Archive for the ‘GMO’s’ Category
Failure to Yield
May 1st, 2009
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Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops
We already know that GMO’s are bad for the environment and not adequately tested as safe for us to eat, now a report by the Union of Concerned Scientist that show that GE crops do not produce more then regular or organic crops. “If we are going to make headway in combating hunger due to overpopulation and climate change, we will need to increase crop yields,” Gurian-Sherman says. “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”
Here’s the summary and the link to the complete study:
Doug Gurian-Sherman
Union of Concerned Scientists
April 2009
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world.
Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., and has offices in Berkeley, Calif., Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Driven by economic and political forces, food prices soared to record highs in 2007 and 2008, causing hardships around the world. Although a global food shortage was not a factor then or now—worldwide food production continues to exceed demand—those recent price spikes and localized scarcity, together with rising populations in many countries and individuals’ rising aspirations, have brought renewed attention to the need to increase food production in the coming decades. Many commentators and stakeholders have pointed to the alleged promise of genetic engineering (GE)—in which the crop DNA is changed using the gene-insertion techniques of molecular biology—for dramatically improving the yields of staple food crops. But a hard-nosed assessment of this expensive technology’s achievements to date gives little confidence that it will play a major role in helping the world feed itself in the foreseeable future.
This report is the first to evaluate in detail the overall, or aggregate, yield effect of GE after more than 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialization in the United States. Based on that record, we conclude that GE has done little to increase overall crop yields.
How Else Can Farmers Increase Production?
Among the many current approaches are crop breeding; chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides; crop rotation; and organic methods, which ensure the health of the soil. Nevertheless, GE crops have received by far the most attention since they were commercially introduced in the mid-1990s. Ever since, the biotech industry and others have trumpeted them as key to feeding the world’s future population.
Executive Summary
The two primary GE food and feed crops are corn and soybeans. GE soybeans are now grown on over 90 percent of soybean acres, and GE corn makes up about 63 percent of the U.S. corn crop. Within these categories, the three most common GE crops are: (1) corn containing transgenes (genes transferred from another organism using genetic engineering) from Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) bacteria that confer resistance to several kinds of insects; (2) corn containing transgenes for herbicide tolerance; and (3) soybeans that contain a transgene for herbicide tolerance. Now that these transgenic crops have been grown in the United States for more than a decade, there is a wealth of data on yield under real-world conditions. Thus a close examination of numerous studies of corn and soybean crop yields since the early 1990s gives us a good gauge of how well GE crops are living up to their promise for increasing those yields.
Bottom line: They are largely failing to do so. GE soybeans have not increased yields, and GE corn has increased yield only marginally on a crop-wide basis. Overall, corn and soybean yields have risen substantially over the last 15 years, but largely not as result of the GE traits. Most of the gains are due to traditional breeding or improvement of other agricultural practices.
While the need to increase food production is expected to become more urgent, awareness of the complex interactions between agriculture and the environment is also on the rise. Many of the predicted negative effects of global warming—including greater incidence and severity of drought, flooding, and sea-level rise (which may swamp coastal farmland)—are likely to make food production more challenging. At the same time, it is becoming clear that the twentieth century’s industrial methods of agriculture have imposed tremendous costs on our environment. Agriculture contributes more heat-trapping gases than does transportation, and it is a major source of pollution that has led to large and spreading “dead zones” devoid of fish and shellfish (themselves important food sources) in the Gulf of Mexico and other waterways. As we strive to produce more food, we must seek to do it in an efficient and sustainable manner—that is, in ways that do not undermine the foundation of natural resources on which future generations will depend.
Defining Yield(s)
It is crucial to distinguish between two kinds of yield—intrinsic yield and operational yield—when evaluating transgenic crops. Intrinsic yield, the highest that can be achieved, is obtained when crops are grown under ideal conditions; it may also be thought of as potential yield. By contrast, operational yield is obtained under field conditions, when environmental factors such as pests and stress result in yields that are considerably less than ideal. Genes that improve operational yield reduce losses from such factors.
But while operational yield is important, better protecting crops from pests and stress without increasing potential yield will not do enough to meet the future food needs of an expanded population. Food-crop breeders must deliver improvements both in intrinsic yield and operational yield to keep up with growing demand.
In this report, the record of commercialized GE crops in producing increases both in intrinsic and operational yield is assessed. We rely heavily on experiments conducted by academic scientists, using adequate experimental controls, and published in peer-reviewed journals. These studies, many of them recent, evaluate GE traits against other conventional farming practices. In some cases, the results of earlier widely cited reports are superseded by these more recent data.
The success of GE technology in producing new yield traits is also evaluated by examining specific transgenes associated with yield that have been tested in experimental field trials over the past two decades. This focus also provides a measure of the effort by the biotechnology industry and others to increase crop yield through GE means.
The Findings
1. Genetic engineering has not increased intrinsic yield.
No currently available transgenic varieties enhance the intrinsic yield of any crops. The intrinsic yields of corn and soybeans did rise during the twentieth century, but not as a result of GE traits. Rather, they were due to successes in traditional breeding.
2. Genetic engineering has delivered only minimal gains in operational yield.
Herbicide-Tolerant Soybeans and Corn. Although not extensive enough to develop precise yield estimates, the best data (which were not included in previous widely cited reviews on yield) show that transgenic herbicide-tolerant soybeans and corn have not increased operational yields, whether on a per-acre or national basis, compared to conventional methods that rely on other available herbicides. The fact that the herbicide-tolerant soybeans have been so widely adopted suggests that factors such as lower energy costs and convenience of GE soybeans also influence farmer choices.
Bt Corn to Control Insect Pests. Bt corn contains one or more transgenes primarily intended to control either the European corn borer (this corn was first commercialized in 1996) or corn rootworm species (commercialized in 2004). Based on available data, it is likely that Bt corn provides an operational yield advantage of 7–12 percent compared to typical conventional practices, including insecticide use, when European corn borer infestations are high. Bt corn offers little or no advantage when infestations of European corn borer are low to moderate, even when compared to conventional corn not treated with insecticides.
Evaluating operational yield on a crop-wide basis, at either a national or global scale, is needed to determine overall food availability. Given that about a third of the corn crop in the United States is devoted to European corn borer Bt varieties, using the yield data summarized above we estimate that the range of yield gain averaged across the entire corn crop is about 0.8–4.0 percent, with a 2.3 percent gain as a reasonable intermediate value.
Similar calculations can be made for Bt rootworm corn. One of the few estimates from the literature suggests that Bt rootworm corn provides about a 1.5–4.5 percent increase in operational yield compared to conventional corn treated with insecticides. Extensive field experiments in Iowa, mostly with heavy rootworm infestations, show a range of values not inconsistent with these estimates. Given that Bt rootworm corn is probably planted on up to a third of corn acres, the aggregate operational yield advantage for these varieties averaged over all corn acres is roughly 0.5–1.5 percent.
Combining the values for Bt European corn borer corn and Bt rootworm corn gives an estimated operational yield increase from the Bt traits of 1.3–5.5 percent. An increase of about 3.3 percent, or a range of 3–4 percent, is a reasonable intermediate. Averaged over the 13 years since Bt corn was first commercialized in 1996, this equates roughly to a 0.2–0.3 percent yield increase per year.
3. Most yield gains are attributable to non-genetic engineering approaches.
In the past several decades, overall corn yields in the United States have increased an average of about 1 percent per year, or considerably more in total than the amount of yield increase provided by Bt corn varieties. More specifically, U.S. Department of Agriculture data indicate that the average corn production per acre nationwide over the past five years (2004–2008) was about 28 percent higher than for the five-year period 1991–1995, an interval that preceded the introduction of Bt varieties.1 But our analysis of specific yield studies concludes that only 3–4 percent of that increase is attributable to Bt, meaning an increase of about 24–25 percent must be due to other factors such as conventional breeding.
Yields have also continued to increase in other major crops, including soybeans (which have not experienced increases in either intrinsic or operational yield from GE) and wheat (for which there are no commercial transgenic varieties). Comparing yield in the latter period with that of the former, the increases were about 16 percent for soybeans and 13 percent for wheat. Overall, as shown above, GE crops have contributed modestly, at best, to yield increases in U.S. agriculture.
Organic and low-external-input methods (which use reduced amounts of fertilizer and pesticides compared to typical industrial crop production) generally produce yields comparable to those of conventional methods for growing corn or soybeans. For example, non-transgenic soybeans in recent low-external-input experiments produced yields 13 percent higher than for GE soybeans, although other low-external-input research and methods have produced lower yield.
Meanwhile, conventional breeding methods, especially those using modern genomic approaches (often called marker-assisted selection and distinct from GE), have the potential to increase both intrinsic and operational yield. Also, more extensive crop rotations, using a larger number of crops and longer rotations than current ecologically unsound corn-soybean rotations, can reduce losses from insects and other pests.
4. Experimental high-yield genetically engineered crops have not succeeded.
Several thousand experimental GE-crop field trials have been conducted since 1987. Although it is not possible to determine the precise number of genes for yield enhancement in these trials, given the confidential-business-information concerns among commercial developers, it is clear that many transgenes for yield have been tested over the years.
Among these field trials, at least 3,022 applications were approved for traits such as disease resistance or tolerance to abiotic stress (e.g., drought, frost, floods, saline soils). These traits are often associated with yield.2 At least 652 of the trials named yield as the particular target trait. Only the Bt and herbicide-tolerance transgenes and five transgenes for pathogen resistance have been commercialized, however, and only Bt has had an appreciable impact on aggregate yields.3
Some of these transgenes may simply not be ready for prime time. It typically takes several years of field trials and safety testing before a transgenic crop is approved and ready to be grown by farmers. However, 1,108 of these field trials were approved prior to 2000, not including those for insect resistance or herbicide tolerance. Most of these earlier transgenic crops should have been ready for commercialization by the time of this report.
