Bad for the poor and bad for science /'GM-free' rebellion grows as ministers give crops backing
The verdict of a scientist who is pro the technology: "GMOs are part of a political and economic trend that is threatening all humanity." - Colin Tudge
Multiple items below
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Bad for the poor and bad for science
Genetically modified crops will not help the developing world
Colin Tudge
Friday February 20, 2004
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,9236,1152158,00.html
As revealed in this week's leaked minutes, the government's commitment to GM crops is unswerving. Revealed once more, too, is its arrogance; for it acknowledges public resistance but hopes that "opposition might eventually be worn down by solid, authoritative scientific argument".
Most worrying of all, though, is the truly astonishing ignorance of people in high places.
The arguments for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have been dinned into us for 15 years are based on an almost sublime misreading of the world's food problems. Indeed, GMOs are part of a political and economic trend that is threatening all humanity.
The crucial claim for GM crops is that they are necessary. They can out-yield traditional varieties, and can be made especially rich in protein and vitamins. The world's population is rising fast and without GM, the story has it, famine and increasing deficiency are inevitable. To oppose their development is to be effete to the point of wickedness.
But this is not the whole picture. The world population stands at 6 billion, and the UN says it will reach 10 billion by 2050 - but then should level out. Present productivity could be doubled by improving traditional breeding and husbandry, so whatever the virtues of GMOs, necessity is not among them.
Present-day deficiencies are almost never caused by an inability to produce enough. Angola is a good example: it is always bordering on disaster, yet it has two-and-a-half times the area of France and every kind of climate, and only 12.5 million people. Its farmers are highly accomplished. Famines result not from inability but from the civil war that raged for 30 years.
Behind the claim that GMOs are necessary lies a deep - and racist - failure to appreciate traditional farming. It's assumed that farmers of the developing world, with their small farms, cannot cope. But all who have looked closely know that traditional farmers are remarkably adept. Their greatest need is for financial security: especially small loans with regulated rates of interest. Technological innovation becomes pertinent only when the traditional ways have been given half a chance, and shown to be lacking.
But, say the enthusiasts, GMOs are part of the transition from peasant-based, low-output subsistence to industrialised production based on biotech, modern chemistry and machines. This is "progress". It "liberates" the peasants, enabling them to migrate to the cities, to work for proper wages. We see the transition in India, home (with China) to the world's fastest-growing IT industry. Even more to the point, modern farming is profitable, as traditional farming is not. The profits contribute to GDP, and everyone benefits.
But extra productivity can be harmful, while profit is achieved primarily by cutting labour, which is the most expensive input. In Britain and the US, only about 1% of the labour force works on the land. In India, as in the third world as a whole, it's 60%. If India farmed as the British do, 594 million people would be out of work. India's IT industry, flaunted as the hope for the future, employs 60,000 - which falls short of what would be required by 10,000 to one. To replace the status quo with hi-tech, low-labour, industrialised agriculture would create social problems on a scale that mercifully has not yet been seen. For the foreseeable future the world's economy has to be primarily agrarian.
Ironically, one victim of the GM madness is science itself, for in principle GMOs could be of real use. I saw an example in Brazil: GM papaya, designed to resist local diseases. This is hi-tech as it should be: designed by the people for the people. Contrast this with GM "golden rice", widely presented as an unequivocal triumph. It is is fitted with a gene that produces carotene, which in effect is vitamin A - lack of which causes blindness in tens of millions of children.
But carotene is one of the commonest organic compounds in nature. People who practise horticulture have no fear of vitamin A deficiency; and traditionally, horticulture was universal. Modern, corporate farming - monocultural rice, or maize grown for export as cattle feed - is a prime cause of the deficiency that leads to blindness. It's all good for the GDP but not for people.
The prime task for people seriously interested in humanity's food problems is to help the world's small farmers. Technical up-grading is desirable, and could include GM. But wholesale transition of the kind now in process, in which GM has become a key player, is a disaster. GMOs have drawn attention to the disaster, and for this perhaps we should be grateful. They are also drawing attention to the shortcomings of government and of experts in general. That needs urgent attention, too.
· Colin Tudge is the author of So Shall We Reap, an analysis of world food production
[email protected]
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'GM-free' rebellion grows as ministers give crops backing
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political Correspondent
The Independent, 20 February 2004
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=493254
Dozens of regions across Britain are preparing to declare themselves "GM free" after leaked cabinet minutes confirmed the Government is poised to give the go-ahead for genetically-modified crops. At least 20 local authority areas - and the whole of Wales - are preparing to oppose the planting of GM maize. Another 20 regions have voiced opposition and may also refuse to allow them to be grown.
Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, has conceded the Government may have to allow GM-free zonesbecause of public opposition. Her department is also secretly planning a compensation fund to pay farmers whose fields are contaminated by neighbouring GM crops.
A government "spin" campaign to sell the benefits of GM is being prepared by cabinet ministers. Pro-GM Labour MPs and government scientists will be alerted in advance of the announcement on GM crops which is to be made "shortly", according to the minutes.
