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Human beings have been farming for 12,000 years and during the period vast amounts of knowledge and skills have been accumulated. In the last 100 years, however, big changes have occurred. Technological advances were perceived to be the solution to the problem of feeding the world’s rapidly rising population. Chemical would save the day. In the 1950s, the now banned chemical DDT was promoted in adverts depicting happy families with the slogan ‘DDT is good for me.’
In the 1960s, the inappropriately named ‘Green Revolution’, promised even greater yields through a comprehensive systemization of agriculture. The theory was that the growth of markets at international level would make for economies of scale in the production of the most important crops, leading to uniform products at the cheapest prices. Getting all farmers to plant the same seed varieties is an excellent way to achieve the same standardised product but only works if the lands are homogeneous. This was achieved through the use of pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilisers and often unlimited irrigation, thus detaching farming from its environment and making redundant local agricultural heritage. Worldwide farmers became more dependent on the agricultural model encouraged by industry. Production costs declined, but the real costs were the pollution of soil, water and air, rising unemployment, the loss of small farms and of local agricultural biodiversity, and more recently, the spectre of global warming This deliberate creation of monocultures caused an ecological vacuum which insects and diseases exploited, necessitating an ever increasing use of pesticides.
The development of genetically engineered crops is being promoted as the solution to agricultural problems but is actually a way of ensuring that the stranglehold on farmers and the food supply exercised by the agro-chemical industry is maintained and explains why in the 1980/90s the biotechnology industry began to buy up seed companies.
WHAT IS GENETIC ENGINEERING ?
Firstly, it is NOT traditional plant breeding. Traditional plant breeding takes pollen from a plant with a desirable trait and uses it to fertilise another plant (of the same species), which carries a different desirable trait in the hope of producing offspring that carry both desirable traits. Genetic modification takes a gene of one species and blasts it into the DNA strand of a completely unrelated species (e.g. DNA from a bacteria into a maize plant). In natural circumstances these two organisms would never breed.
GM technology is based on a forty year old hypothesis which states that each gene is responsible for the manufacture of a single, unique protein which determines one characteristic/trait in an organism. Scientists believed that a single gene created only one protein and that they could insert that gene into another species and be confident that it would create that unique protein. The biotechnology industry was developed on that premise and on foot of that surety. But the scientists were wrong!!
SERIOUS QUESTIONS
The multi-million dollar Human Genome Project (HGP) published in June 2000 gave the lie to that theory. It was estimated, by biologists, that the human body had approximately 100,000 specific proteins and it had been predicted that there would be the same number of genes. The HGP report revealed that humans only carried 30,000 genes (a mustard weed plant has 26,000). This discovery should have raised alarm bells but by this time the biotechnology companies had been pumping money into the development of genetic engineering for over 20 years.The information was side lined and business continued as usual.
The fact that one gene can create multiple proteins explains some of the disasters that genetic engineers encounter. To make a protein, the gene dictates that particular amino acids are assembled in a particular order, but when necessary the amino acids are reassembled by a process known as ‘alternative splicing’ and an entirely new protein is formed. In this way hundreds or even thousands of proteins can be created by a single gene.
In genetic engineering the most common way to transfer a gene from one organism into a cell of an unrelated species is to attach it to a virus or bacteria which are adept at invading other organisms. When a foreign gene makes its appearance in an organism it begins to assemble amino acids as though it were functioning in its usual environment. In all likelihood alternative splicing will occur and, the amino acids will be rearranged and no-one knows what protein will be created and what effect it will have on the host organism immediately or in future generations.
In addition to alternate splicing there are other, very complex, modifying influences on the creation of proteins. These have evolved in a harmonious relationship over a long evolutionary period and been the subject to thousands if not millions of years of testing in nature. However when a gene is transferred from one organism into the DNA of a totally unrelated species (bacteria to maize for example) the two systems are very different and the interdependence of genes in their natural environment is likely to be disrupted in unspecified, imprecise, unpredictable and dangerous ways.
The destruction so far visited upon the ecology of planet earth by our species up till now may well turn out to be relatively minor compared to the damage which may be done by interference in the delicately tuned and intricate systems of genetics that have evolved, in all species, over millennia. The arrogance of the biotechnology industry is breathtaking. The study of genetics is in its infancy and the science should remain in the laboratory until adequate research, development and safety testing has been completed. The science of genetic engineering is dominated by the needs of the biotechnology companies. There are untold incidences of scientists and governments being subverted and bullied and of scientific procedures being dictated by short term commercial interests (see story opposite).
IRISH GOVERNMENT POSITION
In April 1997 Joe Walsh and Noel Dempsey, Fianna Fail spokesmen for agriculture and environment respectively, made the following statement with regard to GM crops:
"Current scientific knowledge is inadequate to protect the consumer and the environment from the unpredictable and potentially disastrous effects [of GM] which may appear immediately or at any time in the future……Fianna Fail will not support what amounts to the largest nutritional experiment in human history with the consumer as guinea pig……The effects of genetically modified crops and food are well documented. They include:
• Unexpected toxins and allergens in food
• Increased use of chemicals on crops
• Contamination of water and food
• The creation of ’super weeds’ – herbicide resistant weeds
• Damage to the ecology of the soil
• Loss of biodiversity and consequent damage to the food chain
The rush to market with genetically modified foods is unscientific, unseemly, and premature. Prevention is wise because cure is impossible. Genetically modified organisms once released can never be recalled".
In August 1998, however, after Fianna Fail were elected to power and these two spokesmen had become ministers, the government issued a position paper on genetic engineering with a very different tone;
“The area of Irish economic interest where biotechnology, particularly modern biotechnology/genetic modification, has greatest potential is in agriculture…..”