To summarize, the only transgenic food/feed crops that have been showing significantly improved yield are varieties of Bt corn, and they have contributed gains in operational yield that were considerably less over their 13 years than other means of increasing yield. In other words, of several thousand field trials, many of which have been intended to raise operational and intrinsic yield, only Bt has succeeded. This modest record of success should suggest caution concerning the prospects for future yield increases from GE.
What Are Genetic Engineering’s Prospects for Increasing Yield?
Genetic engineers are continuing to identify new genes that might raise intrinsic and operational yields. How likely is it that these genes will in fact produce commercially viable new crop varieties?
Research on theoretical limitations of plant physiology and morphology (form)—regarding the conversion of sunlight, nutrients, carbon dioxide, and water into food or feed—indicates how much intrinsic yield may be increased. While opinions differ about the possibility of achieving dramatically increased yields through improvements in plant form and the processes listed above, optimistic estimates suggest that yield gains of up to about 50 percent over the next several decades may be achievable and that GE technology may play a prominent role.
These dramatic projections do not consider a fundamental reason why they may not be easy to achieve, especially regarding GE. Most of the transgenes being considered for the future, unlike the ones in currently commercialized transgenic crops, influence many other genes, thereby resulting in more complex genetic effects. Such genes typically have multiple effects on a crop, and early research is confirming that some of these effects can be detrimental, maybe even preventing the crops’ commercialization altogether. Because such effects will not always be identified by testing under current regulations, improved regulations will be needed to ensure that harmful side effects are discovered and prevented.
In other words, even where these genes work as expected, they may still cause significant environmental or human health impacts, or have reduced agricultural value in some environments. And many of these genes will not address the negative impact of current industrial agriculture, and may even exacerbate these harmful effects if higher yield requires more fertilizer or pesticide use.
Given the variety of transgenes tested and the large amounts of research funding devoted to them, it would not be unexpected that some of them may eventually be successful in increasing yield. But in light of the complexity of their biochemical and physiological interactions, and their unpredictable side effects, it is questionable how many will become commercially viable.
Summary and Recommendations
The burgeoning human population challenges agriculture to come up with new tools to increase crop productivity. At the same time, we must not simply produce more food at the expense of clean air, water, soil, and a stable climate, which future generations will also require. In order to invest wisely in the future, we must evaluate agricultural tools to see which ones hold the most promise for increasing intrinsic and operational yields and providing other resource benefits.
It is also important to keep in mind where increased food production is most needed—in developing countries, especially in Africa, rather than in the developed world. Several recent studies have shown that low-external-input methods such as organic can improve yield by over 100 percent in these countries, along with other benefits. Such methods have the advantage of being based largely on knowledge rather than on costly inputs, and as a result they are often more accessible to poor farmers than the more expensive technologies (which often have not helped in the past).
So far, the record of GE crops in contributing to increased yield is modest, despite considerable effort. There are no transgenic crops with increased intrinsic yield, and only Bt corn exhibits somewhat higher operational yield. Herbicide-tolerant soybeans, the most widely utilized GE crop by far, do not increase either operational or intrinsic yield.
Genetic engineers are working on new genes that may raise both intrinsic and operational yield in the future, but their past track record for bringing new traits to market suggests caution in relying too heavily on their success.
It is time to look more seriously at the other tools in the agricultural toolkit. While GE has received most of the attention and investment, traditional breeding has been delivering the goods in the all-important arena of increasing intrinsic yield. Newer and sophisticated breeding methods using increasing genomic knowledge—but not GE—also show promise for increasing yield.
The large investment in the private sector ensures that research on GE versions of major crops will continue, while organic and other agro-ecological methods are not likely to attract a similar investment.
But given the modest yield increases from transgenic crops so far, putting too many of our crop-development eggs in the GE basket could lead to lost opportunities. Thus it is very important to compare the potential contributions of GE with those of other approaches, such as organic methods, low-input methods, and enhanced conventional-breeding methods. Where these alternatives look more promising, we should provide sufficient public funding to ensure that they will be available. Such prioritization is especially appropriate for research aimed at developing countries, where yield increases are most needed.
To ensure that adequate intrinsic and operational yields are realized from major crops in the coming years, the Union of Concerned Scientists makes the following recommendations:
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture, state and local agricultural agencies, and public and private universities should redirect substantial funding, research, and incentives toward approaches that are proven and show more promise than genetic engineering for improving crop yields, especially intrinsic crop yields, and for providing other societal benefits. These approaches include modern methods of conventional plant breeding as well as organic and other sophisticated low-input farming practices.
- •Food-aid organizations should work with farmers in developing countries, where increasing local levels of food production is an urgent priority, to make these more promising and affordable methods available.
• Relevant regulatory agencies should develop and implement techniques to better identify and evaluate potentially harmful side effects of the newer and more complex genetically engineered crops. These effects are likely to become more prevalent, and current regulations are too weak to detect them reliably and prevent them from occurring.
You can download the complete 51 page pdf file here: http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/
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Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear
Monsanto already dominates America’s food chain with its genetically modified seeds. Now it has targeted milk production. Just as frightening as the corporation’s tactics–ruthless legal battles against small farmers–is its decades-long history of toxic contamination.
by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele May 2008
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805
Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
“Well, that’s me,” said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. “It made me and my business look bad,” he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, “You got the wrong guy.”
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: “Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.”
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics.
When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. “Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers,” Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. “One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them.” Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, “a tiny fraction” do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who “reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use.” He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.
Some compare Monsanto’s hard-line approach to Microsoft’s zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto’s seeds can’t even do that.
The Control of Nature
For centuries—millennia—farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head.
Monsanto developed G.M. seeds that would resist its own herbicide, Roundup, offering farmers a convenient way to spray fields with weed killer without affecting crops. Monsanto then patented the seeds. For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office had refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. “It’s not like describing a widget,” says Joseph Mendelson III, the legal director of the Center for Food Safety, which has tracked Monsanto’s activities in rural America for years.
Indeed not. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply. In its decision, the court extended patent law to cover “a live human-made microorganism.” In this case, the organism wasn’t even a seed. Rather, it was a Pseudomonas bacterium developed by a General Electric scientist to clean up oil spills. But the precedent was set, and Monsanto took advantage of it. Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
Farmers who buy Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for re-planting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.
This radical departure from age-old practice has created turmoil in farm country. Some farmers don’t fully understand that they aren’t supposed to save Monsanto’s seeds for next year’s planting. Others do, but ignore the stipulation rather than throw away a perfectly usable product. Still others say that they don’t use Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds, but seeds have been blown into their fields by wind or deposited by birds. It’s certainly easy for G.M. seeds to get mixed in with traditional varieties when seeds are cleaned by commercial dealers for re-planting. The seeds look identical; only a laboratory analysis can show the difference. Even if a farmer doesn’t buy G.M. seeds and doesn’t want them on his land, it’s a safe bet he’ll get a visit from Monsanto’s seed police if crops grown from G.M. seeds are discovered in his fields.
Most Americans know Monsanto because of what it sells to put on our lawns— the ubiquitous weed killer Roundup. What they may not know is that the company now profoundly influences—and one day may virtually control—what we put on our tables. For most of its history Monsanto was a chemical giant, producing some of the most toxic substances ever created, residues from which have left us with some of the most polluted sites on earth. Yet in a little more than a decade, the company has sought to shed its polluted past and morph into something much different and more far-reaching—an “agricultural company” dedicated to making the world “a better place for future generations.” Still, more than one Web log claims to see similarities between Monsanto and the fictional company “U-North” in the movie Michael Clayton, an agribusiness giant accused in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit of selling an herbicide that causes cancer.
Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds have transformed the company and are radically altering global agriculture. So far, the company has produced G.M. seeds for soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. Many more products have been developed or are in the pipeline, including seeds for sugar beets and alfalfa. The company is also seeking to extend its reach into milk production by marketing an artificial growth hormone for cows that increases their output, and it is taking aggressive steps to put those who don’t want to use growth hormone at a commercial disadvantage.
Even as the company is pushing its G.M. agenda, Monsanto is buying up conventional-seed companies. In 2005, Monsanto paid $1.4 billion for Seminis, which controlled 40 percent of the U.S. market for lettuce, tomatoes, and other vegetable and fruit seeds. Two weeks later it announced the acquisition of the country’s third-largest cottonseed company, Emergent Genetics, for $300 million. It’s estimated that Monsanto seeds now account for 90 percent of the U.S. production of soybeans, which are used in food products beyond counting. Monsanto’s acquisitions have fueled explosive growth, transforming the St. Louis–based corporation into the largest seed company in the world.
In Iraq, the groundwork has been laid to protect the patents of Monsanto and other G.M.-seed companies. One of L. Paul Bremer’s last acts as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority was an order stipulating that “farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties.” Monsanto has said that it has no interest in doing business in Iraq, but should the company change its mind, the American-style law is in place.
To be sure, more and more agricultural corporations and individual farmers are using Monsanto’s G.M. seeds. As recently as 1980, no genetically modified crops were grown in the U.S. In 2007, the total was 142 million acres planted. Worldwide, the figure was 282 million acres. Many farmers believe that G.M. seeds increase crop yields and save money. Another reason for their attraction is convenience. By using Roundup Ready soybean seeds, a farmer can spend less time tending to his fields. With Monsanto seeds, a farmer plants his crop, then treats it later with Roundup to kill weeds. That takes the place of labor-intensive weed control and plowing.
Monsanto portrays its move into G.M. seeds as a giant leap for mankind. But out in the American countryside, Monsanto’s no-holds-barred tactics have made it feared and loathed. Like it or not, farmers say, they have fewer and fewer choices in buying seeds.
And controlling the seeds is not some abstraction. Whoever provides the world’s seeds controls the world’s food supply.
