Crop killers

Lyndsay Keenan looks at ten years of genetic modification of our food - the false promises that it would save the world, the legacy of contamination, and the ongoing campaign of resistance

The first big controversy about GM food arose in 1996 and so now, ten years later, it seemed a good time to update the story. Many readers of the Voice already know about the dangers to the environment and human health and about the related patents on life and increasing corporate control of the food supply.
Others, especially younger readers, may not have heard much about GMOs, and others may have thought that the problem has gone away, but it has not.
In 1995, soya grown in the US was the first major food crop to be genetically modified. In 1996, when the crop was harvested, activists from Greenpeace stopped the first shipments of GM soya coming to Europe. The campaign to stop a huge and dangerous genetic experiment had begun.
In the ten years since, strong campaigns by NGOs and individuals have effectively kept GM out of food products and have prevented any substantial growing of GM crops in Scotland and also in most of the new expanded European Union.
However the multinational chemical companies that are pushing GMOs have not gone away. They are busy pushing their GM seeds around the world and they continue to try to break down the resistance in Europe.
The threat remains real and the fight is still very much on.
Genetic modification basically means the moving around of pieces of genes within or between species. It means that the barrier between species can be broken, that genes can be taken from any organisms and put together to make up a new living organism.
The most commonly used term in the UK and in European legislation is ‘GM’ - meaning either genetically modified or genetic modification. It is also known as GE, meaning genetic engineering. Some scientists refer to it as recombinant DNA technology. In many countries, such as Spain and Brazil, it is called transgenic. Some people translated GM as genetic manipulation.
The organisms resulting from the process of genetic modification are known as GMOs, meaning genetically modified organisms.
By a number of crude and imprecise methods, scientists can insert genes from one species into another. The three main methods are the so-called gene-shotgun method, the viral insertion method or the electric shock method.
Gene-shotgun involves isolating the genes that you want to add to the organism, then coating them around particles of gold dust and blasting them into the cells of the organism.
The viral insertion method involves attaching the foreign genes to a virus and getting the virus to smuggle the genes into the organism.
With the electric shock method, the organism is put into a petri-dish with the genes you want to insert and then electric shocks are applied which cause holes in the organism’s cell lining, through which the novel genes get into the cell.
On one hand, it sounds scientific - on the other, it is completely crude, invasive, damaging, imprecise and random.
The problems with the GM science are fundamental. It is not possible using existing techniques for genetic scientists to know exactly how many new genes get inserted, or where the genes are inserted within the DNA of the organism, or what damage they do when they are inserted.
These basic and inherent uncertainties are at the heart of the dangers from GM. Clearly if the scientists cannot predict the basics of which genes they are inserting, where, how many copies, etc, then clearly they are in no position to accurately predict the results once these new organisms are released into the environment or consumed as food.
When you combine this reality with the fact that, once released into the environment, GMOs will inevitably crossbreed and will spread the new gene constructs in nature, then we have a nightmare scenario.
Some enthusiastic research scientists still loudly promote GM, promising miracles. GM seeds would feed the starving, reduce the use of agrochemicals, and make the deserts green. There would be fat-free chips, cancer-curing tomatoes and bananas with built-in vaccines.
Some of the research scientists were well-meaning but somewhat naïve, while others were clearly more cynically chasing the next fat research grant. Whatever the motivation, it’s clear, a decade later, that the promises were hollow.
There are a handful of big chemical companies who have a clear eye on a big money prize. They are using GM to help them take over the global seed supply and, in so doing, to continue to increase their sales and profits from agrochemicals.
They are happy to have compliant politicians; food companies and research scientists promote the propaganda of food, and health and hope.
In the meantime, they buy one seed company after another and ruthlessly push their GM seeds onto the market and into the soil.
And when their GM seeds grow and cross-pollinate with the seeds or crops in the field next door, no problem, they just claim, ownership of those crops as well, and sue the farmers to make them pay.
Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and Du Pont are the leading GM seed companies and they have ruthlessly pursued their ambitions during the last ten years. By genetically modifying and taking control of the seed supply for the most commonly grown crops in the world, and by increasing the dependence upon the agrochemicals (the herbicides) that they sell, multinational chemical companies make huge profits.
Currently over 95 per cent of commercial growing of GM crops is with five crops in five countries.
GM Cotton is grown in US, Australia, China and India amongst others. GM soya and GM corn is grown in the US, Argentina and Canada. GM Canola (what we call oilseed rape) is grown in Canada and GM papaya in Hawaii.
In the US, GM soya comprises around 80 per cent of soya grown, while in Argentina it makes up 95 per cent. In Canada, over 80 per cent of the canola is GM.
A few other countries are growing GM soya in smaller volumes or as a smaller percentage of their total crop, including Brazil and Paraguay, while others have the same situation with GM maize, including South Africa and Spain.
That’s the bulk of it, but that accounts for a large percentage of the world’s soya, corn, canola and cotton markets and, moreover, many hundreds of millions of hectares of agricultural land.
Monsanto, the world’s largest chemical company, supplies more than 90 per cent of these GM seeds.
Around 75 per cent of GM seeds sold are what’s called ‘herbicide tolerant’. That means they have genes inserted that switch off certain functions of the plant and allow it to survive heavy doses of herbicides that would otherwise kill it, and which kill every other green thing in the field.
The theory is that this makes weed control and hence farming easier. The reality is that it has led to a large increase in the use of agrochemicals and tied many farmers to utter dependency on the use of the chemicals, which are of course sold by Monsanto, Bayer and the like.
Over 20 per cent of the others are insect-resistant GM crops, which means that they have genes inserted that make the plant produce a toxin in its cells that kills insects that feed on the plant.
The sales pitch is that this will reduce the use of pesticides. But the reality is that beneficial insects such as butterflies are also killed, that the toxin leaches into the soil causing damage to the soil micro-organisms, leading to less productive soil. And there are many health concerns regarding the consumption of such crops.
There are GM experiments on almost everything, including all kinds of staple food crops, such as rice, potatoes and wheat, but also all types of vegetables, fruits and nuts for food production, and also on GM trees, GM insects, GM fish, GM animals, GM grass, GM bacteria.
You name it and a company scientist somewhere is trying to genetically modify it, patent it, and make money from it.