David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, John Krebs, the chairman of the Food Standards Agency, and pro-GM MPs will be given advance warning. "The statement should be supported by briefing, prepared jointly by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Chief Scientific Adviser, and the Chairman, Food Standards Agency, based on solid science and illustrated with examples of practice overseas," the minutes say. "The ground should be prepared with key MPs with an interest in science or food security in developing countries."
The minutes record discussions between senior cabinet ministers including Ms Beckett, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. Yesterday a spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said no final decision had been reached. The policy had to gain approval of the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament and to be approved by "cabinet colleagues", he said.
Patrick Holden, of the Soil Association which promotes organic food, said pressing ahead with GM crops would be a "tragedy for our country". Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, accused the Government of caving into "big business".
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Campaigners will go on fighting GM crops
19 February 2004
TARA GREAVES
http://business.edp24.co.uk/story.aspx?brand=BIZOnline&category=Business&tBrand=BIZOnline&tCategory=homepage&itemid=NOED19%20Feb%202004%2023%3A37%3A52%3A750
Campaigners vowed today to fight on, despite a leaked document suggesting the Government is poised to back commercial growing of genetically-modified crops.
Minutes of a Cabinet committee meeting suggest qualified approval for sowing GM maize is imminent, even though a public backlash is predicted.
The news came on the day that Norfolk researchers released a report which criticised last summer's Government-sponsored GM Nation? debates and claimed that the strength of anti-feeling on the topic had been overestimated.
Anti-GM campaigner Jonathan Matthews, a spokesman for the Norfolk Genetic Information Network (NGIN), said: "I am not totally surprised by the leaked information because when the public debate was announced there were rumours that the decision to go ahead with GM crops had already been taken.
"Former environment minister Micheal Meacher has drawn a parallel with Iraq and I think that is valid because they seem to be going in one direction and they are not paying any attention to opposition."
NGIN was founded in 1998 to report on the global campaign of opposition to the imposition of genetic engineering.
"In the last six or seven years, the more it was pushed forward the more opposition has arisen and that will continue.
"There will be resentment, as there already has been in Norfolk, when communities find that crops are growing nearby when they did not want them," Mr Matthews told the EDP.
Minutes of the committee meeting reveal: "Opposition might eventually be worn down by solid, authoritative scientific argument."
But Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe said: "The public has said no, the science has said no, even his own economists have said no, but Tony Blair is desperate to spin us into accepting GM. If this is a foretaste of the Big Conversation, I'd hate to be a dinner guest at No 10."
Independent academic researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich and the Institute of Food Research at Colney were part of a core group that concluded last summer's GM Nation? debates failed to engage the public.
They said debates were “insufficiently resourced in terms of money, time and expertise”. A survey also conducted by the group revealed 36pc of those asked were against GM food, 13pc in support and 39pc undecided.
Farmer William Brigham, from Lyng, near Dereham, had part of his experimental GM maize crop vandalised by protesters but that did not stop him continuing with trials. “I can see no reason either environmentally or agrinomically why GM crops should not be grown but as to whether the Government will say yes or not, at the moment it really is pure speculation.
“I've been a supporter a for a long time and I will wait and see what they say before I decide what to do. I think that could be a long way down the line though.”
The Government has emphasised that a final decision has yet to be taken.
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Furore rages on as GM maize gets go-ahead
Scientists and environmentalists divided
Ian Sample and John Vidal
Friday February 20, 2004
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1152258,00.html
The government's leaked plans to give the go-ahead for GM maize could hardly have provoked more contrasting reactions. As anti-GM lobby groups yesterday accused the government of running rough-shod over public opinion and talked of direct action if the crops are planted, scientists claimed that approving GM maize was the only sensible course to be taken.
The government's intentions to allow GM maize into Britain were described in minutes of a cabinet meeting revealed by the Guardian yesterday.
In January, the government's advisory committee on releases to the environment (Acre) said there was no reason that Chardon, a variety of GM maize owned by BayerCropSciences, could not be planted in Britain.
But yesterday, plans to push ahead with GM maize, though not oilseed rape and other crops, met a torrent of abuse from consumer and environment groups who have campaigned against all the crops for more than five years.
"The government just does not get it. The public is way ahead in understanding that agricultural biotechnology is about a lot more than just the science. It is about livelihoods, choice, culture, the biodiversity of our landscape, the survival of small farmers - and GM crops could potentially threaten all of these," said Clare Devereux of Five Year Freeze, a coalition of more than 100 organisations.
Many national groups said they were planning ways to halt the crops being grown or to make them impossible to sell. "The government is seeking to go against the wishes of the public. This is dangerous and could impact in an election," said Tony Juniper, head of Friends of the Earth, who said the organisation would appeal in the courts.
Greenpeace said it would target supermarkets immediately. "We have to block the market for the crops," said a spokesman. "Most of the GM maize that the government wants to be grown here will go to feeding livestock. If we can get just one major supermarket to refuse to take milk from animals fed GM maize, we believe the rest will follow suit and that there will be no market for the crops."