Under Surveillance
After Monsanto’s investigator confronted Gary Rinehart, Monsanto filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Rinehart “knowingly, intentionally, and willfully” planted seeds “in violation of Monsanto’s patent rights.” The company’s complaint made it sound as if Monsanto had Rinehart dead to rights:
During the 2002 growing season, Investigator Jeffery Moore, through surveillance of Mr. Rinehart’s farm facility and farming operations, observed Defendant planting brown bag soybean seed. Mr. Moore observed the Defendant take the brown bag soybeans to a field, which was subsequently loaded into a grain drill and planted. Mr. Moore located two empty bags in the ditch in the public road right-of-way beside one of the fields planted by Rinehart, which contained some soybeans. Mr. Moore collected a small amount of soybeans left in the bags which Defendant had tossed into the public right-of way. These samples tested positive for Monsanto’s Roundup Ready technology.
Faced with a federal lawsuit, Rinehart had to hire a lawyer. Monsanto eventually realized that “Investigator Jeffery Moore” had targeted the wrong man, and dropped the suit. Rinehart later learned that the company had been secretly investigating farmers in his area. Rinehart never heard from Monsanto again: no letter of apology, no public concession that the company had made a terrible mistake, no offer to pay his attorney’s fees. “I don’t know how they get away with it,” he says. “If I tried to do something like that it would be bad news. I felt like I was in another country.”
Gary Rinehart is actually one of Monsanto’s luckier targets. Ever since commercial introduction of its G.M. seeds, in 1996, Monsanto has launched thousands of investigations and filed lawsuits against hundreds of farmers and seed dealers. In a 2007 report, the Center for Food Safety, in Washington, D.C., documented 112 such lawsuits, in 27 states.
Even more significant, in the Center’s opinion, are the numbers of farmers who settle because they don’t have the money or the time to fight Monsanto. “The number of cases filed is only the tip of the iceberg,” says Bill Freese, the Center’s science-policy analyst. Freese says he has been told of many cases in which Monsanto investigators showed up at a farmer’s house or confronted him in his fields, claiming he had violated the technology agreement and demanding to see his records. According to Freese, investigators will say, “Monsanto knows that you are saving Roundup Ready seeds, and if you don’t sign these information-release forms, Monsanto is going to come after you and take your farm or take you for all you’re worth.” Investigators will sometimes show a farmer a photo of himself coming out of a store, to let him know he is being followed.
Lawyers who have represented farmers sued by Monsanto say that intimidating actions like these are commonplace. Most give in and pay Monsanto some amount in damages; those who resist face the full force of Monsanto’s legal wrath.
Scorched-Earth Tactics
Pilot Grove, Missouri, population 750, sits in rolling farmland 150 miles west of St. Louis. The town has a grocery store, a bank, a bar, a nursing home, a funeral parlor, and a few other small businesses. There are no stoplights, but the town doesn’t need any. The little traffic it has comes from trucks on their way to and from the grain elevator on the edge of town. The elevator is owned by a local co-op, the Pilot Grove Cooperative Elevator, which buys soybeans and corn from farmers in the fall, then ships out the grain over the winter. The co-op has seven full-time employees and four computers.
In the fall of 2006, Monsanto trained its legal guns on Pilot Grove; ever since, its farmers have been drawn into a costly, disruptive legal battle against an opponent with limitless resources. Neither Pilot Grove nor Monsanto will discuss the case, but it is possible to piece together much of the story from documents filed as part of the litigation.
Monsanto began investigating soybean farmers in and around Pilot Grove several years ago. There is no indication as to what sparked the probe, but Monsanto periodically investigates farmers in soybean-growing regions such as this one in central Missouri. The company has a staff devoted to enforcing patents and litigating against farmers. To gather leads, the company maintains an 800 number and encourages farmers to inform on other farmers they think may be engaging in “seed piracy.”
Once Pilot Grove had been targeted, Monsanto sent private investigators into the area. Over a period of months, Monsanto’s investigators surreptitiously followed the co-op’s employees and customers and videotaped them in fields and going about other activities. At least 17 such surveillance videos were made, according to court records. The investigative work was outsourced to a St. Louis agency, McDowell & Associates. It was a McDowell investigator who erroneously fingered Gary Rinehart. In Pilot Grove, at least 11 McDowell investigators have worked the case, and Monsanto makes no bones about the extent of this effort: “Surveillance was conducted throughout the year by various investigators in the field,” according to court records. McDowell, like Monsanto, will not comment on the case.
Not long after investigators showed up in Pilot Grove, Monsanto subpoenaed the co-op’s records concerning seed and herbicide purchases and seed-cleaning operations. The co-op provided more than 800 pages of documents pertaining to dozens of farmers. Monsanto sued two farmers and negotiated settlements with more than 25 others it accused of seed piracy. But Monsanto’s legal assault had only begun. Although the co-op had provided voluminous records, Monsanto then sued it in federal court for patent infringement. Monsanto contended that by cleaning seeds—a service which it had provided for decades—the co-op was inducing farmers to violate Monsanto’s patents. In effect, Monsanto wanted the co-op to police its own customers.
In the majority of cases where Monsanto sues, or threatens to sue, farmers settle before going to trial. The cost and stress of litigating against a global corporation are just too great. But Pilot Grove wouldn’t cave—and ever since, Monsanto has been turning up the heat. The more the co-op has resisted, the more legal firepower Monsanto has aimed at it. Pilot Grove’s lawyer, Steven H. Schwartz, described Monsanto in a court filing as pursuing a “scorched earth tactic,” intent on “trying to drive the co-op into the ground.”
Even after Pilot Grove turned over thousands more pages of sales records going back five years, and covering virtually every one of its farmer customers, Monsanto wanted more—the right to inspect the co-op’s hard drives. When the co-op offered to provide an electronic version of any record, Monsanto demanded hands-on access to Pilot Grove’s in-house computers.
Monsanto next petitioned to make potential damages punitive—tripling the amount that Pilot Grove might have to pay if found guilty. After a judge denied that request, Monsanto expanded the scope of the pre-trial investigation by seeking to quadruple the number of depositions. “Monsanto is doing its best to make this case so expensive to defend that the Co-op will have no choice but to relent,” Pilot Grove’s lawyer said in a court filing.
With Pilot Grove still holding out for a trial, Monsanto now subpoenaed the records of more than 100 of the co-op’s customers. In a “You are Commanded … ” notice, the farmers were ordered to gather up five years of invoices, receipts, and all other papers relating to their soybean and herbicide purchases, and to have the documents delivered to a law office in St. Louis. Monsanto gave them two weeks to comply.
Whether Pilot Grove can continue to wage its legal battle remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, the case shows why Monsanto is so detested in farm country, even by those who buy its products. “I don’t know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base,” says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. “It’s a very bizarre business strategy.” But it’s one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it’s the dominant vendor in town.
Chemicals? What Chemicals?
The Monsanto Company has never been one of America’s friendliest corporate citizens. Given Monsanto’s current dominance in the field of bioengineering, it’s worth looking at the company’s own DNA. The future of the company may lie in seeds, but the seeds of the company lie in chemicals. Communities around the world are still reaping the environmental consequences of Monsanto’s origins.
Monsanto was founded in 1901 by John Francis Queeny, a tough, cigar-smoking Irishman with a sixth-grade education. A buyer for a wholesale drug company, Queeny had an idea. But like a lot of employees with ideas, he found that his boss wouldn’t listen to him. So he went into business for himself on the side. Queeny was convinced there was money to be made manufacturing a substance called saccharin, an artificial sweetener then imported from Germany. He took $1,500 of his savings, borrowed another $3,500, and set up shop in a dingy warehouse near the St. Louis waterfront. With borrowed equipment and secondhand machines, he began producing saccharin for the U.S. market. He called the company the Monsanto Chemical Works, Monsanto being his wife’s maiden name.
The German cartel that controlled the market for saccharin wasn’t pleased, and cut the price from $4.50 to $1 a pound to try to force Queeny out of business. The young company faced other challenges. Questions arose about the safety of saccharin, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture even tried to ban it. Fortunately for Queeny, he wasn’t up against opponents as aggressive and litigious as the Monsanto of today. His persistence and the loyalty of one steady customer kept the company afloat. That steady customer was a new company in Georgia named Coca-Cola.
Monsanto added more and more products—vanillin, caffeine, and drugs used as sedatives and laxatives. In 1917, Monsanto began making aspirin, and soon became the largest maker worldwide. During World War I, cut off from imported European chemicals, Monsanto was forced to manufacture its own, and its position as a leading force in the chemical industry was assured.
After Queeny was diagnosed with cancer, in the late 1920s, his only son, Edgar, became president. Where the father had been a classic entrepreneur, Edgar Monsanto Queeny was an empire builder with a grand vision. It was Edgar—shrewd, daring, and intuitive (“He can see around the next corner,” his secretary once said)—who built Monsanto into a global powerhouse. Under Edgar Queeny and his successors, Monsanto extended its reach into a phenomenal number of products: plastics, resins, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine, industrial fluids, vinyl siding, dishwasher detergent, anti-freeze, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides. Its safety glass protects the U.S. Constitution and the Mona Lisa. Its synthetic fibers are the basis of Astroturf.
During the 1970s, the company shifted more and more resources into biotechnology. In 1981 it created a molecular-biology group for research in plant genetics. The next year, Monsanto scientists hit gold: they became the first to genetically modify a plant cell. “It will now be possible to introduce virtually any gene into plant cells with the ultimate goal of improving crop productivity,” said Ernest Jaworski, director of Monsanto’s Biological Sciences Program.
Over the next few years, scientists working mainly in the company’s vast new Life Sciences Research Center, 25 miles west of St. Louis, developed one genetically modified product after another—cotton, soybeans, corn, canola. From the start, G.M. seeds were controversial with the public as well as with some farmers and European consumers. Monsanto has sought to portray G.M. seeds as a panacea, a way to alleviate poverty and feed the hungry. Robert Shapiro, Monsanto’s president during the 1990s, once called G.M. seeds “the single most successful introduction of technology in the history of agriculture, including the plow.”
By the late 1990s, Monsanto, having rebranded itself into a “life sciences” company, had spun off its chemical and fibers operations into a new company called Solutia. After an additional reorganization, Monsanto re-incorporated in 2002 and officially declared itself an “agricultural company.”
