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GM Foods – How Little We Know

Garda Ghista
Genetic engineering (GE) and biotechnology appear to have great potential for agriculture as well as aquaculture. However, what are the human, environmental and ethical impacts of these new technologies? Why have these technologies led to protests around the globe from consumer advocates, small farmers, opponents of corporatism and environmental activists? Why did Europe initially refuse to accept any imports from the US of GE foods? What has caused the fear?

What are GMOs?
A genetically modified organism (GMO) is an organism that has been genetically engineered using a procedure called recombinant DNA technology. Recombinant DNA refers to DNA that has been patched together from the DNA of several organisms. Scientists break up the DNA in each organism and then splice the separate DNA segments together, trying to include those genes that have specific traits, such as rapid growth, pest resistance or high nutritional content. This spliced DNA is then injected into the genomes of an organism without these traits.(1) The recombinant DNA technology goes back to the 1970s, when researchers worked with the E. coli bacterium. They spliced DNA segments together and injected them into the E. coli. The bacterium then multiplied, generating many new bacteria containing the new combination of DNA created by the researchers. The diagram below provides a simple illustration of the process of creating genetically modified organisms.

This recombinant DNA technology has been utilized to develop new varieties of crops by injecting DNA directly into a plant cell and then regenerating an entire plant from that cell. An organism that contains DNA from another organism is called a transgenic organism,(2) and the genes that have moved between the two organisms are referred to as transgenes. Creation of these transgenic organisms is a type of biotechnology, which means the material application of biological science to create products derived from multiple organisms. According to Brennan and Withgott, these technologies have helped scientists to develop new medicines, reduce pollution, move forward in cancer research, and dissolve blood clots after heart attacks.

Human population is now at 6.5 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by the middle of the century. For this reason, scientists wonder how these 9 billion people will be fed. Some believe that genetically modified (GM) crops are the answer. Others maintain that the sure solution (with zero harmful side effects) is in organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Agriculturalists have already learned that careless methods of farming lead to destruction of the soil and environmental pollution. Worst of all, GM crops destroy biodiversity and lead to monocultures. The loss of biodiversity is incalculable, as myriad plants contain as yet unknown internal treasures such as cures for AIDS, cancer and other diseases.

Today there are more than 800 million people around the world who are hungry and malnourished. Even in the US tens of thousands of children go to sleep at night hungry and go to school the next morning without first taking breakfast. The Green Revolution, which began in the 1940s and continued through the rest of the 20th century, did lead to far higher food output per hectare for farmers. Production of corn per hectare in the US increased fivefold.(3) U.S. agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug in the 1940s received the Nobel Peace Prize for his revolutionary work in producing a new type of wheat that produced large seed heads, was short in stature to withstand wind, resistant to disease, and produced high yields. Within 20 years of introducing this wheat in Mexico, the country tripled its wheat production and began exporting wheat! Borlaug then took his wheat to India and Pakistan where it transformed local agriculture. Wheat, rice, corn and other crops from western countries were grown in third world countries and caused local production to jump three-to-fourfold. Hence it is clear that biotechnology in agriculture has led to tremendous benefits in having the potential to feed the global human population.(4)

Proponents of GMOs
Proponents of genetic engineering insist that the technology can be equated with traditional agricultural breeding, which was based on hybridization of plants and animals using selective breeding of superior specimens. According to these proponents, GM crops and foods are no less safe than the hybrid crops of days gone by. They further point to the far larger crop yields and supposed advantages in stamping out prominent pests.

Opponents of GMOs
Sceptics of GMOs, however, point out that traditional selective breeding mixed genes of organisms of the same species, in contrast to recombinant DNA technology wherein scientists are mixing genes of different species, combining for example viruses and crops or spiders and goats. Further, they say, selective breeding includes the whole organism uniting with another whole organism. In genetic engineering, scientists are removing one or more genes from one organism and injecting them into another organism. While traditional breeding involves combinations of genes that come together on their own, genetic engineering involves combinations being created by man, which means they are something unnatural or man-made. Perhaps what makes skeptics the most skeptical of all is the fact that GM foods have moved from the research lab to the mega-corporate lab.

