by Steve Best - [email protected]
While U.S. citizens snore away in their blissful sleep,
the rest of the world is resisting the most radical scientific
revolution in human history. A few giant corporations like Monsanto, Du
Pont, and Novartis are taking over the world's seed stock and
agriculture and permanently altering the food supply through genetic
engineering.
Since 1992, with the firm support of U.S. "regulatory"
agencies, genetically modified corn, soybeans, tomatoes, potatoes,
squash, cotton, and dozens of other crops have been planted across
one-fourth of U.S. cropland, brought to supermarkets unlabelled, and
imported to other countries. According to the USDA, 25% of the corn, 45%
of the cotton, 55% of the soybeans, and 80% of processed foods in the
U.S. have been genetically engineered, as corporations also begin to
engineer trees. This makes the entire country, vegetarians included,
nonconsensual guinea pigs to the largest human experiment ever
undertaken.
Genetic engineering involves splicing a gene from one
species into another in order to endow the new "transgenic" species with
a desired characteristic. Today's Frankenfood creations include potatoes
with chicken and sheep genes; tomatoes with antifreeze genes from fish;
and, above all, "Bt" corn, cotton, and soybeans, created from splicing
into plants a soil bacteria (bacillus thringiensis) that is toxic to the
European corn borer. Biotechnology is hailed as the "second Green
Revolution," which is not too reassuring since the first one -- where
U.S. agribusiness employed huge machinery, enormous amounts of chemicals
and fertilizers, monoculture, and centralized political control in the
Third World -- failed miserably.
Biotech corporations and the government tell us three
Big Lies: first, that genetic engineering is the only way to feed a
world of 6 billion people and counting (the "Y6B" problem), second that
it is not different in kind from traditional modes of hybridization and
artificial selection, and third that genetically modified foods pose no
health risks to human beings.
Humanity has altered plants and created new species
since the beginning of its history. But biotechnology is radically
different: it crosses species boundaries never transgressed before (such
as between fishes and vegetables, humans and animals), it manipulates
single genes rather than whole organisms, and it creates rapid changes
that unfold in a span of months rather than years or decades.
Genetic engineering brings an unprecedented level of
corporate control over nature. The path toward the total commodification
of life was opened up by a disastrous 1980 Supreme Court ruling which
failed to distinguish between living and nonliving objects that could be
patented, thereby allowing a scientist to patent a bacterial organism.
From bacteria and plants, to animals and human being, scientists,
universities, and corporations now can own all DNA. This results in
bioprospecting, a mad gene rush to cash in on the billions of dollars to
be made in patents, and biopiracy, a new form of colonialism whereby
corporations mine the genetic resources of indigenous cultures for rare
pharmaceutical products, plant DNA, and genetic cell lines they can
manipulate enough to claim as their own.
Besides the "Bt" modified plant, a key staple of the
biotech revolution is the "Roundup Ready" soybean and corn crop.
"Roundup" is the main herbicide of Monsanto, the corporation who brought
us Agent Orange, PCB's, and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH).
When soybeans and corn are altered to withstand the effects of Roundup,
the new herbicide-resistant crops become "Roundup Ready." With this
innovation, an entire field can be sprayed before planting, and,
Monsanto claims, the weeds will die while the immunized plants flourish.
Monsanto is flooding the land and market as fast as it
can with genetically-engineered crops, and has grand ambitions to
control the world's food supply. It wants, for example, to genetically
modify (and thereby own) 100% of U.S. soybeans within the next few
years. Monsanto is infamous for trying to develop the "terminator seed"
genetically programmed to be sterile. This means that farmers would be
forced into expensive contracts to buy new seeds every planting, and end
an age-old tradition of saving and replanting the best seeds. Pressured
by a huge global backlash against terminator technologies, Monsanto
announced in October that it will not market "gene protection
technologies." Nevertheless, Monsanto and a dozen other companies have
at least 31 pending patents to commercialize seed sterilization and the
war is not over.
If Monsanto is so concerned to help people and end
hunger, why is it trying to control the world's farmers and food supply?
A study done by the Union for Concerned Scientists found that 93% of all
genetic engineering of crops is done not to improve taste, enhance
nutrition, or increase yield, but rather to advance profits and sell
chemicals. Thus, corporations engineer crops mainly for herbicide
resistance, ripening and shipping traits, and a longer shelf life. The
world hunger problem provides a front for Monsanto and other
corporations in their quest to become world powers.
A look at the results of Roundup Ready crops gives us a
glimpse into the serious problems with biotechnology. Once planted,
crops came up spotty, cotton balls fell off, and plants were still
attacked by pests. Transgenic crops easily pass their genes onto their
weedy relatives through cross-fertilization, thereby creating "superweeds"
resistant to the very chemicals designed to control them. Insects too
became immune to the transplanted toxins, quickly evolving into "superbugs,"
as the utility of a naturally occurring pesticide is diminished. Despite
Monsanto's promotional promises, farmers are using more chemicals than
ever on Roundup Ready crops. Although this is good news for Monsanto's
herbicide sales department, it is bad news for the soil and groundwater
which become increasingly toxic, as well as for consumers who ingest
ever more poisons. Fed up with crop failure, hundreds of farmers across
the country now are suing Monsanto for fraud and misrepresentation.