In its company literature, Monsanto now refers to itself disingenuously as a “relatively new company” whose primary goal is helping “farmers around the world in their mission to feed, clothe, and fuel” a growing planet. In its list of corporate milestones, all but a handful are from the recent era. As for the company’s early history, the decades when it grew into an industrial powerhouse now held potentially responsible for more than 50 Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites—none of that is mentioned. It’s as though the original Monsanto, the company that long had the word “chemical” as part of its name, never existed. One of the benefits of doing this, as the company does not point out, was to channel the bulk of the growing backlog of chemical lawsuits and liabilities onto Solutia, keeping the Monsanto brand pure.
But Monsanto’s past, especially its environmental legacy, is very much with us. For many years Monsanto produced two of the most toxic substances ever known— polychlorinated biphenyls, better known as PCBs, and dioxin. Monsanto no longer produces either, but the places where it did are still struggling with the aftermath, and probably always will be.
“Systemic Intoxication”
Twelve miles downriver from Charleston, West Virginia, is the town of Nitro, where Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995. In 1948 the plant began to make a powerful herbicide known as 2,4,5-T, called “weed bug” by the workers. A by-product of the process was the creation of a chemical that would later be known as dioxin.
The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart disease, liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Even in small amounts, dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body. In 1997 the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified the most powerful form of dioxin as a substance that causes cancer in humans. In 2001 the U.S. government listed the chemical as a “known human carcinogen.”
On March 8, 1949, a massive explosion rocked Monsanto’s Nitro plant when a pressure valve blew on a container cooking up a batch of herbicide. The noise from the release was a scream so loud that it drowned out the emergency steam whistle for five minutes. A plume of vapor and white smoke drifted across the plant and out over town.Residue from the explosion coated the interior of the building and those inside with what workers described as “a fine black powder.” Many felt their skin prickle and were told to scrub down.
Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions. Many were soon diagnosed with chloracne, a condition similar to common acne but more severe, longer lasting, and potentially disfiguring. Others felt intense pains in their legs, chest, and trunk. A confidential medical report at the time said the explosion “caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems.” Doctors who examined four of the most seriously injured men detected a strong odor coming from them when they were all together in a closed room. “We believe these men are excreting a foreign chemical through their skins,” the confidential report to Monsanto noted. Court records indicate that 226 plant workers became ill.
According to court documents that have surfaced in a West Virginia court case, Monsanto downplayed the impact, stating that the contaminant affecting workers was “fairly slow acting” and caused “only an irritation of the skin.”
In the meantime, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, rubber products, and other chemicals. In the 1960s, the factory manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide which the U.S. military used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which later was the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending that they had been harmed by exposure. As with Monsanto’s older herbicides, the manufacturing of Agent Orange created dioxin as a by-product.
As for the Nitro plant’s waste, some was burned in incinerators, some dumped in landfills or storm drains, some allowed to run into streams. As Stuart Calwell, a lawyer who has represented both workers and residents in Nitro, put it, “Dioxin went wherever the product went, down the sewer, shipped in bags, and when the waste was burned, out in the air.”
In 1981 several former Nitro employees filed lawsuits in federal court, charging that Monsanto had knowingly exposed them to chemicals that caused long-term health problems, including cancer and heart disease. They alleged that Monsanto knew that many chemicals used at Nitro were potentially harmful, but had kept that information from them. On the eve of a trial, in 1988, Monsanto agreed to settle most of the cases by making a single lump payment of $1.5 million. Monsanto also agreed to drop its claim to collect $305,000 in court costs from six retired Monsanto workers who had unsuccessfully charged in another lawsuit that Monsanto had recklessly exposed them to dioxin. Monsanto had attached liens to the retirees’ homes to guarantee collection of the debt.
Monsanto stopped producing dioxin in Nitro in 1969, but the toxic chemical can still be found well beyond the Nitro plant site. Repeated studies have found elevated levels of dioxin in nearby rivers, streams, and fish. Residents have sued to seek damages from Monsanto and Solutia. Earlier this year, a West Virginia judge merged those lawsuits into a class-action suit. A Monsanto spokesman said, “We believe the allegations are without merit and we’ll defend ourselves vigorously.” The suit will no doubt take years to play out. Time is one thing that Monsanto always has, and that the plaintiffs usually don’t.
Poisoned Lawns
Five hundred miles to the south, the people of Anniston, Alabama, know all about what the people of Nitro are going through. They’ve been there. In fact, you could say, they’re still there.
From 1929 to 1971, Monsanto’s Anniston works produced PCBs as industrial coolants and insulating fluids for transformers and other electrical equipment. One of the wonder chemicals of the 20th century, PCBs were exceptionally versatile and fire-resistant, and became central to many American industries as lubricants, hydraulic fluids, and sealants. But PCBs are toxic. A member of a family of chemicals that mimic hormones, PCBs have been linked to damage in the liver and in the neurological, immune, endocrine, and reproductive systems. The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, now classify PCBs as “probable carcinogens.”
Today, 37 years after PCB production ceased in Anniston, and after tons of contaminated soil have been removed to try to reclaim the site, the area around the old Monsanto plant remains one of the most polluted spots in the U.S.
People in Anniston find themselves in this fix today largely because of the way Monsanto disposed of PCB waste for decades. Excess PCBs were dumped in a nearby open-pit landfill or allowed to flow off the property with storm water. Some waste was poured directly into Snow Creek, which runs alongside the plant and empties into a larger stream, Choccolocco Creek. PCBs also turned up in private lawns after the company invited Anniston residents to use soil from the plant for their lawns, according to The Anniston Star.
So for decades the people of Anniston breathed air, planted gardens, drank from wells, fished in rivers, and swam in creeks contaminated with PCBs—without knowing anything about the danger. It wasn’t until the 1990s—20 years after Monsanto stopped making PCBs in Anniston—that widespread public awareness of the problem there took hold.
Studies by health authorities consistently found elevated levels of PCBs in houses, yards, streams, fields, fish, and other wildlife—and in people. In 2003, Monsanto and Solutia entered into a consent decree with the E.P.A. to clean up Anniston. Scores of houses and small businesses were to be razed, tons of contaminated soil dug up and carted off, and streambeds scooped of toxic residue. The cleanup is under way, and it will take years, but some doubt it will ever be completed—the job is massive. To settle residents’ claims, Monsanto has also paid $550 million to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs, but many of them continue to live with PCBs in their bodies. Once PCB is absorbed into human tissue, there it forever remains.
Monsanto shut down PCB production in Anniston in 1971, and the company ended all its American PCB operations in 1977. Also in 1977, Monsanto closed a PCB plant in Wales. In recent years, residents near the village of Groesfaen, in southern Wales, have noticed vile odors emanating from an old quarry outside the village. As it turns out, Monsanto had dumped thousands of tons of waste from its nearby PCB plant into the quarry. British authorities are struggling to decide what to do with what they have now identified as among the most contaminated places in Britain.
“No Cause for Public Alarm”
What had Monsanto known—or what should it have known—about the potential dangers of the chemicals it was manufacturing? There’s considerable documentation lurking in court records from many lawsuits indicating that Monsanto knew quite a lot. Let’s look just at the example of PCBs.
The evidence that Monsanto refused to face questions about their toxicity is quite clear. In 1956 the company tried to sell the navy a hydraulic fluid for its submarines called Pydraul 150, which contained PCBs. Monsanto supplied the navy with test results for the product. But the navy decided to run its own tests. Afterward, navy officials informed Monsanto that they wouldn’t be buying the product. “Applications of Pydraul 150 caused death in all of the rabbits tested” and indicated “definite liver damage,” navy officials told Monsanto, according to an internal Monsanto memo divulged in the course of a court proceeding. “No matter how we discussed the situation,” complained Monsanto’s medical director, R. Emmet Kelly, “it was impossible to change their thinking that Pydraul 150 is just too toxic for use in submarines.”
Ten years later, a biologist conducting studies for Monsanto in streams near the Anniston plant got quick results when he submerged his test fish. As he reported to Monsanto, according to The Washington Post, “All 25 fish lost equilibrium and turned on their sides in 10 seconds and all were dead in 3½ minutes.”
When the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) turned up high levels of PCBs in fish near the Anniston plant in 1970, the company swung into action to limit the P.R. damage. An internal memo entitled “confidential—f.y.i. and destroy” from Monsanto official Paul B. Hodges reviewed steps under way to limit disclosure of the information. One element of the strategy was to get public officials to fight Monsanto’s battle: “Joe Crockett, Secretary of the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, will try to handle the problem quietly without release of the information to the public at this time,” according to the memo.
Despite Monsanto’s efforts, the information did get out, but the company was able to blunt its impact. Monsanto’s Anniston plant manager “convinced” a reporter for The Anniston Star that there was really nothing to worry about, and an internal memo from Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis summarized the story that subsequently appeared in the newspaper: “Quoting both plant management and the Alabama Water Improvement Commission, the feature emphasized the PCB problem was relatively new, was being solved by Monsanto and, at this point, was no cause for public alarm.”
In truth, there was enormous cause for public alarm. But that harm was done by the “Original Monsanto Company,” not “Today’s Monsanto Company” (the words and the distinction are Monsanto’s). The Monsanto of today says that it can be trusted—that its biotech crops are “as wholesome, nutritious and safe as conventional crops,” and that milk from cows injected with its artificial growth hormone is the same as, and as safe as, milk from any other cow.
The Milk Wars
Jeff Kleinpeter takes very good care of his dairy cows. In the winter he turns on heaters to warm their barns. In the summer, fans blow gentle breezes to cool them, and on especially hot days, a fine mist floats down to take the edge off Louisiana’s heat. The dairy has gone “to the ultimate end of the earth for cow comfort,” says Kleinpeter, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Baton Rouge. He says visitors marvel at what he does: “I’ve had many of them say, ‘When I die, I want to come back as a Kleinpeter cow.’ ”
Monsanto would like to change the way Jeff Kleinpeter and his family do business. Specifically, Monsanto doesn’t like the label on Kleinpeter Dairy’s milk cartons: “From Cows Not Treated with rBGH.” To consumers, that means the milk comes from cows that were not given artificial bovine growth hormone, a supplement developed by Monsanto that can be injected into dairy cows to increase their milk output.
