Genetically Modified Profits

Remember “Frankenstein foods”? From time to time the Daily Mail veers erratically onto the side of environmentalists and hippies to rail against Genetically Modified Organisms and their appearance on our dinner plates.

Tony Blair tried to woo the bio-tech companies behind GMOs despite widespread distaste for eating tomatoes with fish anti-freeze genes in them. He failed, because the public and the tabloids were against him. Activists destroyed GM crop trials, consumers left GM produce on the supermarket shelves and journalists of all persuasions (and one royal) shrieked about the imprudence of tampering with nature.

While the Tories were in opposition they were largely anti-GM, so the Mail’s stance made sense. However, in 2010 Caroline Spelman became Conservative environment minister. Despite what some might consider a blatant conflict of interest (recently worked as a bio-tech lobbyist), she decided to turn the Tories around and get into bed with Monsanto.

Monsanto is a multinational biotech company; one of the largest producers of genetically engineered seed and of the herbicide glyphosate (marketed as “Roundup”). If we believe their PR rhetoric, it would seem that GM foods are about to save humanity from starvation and the ravages of climate change. By inventing drought-resistant crops, they think they can cheat their way out of the mess that profit-driven mega-corporations (like Monsanto) have gotten us into. By producing herbicide-resistant crops, they will enable entire fields, hectares and hectares of them, to be sprayed with chemicals that would kill conventional crops, but which will in turn increase the efficiency of food production.

The bio-tech companies claim that their GM super-crops will be good for us; they will be better for the environment, better for our health, better for delivering nutrition to the hungry. There is little evidence to back these claims and rather a lot of evidence to suggest the opposite. In which case, why are they spending billions inventing and patenting these things? Could it be an attempt to reap even more profits than they are doing already?

Drought-resistant crops are still in the trial stages. Trials show that they are not very good in variable climates, which is likely what we’ll have more of, as global warming and various associated feedback loops accelerate. Rather than rely on techno-fixes, researchers not associated with large corporations looked into natural methods of combating crop failure due to drought. They found that simple measures such as applying organic mulch material massively improves water retention in the soil whilst also improving the quality of the soil and locking in carbon. A triple bonus and no expensive contracts with multinationals for the farmers.

Bio-tech companies have tried to woo poorer nations with promises to increase yields and so end hunger and poverty. Some farmers responded positively only to find themselves locked into a nightmare. They entered contracts to buy seed and chemicals from Monsanto and the like, the seeds producing crops that could withstand the chemicals. The idea was to blast weeds out of existence, but in fact weeds have developed resistance to herbicides, requiring farmers to use more and more of these chemicals. Yields in many cases were far lower than farmers had been led to believe and they became caught in a spiral of poverty and despair, driving hundreds in India to suicide. Meanwhile in Argentina, where GM soya was adopted on a large scale and there has been massive exposure to glyphosate as a result, instances of health problems and toxicity have been recorded, despite this being a relatively ‘safe’ herbicide.

GM crops lend themselves to monoculture and large-scale farming. Soil is degraded and local communities are no longer growing the variety of foods they need to feed themselves. Independence is stripped away and multinational corporations reap the profits. As this realisation has dawned, fewer farmers in Asia, Africa and South America are prepared to act as pawns for these companies. As early as 1998, all African delegates (excepting South Africa) at an international Food and Agriculture forum stated that:

“We strongly object to the image of poor and hungry from our countries being used by giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor economically beneficial to us… it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for millennia, and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves.”

In India, massive grass-roots campaigns to keep agriculture GM-free have, through sustained levels of dedication and outrage, had some success at holding back the PR machines of the corporations. Hunger strikes, rallies of up to 50,000 farmers, a 4000-kilometre march through five states and intense petitioning of politicians has stemmed the rapid growth of GM farming in the country for now.

Health problems, dismissed by proponents of GM, have already been reported in India and helped to fuel the reaction against the bio-tech companies. Allergic reactions to genetically modified ‘bt’ cotton plants, in those who’d shown no such reactions to conventional cotton, have been documented. No one knows what the long-term effects of eating GM foods will be but research indicates that antibiotic resistant ‘marker’ genes can survive the digestive tract. As antibiotic resistance is already a problem that medical science struggles to keep up with, such indications are cause for concern.

One huge problem with GM crops which is consistently underplayed by the bio-tech companies is the risk of cross-pollination with conventional plants. Accidental spread of GM seed to neighbouring fields and contamination of non-GM foodstuffs within the food supply chain are all too common. A US trial of GM rice contaminated the global supply chain in 2006, destroying export markets for years. In 2009, GM flax from Canada contaminated supplies worldwide. GM crops are genies and the bottle-stoppers are nowhere near tight enough. They can’t be. And, just maybe, Monsanto and Co don’t care. Once the genie is everywhere, there’ll be no point in us complaining and trying to thwart their plans.

For now, there is reason to complain. GM crops have the potential to cause massive social, economic and environmental damage worldwide, yet they are poorly tested and regulations are weak. Loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, health problems and poverty traps are just some of the reasons to resist the pressure to switch to GM agriculture. Research suggests that organic methods are best suited to solving many of the problems that bio-tech apparently seeks to address. The research and cash being poured into techno-fixes could be well spent trialling low-tech agricultural solutions and helping to introduce them appropriately to growers worldwide.

As yet, GM is not rampant. In Britain, strong consumer distaste combined with well-organised ‘decontamination’ actions at trial sites have largely kept GM crops out of our fields and GM foods off our shelves. The fightback against profiteering agro-chemical companies is going on around the world – but they are persistent. In some kind of back-scratching exercise disguised as philanthropy, organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been pouring funding into agriculture projects in Africa with one hand while acquiring shares in Monsanto – which is aggressively trying to capture the seed market in Africa with corporate-owned seeds and pesticides – with the other hand.

In September 2011, the UK Government ignored public and scientific objections by approving an application from Rothamsted Research to conduct a GM wheat trial in Hertfordshire. The GM wheat emits a chemical that it is hoped will drive aphids off the crop. Why this should be necessary, when encouraging natural aphid parasites and predators – like ladybirds – already works, is unclear. Research suggests that aphids may become accustomed to the alarm chemical and ignore it. Perhaps, by then, the ladybirds will have starved and wheat farmers will have to buy more and more, stronger and stronger, chemicals from the bio-tech firms.

Saving humanity from food shortages and climate change? Not likely. Profit motive? Certainly.

By Emma Fordham & Kate Green