GM-free Scotland

January '08 | Who's liable in a GM-shaped world?

The biotech industry is very adept at implying a rosy picture for GM crops and foods.

A recent Monsanto Press Release claimed “Monsanto's commercial business approach is to invest in seed and trait technology development to create products that increase yield and improve farm productivity.”

This might give you the impression the company was churning out biotech plants which are giving farmers a bigger harvest and cosy profits. Alas, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and independent data show that yields from GM crops are falling. Most GM crops in the ground now are not engineered to improve yield, they are designed to withstand applications of proprietary weedkillers such as Monsanto's Roundup. Farmers profits are eaten up by the 60% premium they are charged on GM seed, and the cost of extra chemical applications needed as the weeds inevitably adapt to their extra exposure to herbicides.

On bad 'superweed', such as the Roundup-resistant Johnson grass which has spread across Argentina, can double the cost of production.

Bt, insecticidal, GM crops can, according to Monsanto's website, “reduce and in some instances avoid the need for insecticides”. The picture drawn here is of a farmer sitting with his feet up while his crops grow tall and unnibbled, and insects running for their lives. The fly in this Bt ointment (sorry) is that Bt toxins are very specific about the pests they kill. The farmer will still find plenty of reasons to have to spray his Bt crop. And worse, if one pest is eliminated from a field, its ecological niche tends to become filled by another (often one which wasn't previously a problem). For this reason, Indian Bt-maize is being sapped by aphids, and Chinese Bt-cotton is falling victim to mealy bugs.

The upshot of this, as USDA data show, is that chemical use on Bt plants creeps up year on year.

Monsanto's website also promises you, the consumer, “quality, safety and taste” in your “food choices” and to your government, biotech will deliver politically-friendly crops which “assure environmental quality, preserve bio-diversity and promote health and safety”. But before you become rapturous about GM, take note that none of these promises have been fulfilled. So far, all we have is a deluge of pesticidal and herbicide-tolerant crops to feed intensively reared animals, complete with all the drawbacks mentioned above.

The closest the biotech industry has come yet to developing a consumer-friendly GM crop is 'Golden Rice' which is genetically transformed to produce vitamin A. The hope is that it can alleviate one major nutritional deficiency in developing countries. This crop has been many years in the pipeline where it is still being tested for its efficacy in providing the necessary quantities of vitamin A to the consumer. A recent report on a preliminary study indicating Golden Rice might actually be able to achieve this goal, ended by saying “With proven benefits for the consumer, the approval of this rice as a safe genetically modified organism in these countries seems closer”. COMMENT Interesting that, to these scientists, the “proven benefits” seem to have been able to make the GM rice a “safe” GMO. Let's hope their scientific practice is less muddled.

Finally, we should take a warning from the commercialisation of GM canola (oilseed rape) in Canada. The National Farmers Union of Canada has said that the segregation of GM and non-GM canola failed after a few years, causing the collapse of both industries. A six-year battle to sue the biotech companies over serious harm to the organic sector has been dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada. Apparently the biotech industry incurs no responsibility for the effects of its artificial DNA.

This brings us to the usual question of safety of GM foods.

Up until now, the biotech industry itself has been allowed to lead the definition on what constitutes “safety testing” of GM food. None of Monsanto's claims on yield, reduced chemical use, food quality, environmental quality, bio-diversity, health and safety has ever been substantiated.

A review of published articles on GM safety for humans appeared recently in the journal, Food Science and Nutrition. The author commented that “The number of references was surprisingly limited. Morever most published studies were not performed by the biotechnology companies that produce these products ... Although a considerable number of commentaries, general news, and letters to the Editor were published in reputable international journals, papers about experimental investigations on the safety of GM foods were surprisingly very scant” and looked at nutritional rather than toxicological qualities. The studies found were easily summarised in one-and-a half pages: this comprised an incoherent list of short-term, mainly one-off, experiments on different kinds of GM plants with different types of genetic transformation, fed to different kinds of animal. The author's final word was “This review can be concluded raising the following question: where is the scientific evidence showing that GM plants/food are toxicologically safe, as assumed by the biotechnology companies involved in commercial GM foods?”

ACTION

While our farmers, environment, food and possibly our bodies are being bent into GM-shape, buoyed up by nothing more than unsupported promises, Monsanto and its shareholders are laughing airily all the way to the bank. This situation will continue, even when (not if) things go catastrophically wrong, because we have no appropriate GM-based liability regulations in place to make the biotech industry take their own actions seriously.

Two Westminster MPs have been made aware of this vulnerability in the system and have proposed Early Day Motions. These are EDM 82 and EDM 15 (see below). You can check whether your MP has already signed these EDMs at http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/ and, if not, contact you MP through www.writetothem.com and ask him to sign them.

EDM 82

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS AND CROSS-CONTAMINATION 06.11.07

Ainsworth, Peter

That this House notes that the science of genetically modified organisms is still being debated and the commercial and environmental dangers posed by the risk of cross-contamination are a matter of serious public concern and calls on the Government to reconsider its implementation of the Environmental Liability Directive which is intended to protect biodiversity, land and water from environmental harm.

EDM 15

GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS 06.11.07

Paice, James

That this House understands the public concern caused by the development of genetically modified organisms; believes that consumers have the right to choose non-GM foods and that all foods containing GM material should be clearly labelled as such; further notes that it is scientifically established that the presence of GM can be traced down to, or close to, 0.1 per cent. and believes that this should be the trigger point for GM labelling; and calls on the Government to ban any commercial planting of GM crops until or unless science shows that this would be safe for people and the environment, and until or unless issues of liability and crop segregation are resolved.

SOURCES

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