Resistance is fertile!

Europe is currently the strongest anti-GM area in the world but it is true to say that resistance to GM is global.
The European GM-free zone:
Despite a recent decision by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), taken on behalf of the US and Argentina, to try to force Europe to use GMOs, nothing much has or will change.
In the current 25 EU countries there is legislation that means all GM ingredients in human food products need to be labelled, and due to strong consumer pressure against food companies, there are more or less no GM food products sold in any of these countries.
However, millions of tons of GM soya and maize are still imported and used as animal feed. There are also a few thousand hectares of GM maize grown in Spain and pro-GM seed companies in France have forced a few thousand hectares of GM maize into the ground.
But in the rest of the EU25 resistance is strong with even mainstream farmers’ organisations campaigning against GM seed and many regions, indeed whole countries, declaring themselves GM-Free zones, including Poland, Greece, most of Italy, Hungary and Austria.

Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Russia:
Large volumes of GM cotton are grown in Australia but otherwise both Australia and New Zealand are GM-free following strong public campaigns against GM food and the growing of GM crops.
In Japan, no GM crops are grown although millions of tons of GM soya, maize and canola are imported for animal feed and for processing into cheap soya sauce and vegetable oil.
Russia has recently woken up to the GM issue and despite previous field trials of GM potatoes and other crops, there is currently a strong movement preventing any commercial growing of GM crops and steadily eradicating GM from food products.

Africa:
In the continent of Africa, only South Africa currently grows some GM maize. Right now there is a big battle going on, with the pro-GM lobby pushing hard to persuade African countries to accept GM.
One scandal that came to light a few years ago and which continues unabated is that of the US putting GMOs that it cannot sell anywhere else into shipments of so-called food aid. NGOs and civil society in many parts of Africa are alerted to the problem and working hard to deal with it, but the difficulties are of course immense.
A couple of years ago, the US government went so far as to explicitly tie the offer of money for AIDS relief to acceptance of GM crops by African governments.

Canada:
Despite being one of the three main countries to have adopted GM crops in the first place, Canadian farmers strongly rejected Monsanto’s attempt to bring in GM wheat, forcing the company to withdraw its application in 2004. This was due to the farmers’ experience of contamination, and clear statements from wheat buyers around the world that they would not buy Canadian wheat if it was contaminated with GM.

USA:
In the US, Monsanto has sued hundreds of farmers claiming they are using its GM seeds. Private investigators have hounded farmers, and methods have been underhand to say the least.
US farmers are learning the hard way about the realities of GM and of dealing with Monsanto but meantime, Monsanto simply owns and controls most of the seed distribution so farmers have little choice. US consumers also have little choice because Monsanto pours millions of dollars into stopping every demand for even labelling legislation, let alone for proper health and environmental testing of its products.

Argentina:
The destruction of forests, small farms and the social structure goes on at a horrific pace, with GM soya plantations dominating the landscape, while people around them starve and are poisoned by the herbicides, but resistance is growing there also.