No one knows what effect, if any, the hormone has on milk or the people who drink it. Studies have not detected any difference in the quality of milk produced by cows that receive rBGH, or rBST, a term by which it is also known. But Jeff Kleinpeter—like millions of consumers—wants no part of rBGH. Whatever its effect on humans, if any, Kleinpeter feels certain it’s harmful to cows because it speeds up their metabolism and increases the chances that they’ll contract a painful illness that can shorten their lives. “It’s like putting a Volkswagen car in with the Indianapolis 500 racers,” he says. “You gotta keep the pedal to the metal the whole way through, and pretty soon that poor little Volkswagen engine’s going to burn up.”
Kleinpeter Dairy has never used Monsanto’s artificial hormone, and the dairy requires other dairy farmers from whom it buys milk to attest that they don’t use it, either. At the suggestion of a marketing consultant, the dairy began advertising its milk as coming from rBGH-free cows in 2005, and the label began appearing on Kleinpeter milk cartons and in company literature, including a new Web site of Kleinpeter products that proclaims, “We treat our cows with love … not rBGH.”
The dairy’s sales soared. For Kleinpeter, it was simply a matter of giving consumers more information about their product.
But giving consumers that information has stirred the ire of Monsanto. The company contends that advertising by Kleinpeter and other dairies touting their “no rBGH” milk reflects adversely on Monsanto’s product. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in February 2007, Monsanto said that, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that there is no difference in the milk from cows treated with its product, “milk processors persist in claiming on their labels and in advertisements that the use of rBST is somehow harmful, either to cows or to the people who consume milk from rBST-supplemented cows.”
Monsanto called on the commission to investigate what it called the “deceptive advertising and labeling practices” of milk processors such as Kleinpeter, accusing them of misleading consumers “by falsely claiming that there are health and safety risks associated with milk from rBST-supplemented cows.” As noted, Kleinpeter does not make any such claims—he simply states that his milk comes from cows not injected with rBGH.
Monsanto’s attempt to get the F.T.C. to force dairies to change their advertising was just one more step in the corporation’s efforts to extend its reach into agriculture. After years of scientific debate and public controversy, the F.D.A. in 1993 approved commercial use of rBST, basing its decision in part on studies submitted by Monsanto. That decision allowed the company to market the artificial hormone. The effect of the hormone is to increase milk production, not exactly something the nation needed then—or needs now. The U.S. was actually awash in milk, with the government buying up the surplus to prevent a collapse in prices.
Monsanto began selling the supplement in 1994 under the name Posilac. Monsanto acknowledges that the possible side effects of rBST for cows include lameness, disorders of the uterus, increased body temperature, digestive problems, and birthing difficulties. Veterinary drug reports note that “cows injected with Posilac are at an increased risk for mastitis,” an udder infection in which bacteria and pus may be pumped out with the milk. What’s the effect on humans? The F.D.A. has consistently said that the milk produced by cows that receive rBGH is the same as milk from cows that aren’t injected: “The public can be confident that milk and meat from BST-treated cows is safe to consume.” Nevertheless, some scientists are concerned by the lack of long-term studies to test the additive’s impact, especially on children. A Wisconsin geneticist, William von Meyer, observed that when rBGH was approved the longest study on which the F.D.A.’s approval was based covered only a 90-day laboratory test with small animals. “But people drink milk for a lifetime,” he noted. Canada and the European Union have never approved the commercial sale of the artificial hormone. Today, nearly 15 years after the F.D.A. approved rBGH, there have still been no long-term studies “to determine the safety of milk from cows that receive artificial growth hormone,” says Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist for Consumers Union. Not only have there been no studies, he adds, but the data that does exist all comes from Monsanto. “There is no scientific consensus about the safety,” he says.
However F.D.A. approval came about, Monsanto has long been wired into Washington. Michael R. Taylor was a staff attorney and executive assistant to the F.D.A. commissioner before joining a law firm in Washington in 1981, where he worked to secure F.D.A. approval of Monsanto’s artificial growth hormone before returning to the F.D.A. as deputy commissioner in 1991. Dr. Michael A. Friedman, formerly the F.D.A.’s deputy commissioner for operations, joined Monsanto in 1999 as a senior vice president. Linda J. Fisher was an assistant administrator at the E.P.A. when she left the agency in 1993. She became a vice president of Monsanto, from 1995 to 2000, only to return to the E.P.A. as deputy administrator the next year. William D. Ruckelshaus, former E.P.A. administrator, and Mickey Kantor, former U.S. trade representative, each served on Monsanto’s board after leaving government. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was an attorney in Monsanto’s corporate-law department in the 1970s. He wrote the Supreme Court opinion in a crucial G.M.-seed patent-rights case in 2001 that benefited Monsanto and all G.M.-seed companies. Donald Rumsfeld never served on the board or held any office at Monsanto, but Monsanto must occupy a soft spot in the heart of the former defense secretary. Rumsfeld was chairman and C.E.O. of the pharmaceutical maker G. D. Searle & Co. when Monsanto acquired Searle in 1985, after Searle had experienced difficulty in finding a buyer. Rumsfeld’s stock and options in Searle were valued at $12 million at the time of the sale.
From the beginning some consumers have consistently been hesitant to drink milk from cows treated with artificial hormones. This is one reason Monsanto has waged so many battles with dairies and regulators over the wording of labels on milk cartons. It has sued at least two dairies and one co-op over labeling.
Critics of the artificial hormone have pushed for mandatory labeling on all milk products, but the F.D.A. has resisted and even taken action against some dairies that labeled their milk “BST-free.” Since BST is a natural hormone found in all cows, including those not injected with Monsanto’s artificial version, the F.D.A. argued that no dairy could claim that its milk is BST-free. The F.D.A. later issued guidelines allowing dairies to use labels saying their milk comes from “non-supplemented cows,” as long as the carton has a disclaimer saying that the artificial supplement does not in any way change the milk. So the milk cartons from Kleinpeter Dairy, for example, carry a label on the front stating that the milk is from cows not treated with rBGH, and the rear panel says, “Government studies have shown no significant difference between milk derived from rBGH-treated and non-rBGH-treated cows.” That’s not good enough for Monsanto.
The Next Battleground
As more and more dairies have chosen to advertise their milk as “No rBGH,” Monsanto has gone on the offensive. Its attempt to force the F.T.C. to look into what Monsanto called “deceptive practices” by dairies trying to distance themselves from the company’s artificial hormone was the most recent national salvo. But after reviewing Monsanto’s claims, the F.T.C.’s Division of Advertising Practices decided in August 2007 that a “formal investigation and enforcement action is not warranted at this time.” The agency found some instances where dairies had made “unfounded health and safety claims,” but these were mostly on Web sites, not on milk cartons. And the F.T.C. determined that the dairies Monsanto had singled out all carried disclaimers that the F.D.A. had found no significant differences in milk from cows treated with the artificial hormone.
Blocked at the federal level, Monsanto is pushing for action by the states. In the fall of 2007, Pennsylvania’s agriculture secretary, Dennis Wolff, issued an edict prohibiting dairies from stamping milk containers with labels stating their products were made without the use of the artificial hormone. Wolff said such a label implies that competitors’ milk is not safe, and noted that non-supplemented milk comes at an unjustified higher price, arguments that Monsanto has frequently made. The ban was to take effect February 1, 2008.
Wolff’s action created a firestorm in Pennsylvania (and beyond) from angry consumers. So intense was the outpouring of e-mails, letters, and calls that Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell stepped in and reversed his agriculture secretary, saying, “The public has a right to complete information about how the milk they buy is produced.”
On this issue, the tide may be shifting against Monsanto. Organic dairy products, which don’t involve rBGH, are soaring in popularity. Supermarket chains such as Kroger, Publix, and Safeway are embracing them. Some other companies have turned away from rBGH products, including Starbucks, which has banned all milk products from cows treated with rBGH. Although Monsanto once claimed that an estimated 30 percent of the nation’s dairy cows were injected with rBST, it’s widely believed that today the number is much lower.
But don’t count Monsanto out. Efforts similar to the one in Pennsylvania have been launched in other states, including New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Utah, and Missouri. A Monsanto-backed group called afact—American Farmers for the Advancement and Conservation of Technology—has been spearheading efforts in many of these states. afact describes itself as a “producer organization” that decries “questionable labeling tactics and activism” by marketers who have convinced some consumers to “shy away from foods using new technology.” afact reportedly uses the same St. Louis public-relations firm, Osborn & Barr, employed by Monsanto. An Osborn & Barr spokesman told The Kansas City Star that the company was doing work for afact on a pro bono basis.
Even if Monsanto’s efforts to secure across-the-board labeling changes should fall short, there’s nothing to stop state agriculture departments from restricting labeling on a dairy-by-dairy basis. Beyond that, Monsanto also has allies whose foot soldiers will almost certainly keep up the pressure on dairies that don’t use Monsanto’s artificial hormone. Jeff Kleinpeter knows about them, too.
He got a call one day from the man who prints the labels for his milk cartons, asking if he had seen the attack on Kleinpeter Dairy that had been posted on the Internet. Kleinpeter went online to a site called StopLabelingLies, which claims to “help consumers by publicizing examples of false and misleading food and other product labels.” There, sure enough, Kleinpeter and other dairies that didn’t use Monsanto’s product were being accused of making misleading claims to sell their milk.
There was no address or phone number on the Web site, only a list of groups that apparently contribute to the site and whose issues range from disparaging organic farming to downplaying the impact of global warming. “They were criticizing people like me for doing what we had a right to do, had gone through a government agency to do,” says Kleinpeter. “We never could get to the bottom of that Web site to get that corrected.”
As it turns out, the Web site counts among its contributors Steven Milloy, the “junk science” commentator for FoxNews.com and operator of junkscience.com, which claims to debunk “faulty scientific data and analysis.” It may come as no surprise that earlier in his career, Milloy, who calls himself the “junkman,” was a registered lobbyist for Monsanto.