In the 30 years since genetic engineering was first developed in the 1970s, both scientists and citizens have become concerned regarding its effects. Some feel that GM foods may not be safe to eat. Others worry that transgenes will escape and blow over to other ecosystems and pollute pristine plants. Indeed, Professor Ignacio Chapela, founder and Scientific Director of the Mycological Facility, Oaxaca, Mexico, has documented that suspect DNA matching genetically modified corn were found amongst their numerous indigenous varieties (cultivars) of corn, which have been cultivated and cross-bred in Oaxaca for the past 5,500 years! In this case, researchers believe that the GM crop will “contaminate” the native crops. His subsequent article, co-authored with Dr. David Quist, in Nature magazine, publicly stated this is what was happening. A big concern is that modified genes will decrease genetic diversity, which means loss of biodiversity – something ecologists agree is dangerous.

In August, 1998, the world-renowned expert on food safety, Dr. Arpad Pusztai, announced on British TV that he would not eat genetically engineered food because it had not undergone sufficient testing procedures. His own research on pesticidal Lectins revealed that rats incurred immune system defects and stunted growth after the equivalent of a ten-year period consuming GM foods!(5) Within days Pusztai was fired from his prestigious job at UK’s leading food safety research lab, Rowett Institute, and the Institute ridiculed his research in the media. Clearly the biotechnology industry could not tolerate his comments because it risked their profit margin, and to the capitalists, profit is everything. Mega billions of dollars are at stake in the GM food industry. The Rowett Institute is dependent on corporate funding for its existence. One year later, the top scientist at the Institute, Dr. Andrew Chesson, told the media: “Potentially disastrous effects may come from undetected harmful substances in Genetically Modified Foods.”(6) He was also fired. In view of the statements of these two top scientists, it is frightening to note that 66.4% of US land is dedicated to GM crops. Argentina follows with 23% and Canada at 6%. But, GM crops have made their insidious infiltration into nearly every country in the world – cunningly manipulated by laws passed by the WTO, World Bank and IMF (who employ corporate lawyers), which give corporations unlimited power to agriculturally invade countries at will, grab intellectual property rights on every drop of biodiversity in those countries, and then force famished farmers to comply to their mighty will! The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) gives blind support to the agrobiotech companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, CropScience, Dow, DuPont, and BASF. Still another example of effects of GM crops are little piglets in US factory farms that are increasingly being born with congenital defects such as splayed legs, no anus, inverted mammary glands or “banana disease.”(7) Pigs implanted with human growth hormones are unable to carry their own weight any longer. It is cruel. It is treating pigs like machines instead of as living beings!

Capitalist Coercion
Paul Bremer, the former American Administrator of the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority, took the liberty to update Iraq’s intellectual property (IP) law to “meet current internationally recognized standards of protection.” The new law makes savings seeds for next year’s harvest, which was practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002 and which has been the standard farming practice in Iraq for thousands of years, now illegal! With the new IP law, the farmers must obtain a yearly license for purchasing GM seeds from American corporations. These seeds have been modified from seeds developed over thousands of generations and civilizations by indigenous farmers and shared freely amongst each other. But today the transnational corporations (TNCs) have patented and now own the indigenous seeds of the farmers! As Eric Sean Webber writes, “In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo: Pay Monsanto, or starve.”(8) The farmers will also be forced to purchase Roundup insecticide, because the seeds will not work without the Roundup to go with it. More profits for Monsanto!

There is nothing wrong with scientific research in agriculture or perhaps even genetic research. The crime arises when new IP laws instigated by TNCs forces farmers to all purchase the same genetically modified material. This is nothing but evil. These laws are called “economic restructuring” implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq. Shalini Bhutani, who wrote a report on this issue, said, “The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded the country first, then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable.” The new IP law of US patents on Iraqi life forms will herald the new industrial-agricultural system wherein the farmers are totally dependent on transnational agribusiness corporations for providing input and seeds. The law ignores the tremendous contribution of Iraqi farmers to the evolution of seed crops like wheat, barley, date and pulses. Not only does Iraq lose political sovereignty, they lose their food sovereignty, with the US declaring war on the Iraqi farmer!(9) The Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) has been seen as colluding with GM corporations and offering support for their work. It is a crying example of the use of GMOs for profit alone, and not for collective welfare of the people.(10) Here lies the greatest danger of GMOs.

