GM-free Scotland

February '08 | Laws insufficient to protect consumers

The USA has had three very expensive GM contamination warnings:

There have been no documented cases of harm to health from any of these contamination incidents. But then, without any kind of monitoring to identify them, we can't be sure.

Similarly, these incidents may be isolated ones, but without any kind of monitoring to identify them, we can't be sure.

On the subject of monitoring GM safety, the US central government seems to be noticeably out of step with its people.

Poll after poll has shown that consumers would like to see greater supervision of genetic engineering, including all-out limitations on GM cultivation. Four Californian counties and numerous New England towns have passed local measures restricting the growth of GM crops. State capitals are filled with bills aimed at protecting small farmers and consumers from the impacts of GM agriculture.

Despite all this, the government seems to be engaged in a four-pronged attack to force GM onto an unwilling people.

Under current US law, the makers of GM crops bear no responsibility for damages caused when their crops spread through the environment. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) runs a voluntary approval system, but has no oversight of a plant once it has been deregulated. Industry is effectively self-regulated and self-policed. And this corporate-friendly system is about to be taken a stage further. The 2007 Farm Bill now being debated in Congress has a single short addition to the immense document stating “no State or locality shall make a law prohibiting the use in commerce of an article that the Secretary of Agriculture has inspected and passed, or determined to be of non-regulated status”. This places full control of GMOs with central government and prevents any local oversight. Such ‘pre-emption’ laws are not a new concept. Since 2006 the US pharmaceutical, automobile and chemicals industries have been able to escape liability for harm caused by their products if federal approval and labelling specifications have been adhered to. During 2004-2006, nearly twenty state legislatures attempted to subdue the growing resistance to GM organisms by introducing pre-emption laws, but nearly every hearing erupted into an emotional discourse on the specific dangers of growing such crops. The 2007 farm bill will quietly remove any such discussion from the democratic process. This will make it nigh impossible for an individual, local or State authority to bring a successful lawsuit against the biotech industry for damage caused by GM contamination once the USDA has deregulated the crop.

In 2004, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency (APHIS) announced a review of its biotech regulations. Now, four years later, they are still talking. A major focus of this exercise has been to minimise the regulatory burden. The Agency seems convinced that GM crops are being “safety field tested”, blissfully (or willfully?) unaware of the difference between field-testing to ascertain commercial viability of the crop and safety testing to ascertain the absence of harm to organisms exposed to the GMO.

In an ‘unusual arrangement’ with the agribusiness giant, Monsanto, the USDA has agreed to a reduction in crop insurance premiums for farmers growing the Company's ‘triple stack’ GM corn. After seed prices doubled due to the sudden market distortion caused by a hefty shift of crops out of the human food chain and into biofuels, a law ‘enthusiastically passed’ in 2000 has been used to offset the hike with a discount on insurance. The excuse is that the GM corn which is resistant to two pests and Roundup herbicide, has been proved by ‘three years’ worth of research’ (provided by Monsanto) to produce higher yields under difficult conditions. The USDA acknowledges the move would ‘look’ like favouritism towards Monsanto but insists it is benefiting both farmers and the tax-payer who pays a proportion of the insurance premium.

Finally, central funding is driving university research down the GM route, aided by the sharing of patents with private corporations and fuelled by a mindset which sees GM as the only way to generate pest control in crops despite the likelihood that modern breeding and agricultural techniques would be faster, and more certain of success. As the editor of Kansas ‘Rural Papers’ said: Universities are “just following the money. And there’s not a lot of money in sustainable agriculture”.

OUR COMMENT

The US government seems to have learned little from its three major GM contamination experiences except the need for cunning. It is doing all it can with consumer-careless laws, minimal regulation, carefully targeted farm subsidies and the control of scientific research to drive GM into the population. Put another way, the biotech industry is being allowed to set its own safety rules, the public have increasingly little recourse in law if GM products go wrong, and sustainable alternatives to GM crops are simply being avoided.

The latest news on the 2007 farm bill is that the proposals have been declared too expensive. Ironically, a major sticking-point has been a $5 billion agriculture disaster fund. Since the US government has backed itself into a corner behind its own lack of regulatory oversight, inappropriate agricultural research, insurance incentives and liability restrictions, let's hope it puts plenty of cash aside somewhere to launch a rescue when GM goes wrong, because the taxpayer will end up footing the entire bill.

In this scenario, the last thing Scotland needs is to have any food-dependency on America. Besides crossing your fingers, you could help promote self-sufficiency here. Start by checking out the community-led initiatives which aim to tackle just this sort of problem:

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