gates is also a backer of Impossible Foods, which has raised upwards of $300 million since it launched in 2011 and has the capacity to churn out one million pounds of “plant meat” each month in its new Oakland production facility.
All of this big money, of course, has followed big promises. According to the innovators and investors involved, a sustainable, well-fed, economically thriving world that makes factory farming obsolete is now within our reach.
I’ve spent the last few months talking to scientists and entrepreneurs in the plant-based and cultured meat landscape. As a vegan since my college days, it’s been hard for me not to get excited by the vision they present.
Bu,t as someone who has spent the better part of the last decade working as a food justice researcher, author, and activist, lingering concerns have kept my enthusiasm in check. The truth is, food scientists, corporations and philanthropists have made big promises before, but the food system is still a mess. Farmers and workers continue to be marginalized, environmentally irresponsible practices remain the norm, animals are mistreated on a massive scale, rates of hunger and food insecurity are alarmingly high, and chronic diet-related disease is on the rise across the globe.
I find myself with mixed feelings about the whole enterprise. On one hand, I’m skeptical that these technological fixes will automatically lead us to some sort of agricultural utopia. But I’m also concerned that many who identify with the food movement might be missing out on the chance to shape the future of food because they’re turning their backs on food science altogether.
According to Professor Cor van der Weele, a philosopher of biology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who studies public perception of animal protein alternatives and has a book forthcoming on the topic, my reaction is far from unique.
“Meat has, for a long time, led to a very polarized debate—you were either a vegetarian or a staunch meat lover,” she explained. “Cultured meat has been very effective in undermining those polarities. It brings ambivalence more to the foreground, and it also makes possible the formation of new coalitions.”
Impossible Burger meat photo courtesy of @Impossible_Burger.
I’m interested in the possibilities these new coalitions present. But it’s hard not to wonder: Could what’s good for Silicon Valley really be good for eaters in South L.A., food entrepreneurs in Detroit, and farmers in Iowa? Could the “post-animal bioeconomy” bring us the kind of sustainable and fair food system we’ve all been waiting for?
Farming Beyond Meat
When I stepped into the El Segundo, California office of Ethan Brown, CEO of Beyond Meat, the writing was literally on the wall. Four stylishly designed posters outlined the company’s mission: improving human health, positively impacting climate change, addressing global resource constraints, and improving animal welfare.
“We’re lucky that for the first time in a long time, profit-seeking behavior and what’s good are aligning,” Brown told me.
“The whole genius of the thesis of what we’re doing is that you don’t have to have the mission in mind for it to be the right thing to do,” added Emily Byrd, a senior communications specialist at the Good Food Institute, a non-profit that promotes and supports alternatives to animal agriculture and works with companies such as Beyond Meat. “That’s why writing efficiency into the process is so important.”
Food-tech proponents insist that animals are really poor bioreactors for converting plants into protein. They suggest we simply skip that step—either by building meat directly from plant sources or using a laboratory bioreactor to grow meat cultures.
It would be a clear win for animals, and one that could mitigate the negative environmental impacts of factory farming at a moment of growing global demand. But what would it mean for farmers?
For one, it would require a lot less corn and soybeans—the two crops that currently dominate this country’s farm landscape. Shifting the commodity system wouldn’t be easy, but Brown argues that, “If you were to redesign the agricultural system with the end in mind of producing meat from plants, you would have a flourishing regional agricultural economy.”
By relying on protein from a wider range of raw ingredients—from lentils to cannellini and lupin—he says companies like his have the potential to diversify what we grow on a mass scale. It would be better for the soil and water, and farmers could theoretically benefit from having more say in what they grow with more markets to sell their goods.
Beyond Meat burgers. (Photo courtesy of Beyond Meat.)
When it comes to putting this type of system into practice, however, a lot of details still need to be worked out. Byrd pointed me to the writings of David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s soap company, who envisions a world of plant-based meats and regenerative organic agriculture. He suggests that the soil fertility-boosting power of diversified legume rotations, combined with a modest amount of Allan Savory-inspired livestock management, could put an end to the factory farm and the massive amounts of GMO corn and soy (and the herbicides) that feed it.
Even cultured meat advocates see a future that is better for farmers once we move away from raising animals for food.
“In my mind, farmers are the ultimate entrepreneurs,” said Dutch scientist Mark Post, who created the first cultured hamburger, at the recent Reducetarian Summit in New York. “They will extract value from their land however they can. And if this is going to fly and be scaled up, we need a lot of crops to feed those cells. And so the farmers will at some point switch to those crops because there will be a demand for it.”