Suicides Direct Result of Capitalist Exploitation
In the year 2000, India declared it would allow the seed giant Monsanto to collaborate with the Maharashtra Seeds Company to grow trial crops of GM cotton. This happened with huge protest by the farmers. In Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, members of the Karnataka State Farmers union set fire to the fields of Monsanto’s GE cotton, and has said they will continue to oppose GM technology in India by any means necessary. Yet the Indian government continues to cater to the multinational seed companies, thereby moving ever farther from the needs of the poor rural farmers who live hand to mouth. When small farmers lose their crop, many commit suicide. This is happening to those farmers who give up their traditional sustainable methods of farming and adopt the ‘white gold’ cash crop methods of TNCs. They are then compelled to buy costly chemicals to protect their GM crops, and are completely unaware of the risks involved in commercial farming. Then they learn (the hard way) that they are unable to cope with the rising cost of GE seeds and the chemicals that accompany them. It is an economic issue. When they practice self-sustaining agriculture, if disaster strikes, such as drought or floods, they can recover. But being at the mercy of corporations for seed, fertilizer and pesticides, thus incurring far higher costs than in their traditional farming, their economic risks are huge, and if the crop fails, they literally go crazy, as they have no way to pay the loans. In 1998-99 there were more than 500 suicides by farmers in the Warrangal district of Andhra Pradesh, India.(11) During a six-week period in May-June 2004, 300 farmers took their lives, again in Andhra Pradesh.(12) Aside from this economic terrorism by agricultural TNCs, the farmers also discover in time that using GE seeds and chemicals destroys the soil’s self-sufficiency and forces the farmers to continue their dependence on GE farming.(13) It becomes a lose-lose situation.

Absurdity of IPR on Living Organisms
Dr. Vandana Shiva, who fought relentlessly against GM food technology and received the Alternative Nobel Prize for her efforts, has given a good analysis of western corporate powers. She says that Europeans came to India to “discover and conquer,’ to “subdue, occupy and possess.” Now, she says, western powers are continuing the same activity but now they are colonializing the interior spaces, the “genetic codes” of life forms, from microbes and plants to animals and also human beings. As an example, in 1996 Myriad Pharmaceuticals patented the breast cancer gene in women so as to have a monopoly on diagnostics and testing.(14) In 1996 the Economic Espionage Act became law and empowered US intelligence agencies to investigate the ordinary activities of people globally. “The act considers the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of US corporations as vital to national security.”(15) According to Shiva, the IPR / patent laws going into effect worldwide are a prescription for the monoculture of knowledge. They are leading to intellectual and cultural impoverishment! IPRs contain the fallacy, she says, that creativity is born only if profits await! This mindset ignores the inherent creativity of traditional, indigenous societies in which there has been free exchange of valuable ideas and agricultural knowledge for centuries.

Dr. Shiva tells the story of Ananda Mohan Chakravarty who in 1971 applied for a US patent on a genetically engineered pseudomonas bacterium. Chakravarty took plasmids from three kinds of bacteria and transplanted them into a fourth bacterium. In his words: “I simply shuffled genes, changing bacteria that already existed.”(16) The court granted him the patent in what was to be a precedent-shattering decision, says Shiva. Today, “…Genetic engineering and patents on life are the ultimate expression of the commercialization of science and the commodification of nature…” In the words of Carolyn Merchant, these actions have rendered nature dead! Perhaps Shiva’s most astute analysis is how corporate demand for IPR leads to a three-tier relationship, with corporations demanding a monopoly on life forms and life processes through patents. First, the farmers are forced to become suppliers of germ plasm to TNCs. Second, the farmers become competitors in terms of innovation and rights to genetic resources. Third, they are consumers of the technological and industrial products of these corporations. Hence, corporate patent protection first makes farmers suppliers of free raw material, then displaces them as competitors, and finally makes them completely dependent on corporate industrial supplies for vital items like seed.(17)