More than 2,500 people have already pledged to destroy GM crops if they are grown, or support those who do. "This is just the start. We expect very many more to take direct action if they are grown," said Kathryn Tulip, a veteran GM activist and spokeswoman for the pressure group Green Gloves.
Despite the furore sparked by the leaked documents, the government's apparent intentions surprised few. "It's not unexpected, but nonetheless it's totally unjustified," said Labour MP Joan Ruddock.
Scientists argued that the government had made the right decision. "We deliberated long and hard before we came up with our advice, and we expect government to follow that," said Jules Pretty, deputy-chairman of Acre. The introduction of GM crops to Britain was put on hold in 1998, largely because of concerns that the new herbicides used with GM crops could harm the environment and further damage already severely depleted farmland bird populations.
Brian Johnson of English Nature, the government's advisers on wildlife, raised the issue of skylarks, whose numbers had been hit by intensive farming. But yesterday, Mr Johnson said he approved of the introduction of GM maize.
"The way farmers grow conventional maize is probably the most environmentally damaging of any crop. The field scale trials show very clearly that GM maize would allow farmers to have more wildlife among their crop."
More than 40 counties, national parks and district councils, covering more than a quarter of England and all of Wales, have pledged to bypass government and ask the European commission to make them GM-free zones. The number is expected to rise to over 50 within six months as other national parks and local authorities debate the issues.
Legal advice obtained by Friends of the Earth suggests that regions will be granted the status on a crop by crop basis if they appeal to Europe on environmental grounds. A provision in the EU Deliberate Releases directive, which has yet to be legally tested, allows GM-free areas to be set up.
But GM-free zones cause their own problems, scientists warn. "Here we have a crop that is demonstrably better for the environment. Are they really saying that crop should not be grown?" said Dr Johnson. "It's like having an electricity-free zone because electricity kills people."
Representatives of the biotech industry welcomed the government's intention to approve GM maize, but made clear they would not be willing to foot the bill for a compensation package for organic farmers whose produce could be contaminated by GM crops. "I just don't think it's justified to get the industry to fund something that's not a risk," said Francesca Tencalla, an environment expert at Monsanto in Brussels.
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Moral maize?
Leader
Friday February 20, 2004
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/comment/0,9236,1152107,00.html
The name T25/Chardon LL does not conjure up images of bucolic bliss - but it could be coming soon to a field near you. T25/Chardon LL is the genetically modified maize that, according to cabinet minutes published in this newspaper yesterday, the government hopes to approve for commercial planting. It would then become the first new GM food crop legally allowed to grow in this country. The decision comes after the gene-spliced maize was the only crop in the government-sponsored GM field trials that did not harm wildlife and vegetation - although the study also suggested more research was needed.
By choosing to approve the planting of its poster child, the government is attempting to forge ahead with its strongest case for GM crops. Yet it faces powerful opposition in the form of a public that so far refuses to be mollified or massaged in favour of accepting GM, even two years after the government tried to start a national debate on the subject. In fact, surveys found that the more the public knew about GM food, the less they liked it. Even the latest opinion poll, released this week, showed that nearly three times as many people are hostile to the introduction of GM food as are in favour. Given the government's failure to shift British public opinion in favour of the euro by even a fraction, despite several years of effort and an orchestrated campaign with cross-party support, what hope does it have in turning T25/Chardon LL into a vision of ripe fields, waving gently in the breeze?
Those opposed to the introduction of GM crops in this country do so for a variety of disparate but valid reasons. Many of them are concerned that the GM genie cannot be put back into the bottle once it is let out into the British countryside - and would need much more in the way of scientific evidence to win them over. Others are suspicious of overt tinkering with nature, mindful of BSE and human variant CJD, and the unanticipated health risks of altering elements of the food chain. And there are those who object to the nature of ownership of GM crops. T25/Chardon LL itself is patented by the German biotech company Bayer, and is designed for use with Bayer's particular brand of glufosinate-ammonium herbicide - named Liberty. Many find a system loaded in favour of such commercial interests hard to accept, whatever the scientific arguments might be.
So why is the government so determined to press ahead? In this case, T25/Chardon LL is a genetically modified straw man. There is little demand or need for GM maize in this country, and it is hardly likely the crop will be adopted in a widespread form. But its approval would send an important signal that there is no blanket ban on GM crops, and so take the brakes off scientific research into GM agriculture in British universities. It would also allow, as the leaked minutes hope, for opposition to GM food and crops to "eventually be worn down".
Earlier this week the government was one of the few to vote in favour of the European Union lifting its ban on GM maize for animal feed. Britain, along with the other EU member states, remains under enormous pressure from the United States to approve new GM products and imports, with the US pushing the World Trade Organisation to declare Europe's GM ban illegal under international trade rules. Approving T25/Chardon LL would go some way to keeping the US happy.
But there remains the fact that there is little appetite in this country for GM crops, whether home-grown or imported from abroad, and a demand for strict regulation on use and labelling. There is nothing in the government's case for GM that will change that - and approving a crop that no one wants to grow will be seen as an attempt to introduce the thin end of a highly unpopular wedge.
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