GM-free Scotland

The idea of GM miracle crops is only too easy to sell. Especially to politicians who don't understand the science, but do understand that cutting-edge industry and feeding people is good politics. Even scientists can easily be persuaded to ignore unfashionable research if their reputations and pay-packets depend on it.

That the practical realities of GM crops are all 'idea' and no substance is borne out by what seems to be a terror of true data:

• The Third World Network recently pointed out that “Some of the most crucial scientific questions concerning the health effects of genetic engineering and genetically engineered organisms were raised up to twenty years ago. Most of them have still not been answered at all, or have found unsatisfactory answers ... A consensus has emerged that the effects observed in some published studies must be experimentally followed up. To this day, this has not been done”. Indeed, the extent of the hard evidence that GM plants are safe for human health is that “no one has ever died of eating GM food” (Robin McKie).
• 'Proof' of the benefits of GM crops usually take the form of the total numbers of farmers growing them, how many countries aren't worried about them, the year-on-year increases in acreage planted with GM, or worse, what GM crops might potentially be developed in future.
• And then, there's the on-going reactions to the report of the International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). These reactions are proving instructive.

The huge, four-year, IAASTD study uniquely examined all the data, used every area of expertise available to it, and unusually didn't follow scientific nor political fashion.

It found that “Assessment of the (GM) technology lags behind its development ... and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable”, and concluded that GM crops have uncertain yields, and have little role in feeding the poor.

What should have been hailed as the most exhaustive and authoritative scientific report ever to address world poverty and hunger was, instead, buried before and during its publication in a land-slide of pro-GM PR. Farmers got their dose of PR direct from the biotech industry, world leaders got their dose of PR from the UK Prime Minister, land-owners got their dose of PR, insidiously, from a respected magazine, and the public got it in the ear from their beef producers' representatives and MEP. At least one newspaper noticed that, in the run up to the release of the unwelcome report, the biotech companies, trade bodies and associated scientists had been issuing a deluge of propaganda (see GM SPIN AT ODDS WITH EVIDENCE – News, May 2008).

Since, when the IAASTD report finally appeared, it must have been clear to the media that they were being led down a GM garden path, you might expect subsequent coverage of the GM issue to show some healthy journalistic scepticism.

The reality?

• One long-standing political journalist in a leading UK daily repeated the routine biotech propaganda that increased food productivity is synonymous with GM crops, that Europe's refusal to import GM is to blame for famine in Africa and, of course, that the 'greens' have caused both these problems.
• One long-standing economics journalists in a leading UK daily repeated the routine biotech propaganda that concerns about GM foods are just the usual knee-jerk reaction to any new 'scientific discovery', that we should have it on our conscience that EU policies are forcing farmers elsewhere in the world down a non-GM route, that all-important opportunities in GM research and development are being lost, that the weakness of evidence against GM is being ignored, and, of course, that the 'greens' have caused all these problems.
• One long-standing farming journalist in a leading UK daily repeated the routine biotech propaganda that the EU's approval procedure is unnecessarily dragged-out while USA's approval procedure is short and sensible, and that GM rejection is to blame for the rising price of animal feed.
• India's equivalent to the Financial Times repeated some rather out-of-date biotech propaganda that Zambia's “stupendously silly” rejection of GM food aid in 2002 resulted in millions of deaths*see note, that GM crops are high-yielding and resistant to environmental stresses, and, of course, that the 'greens' are at the root of all these problems.
• One science and technology editor repeated the routine biotech propaganda that drought- and disease-resistant crops are synonymous with GM crops, that no one other than Europe is worried about GM, that GM has never killed anyone, that the Third World will suffer if Europe rejects GM, that GM will ensure maximum food production, that public attitudes are softening to GM anyway, and that not only the 'greens' but a European “privileged elite” are to blame for all of these.

COMMENT These articles read as opinion pieces dictated by the biotech PR-machine: they mislead by giving unbalanced information, by mixing up existing crops with future ideas and hopes for GM development, and repeating past misinformation. None of these journalists (not even the science and technology editor) appears to have done his homework on the content f the IAASTD report, nor on the actual state of play of GM development, nor on the scientific bases for concerns about inherent dangers in GM. Someone is spoon-feeding the press pro-GM information and persuading them not to look any further.

Are our governing bodies doing their homework any better?