The complete change of opinion and policy on GM was never explained to the electorate and the contention that agriculture would benefit from GM was never substantiated in fact.
Research and Public Opinion
Dr. George Wald Nobel Laureate in Medicine has said
‘The results [of GM crops] will be essentially new organisms, self perpetuating and hence permanent. Once created they cannot be recalled’ and a new environmental hazard is created.
Public opinion, worldwide, is opposed to GM technology. An Irish survey, conducted by the Irish council for Bioethics, published on 28th Nov 2005, reveals that over 80% of the respondents had grave doubts about GM food crops.
The biotech industry promised that GM technology would reduce the need for pesticides but a 2004 study by Charles Benbrook, which looked at GM crops and pesticide use in the USA from 1993 – 2004, concluded that
‘GE (genetically engineered) corn, soybeans and cotton have led to a 122 pound increase in pesticide use since 1996………overall pesticide use has risen by 4.1% on acres planted to GE varieties’¹
LEGAL ACTION FROM GM COMPANIES
Farmers who choose not to grow GM crops are faced with loss of markets if their crops are contaminated by GM crops.
Insurance companies refuse cover to farmers growing GM crops should their crop contaminate a neighbour’s conventional crop. The biotech industry takes no responsibility for such scenarios so farmers carry the burden.
Contamination of conventional crops by GM varieties is inevitable and biotech companies have and will continue to claim ownership of crops on farmer’s fields where GM material has reached it through wind or insect pollinators. In Canada a precedent was set when a farmer whose crop was contaminated [by a GM crop] was sued by Monsanto for theft of their ‘intellectual property.’
Letters, threatening law suits were sent out to over 9,000 farmers. Would Irish patent law protect our farmers from a similar predicament?
A decision passed by EU commissioners in August 2005 permits the importation of a genetically modified oilseed rape (GT 73) to all EU states. Whilst it is destined to be used as an animal feed and in the production of fuel, no guarantees have been given that it is not capable of germinating, cross pollinating with wild relatives and producing superweeds in Ireland. On 13th January 2006, BASF Plant science GmbH (an affiliate of the German drug and chemical corporation BASF) notified the Irish Environmental protection Agency (EPA) of its intention to conduct an experimental release of patented and genetically modified (GMO) potatoes. The proposed 5 year experiment would take place from April 2006 to October 2010 on site at or near the Teagasc Grange Research centre, Summerhill, Co. Meath. The experiment aims to create, through genetic modification, a potato with resistance to blight.
At least two conventionally bred blight resistant potato varieties are already available to Irish farmers.
Agriculture does not take place in a laboratory, pollen, seed and food all travel, often in unpredictable ways. Seed can stay in the ground for years before germinating so tracking a particular planting is impossible. The biotechnology industry’s interest lies in pushing GM crops as quickly and as widely as possible across the globe. It has raced to get GM crops into the field before public opposition has been mobilized and biosafety regulations are put in place.
Independent researchers say that funds to study the health effects of GM food are almost non-existent. A January 2001 report from an expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada said it was ‘scientifically unjustifiable’ to presume that GM foods are safe. They called for safety testing looking for short and long term human toxicity, allergens and other health effects. Any testing for toxins that has been done was on the bacteria used to transfer the gene from one species to another and not on material from the genetically engineered plant itself. It is only known allergens that are tested for, yet new allergens are produced by GM technology.
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA, is the body charged with safety testing of GM foods. Recently there have been a significant number of people working for the biotech industry, re-locating to the FDA or EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), and then returning to the biotech industry. Could there be a conflict of interests? Is it possible that a person could be approving products as safe, that they were involved in developing in a previous job?
Domination of World Markets
2004/05 saw an upsurge in seed industry takeovers. Today the top 10 seed companies control 49% of the world’s commercial seed sales. Corporate ownership and control of seeds has far reaching implications for global food security. A study conducted by the US Dept of Agriculture examines the impact of seed industry concentration on agbiotech research and concludes that reduced competition is associated with reduced research and development – despite the industry claims to the contrary.
The firms dominating the seed industry are Monsanto (USA), Du Pont/Pioneer(USA) and Syngenta(Switzerland) and all are manufacturing GM seed. Monsanto moved to the top in January 2005 by acquiring Seminis – the world’s biggest vegetable seed company. In preparation for this buy out Monsanto have been scouring gene banks internationally and patenting seed varieties that were unregistered. They now own 11,000 patents and they can prevent anyone else from using those seeds giving them an untrammeled market to promote the one seed they want to sell and that will be the one that is engineered to be resistant to the pesticide that they produce. Sales of pesticides are far more lucrative than seed sales! Ironically though, when corn blight hit crops in the USA recently it was not the agro-chemical industry that saved the day – it was a landrace variety of corn found in Mexico that carried resistance to the blight.
FARMERS WILL BE WORSE OFF
If farmers look to the biotechnology companies for their survival they are on to a loser. These companies make decisions that will strengthen their own position [in global markets] and increase share holder dividends: food security and choice for farmers is not on their priority list.
The concept of cheap food needs to be challenged. In per capita terms, Ireland is the one of richest countries in the world today. The percentage of our income that is spent on food, however, is only a fraction of what is was fifty years ago. If more home grown, fresh, unprocessed, quality food was consumed here many health issues would be solved. Food that has travelled only 50 miles from producer to consumer has to be better than that travelling 1,500 miles which is the average journey of produce on supermarket shelves today. Farmers world wide should be respected and their produce valued for its true and fundamental worth.
For regular up dates and suggested actions to protect our food security see www.gmfreeireland.ie
¹ ‘Genetically Engineered Crops & Pesticide Use in the United States: the first nine years’ Biotech Infonet, Technical Paper No. 7 2004 |