What crops and what types of farms would feed those cells? Right now it’s unclear, since up to this point cultured meat has used a grisly product called fetal bovine serum to do the job. Along with the continued use of animal testing, it’s one of the few ways that these food-tech innovators have been unable to move beyond using animals completely. Several companies claim they’ve begun to find plant-based replacements for fetal bovine serum, assisted in the discovery process by complex machine learning systems like Hampton Creek’s recently patented Blackbird™ platform. But intellectual property keeps them tight-lipped on the particulars.
As for how those crops—and others used in the production of meat alternatives—would be produced, there’s not much more clarity. In my conversations with people in the food-tech world, the opinions on organic and regenerative agriculture ranged from strongly opposed to agnostic to personally supportive. But with the likes of Gates and Cargill playing an increasingly big role in the sector, it’s unlikely that a wholesale switch toward these practices is on the horizon.
It’s not surprising, then, that some food activists are not buying what the alternative animal product advocates are selling.
Big Questions About Big Promises
“We want to see a food system in the hands of people and not in the hands of profit-driven companies,” said Dana Perls, senior food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth (FOE).
She expressed a set of misgivings about the role of genetic engineering and synthetic biology in the plant-based and cultured meat space. Are these products really about sustainably feeding the world or are they more about investor profit? Are we sure we know the long-term health impacts?
Perls noted the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent decision to stop short of declaring that a key genetically modified ingredient in Impossible Foods’ plant-based “bleeding” Impossible Burger was safe for human consumption. That determination did not mean the burger was unsafe, however, and Impossible Foods stands by its integrity.
Impossible Burger photo courtesy of @Impossible_Burger.
Perls was encouraged by the fact that some plant-based products—like those produced by Beyond Meat—do not use GMO ingredients. And she recognized that, from a technical perspective, cultured meat does not necessarily use genetic modification either—although it could in the future. But she and others are still uneasy. “The fact that there is a lot of market-driven hype propelling these genetically engineered ingredients ahead of safety assessments and fully understanding the science is concerning.”
Other concerns have been raised about the healthfulness of highly processed alternative meats which often lack a strong nutrient profile. But food-tech advocates maintain that conventional meat products go through multiple layers of processing, too, even if the label doesn’t always reflect it. And they are quick to note that meat is a major source of foodborne illness and has been associated with cardiovascular disease.
“[Our] number-one driver is far and away human health,” Beyond Meat’s Brown explained. “It’s absolutely the number-one thing that brings people to this brand.”
Plant-based and cultured meat producers see themselves promoting sustainability, promising healthier options in a world that demands convenience and good taste. But it’s not clear yet how universally accessible these products will be. Plant-based burgers made by Beyond Meat are now for sale in a number of grocery stores (including Safeway), for instance. But at about $12 a pound, they’re still much more expensive than conventional ground beef, which costs around $3.50 a pound, and even more than some higher-end ground grass-fed and organic ground beef, which sells for around $10 a pound.
NotCo Mayo (Photo courtesy of TheNotCompany.com)
Residents and activists in so-called food deserts are still calling for investments that provide access to fresh vegetables and create local economic growth. Alternative meat producers insist prices will come down once their supply chain improves, but only a concerted plan to promote equity will stop the venture-backed food-tech industry from reinforcing these types of longstanding nutritional and economic disparities.
“The decision about what an equitable food system looks like shouldn’t be determined by biotech itself,” FOE’s Perls argued. “We need to move with precaution, with transparency, and with a full understanding of what we’re doing so that we can make sure that we’re moving ahead in a way that has more benefits than harm.”
It’s hard to disagree with those assertions. At the same time, groups like FOE have been locked in a battle with the biotech world that often doesn’t allow either side to engage in a genuine dialogue. I, for one, don’t want to see that happen with these high-tech meat alternatives. Precaution is an important value, but aren’t there also serious risks if we don’t boldly engage with these scientific endeavors?
An Appeal to Dialogue
IndieBio companies like NotCo and Finless Foods say they want to communicate more with the public, helping to demystify new food technology and get people to become participants in the process of innovation.
“You have to be very transparent when you are changing the way that people eat. And that’s what we’re trying to do here,” said Finless Foods co-founder Michael Selden. “I’ve always been a political activist. And for me this is part of my food activism.”
If there’s any hope to build solidarity between food scientists and food activists, now is the time for those talks to begin. Perhaps the bigger question, though, is whether anyone is willing to listen.
“Within the scientific community, there’s this idea that every innovation leads to a future world that’s better,” Christopher Carter, a professor of theology who studies food justice and animal ethics, said. “But for many people of color, innovation and science have sometimes been harmful, or even come at their expense.”