The EU seems to have tried to tell us that, really, we all want GM foods and reacted with a snap internet-poll, on a website funded by the Commission, to prove it. GM Free Cymru described the poll as three “leading or loaded questions specifically designed to elicit a positive response and to confirm presuppositions” which, unsurprisingly, showed 90% of respondents back biotech. Even the website's managers admitted their poll was “not representative” and would be used by pro-GM forces. The European Commission's own 2008 Eurobarometer poll on GMOs showed just 21% of EU citizens in favour.

In the UK, where the IAASTD conclusions didn't suit the Government GM agenda, there seemed to be an attempt at non-reaction: ignore the findings and hope they’ll go away. When MP Michael Meacher gave it a prod by asking the Secretary of State a month after publication what the UK government was going to do in response to the report, the reply noticeably played down the significance of the study: the IAASTD had made a “useful contribution to the debate” and presented “an overall consensus”, while reflecting “a diversity of views on some issues, for example, on modern biotechnology”. The options presented by the IAASTD were duly 'considered' and Britain finally signed the report in June.

The IAASTD is not, of course, a lone voice. The media and governments also managed to overlook the recent United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in India (28 April – 16 May 2008). Specifically, the Committee's concluding observations included these human rights issues:

29. “... The Committee is particularly concerned that the extreme poverty among small-hold farmers caused by the lack of land, access to credit and adequate rural infrastructures, has been exacerbated by the introduction of genetically modified seeds by multinational corporations and the ensuing escalation of prices of seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, particularly in the cotton industry”.

69. “The Committee urges the State party ... to take all necessary measures to address the extreme poverty among small-holding farmers and to increase agricultural productivity as a matter of priority, by inter alia: ... providing state subsidies to enable farmers to purchase generic seeds which they are able to re-use, with a view to eliminating their dependency on multinational corporations ...”

OUR COMMENT

We are seeing a vast, carefully orchestrated, global PR machine which is pumping its propaganda into every institution, organisation and individual at every level of society. Good food and careful technology stand on their own merits: they do not need a breath-taking level of propaganda. If you ever wanted proof that GM is a failed technology which can only lead to a failed food supply this is it.

India has rushed off down a PR-driven GM agriculture route with woefully inadequate regulation in place to protect farmers or consumers. Re-read the observations of the UN Committee regarding India's experience. It would appear that this and the IAASTD are the only non-PR references to the true value of GM in agriculture you are ever likely to find.

Write to the Secretary of State and suggest he make the UK a leader in promoting the full implementation of IAASTD recommendations.

*Note.
In 2002, a very serious drought in Zambia resulted in almost 3 million people in need of emergency food distributions. The US government responded by giving 12,000 metric tonnes of unlabelled GM maize. There was general astonishment in the international community when the Zambian government rejected this GM food aid.

The Zambian Red Cross describes how it had to re-plan its relief exercise, and started distributing beans from neighbouring countries instead. This was possible due to generous cash donations from many countries which enabled them to purchase non-GM food supplies from the region and elsewhere. It “didn't record a single death arising out of hunger” (Charles Mushitu of the Zambian Red Cross). Check out ZAMBIAN MINI-LESSON – News, July 2008.

SOURCES:

• Terje Traavid and Jack Heinemann, Genetic Engineering and Omitted Health Research: Still No Answers to Ageing Questions, Third World Network Briefings for MOP 4, 4th Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, 12-16 May 2008, Bonn, Germany
• Simon Jenkins, The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation, Guardian, 16.04.08
• Bill Emmott, GM crops can save us from food shortages, Telegraph, 17.04.08
• William Surman, European hypocrisy over GMOs, Farmers Guardian, 17.04.08
• Robin McKie, As the world begins to starve it's time to take GM seriously, Observer, 27.04.08
• Genes as the solution, The Financial Express, 26.04.08
• Michael Meacher question to Douglas Alexander (Secretary of State, Department for International Development) 9.05.08
• Andrew Bounds in Brussels, Biotech groups await EU rethink on crop approvals, Financial Times, 6.05.08
• GM industry opinion poll slammed as “utterly worthless”, GM Free Cymru Press Notice, 6.05.08
• United Nations Committee on economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 28 April – 16 May 2008, India, concluding observations
• Looking a Gift-horse in the Mouth, Television Trust for the Environment, www.tve.org/earthreport/archive/doc.cfm?aid=1690