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele are Vanity Fair contributing editors.
Tags: Who Owns Life, Not Monsanto?
ISIS Report April 09
Who Owns Life, Not Monsanto?
Percy Schmeiser is a real life hero who played David to Monsanto´s Goliath, and like David, he won.
Sam Burcher
Governments approve Monsanto´s GM crops
Percy Schmeiser and his wife Louise are third generation farmers from the prairies of Western Canada in the province of Saskatchewan near the city of Saskatoon. They feel really blessed not only that his grandparents moved there, but by the fact that in Central Saskatchewan so many types of grain crops can be grown; pulses, oil seeds, in what the locals call God´s
Country.
The Schmeisers, like hundreds of thousands of farmers all over the world, were using their canola (oilseed rape) seed from year to year and developing new varieties suitable for climatic soil conditions on the prairies. Percy had also been the Mayor of his town for over thirty years, a member of the provincial Parliament and an active member of agricultural committees representing his province on new agricultural policy, law and regulations for the benefit of farmers.
In 1996, the Canadian Federal Government and the US Government gave regulatory approval to four genetically modified (GM) crops: soya, corn or maize, cotton and canola. At the time not all GM crops in Canada were herbicide tolerant except for Monsanto´s Roundup Ready canola and soya, both resistant to the company´s herbicide Roundup. The US Government had also approved Bt cotton and Bt corn that has the added GM toxin from Bacillus thuringenisis (Bt). The Canadian government were fully complicit in allowing Monsanto to develop GM crops on Government test plots and research stations in return for a royalty on every bushel of GM crops sold.
Monsanto versus farmer
In 1998, two years after the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Canada, the Schmeisers received a lawsuit notice from Monsanto which said that they were growing Roundup Ready canola without a licence from Monsanto and that this was a patent infringement. Monsanto had a patent on a gene to make GM canola resistant to the glyphosate herbicide in its formulation Roundup. This came as a complete surprise to the Schmeisers who immediately realised that all their research and development on canola over the past fifty years had been contaminated by Monsanto´s GMOs. They felt that they had a case against Monsanto for liability and the damages possibly caused to them, and that was the beginning of [1] Schmeiser’s Battle for the Seed (SiS 19). And 10 years on, the Schmeisers have been invited to London to tell their full story [2].
The Schmeisers stood up to Monsanto´s claims of patent infringement in the Federal Court with just one judge and no jury. The pre-trial took two years to go to court in which Monsanto claimed that despite having no knowledge of Percy Schmeiser ever having obtained any GM seed, he must have used their seed on his 1,030 acres of land because ninety-eight percent of the land was GM contaminated. And, because the Schmeisers had contaminated their own seed supply with Monsanto seed, ownership of the Schmeisers seed supply reverted to Monsanto under patent law.
Monsanto owns all crops or seeds contaminated, the court ruled
The Court ruled after a two-and-half-week trial that it was the first patent infringement case on a higher life form in the world. The Judge´s ruling and Percy Schmeiser´s name became famous overnight: – It does not matter how a farmer, a forester, or a gardener´s seed or plants become contaminated with GMOs; whether through cross pollination,
pollen blowing in the wind, by bees, direct seed movement or seed transportation, the growers no longer own their seeds or plants under patent law, they becomes Monsanto´s property. – The rate of GM contamination does not matter; whether
it´s 1 percent, 2 percent, 10 percent, or more, the seeds and plants still belong to Monsanto. – It´s immaterial how the GM contamination occurs, or where it comes from.
The Schmeisers tracked down the source of the contamination. It was their neighbour who had planted GM crops in 1996 with no fence or buffer between them. Nevertheless, the Schmeisers´ seeds and plants reverted to Monsanto, and they were not allowed to use their own seeds and plants again, nor keep any profit from their canola crop in 1998.
The Schmeisers appealed against the ruling, and after another two years, it was upheld by the Federal Court of Appeal judges even though they did not agree with all the trial judge´s statements. The Schmeisers believe that the case should have been thrown out of Court and not upheld. After having lost the two trials costing them $300 000 of their own money, Percy took the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. He was warned that there was only a very small chance that the case would be heard; but was granted a second leave of Appeal by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Schmeiser raised important questions during the Supreme Court Appeal
The Appeal was good news for the Schmeisers, but in the meantime Monsanto had brought another lawsuit against them for $1 million in legal costs, fines, and punitive damages. Monsanto said that the Schmeisers were recalcitrant and that they wanted a million dollars from them. For good measure, Monsanto brought a third lawsuit against the Schmeisers to seize their farmland, farm equipment and house, in an effort to stop them mortgaging their assets to pay their legal bill.
Percy Schmeiser effectively raised several important questions at the Supreme Court Appeal:
1. Can living organisms, seeds, plants, genes, and human organs be owned and protected by corporate patents on intellectual property?
2. Can genetically modified traits invade and become noxious weeds that then become resistant to weed killers and become superweeds? (The answer was obviously yes, as these are now all over Western Canada and almost the rest
of Canada, see below.)
3. Can the farmers´ rights to grow conventional or organic crops be protected, especially organic crops?
4. Can farmers keep their ancient right to save their own seeds and develop them further if they so desire?
5. Who owns life? Has anyone, either an individual or a corporation, the right to put a patent on a higher life form?
On the important issue of “Who owns life?” the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that “Monsanto´s patent on a gene is valid and wherever that gene arrives in any higher life form they own or control that higher life form.” That was considered to be a major victory for Monsanto at the time, but is a decision that has come home to roost in the form of corporate liability for
GMOs. Percy explained that if a corporation own and control a higher life form and they put it into the environment where everyone knows it cannot be controlled or contained and co-existence is impossible then the corporation should be liable for the damages done to an organic farmer or a conventional farmer, as well as for the negative impacts on biodiversity.
Despite strong recommendations by the Supreme Court for the Parliament of Canada to bring in new laws and regulations on patents on life and the rights of farmers to use their seed from year to year these issues have yet to be addressed to date. In the US, Monsanto has filed lawsuits against at least ninety farmers. (see [3] Monsanto versus Farmers, SiS 26).
_http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MonsantovsFarmers.php_
Monsanto´s contamination no benefit to farmers, the Supreme Court ruled
In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that in the case of patent infringement the Schmeisers owed no money to Monsanto because they did not benefit by being contaminated by the GM genes. Furthermore, they had not used Monsanto´s patent because they had not sprayed the Roundup herbicide on their canola crops. However, both parties had to pay their own legal bills. The Schmeisers legal bill was over $400 000 and Monsanto´s was over $2 million.
In essence, Monsanto had used Percy Schmeiser as a test case to see how far they could exercise intellectual property rights (IPR) over farmers´rights. “At one point, Monsanto had nineteen lawyers in court, I had one. Talk about intimidation,” Percy said.
No longer able to grow canola in their fields for fear of infringing Monsanto´s patent, The Schmeisers began research into yellow mustard and started cultivating 50 acres of land in preparation for planting. In the autumn of 2005, they noticed canola plants growing despite not having been seeded in those fields for many years. They brought in witnesses and tested the plants by spraying Monsanto´s Roundup herbicide on the plants. Monsanto claim that any green plant that is sprayed with Roundup that does not die must contain their patented gene. When the Schmeisers plants did not die they realised that Monsanto´s canola was in their fields again.
The Schmeisers contacted Monsanto and asked them to remove the canola plants from their property. Monsanto took samples of the plants that confirmed they were their patented variety and two days later Louise Schmeiser received a fax from Monsanto containing a signed release statement which was blackened out in parts. Louise refused to sign it and insisted that Monsanto send her the unexpurgated document. Monsanto sent what was essentially a gagging order on the Schmeisers from ever telling anyone, neighbours, and the press about the terms of settlement, or ever taking Monsanto to court again for the rest of their lives no matter how much Monsanto contaminated their fifty acre parcel of land with GM canola.
Victory for Schmeisers and farmers at last
There was no way that the Schmeisers were ever going to sign a statement like that, and give up their freedom to a corporation. Monsanto said that if they refused to sign then they would not remove the plants. The argument raged backed and forth; the Schmeisers said they will remove the plants themselves and Monsanto wrote back saying we wish to remind you that the plants that are on your field are our property and you are not allowed to do with those plants what you want. The Schmeisers said get your property off our property, you´re trespassing! Monsanto said only if you sign the release
form.
The Schmeisers wanted the plants off their land before the pods ripened and the seeds were dispersed into the field. They hired the neighbours to help remove the plants and notified Monsanto about what had been done and Monsanto sent another fax saying that you can´t do what you want with those plants. A bill was eventually sent to Monsanto by the Schmeisers for $640 to pay for the neighbours help to clear the field. Monsanto refused to pay the bill unless Percy signed the release statement. This went on for about a year so the Schmeisers made a decision to go back to Court amid media
reports about the new dispute. The judge in the small claims Court agreed with the Schmeisers and sent Monsanto a summons. Percy said, “We then had a billion dollar Corporation in Court on a $640 bill and you can imagine the publicity that got in Canada.”
In March 2008, the case went to trial and when the judge came into the Court room Monsanto got up with a cheque in hand to pay the $640 plus $20 costs. “I´ll never forget that $20 costs!” Percy laughed. “It was a great victory, not only for ourselves, but for farmers all over the world because it has set a precedent where a corporation has accepted liability for
contamination and clean up costs”, he said. Percy Schmeiser had become the first farmer in history to successfully counter-sue Monsanto for liability over damages done to his seeds and crops by Monsanto´s GM crops
GM in Canada – lessons learnt
Thirteen years ago when GM soya and rapeseed was introduced in Canada (and in the US) the Corporations and Government told farmers that GM would increase yields, be more nutritious, use less chemicals, and feed a hungry
world. Now we will always have a sustainable agriculture, they claimed. The Canadian Department of Agriculture figures states canola yields have decreased at least ten percent and soya at least fifteen percent [4], but worst of
all, farmers are using three to five times more chemicals because of the GM superweeds that have developed. The reality is that the nutritional content of all crops are down fifty percent of what they were before GMOs were introduced and now we have less yields and more chemicals used, exactly the opposite of what Monsanto promised.