In other words, if the biotech boosters are really interested in dialogue, it’s important for them to engage with critical histories of food and technology, which will help them understand why earlier promises to sustainably feed the world have fallen short. Equity should be at the center of their work and addressing the concerns of the most vulnerable eaters and food producers must be part of their bottom line.
“If you have people at the table who are asking those kind of questions, and the people who are doing the innovation are actually taking them as valid questions, I think that could help mitigate some of the potential problems that are going to come up,” Carter argued.
On the other side, a necessary first step for the most diehard critics of genetic engineering would be to become more familiar with the basic biochemistry involved in these new products. Food movement advocates should also avoid knee-jerk reactions that romanticize “natural” foods while villainizing any and all food-tech innovation.
It’s clear that food tech isn’t a silver bullet, but I’m also optimistic about the new coalitions that could take shape between scientists, investors, farmers, entrepreneurs, and eaters. We might never come to a clear consensus, but progress is only possible if we channel our ambivalence into honest, evidence-based, and historically grounded dialogue.
So if, like me, you are interested in a future of food tech that promotes real sustainability and food justice, I hope you’ll join the conversation. I’ll see you there, behind the glass walls.
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Violence erupts on desperate Caribbean islands: "All the food is gone."
In the few, long days since Irma pummeled the northeast Caribbean, killing more than two dozen people and leveling 90 percent of the buildings on some islands, the social fabric has begun to fray in some of the hardest-hit communities.
MARIGOT, St. Martin — At dawn, people began to gather, quietly planning for survival after Hurricane Irma.
They started with the grocery stores, scavenging what they needed for sustenance: water, crackers, fruit.
But by nightfall on Thursday, what had been a search for food took a more menacing turn, as groups of people, some of them armed, swooped in and took whatever of value was left: electronics, appliances and vehicles.
“All the food is gone now,” Jacques Charbonnier, a 63-year-old resident of St. Martin, said in an interview on Sunday. “People are fighting in the streets for what is left.”
In the few, long days since Irma pummeled the northeast Caribbean, killing more than two dozen people and leveling 90 percent of the buildings on some islands, the social fabric has begun to fray in some of the hardest-hit communities.
Residents of St. Martin, and elsewhere in the region, spoke about a general disintegration of law and order as survivors struggled in the face of severe food and water shortages, and the absence of electricity and phone service.
As reports of increasing desperation continued to emerge from the region over the weekend, governments in Britain, France and the Netherlands, which oversee territories in the region, stepped up their response. They defended themselves against criticism that their reaction had been too slow, and insufficient. Both the French and Dutch governments said they were sending in extra troops to restore order, along with the aid that was being airlifted into the region.
After an emergency meeting with his government on Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron of France said he would travel on Tuesday to St. Martin, an overseas French territory. Mr. Macron also announced late on Saturday that he would double France’s troop deployment to the region, to 2,200 from 1,100; officials say the increase is in part a response to the mayhem on St. Martin.
The Dutch territorial side of the island has also experienced widespread security problems at shops, though the issue was reported to have subsided by Sunday, though not completely.
“There was some looting in the first few days, but the Dutch marines and police are on the street to prevent it,” Paul De Windt, publisher of The Daily Herald, a newspaper on the Dutch side, said on Sunday. “Some people steal luxury things and booze, but a lot of people are stealing water and biscuits.”
More than 265 Dutch military personnel have been deployed to the island, and an additional 250 are expected to be sent to the region in the next few days to help maintain order and assist with relief efforts, the Dutch government said. In addition, 90 police officers have been flown in from Curaçao, another Dutch territory.
The storm delivered a direct hit on the region starting Wednesday, destroying airports and ports, knocking out power and potable water systems, and leaving many tens of thousands of residents and tourists isolated and increasingly desperate, unable to go anywhere.
The crisis worsened on Saturday as Hurricane Jose rumbled through the region. Though the islands hit by Irma avoided a direct blow from the second hurricane, its arrival forced the suspension of relief and rescue operations, prolonging the agony for many.
On Sunday, officials announced that two more bodies had been discovered on the Dutch side of St. Martin, increasing the death toll in the Caribbean attributable to Hurricane Irma to at least 27. So far, about a dozen deaths on both sides of the island have been attributed to the storm, according to The Associated Press. People here, however, insist that the death toll is much higher.
While there is no way to verify such claims, they illustrate the fear and the rumors swirling through an island as people are cut off from the rest of the world, with roads blocked and most areas without cellular service. News, for the most part, is being relayed by word of mouth, leading to outsize claims. One rumor making the rounds on Sunday was that hundreds of people had died, some at the hands of escapees from a local prison.
The French government denied the rumors about the alleged prison break on Sunday. But some residents spoke of witnessing violence, with people fighting over food at grocery stores, and people armed with guns and other weapons.