The Struggle Begins for Agricultural Freedom!
There is hope. Resistance to GE multinationals in India, for example, is growing. In the Tehri Garwhal district of Uttar Pradesh, a small group of farmers has formed the Save the Seeds Movement and is teaching other small farmers to hold on to their traditional ecological, self-sustaining farming methods as well as their seeds. The farmers use intercropping methods, planting as many as 12 different cereals and legumes in one field, with each crop protecting the others from pests. This is one small but vital example of how crops are protected, local people fed, and soil remains pristine and fertile.(18) Best of all, farmers remain economically independent and can hold their heads high! In the words of Shiva, “Democratic control of the food system is the ultimate test of democracy!”(19)

Notes
1 Scott Brennan & Jay Withgott, Environment: The Science Behind the Stories. San Francisco, 2004, p. 274.
2 Ibid,.
3 Ibid, 265.
4 However, as pointed out in the previous paper on population growth, it is not lack of food that causes starvation. It is politicians and fissiparous tendencies in people leading to clashes and wars among different groups and between nation states that cause 800 million people to go hungry daily. Second, it is the exploitation of the poor by wealthy capitalists in every country that cause the hunger and starvation of the poorest of the poor. Dr. Paul Farmer refers to this poverty as “dire affliction.” Labor has indeed been outsourced to places like Indonesia and Bangladesh to maximize profit for American capitalists. However, the salaries paid to the women in Indonesia and Bangladesh are highly exploitative. They are often compelled to work 12-hour days without break, no benefits, no pensions, no maternity leaves. The 12-hour shifts is a major factor in destroying the traditional close family ties. The same happens in Mexico, Turkey, Malaysia and many other countries. However, today even the poor Mexican women are starving because American capitalists have closed down the factories and re-opened them in China where still cheaper local labor is available!
5 “World renowned scientist lost his job when he warned about GE foods,” http://www.psrast.org/pusztai.htm
6 Daily Mail, UK, 13 September, 1999. Dr. Chesson is vice chairman of the European Commission Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.
7 Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Boston, South End Press, 1997, p. 33.
8 Eric Sean Webber submission to Liberty Forum, http://www.libertyforum.org/show/flat.php?Cat=&Board=news_crime&Number=2931015
9 VegSource.com. http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm
10 Not only does this reveal the evil intentions of the TNCs in Iraq, it reveals clearly the real reason that Bush is in Iraq – to increase the profits of his corporate friends. We may think it is only oil, but from this example we see that every aspect of Iraqi life is being turned over to the US corporations – the banks, construction companies, genetic engineering and bioagrico companies like Monsanto. The quest for corporate profit is endless and relentless. For the reason of greedy profit, Bush has no intention of leaving Iraq. The words ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ are fed to the mainstream media in America merely to hoodwink the politically illiterate masses.
11 http://www.sos-arsenic.net/english/homegarden/ge_giants.html
12 P. Sainath, “When Farmers Die,” India Together: http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/jun/psa-farmdie.htm.
13 See the research of Jamal Anwar at http://www.sos-arsenic.net/english/homegardens/ge_giants.html
14 Vandana Shiva, Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge, Boston: South End Press, 1997, p. 4..
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid, p. 19.
17 Ibid, p. 54. This three-tier relationship can be equated to the identical relationship held by the impoverished jute farmers of Bengal during the British occupation of India. Farmers were similarly forced to ship raw jute to England where it was processed and then sent back to India to be purchased by Indians at lofty prices. In both scenarios, economic exploitation is maximum.
18 http://www.sos-arsenic.net/english/homegarden/ge_giants.html
19 Vandana Shiva, “Appendix: The People’s Charter for Food Security,” in Vandana Shiva & Gitanjali Bedi (eds.), Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: The Impact of Globalization, New Delhi, Sage Publications, 2002, p. 483.

Copyright The author 2004