Percy Schmeiser said, “Once you introduce GMOs, believe me the days of organic farmers are over, the days of the conventional farmer are over, it all becomes GMOs in a matter of a few years.” In addition, he said, there is no such thing as containment, you cannot contain pollen flow. It doesn´t matter if contamination is by seeds blowing in the wind, or by bees, or by farmers transporting their seeds to market, or so on. Ultimately, farmers, growers and consumers will no longer have a choice because despite Monsanto´s promise that farmers will have choice, they won´t because it´s absolutely impossible for organic and conventional farming to co-exist with GM crops.
Mountains of contaminated produce that cannot be exported
Canadian organic farmers can no longer grow canola and soya crops organically. The seed stocks of those two crops are now totally contaminated by GMOs, which cross- pollinate into other market garden crops from the brassica family. Percy describes the devastating effect GMOs have had on Canada´s markets, as a nation reliant on exporting eighty percent of what it produces. The markets for rapeseed have shrunk to primarily exporting to Mexico, the US and Japan, Canada is now sitting on a mountain of canola, not one bushel can be exported to the EU. Furthermore, Canada´s honey markets
throughout the world have been lost because of GM contamination.
Schmeiser is also concerned about a new wave of GM crops in Canada called “pharma-plants”. There are six major types of drugs now being produced by GM plants, including prescription vaccines, industrial enzymes, blood thinners, blood clotting proteins, growth hormones and contraceptives, all known to be much more dangerous than conventional drugs (see [5] Biologicals´, Wonder Drugs with Problems.
_http://www.i-sis.org.uk/biologicalsWonderDrugsWithProblems.php_
What if somebody has had major surgery and then eats food contaminated with genes from a plant manufactured to be a blood thinner? Or what about a pregnant woman who eats food contaminated by genes from a plant that is manufactured as a contraceptive? These are just some of the worrying implications of pharma-plants, along with containment and co-existence.
Superweeds now ubiquitous in Canada, requiring supertoxic herbicides
Superweeds have evolved from conventional canola plants that have taken on the genes from three or four companies selling GM canola that has cross-pollinated and ended up in one plant. It had become established in Canada by 1996 (so quickly that horizontal gene transfer was suspected as having been involved, see [6] What Lurks Behind Triple Herbicide-Tolerant Oilseed Rape? (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/whatlurk.php) , ISIS Report).
Percy warns that superweeds are ubiquitous throughout Canada in wheat fields, barley fields, cemeteries, university grounds, towns, and golf courses. He said that all these people that never even grew GM canola have this new expense of trying to control it, and this is responsible for the massive increase in the use of chemicals to control the superweeds.
One third of Canada´s insecticides, herbicides and pesticides are used in Saskatchewan, which has the highest rate of breast cancer and prostate cancer in Canada. “We´re killing ourselves with the chemicals we are using and the chemicals are more powerful and more toxic than ever before,” Percy says. He warns that Roundup herbicide is now four times stronger than it
was in 1996. Roundup is bad enough as new research reveals (see [7] Death by Multiple Poisoning, Glyphosate and Roundup (http://www.i-sis.org.uk/DMPGR.php) ,SiS 42); the new type “24D”, contains 70 percent Agent Orange, and is being used on the prairies to combat superweeds. The adverse health effect of
Agent Orange in Vietnam is common knowledge and could explain the major health problems, environment damage and loss of biodiversity in Canada.
Monsanto´s culture of fear
Monsanto is perpetrating a culture of fear and intimidation in Canada in
an effort to gain control of the seed supply, and ultimately the food
supply. It was not easy to stand up to Monsanto. Percy said, “They tried
everything to break us down mentally and financially.” His main fear was the harm that they would do to his wife and family. Monsanto employees would sit in the road in their vehicles watching us all day long when we were working in
our field, he said. They would sit in the driveway for hours at a time watching Louise Schmeiser when she was working in the garden and then phone her
and say “You better watch it; we´re going to get you.” Monsanto would then phone their neighbours and say if you support Percy and Louise Schmeiser
we´re going to come after you and do the same to you as we´re doing to
them. Monsanto offered $20,000 worth of chemicals to the Schmeisers´
neighbours if they would say something negative about them in Court.
Percy warns farmers about Monsanto´s “Inform on your neighbour” policy
for a free gift such as a leather jacket or chemicals. He said when the “gene
police” arrive on contaminated farm land threatening the farmer and his
wife with a court case, what do you think goes through a farmers´ mind? You
have a suspicion about your neighbours; it breaks down the social fabric of
rural society, farmers´ relationships, farmers not trusting one another, farmers scared to talk to each other about what they are seeding. We don´t know how many thousands of farmers they have done that to. But by 2004 at least 30,000 farmers were paying royalties to Monsanto in Canada [8]. As a former politician, Percy thinks this is the worst thing that has happened with the introduction of GM crops, a whole new culture of fear that Monsanto has been able to establish on the prairies of North America and Canada.
If Monsanto can´t find the farmer at home they go to the municipality
office and get the farmers address and extortion letters follow. Percy has
collected a lot of letters that farmers have given to him that say: “We have
reason to believe that you might be growing Monsanto´s GM rapeseed without
a licence. We estimate that you have so many acres. In lieu of us not sending you to court send us $100,000 dollars or $200,000 dollars in two weeks time and we may or may not send you to court.” Can you imagine the fear of a farm family when they receive this letter from a billion dollar Corporation? The letter ends, “You´re not allowed to show this letter to anyone or we will fine you.” One farmer´s wife sent Percy a letter from Monsanto because she was at her wits end. Her husband had four heart attacks and she pleaded with them to put her in jail. Monsanto replied, “We don´t want to put you in jail lady, sell your farm and we´ll let you go for half the money.” This behaviour is ruthless and if Monsanto can victimise farmers in First World countries such as Canada and America, it is a given that they will do this in many countries all over the world.
No new GM crops for Canada
But the Schmeisers´ struggles have brought a ray of hope.
In Canada food is not labelled, and campaigners have protested to find out what´s in their food by demanding labelling. The National Farmers Union has warned farmers not to buy Monsanto´s GM seeds because of their aggressive attitude. The Government has been unsuccessful in introducing any new GM crops such as wheat, rice, flax, and alfalfa because there was such an uproar by the people who have seen the damage and don´t want any more GM crops. Schmeiser said, “If we´re trying to stop them in the US and especially Canada, why would you want to introduce them in the UK and Europe?” He believes that now the Corporations have lost the ability to introduce any more GMOs in Canada they have turned their attention to other countries in the world. He compared this dominant strategy with the sale of agricultural
pesticides and chemicals that have been exported wholesale to Africa and Asia once the North American markets were saturated.
Percy said we do not know if you can ever recall out of the environment a life form that you put into it. And in relation to GMOs, what are we leaving for the future? We are at a fork in the road. If you go the GM way, this is what will happen; if you go down the other fork, you will maintain good food, safe food, and your environment. “I don´t think any of us want to leave to the future generations our environment, our soil, our water, our food, and our air full of poisons, none of us want to leave that,” he concluded. Percy has five children, fifteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren and that is why the Schmeisers have taken such a strong stand because they want to leave a legacy of safe food, water, air and soil.
He leaves us with a final question: “What will happen if you introduce GM crops in the UK?” We still have the chance to make the right decision.
You can visit Percy’s site here: http://www.percyschmeiser.com/
Eating a GMO free diet
As I heard more about GE (genetically engineered, or GMO, genetically modified organism) food, over the past 5 – 10 years and got more furious about it as well – (these people have some nerve feeding us and our children frankenfood that is not safe. It’s not been tested here and in Europe where is has been tested it’s been shown to cause many health problems) – I have tried to figure out how our family can cut out all foods with GE ingredients.
We started by joining a CSA. A CSA is a community supported agriculture program. This mean that you are buying, in advance, a share of a local organic farms crops. We love our CSA and get a wonderful box every week of local, organic and seasonal fruits and veggies. It’s introduced us to many new vegetables, and to my surprise, even our teens are eating new vegetables like swiss chard and kale. If you’d like to find a CSA near you visit Local Harvest, http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
Our next step was to look at the meat we were eating. We try to have our meat, chicken & fish as a condiment to our meals, making sure we have lots of veggies and grains as the base. As most all the factory-farmed meat is fed GE soy we needed to find an alternate source of meat. We found a few. The first was our local health food store. They have organic grass fed beef, organic free-range chicken and fresh fish. They are more expensive but as far as I’m concerned, my family is worth is and I’d rather have us eat smaller portions of safer meats. We also found a wonderful source of bison and have added that to our diets also. Bison is a free range and very low fat meat that’s high in omega 3’s. The taste is very similar to beef and even our pickiest eater liked it.
Next up, was grains and beans; actual whole grains and beans were easy. Many health food stores, have bins full of organic rice, millet, couscous, and more and a wide variety of beans and lentils. It got trickier when we started looking at processed foods. I try to cook as much as I can from scratch (which is not as hard as you might think, if you’ve never done it before ;), but there are times we like processed items. Things like chips, cookies, or the occasional loaf of bread led me to really start reading labels. The first thing you want to make sure is not in anything you’re buying is high fructose corn syrup, or non-organic soy, and lately even sugar is suspect as many companies are using GE sugar beets. This is another reason is so important we all call and let them know we will not buy their products until they’re GE free (see What we can do, https://www.momsforsafefood.org/What_we_can_do!.html ).
After having done all this, I thought we were doing pretty well. Until I looked at condiments! Canola oil is GE unless it’s organic. And as most mayonnaise is made with canola oil unless it’s organic, same problem. Little by little, we’re making all the small changes too. I’m using organic safflower, or sunflower oil instead of canola, and we switched to a safflower mayo made by Hain. We’re not 100% GE free yet but we’re getting there, item by item. If the ‘Frankenfood Fifteen’ (https://www.momsforsafefood.org/What_we_can_do!.html) want our business, they’ll need to make sure their products are GE free. That will be a day to celebrate, for our health, our farmers health and the environments too.
