GM food on trial
Can genetically modified food put an end to famine? Is it
even safe to eat? Is it an uncontrollable environmental disaster waiting to
happen? While most people are deeply suspicious, the scientific jury is still
out. What is certain is that powerful multinationals are striving to force GM
products down our throats. JON DALE reports on recent findings from field trials
in Britain while MANNY THAIN looks at GM politics and trade.
A guilty verdict?
"THE PRIME minister is very strongly of the view that this
product is safe. He has no hesitation at all about saying that. He does have a
sense of frustration that the debate is not being conducted in as fully informed
a manner as it could be". (Downing Street spokesman, 15 February 1999)
Fortunately, massive public opposition forced the government
to concede a ‘debate’ and period of research before new genetically modified
(GM) plant technology was given the go-ahead. Farm trials were set up on a
bigger scale than has taken place anywhere else. This in itself shows the
reckless dash for cash of the corporations, which have pressured farmers in 16
countries to use GM crops before any careful research into their long-term
effects has been carried out.
The government’s sympathies were clear from the start. The
trials were designed to produce a favourable result for the industry by narrowly
concentrating on the immediate environmental effects in the fields. These were
not expected to show much difference with conventionally grown crops.
Wider issues were not considered, such as the consequences
of GM pollen spreading and cross-pollinating with wild plants or other crops.
Health effects were not examined. This would have been far more costly and
time-consuming to research. So it is an enormous blow to the government and
industry’s plans that even this limited research, published on 16 October, has
shown much greater environmental damage than anyone had predicted.
In different parts of England and Scotland, 273 fields were
planted half-and-half with GM and conventional crops. Four were tested – beet,
maize, spring and winter oil-seed rape (the latter results will be ready next
year). GM maize and rape were treated with the weedkiller ‘Liberty’, made by
BayerCropScience. GM beet was sprayed with Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’. These
weedkillers destroy all plants except the crops, which are genetically changed
to withstand them. Conventional weedkillers were used on the non-GM crops.
Scientists measured the numbers of weeds growing in the
fields and the number of seeds they produced. These weeds and seeds provide food
for insects – beetles, butterflies, bumblebees – and birds such as skylarks and
yellow hammers. The insects then provide food for other insects and spiders, as
well as birds.
Among the alarming findings were: a six-fold reduction in
the weight of weeds in GM beet fields sprayed with Roundup; 70% less weed seeds
in GM beet fields; 80% fewer broad-leaved weed seeds in GM spring oil-seed rape
(although there were more springtails feeding on the destroyed weeds, and
spiders feeding on the springtails); and one third fewer butterflies in GM beet
and half fewer in GM spring rape – although it is true that not many butterflies
are found around conventionally grown beet.
The number of bees did not differ, but they can travel for
food. Most of the trial sites involved half of just one or two fields sown with
GM crops. And if GM agriculture were to spread across the countryside there
would be a sharp decline in the flowering plants bees feed on.
The bird population was not measured, but these big falls in
weed seeds and insects would inevitably affect their numbers. They have already
suffered a more dramatic decline than anywhere else in Europe due to intensive
conventional agriculture. The effects would accumulate each year with GM farming
as the number of weed seeds in the soil fell.
On the other hand, there were three times as many weeds in
the GM maize, producing twice as much seed, as in the conventional crop. There
were similar numbers of insects, apart from three times as many honeybees around
the GM field boundaries. Much has been made of the maize results by the
industry, media and government. What the maize findings showed, however, were
the limitations of the whole experiment.
In reality, the field trials compared the effects of
different weedkillers, rather than any changes from the different genetic
make-up of the crops, which would be very much more difficult to study. The
conventional maize was treated with atrazine, but this has just been banned by
the European Union because of its cancer-causing and gender-changing effects.
Because the use of atrazine is to be stopped, the maize results are meaningless
for future farming practice.
Three other studies published in October provide further
reasons for opposing the introduction of commercial GM farming. One has shown
that oil-seed rape cross-pollinates with a related wild plant, Bargeman’s
cabbage or wild turnip. Cross-pollination occurred up to two miles from the
crop. Some of the plants grown as a result of cross-pollination would be capable
of reproducing. Although this study looked at conventional oil-seed rape, the
effects would be the same with a GM crop. If Liberty-resistant oil-seed rape
cross-pollinated with Bargeman’s cabbage, some offspring would be resistant to
BayerCropScience’s weedkiller. Like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, they would
spread and could eventually need more concentrated and frequent applications of
Liberty, or additional spraying with another chemical.