Brazil:
Monsanto has eventually won a long and bitter battle to have GM soya legally authorised for growing. The company’s strategy of allowing large-scale illegal contamination to prosper was one of the things that eventually forced the government to capitulate. However the GM battle in Brazil rages on and only time will tell.

Mexico:
In Mexico, the GM industry wants to grow GM maize in the very centre of global diversity, the home of maize. They have so far been kept out by determined campaigns by NGOs and civil society, however they are right now rumoured to be trying to take advantage of the current national turmoil in the country to run GM maize field trials.

Asia and GM rice:
Rice is popular and important, and not just in Glasgow curry houses. Rice is one of the world’s largest staple food crops.
It feeds millions of people throughout the world every day, particularly in Asia, and multinational chemical companies would like to genetically modify, own and control the production and sale of the global rice seed supply.
In April this year, GM rice was discovered in US rice exports to Europe. Since then it is estimated that US rice farmers have lost as much as $100million in exports.
The rice crop was found to be contaminated by an experimental variety of GM rice that had previously been field trialled in the US. Farmers and exporters are now rushing to take lawsuits against the multinational chemical company Bayer whose GM seeds caused the contamination.
Contaminated rice has by now been found in more than 20 countries and US rice exporters are finding the global market closing to imports of their products. Experimental GM rice grown illegally in China was also found earlier this year in food products sold in Europe, prompting food recalls and further demands for action against GMOs.
Following the contamination scandals and the fact that the EU, Japan, Russia and many other countries have closed their borders to any rice contaminated by GM, the main rice exporting companies in Thailand and Vietnam met recently and agreed, amongst other things, not to grow or sell GM rice.
During the previous weeks, the main rice growers and exporters’ associations in India also issued public statements that they would not grow or sell GM rice and demanded that the government halt all GM field trials to prevent contamination. Indian farmers’ associations and others have also taken the matter into their own hands and have been finding, harvesting and burning existing field trials of GM rice.

Scotland:
While we are not currently eating GM food in Scotland, the assault on the world’s seed supply continues unabated, led by the notorious multinational chemical company, Monsanto.
Monsanto was the company responsible for the most toxic versions of the chemical called Agent Orange sprayed by US military during the Vietnam war. Amongst many other crimes, Monsanto is also responsible for cancers and deaths due to the production of the very toxic chemical PCB (Polychlorinated Byphenol), and right now is to blame for more than 90 per cent of the GM seeds planted in the world today.
Monsanto is currently led by a Scotsman called Hugh Grant.
Yes, it’s a Scotsman that is the CEO and who leads and profits from the environmental and human tragedies imposed by Monsanto. He has the same name as the English actor, but this Scottish Hugh Grant is best known for his starring role in making millions from pushing GM seeds, creating genetic contamination, bankrupting farmers, poisoning agricultural land across the world with his company’s agrochemicals and lining his own pocket with millions of dollars in bonuses. He is currently a “respected” advisor to Scottish Enterprise.
Hugh Grant has been nicknamed Mr ‘Huge Grant’ due to the amount of money that goes into Monsanto’s pocket each year from US farm subsidies. It is these same subsidies that effectively create dependency, starvation, and death in developing countries when the US later dumps subsidised agricultural commodities into the local economy.
GM is a wake-up call. We need to remember that food comes from seeds and that without farming and without food we starve.
We need to get back to or at least much closer to the land and to the seeds that feed us. Practically that can best be done by starting or getting involved in local food co-ops.
In terms of more political work the fact that the current CEO of Monsanto is an advisor to Scottish Enterprise could provide a clear focus for some targeted political campaigning.
Lyndsay Keenan’s involvement in the battle against GM food started in Glasgow at GreenCity Wholefoods workers’ co-op when, in the spring of 1997, they asked him to start up a campaign against GM soya.
With support from other workers’ co-operatives they set up the UK health-food trade campaign against GM food and campaigned to get GM food banned, or at least labelled, and to ensure that GM-free food remained available.
Joined by Rosie Kane, an old friend from the anti-motorway protests, they worked from the transport manager’s office at GreenCity surrounded by tyres and engine parts, starting to get the issue onto the media and political agenda in Scotland and the UK.
Since then, for most of the last ten years, Lyndsay has campaigned against GM. He told the Voice: “In that work I have been privileged to travel in many parts of the world and to be in contact with many good people who give their time, energy and money to stop the genetic modification of our future and who promote and sustain a much more positive vision of organic, sustainable, fair trade agriculture that feeds people whilst nurturing our environment.”