Residents reported that armed men had entered the Hotel Flamboyant in Marigot, the capital of the French side, and robbed tourists by knocking on the doors to their rooms, flashing guns and demanding valuables.
The French National Gendarmerie, whose troops are in St. Martin and St. Barthélemy, another French overseas territory ravaged by the hurricane, announced on Twitter on Sunday that it had made 23 arrests. In a statement, the French Interior Ministry said: “Extraordinary resources have been sent to the Antilles. The government is totally mobilized.”
American officials said Sunday that they had helped evacuate about 1,200 American citizens from St. Martin, many on C-130s, which flew evacuees to Puerto Rico.
On Sunday, Cuba was also reckoning with the damage from Hurricane Irma, which roared along the island nation’s northern coast on Saturday.
Although there have been no reported fatalities or casualties, Havana awoke Sunday morning to substantial damage. The capital’s inhabitants, who spent the night in darkness after authorities cut power as a precaution, found fallen trees, mangled lampposts, and smashed water tanks. Floodwaters reached more than 600 yards into the city.
But damage in the capital was light compared with elsewhere on the island. In the coastal city of Matanzas, 60 miles east, one-story houses were completely underwater, and damage to Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco, popular tourist islands, was severe. A video posted on Facebook showed hotel roofs caved in, and mounds of concrete and coils of steel in lobbies. The northern keys are home to more than 50 all-inclusive hotels, which provide essential hard currency for Cuba.
The Cuban government immediately began relief efforts, deploying security forces in large numbers to the hardest-hit areas, along with convoys of trucks carrying food and heavy equipment to help remove debris.
“Cuba is very organized,” said Orlando Eorlsando, 53, as he replaced his front door with bloated plywood in Havana. “The priority of the government is to keep people safe and preserve life.”
While the Cuban response seemed to be a well-oiled machine, elsewhere in the Caribbean the government reaction has been halting, critics say.
In France the criticism of the government’s response to the storm came first from Mr. Macron’s opponents, who were eager to use the hurricane to find fault with his administration.
A more measured critique came from a former minister of France’s overseas territories, Victorin Lurel, who said that the situation needed more “resources, more logistical planning, more transport and a hospital boat.”
“People could have been evacuated ahead of time,” he said in an interview Sunday on the news channel Europe1. The government response on the Dutch side, he insisted, was better than on the French side.
In Marigot, a French Gendarmerie helicopter hovered over the city on Sunday afternoon, flying low and scanning the storm-blistered streets. Boats in the marina had been upturned, half submerged or tossed onto the beach by the storm.
Families with relatives on the island organized convoys of boats from as far away as Guadeloupe, bringing water, canned goods, fuel and the chance to escape. But even that has become dangerous. Several boats turned back from St. Martin’s main port, fearful of the crowds gathered seeking aid.
As one boat pulled into the Marigot harbor on Sunday, a family raced to the docks to offload goods — and load several children on board. Goodbyes were said quickly, and the new passengers who climbed aboard heaved a sigh of relief as the boat pulled off.
Maeva Canappele, 20, wept as the boat began to distance itself from the island of St. Martin, destined for Guadeloupe, a six-hour ride on choppy seas. She was grateful.
“It was getting bad on the island,” she said. “Someone broke into our home and tried to rob us, but my parents managed to scare them away.”
In a statement on Sunday, the French interior ministry said that after emergency needs are dealt with, reconstruction will begin. Among its priorities, the statement said, it intends to distribute one million liters of drinking water, secure private property; and get the telecommunications systems running again.
On Tuesday, a French navy ship equipped with a hospital and carrying helicopters, troops and reconstruction material will depart from France.
In Britain, lawmakers from both the governing Conservative party, as well as the Labour opposition, have accused the government of failing to take adequate precautions to protect the residents of three British territories lying in the path of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Jose.
About 75,000 people, most of them British nationals, live on the Caribbean territories of Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, and the British Virgin Islands — each of which suffered substantial damage from Hurricane Irma.
In preparation for the hurricane season, the British government had sent a naval supply ship to the region in July. Following the storm, the ship brought 40 relief specialists to Anguilla, who helped to restore power at the island’s main hospital and carry out repairs at its airport, according to the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.
Since Friday, Britain has also sent two transport planes carrying almost 20 tons of emergency supplies to its Caribbean territories, as well as 250 marines and two extra military helicopters. Britain’s largest warship will arrive in the Caribbean in around 10 days, carrying eight more helicopters.
Azam Ahmed reported from Marigot, St. Martin, and Kirk Semple from Mexico City. Alissa J. Rubin and Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris, Patrick Kingsley from London, and Ed Augustin from Havana, Cuba.
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