Another study has shown that it would take five years of
annual spraying with weedkiller before the level of GM oil-seed rape fell to the
point that contamination of a new non-GM crop in the same field was less than
1%. If no spraying took place, it would take 16 years.
The third study found evidence of bees transferring pollen
over a distance of 26 kilometres by flying back to their hives and mixing with
other bees. It had previously been assumed that bees could carry pollen four
kilometres. This means that there are no safe quarantine distances around GM
crops that could prevent the contamination of non-GM farming. An exception may
be maize, which has no wild relatives in Britain with which to cross-pollinate
and which bees do not feed on. A separation of 80 metres would keep
cross-pollination with non-GM maize below 0.3%.
While these findings add to the growing body of knowledge
about possible consequences of GM farming, a key question remains – do
genetically changed crops have any different nutritional properties? If they do,
this could affect humans, animals, insects and birds in unforeseen and
unpredictable ways. The biotechnology corporations airily dismiss this issue,
saying that GM food is ‘broadly equivalent’ to non-GM. They would sound more
convincing if they had conducted serious research in this area, but they have
not.
‘Conventional’ farming is enormously damaging to the
ecosystem. Large farmers, agrochemical and food processing companies, together
with the supermarkets, aim to maximise their short-term profits. The long-term
consequences to the land and water, where many of these chemicals end up, are
incalculable. Public spending cuts have meant universities and public research
institutes are increasingly dependent on private industry funding. Farming
methods that cannot be patented or marketed and which do not produce fat profits
get low, if any, priority.
The huge sums spent on GM technology should be spent on
research and development into sustainable farming. Although GM technology could
theoretically produce benefits, workers, consumers and small farmers can have no
confidence that these will outweigh the risks so long as capitalism controls
scientific research, development and application.
The government’s public consultation exercise, published in
September, found only 8% were happy to eat GM food. The Cabinet Office’s July
economic review warned of "a risk of civil unrest if there is a rush to grow GM
crops". New Labour’s enthusiasm for the biotechnology corporations is running
into big obstacles. It looks as though Blair’s ‘sense of frustration’ will grow.
Global assault
FOLLOWING TONY Blair’s stance on the invasion of Iraq, GM
crops have exposed his sycophantic support for George W Bush on two further
fronts. Firstly, Blair’s ringing endorsement of US biotech corporations and GM
science without any hard evidence, like some vegetable WMD. Secondly, distancing
his government from the trade dispute blowing up between the US and Europe over
GM food. To Blair, big-business backing and his so-called ‘special relationship’
with the Bush regime matter more than the environment or health of people in
Britain or elsewhere in the world.
Intense debate provoked by the crop trials also highlighted
the overwhelming domination by big business of the ‘world market’. Most of the
biotech industry is in the hands of US corporations, backed to the hilt by the
US administration. Monsanto and a handful of other companies have spent millions
developing genetically modified organisms. Their aim is to sell GM seed to
farmers throughout the world. The seeds are resistant to chemical pesticides
produced by the same companies which developed them. The seeds are sterile. So
every year farmers have to buy more.
Unfortunately for them, people around the world are
suspicious of their motives, question whether the food is safe, and fear the
environmental consequences. It was pressure from below that compelled the New
Labour government to conduct its biased crop trials.
Now the biotech companies are trying to force countries to
accept their products. They want the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to rule that
the European Union (EU) moratorium on GM produce, and its rules on labelling and
contamination tolerance, are barriers to ‘free trade’. They understand how
unpopular their products have become, protesting that clearly labelling foods
containing GM ingredients is like putting a skull and crossbones on the
packaging. They claim that EU restrictions have cost them $30 billion (£18bn) in
‘lost’ export revenue. In other words, US corporations are demanding
compensation for people not buying what they do not want to buy.
It would be wrong, however, to think that the EU is acting
on behalf of Europe’s people. On 2 July the European Parliament approved a
regulation that food must be labelled if it has more than 0.9% of detectable GM
content. It also stated that there had to be a ‘paper trail’ allowing
derivatives to be traced. This affects products such as corn oil or beet sugar.
However, the rule does not apply to products made with GM ‘processing aids’,
such as enzymes or yeast. Therefore, cheese, wine and beer are exempt, and the
EU exports large quantities of these. So it turns out to be a thinly-disguised
protectionist ploy, this time in the interests of European big business. It is
one more example of accumulating transatlantic trade tensions. And it further
divides Blair from the EU.