When a genetically modified organism is released into
the environment, it cannot be recalled like a badly designed car.
Through the attempt to engineer genetic superbreeds, biotechnology
exacerbates the serious problems of bioinvasion (whereby foreign plant
and animal species disrupt native ecosystems) and monoculture. While
scientists can "sample" genes like genetic rappers, they cannot, like
nature, create new DNA, and so reverse the damage they inflict on gene
pools.
Biotechnology introduces highly unstable and protean
genes into environments where they act unpredictably. New genes
literally are shot into an existing genome, with no way of knowing how
they will act. To give an example of the hazards of unexpected
consequences, University of Oregon scientists genetically engineered a
bacterium to hasten the transformation of agricultural waste to ethanol.
Although the government required minimum testing of the new organism
before releasing it into the environment, the researchers discovered in
their own trials that while the bacteria produced ethanol, it also
depleted a fungus in the soil essential to the ability of plants to take
up nitrogen into their roots. If normal procedures had prevailed over
this rare case of responsible science, a dangerous and perhaps
uncontrollable organism could have wreaked havoc in the wild,
transforming fertile soil into desert.
And yet, in a rush for profit, bulldozing concerns of
consumers worldwide, having bought off Clinton and U.S. regulatory
agencies, and commissioning flawed "junk science" to support their
flimsy claims while blocking independent studies that contradict their
claims, biotech corporations proceed full speed ahead. The USDA has not
rejected one application for a genetically-engineered crop. Their
approvals rely on "scientific" studies that analyze small numbers of
plants over short time scales, such that it is impossible to discern if
a gene is acting as designed. Furthermore, no tests have been done to
test the safety of human beings consuming genetically modified foods,
although recent studies have shown that transgenic crops killed monarch
butterflies and damaged the digestive tract and immune system of rats.
To give some indication of the threat biotechnology
poses to the planet, over 2000 applications for experimental release of
transgenic organisms have been filed with the U.S. Government. In
developing countries, well over one hundred releases of genetically
engineered organisms have been documented, including the release of a
vacinnia-rabies virus set loose in Argentina in 1986. Concerned about an
immanent genetic Chernobyl, over 150 governments signed a "biosafety
protocol" at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, but the U.S.
refused to sign the treaty and has worked diligently ever since to block
international regulation.
From "Flavr-Savr" tomatoes to Bt cotton crops, all
results so far suggest that the Brave New Agriculture is a bust, its
failures rooted in a reductionistic understanding of genes that interact
in complex, holistic relationships with one another and their
environment. If biotechnology contributes to soil erosion, weed and
insect resistance; if it worsens the problems of monoculture and
bioinvasion; and if it actually reduces crop yields, as new studies
indicate, it is not likely to solve the world's food problems and its
major justification is stripped away.
The answers to increasing the food supply for an
overpopulated world lie not in the production of Frankenfoods, but
rather in the time-tested ways of tradition: small-scale, decentralized,
holistic, organic farming preserving biodiversity through crop rotation,
mixed cropping, and integrated pest management. It is crucial to realize
that hunger is a problem of poverty, which is artificially generated by
transnational capitalism, thus we must address tough issues of social
justice and economic inequality. And since the Global Meat Culture
consumes astronomical amounts of land, water, food, and energy, all to
feed cattle rather than human beings directly, it is urgent that the
planet shift from a meat-based to a plant-based diet.
As corporations try to control the terms of the debate,
and begin a massive lobbying and PR campaign in response to their
critics, the people of the world are awakening to the dangers of
biotechnology. Beginning with concern for health, animal welfare, the
environment, and now again with genetic engineering, the politics of
food production is fast becoming the political issue of the day.
Further Resources:
Numerous excellent books describe the dangers of genetic
engineering. A few I recommend most are: Jeremy Rifkin, The Biotech
Century, Mark Lappe and Britt Bailey, Against the Grain: Biotechnology
and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food, Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Genetic
Engineering: Dream or Nightmare?, and Vandana Shiva, Moncultures of the
Mind.
Also, there are a few superb websites to learn from:
Campaign For Food Safety:
www.purefood.org/
Union of Concerned Scientists:
www.ucsusa.org/
Greenpeace: www.greenpeace.org/
Mothers For Natural Law:
www.safe-food.org/
Rural Advancement Foundation International:
www.rafi.ca
EnviroLink News Service:
www.envirolink.org/
Chilling Quotes:
"The biggest mistake that anyone can make is moving slowly, because the
game is going to be over before you start."
-- Henrik Verfaillie, Senior Vice President of Monsanto Company
"A handful of global corporations, research
institutions, and governments could hold patents on virtually all
100,000 genes that make up the blueprints of the human race and tens of
thousands of micro-organisms, plants, and animals, allowing them
unprecedented power to dictate the terms by which we and future
generations will live our lives."
-- Jeremy Rifkin
This article originally appeared in "Life Giving
Choices", the newsletter of
the Vegetarian Society of El Paso (VSEP).
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