Let nature's harvest continue

Genetically modified (GM) foods have aroused fierce opposition. Leading Africans, a majority of the public in Europe, a wide range of non-governmental organisations and even the Prince of Wales-"I personally have no wish to eat anything produced by genetic modification, nor do I knowingly offer this sort of produce to my family or guests"-are united in rejecting GM food. John Madeley reports.

Transnational corporations have enormous power to promote GM food. The £1 million worth of advertisements placed in the British press by the US pesticide company Monsanto-makers of Roundup (glyphosate), the world's biggest selling herbicide-are an example of the way the GM food industry hopes to use the power of public relations, especially clever, expensive advertising, to change people's minds. The fact that they need to do this is itself illuminating-it seems clear that nothing else would persuade people.
    The industry claims that its foods are needed to feed the world, that they are safe and will provide a cleaner environment. Its case is riddled with weaknesses. Knowing them can help to counter the claims.

1 The impact of GM food is unpredictable. Genes work in complex ways that scientists are only just beginning to understand. No one knows how safe these foods are to eat. "In the post-BSE era, it should be logical to think twice about using a technology that blatantly violates established natural boundaries", says Dr Michael Antoniou, an academic with considerable experience of the technology.
2 Once GM food crops are introduced into the environment they are there to stay. They allow for no second chances. Their traits could spread to crops in neighbouring fields, seriously reducing food output.
3 Many GM crops are made to resist herbicides. But studies have found direct toxicity and indirect habitat impacts on both test and field applications of beneficial insects, mites and spiders.
4 If GM seeds spread, more herbicide would have to be applied and weeds in nearby fields may develop resistance to the poison. Such 'superweeds' will require higher doses of herbicide, leaving larger amounts of chemical residue behind on the crops. These could be a threat to human health.
5 Crops that are genetically engineered to generate their own pesticide will cause the evolution of pesticide-resistant insects and may potentially undermine agro-ecosystems.
6 Smallholder farmers could be driven into bankruptcy by having to pay for seeds and agro-toxin packages which become ever more expensive as more poisons are needed to deal with insect and seed resistance.
7 The widespread adoption of GM crops will mean the spread of monoculture and cause further loss of plant genetic diversity-the basis of food security.
8 The spread of GM crops would mean that consumers would eventually have no choice. All commercial seed will be genetically engineered. The right of consumers not to buy GM foods will disappear.
9 Monsanto says that food labelling has its 'full backing'. Yet some of the food companies are "refusing to segregate crops which contain modified genes from those which don't," says the Soil Association (the organic lobby group). This makes a proper labelling scheme impossible.
10 A Monsanto subsidiary is developing 'terminator' seeds which only germinate for one season. These would mean that farmers need to buy new seed each year; it would take away their ancient right to save and replant seed. The technology is being specifically developed for developing countries, where patent rights cannot be adequately protected.
11 A company such as Monsanto, which has long used aggressive advertising techniques to sell pesticides to Third World farmers, has no credibility when it now claims that as a result of GM crops "the farmer can spray substantially less insecticide". Overall, the use of pesticides would almost certainly increase in a GM food system (see also page 5).
12 It is not true that GM foods are needed to feed the world. Small-scale farmers in many countries are doubling and even tripling crop yields by improving their own systems, often without the use of pesticides.

The above list is not exhaustive! While the industry has weak arguments, however, it has a lot of money and influence with policy makers. But humanity cannot be held to ransom by this industry.
    Transnational corporations "are using the image of the poor and hungry from our countries to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial to us," said a statement by African delegates attending a meeting this June of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources meeting. To resort to using the developing world as a battering ram to try to increase support for GM crops again shows the weakness of the industry's case. It can be stopped by concerted and united opposition, from Third World farmers to Western consumers.
    Transnationals such as Monsanto show by their advertising that they do not understand the causes of hunger. If they do understand the causes, they ignore them in the name of profit. It is farmers who feed the hungry, and who will feed more of them if the hungry are enabled to escape from poverty.

John Madeley is a specialist writer on agriculture and trade issues.

Response to Monsanto's advertising campaign

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 41, September 1998, page 3]