Monsanto bosses are celebrating the decision of the Workers’
Party government in Brazil to allow the cultivation of GM soya beans for the
first time. This is one of a series of neo-liberal policies implemented by
president Lula on behalf of US big business. All the benefits will accrue to the
large landowners. Poor peasant farmers and landless workers will suffer.
According to The Economist magazine (4 October), Monsanto’s target is for its
seeds to account for 70% of soya bean production within a decade, and Brazil
could become the world’s biggest soya producer in five years. Soya products
already account for 5% of Brazil’s total exports.
Every aspect of the GM industry is tightly controlled by a
handful of powerful corporations based in the G7 richest countries, especially
the US. An editorial in the New York Times makes this explicit: "There are two
methods of transferring genes, for example. Both were developed by universities,
but industry giants now hold the licenses. The companies permit others to do
research with the technologies but want control over any product commercialised
as a result. Several poor nations are trying to develop improved versions of
local crops, but these efforts have been crippled by the biotech companies’
control over the technology". (13 October)
Bill Gates, the billionaire head of Microsoft, recently
donated $25 million to GM research through his Gates Foundation. He claims it is
to help the world’s poor, but it’s hard not to be sceptical. John Vidal, the
Guardian’s environment editor, wrote that international charities, farmers’
groups and academics "accused [Gates] of being captured by an industry now using
the hungry as a ‘Trojan horse’ to get its biotech into poor countries". (16
October) The Gates Foundation has appointed an ex-Monsanto scientist to one of
its boards, alongside representatives from the Syngenta corporation. Last year
it linked up with GM-dealing Kraft foods, a subsidiary of Philip Morris (the
world’s most profitable tobacco corporation).
The research being funded by Gates will be done mainly by
the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, and the International Food
Policy Research Institute. Both are part of the Consultative Group on
International Agriculture Research (Cgiar), which holds more than 600,000 types
of unpatented seed in a genetic bank of immense potential wealth to food and
pharmaceutical companies. Its two major financial backers are the US
administration and the World Bank. Finance equals influence. Vidal reported: "Cgiar’s
public research, say NGOs in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe, is being
quietly corporatised, centralised in Washington and becoming remote from farmers
in the developing world. They argue that having promoted the ‘green revolution’
of the 1960s – which introduced high-yielding, chemically dependent crops –
Cgiar is now using large amounts of public money to develop GM foods, once again
without consulting the people who the technology will most affect".
The link between governments and big business is not only
visible in the US. The main body allocating funding to the life science
industries in Britain is the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research
Council. Its executives are drawn from biotech and pharmaceutical giants
Syngenta, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Merck Sharp & Dohme,
Pfizer, Genetix plc, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Celltech and Unilever. Under
Clare Short, the Department for International Development gave £13 million to
researchers developing GM crops. That policy continues.
The application of genetically modified organisms opens up
hitherto unexplored roads for humanity. New Scientist magazine reported on 30
August that the Pest Animal Control-Cooperative Research Centre (PAC-CRC) in
Canberra, Australia, is developing a disease which renders female mice
infertile. This is to stop mice infestation of grain regions. Clearly, there is
the potential for great benefits from this. But could the disease be controlled?
Would it spread to other countries? Could it mutate or recombine with other
viruses? Could it jump species?
The problem is not science itself. It is the issue of who
controls the research and development, the production and distribution of the
goods produced, and in whose interests. It is particularly important when we are
dealing with technologies with the potential of such far-reaching health and
environmental impact.
With regard to GM food, the most seductive argument in
favour is that it could be a major weapon against famine in neo-colonial
countries. And maybe it could. But multi-national corporations are not driven by
altruistic motives. They are driven by an insatiable thirst for profits. The
capitalist system is based on minority, ruling class ownership and control of
the productive forces and distribution.
In reality, the biggest cause of starvation is poverty. The
majority of the world’s population cannot afford the food produced – which
actually exceeds need. The working class internationally has to resist the plans
of big business, and fight to impose as many controls as possible on its
operations.
We can only have confidence that science is being harnessed
in the interests of humanity when the working class is in control of the
productive forces, including scientific research and development. A democratic
socialist society run with the active participation of the vast majority of its
people would not be motivated by short-term profit. It would be based on human
cooperation and solidarity. That would mean that the decisions taken on how to
plan the economy would incorporate a long-term view of the needs of all the
peoples of the world and of the planet’s environment.
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