July '08 | Conspiracy? - never!
If you're fond of conspiracy theories, it would be very, very easy to view the current global food price escalation as an American plot to control the world, using GM crops as a convenient lever.
After the 2008 UN summit on Food Security and Climate Change in Rome, the US Agriculture Secretary told the press that America was committed to combating rising global food prices:
On the need for free markets, he said:
“... the world's leaders have a responsibility to allow markets to provide food efficiently, without obstructing access to it or limiting safe technologies to produce it ... We ask all countries to allow the free flow of food and the safe technologies that produce that food ...”
On food prices and biofuels, he said:
“... factors contributing to food price increase include rising energy costs, poor harvests in major grain producing countries and greater use of export restrictions ... we can identify two to three percent of (food) price increase that is driven by biofuels. A majority, of course, is energy and second largest piece or about equal piece is the increase in consumption around the world, which is using up the production stocks ...”
And on GM crops, he said:
“... We've been using (GMOs) for 10 years in the United States and they have a proven effectiveness in increasing yields, in lowering the use of fertilizer, in providing better water and soil management and also increasing taste and appearance. So, you know, those are all good things”.
These statements are a clear plug for GM crops, even if they are euphemistically referred to as 'safe technologies' and their key role in biofuels is trivialised.
Consider the reasons commonly given for food price inflation, and the nature of their connection to GM crops:
- Rising oil prices.
- Shrinking area of productive soil, due to on-going agricultural land degradation.
- Extreme weather causing poor harvests
- Increased demand for animal feed in China and India as they modernise and become more affluent
- Low reserves of wheat and maize
- Biofuels
- Rejection of GM feed
The rise in oil prices just around this time, when easily-extractable supplies were predicated to run low, was expected. Yet, all GM crop development has been geared to oil-dependent agri-chemicals, and an oil-dependent, globalised food supply structure.
The current rate of productive land-loss, and its human causes, have been fully recognised. Yet, all GM crop development has been geared to the modern, intensive farming practices responsible for the losses.
The incidence of extreme weather looks set to get worse with global warming. Because of their synchronised, large-scale planting, ripening and harvesting, because the agronomic characteristics bred into them focus on uniformity and yield at the expense of hardiness, and because they are grown in over-used soil, modern intensive monocultures are the most vulnerable crops in the event of adverse weather conditions. GM crop development is shackled to this type of farming
This 'second largest or about equal' influence on food prices has been much emphasised by US officialdom. For some reason, the suggested increased demand for animal feed in these two countries is translated into a demand for GM feed on the global market. This particular American excuse to push GM may become true sometime in the future, but it hasn't happened yet. China is still well able to cater for its own feed needs, except for soya derivatives which are easily provided by the increased soya planting elsewhere, such as Brazil. India is widely vegetarian and is not likely to change in a hurry. Both countries are net exporters of meat.
After ten years of growing GM crops, the fact of our low food reserves doesn't seem a very good advertisement for them. Countries which have stepped out of the US-led, GM monoculture rat-race seem to be faring much better (see ZAMBIAN MINI-LESSON ON AGRICULTURE – News, July 2008). Bee Wilson notes that, since ancient times, famine has led to the desperate consumption of unfamiliar foods, from donkeys to leather. Have our global grain reserves been deliberately run down to shoe-horn GM down our throats?
The mass diversion of (largely GM) feed crops into fuel production, and pushed to its limits by mandatory targets, is an inescapable fact. America hasn't tried to deny that biofuel production is contributing to rising food prices, but has tried to shrug it off as a trivial 3% of the problem. Compare this with recent estimate made by a leading World Bank economist who put the contribution biofuels were making to price hikes at 75% (see BIOFUELS: SIMPLE, NEAT AND WRONG – News, July 2008).
The EU food industry, livestock representatives and the Commission (no doubt under intense US and industry lobbying) have focused much attention on the idea that Europe could control its food prices, if only it would abandon its GMO regulations and feed its animals cheap GM feed.
But, is Europe's failure to 'take advantage' of 'cheap' GM feed really affecting food prices significantly? Consider:
- There are not now, nor ever have been, any real blocks on the importation of GM animal feed to Europe: the GM strains widely grown in Brazil, Argentina and America have always been permitted here. The problem seems to have risen over recent years due to contamination from two newer GM maize strains (root-worm resistant, MIR 604 and MON 88017) not approved in Europe and not cultivated to any large extent in the South. Because the USA heavily subsidises its maize production and haulage costs are lower from North American compared with South America, the US has made sure it's feed retains a price advantage.
- Prices of non-GM feed supplies, such as barley, have risen only 43% in the last year, while maize (about 25% GM) has risen 72% and Argentinean soya (100% GM) has gone up 110%.
The ideas of abandoning our careful regulation of GMO importation or embracing GM agriculture as a solution to any of our food price woes seem insupportable.
OUR COMMENT
The doubling of fertilizer prices and escalating transport costs would seem to make a much better case for organic agriculture and self-sufficiency, than for increased GM monoculture imports.
The final part of the US Agriculture Secretary's rhetoric on, 'you know, all those good things', is (sorry, there's no polite way to say this) a pack of lies. If you're not up to speed on the tactic of wishful GM thinking emerging as 'fact' read GM Freeze Briefing Feeding the World with GM Crops: Myth or Reality?, June 2008, www.gmfreeze.org. Also, check out GM SPIN AT ODDS WITH THE EVIDENCE – News, May 2008, GM CROP YIELDS DO NOT LIVE UP TO CLAIMS – News, June 2008, FACTS, US-STYLE – News, June 2008.
You might not be convinced about the US-conspiracy theory, but if powerful and influential people make silly claims like the ones above and remain unchallenged, the fiction will soon become 'truth'. Consider doing some challenging yourself anytime you see or hear such nonsense repeated in the media. And if you have friends or relatives in the US, alert them to this need too.
SOURCES
Joe De Capua, At UN Summit, US Offers Three-Prong Approach to food Crisis, www.voanews.com 3.06.08
Daryll E. Ray, USDA top officials versus USDA data, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, 30.05.08, www.agpolicy.org/weekcol/409.html
Special report on GM and the food crisis, Newsnight, BBC, 17.06.08
Farming Today, Radio 4, 30.06.08
Policy options regarding the issue of low level presence of non-approved GMOs in feed and foodstuffs, follow up of the debate on GMOs of 5 May 2008, which concluded that the Commission services should work on a technical solution for the issue of low level presence of non-approved GMOs in feed, report leaked by Friends of the Earth Europe, (see http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/zero_tolerance.html Important policy documents and resources)
Aditya Chakrabortty, Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis, Guardian 4.7.08
Donald Mitchell, A Note on Rising Food Prices, 8.04.08, leaked by the Guardian www.guardian.co.uk/environment
National Corn Growers Association Press Release on lack of Japanese approval of MIR604, 27.03.07
MON88017 Another MON863? Institute of Science in Society Press Release 25.08.05
Bee Wilson, Swindled, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7195-6785-8