Here’s a link for a terrific, free Non-GMO shopping guide: http://www.seedsofdeception.com/Public/Home/index.cfm
Seed Monopolies, Genetic engineering and Farmer suicides
by Vandana Shiva
An epidemic of farmers’ suicides has spread across four states of India over the last decade. According to official data, more than 160,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.
These four states are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab. The suicides are most frequent where farmers grow cotton and have been a direct result of the creation of seed monopolies. According to official data, more than 160,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997.
Increasingly, the supply of cotton seeds has slipped out of the hands of the farmers and the public system, into the hands of global seed corporations like Monsanto. The entry of seed MNCs was part of the globalization process.
Corporate seed supply implies a number of shifts simultaneously. Firstly, giant corporations start to control local seed companies through buyouts, joint ventures and licensing arrangements, leading to a seed monopoly.
Secondly, seed is transformed from being a common good, to being the “intellectual property” of Monsanto, for which the corporation can claim limitless profits through royalty payments. For the farmer this means deeper debt.
Thirdly, seed is transformed from a renewable regenerative, multiplicative resource into a non-renewable resource and commodity. Seed scarcity and seed farmers are a consequence of seed monopolies, which are based on renewability of seed, beginning with hybrids, moving to genetically engineered seed like Btcotton, with the ultimate aim of the “terminator” seed which is engineered for sterility. Each of these technologies of non-renewability is guided by one factor alone – forcing farmers to buy seed every planning season. For farmers this means higher costs. For seed corporations it translates into higher profits.
Fourthly, the creation of seed monopolies is based on the simultaneous deregulation of seed corporations, including biosafety and seed deregulation, and super-regulation of farmers seeds and varieties. Globalization allowed seed companies to sell self-certified seeds, and in the case of genetically engineered seed, they are seeking self-regulation for biosafety. This is the main aim of the recently proposed National Biotechnology Regulatory Authority, which is in effect a Biosafety ‘Deregulation Authority. The proposed Seed Bill 2004, which has been blocked by a massive nationwide Gandhian Seed Satyagraha by farmers, aims at forcing every farmer to register the varieties they have evolved over millennia. This compulsory registration and licensing system robs farmers of their fundamental freedoms.
State regulation extinguishes biodiversity, and pushes all farmers into dependency on patented, corporate seed. Such compulsory licensing has been the main vehicle of destruction of biodiversity and farmers rights in U.S. and Europe.
Fifthly, corporate seeds impose monocultures on farmers. Mixed croppings of cotton with cereals, legumes, oilseeds, vegetables is replaced with a monoculture of Bt-cotton hybrids. The creation of seed monopolies and with it the creation of unpayable debt to a new species of money lender, the agents of the seed and chemical companies, has led to hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers killing themselves since 1997.
The suicides first started in the district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. Peasants in Warangal used to grow millets, pulses, oilseeds. Overnight, Warangal was converted to a cotton growing district based on non-renewable hybrids which need irrigation and are prone to pest attacks. Small peasants without capital were trapped in a vicious cycle of debt. Some ended up committing suicide.
This was the period when Monsanto and its Indian partner Mahyco were also carrying out illegal field experiments with genetically engineered Bt- cotton. All imports and field trials of genetically engineered organisms in India are governed by a law under the Environment Protection Act called the “Rules for the Manufacture Use, Import, Export and Storage” of Hazardous Microorganisms, Genetically Engineered Organisms or Cells 1989.”
We at the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology used these laws to stop Monsanto’s commercialization of Bt- cotton in 1999, which is why approval was not granted for commercial sales until 2002.
The Government of Andhra Pradesh filed a case in the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act (MRTP), India’s Anti Trust Law, arguing that Monsanto’s seed monopolies were the primary cause of farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh.
Monsanto was forced to reduce its prices of Bt- cotton seeds. The high costs of seeds and other inputs were combined with falling prices of cotton due to $4billion U.S. subsidy and the dumping of this subsidized cotton on India by using the W.T.O. to force India to remove Quantitative Restrictions on agricultural imports. Rising costs of production and falling prices of the product is a recipe for indebtedness, and debtedness is the main cause of farmers’ suicides. This is why farmers’ suicides are most prevalent in the cotton belt on which seed industries own claim is rapidly becoming a Bt-cotton belt. Bt-cotton is thus heavily implicated in farmers’ suicides.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has recently released a discussion paper “Bt-cotton and Farmers’ Suicides in India: Reviewing the Evidence”. The report is manipulative of the truth about farmers suicides and Bt-cotton.at every level.
Firstly, it states that “Farmers suicides is a long-term phenomena”, and the “long term” is 1997-2007. Ten years is not a long term in a 10,000 year old farming tradition. And 1997 is precisely when the suicides take on an epidemic oportion due to seed monopolies, initially through hybrids and from 2002 through Bt. Hybrids.
Secondly, the chronology of Bt-cotton introduction is false. The story begins with Monsanto’s illegal Bt trials, not with commercialisation in 2002. Secondly, the report states that “In specific regions and years, where Bt-cotton may have indirectly contributed to farmer indebtedness (via crop failure) leading to suicides, its failure was mainly the result of the context or environment in which it was introduced or planted; Bt-cotton as a technology is not to blame”.
This is an interesting argument. A technology is always developed in the context of local socio-economic and ecological conditions. A technology that is a misfit in a context is a failed technology for that context. You cannot blame the context to save a failed technology.
The technology of engineering Bt-genes into cotton was aimed primarily at controlling pests. However, new pests have emerged in Bt-cotton, leading to higher use of pesticides. In Vidharbha region of Maharashtra, which has the highest suicides, the area under Bt-cotton has increased from 0.200 million ha in 2004 to 2.880 million ha in 2007. Costs of pesticides for farmers has increased from Rs. 921 million to Rs. 13,264 billion in the same period, which is a 13 fold increase. A pest control technology that fails to control pests might be good for seed corporations which are also agrichemical corporations. For farmers it translates into suicide. The IFPRI study uses industry data to falsely claim reduction of presticide use in Bt-cotton when the empirical data and ground reality shows pesticide use increase.
There are alternatives to Bt-cotton and toxic pesticides. Through Navdanya we have promoted ‘Organic Farming and Seeds of Hope’, to help farmers move away from Monsanto’s “Seeds of Suicide”.
Organic farmers in Vidharbha are earning Rs. 6287 per acre on average, compared to Bt-cotton farmers who are earning Rs. 714 per acre on average. Many Bt-cotton farmers have a negative income, hence the suicides. The field data of Bt-cotton is also manipulated when cotton yields are shown as low in the pre-Bt-cotton years, it is not mentioned that cotton has traditionally not been grown as a monoculture but as a mixed crop converting biodiversity to monocultures of course leads to increase in “yield” of the monoculture, but this is accompanied by a decline in production at the biodiversity level. The IFPRI paper has attempted to play with figures, just like the investment bankers and hedge fund managers played with figures and caused the collapse of Wall Street. Manipulation of reality with numbers does not make for truth. In the case of seeds, it is threatening farmers’ lives. Technologies are tools. When the tool fails it needs replacing. Bt-cotton technology has failed to control pests or secure farmers lives and livelihoods. It is time to replace GM technology with ecological farming. It is time to stop farmers’ suicides.
See a wonderful talk by Vandana Shiva on The Future of Food and Seed at google video here:
And visit her website here:
State of the Science on the Health Risks of GMO Foods
From The Institute for Responsible Technology www.responsibletechnology.org
We all know stories of tobacco, asbestos, and DDT. Originally declared safe, they caused widespread death and disease. Although their impact was vast, most of the population was spared. The same cannot be said for sweeping changes in the food supply. Everyone eats; everyone is affected. The increase in several diseases in North America may be due to the profound changes in our diet. The most radical change occurred a little over a decade ago when genetically modified (GM) crops were introduced. Their influence on health has been largely ignored, but recent studies show serious problems. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been linked to thousands of toxic or allergic‐type reactions, thousands of sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ and system studied in lab animals, Nearly every independent animal feeding safety study shows adverse or unexplained effects.
GM foods were made possible by a technology developed in the 1970s whereby genes from one species are forced into the DNA of other species. Genes produce proteins, which in turn can generate characteristics or traits. The promised traits associated with GMOs have been sky high—vegetables growing in the desert, vitamin fortified grains, and highly productive crops feeding the starving millions. None of these are available. In fact, the only two traits that are found in nearly all commericialized GM plants are herbicide tolerance and/or pesticide production.
Herbicide tolerant soy, corn, cotton, and canola plants are engineered with bacterial genes that allow them to survive otherwise deadly doses of herbicides. This gives farmers more flexibility in weeding and gives the GM seed company lots more profit. When farmers buy GM seeds, they sign a contract to buy only that seed producer’s brand of herbicide. Herbicide tolerant crops comprise about 80% of all GM plants. The other 20% are corn and cotton varieties that produce a pesticide in every cell. This is accomplished due to a gene from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt, which produces a natural insect‐killing poison called Bt‐toxin. In addition to these two traits, there are also disease resistant GM Hawaiian papaya, zucchini and crook neck squash, which comprise well under 1% of GMO acreage.
THE FDA’S “NON‐REGULATION” OF GM FOODS
Rhetoric from the United States government since the early 1990s proclaims that GM foods are no different from their natural counterparts that have existed for centuries. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has labeled them “Generally Recognized as Safe,” or GRAS. This status allows a product to be commercialized without any additional testing. According to US law, to be considered GRAS the substance must be the subject of a substantial amount of peer‐reviewed published studies (or equivalent) and there must be overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that the product is safe. GM foods had neither. Nonetheless, in a precedent‐setting move in 1992 that some experts contend was illegal, the FDA declared that GM crops are GRAS as long as their producers say they are. Thus, the FDA does not require any safety evaluations or labeling of GMOs. A company can even introduce a GM food to the market without telling the agency.
Such a lenient approach was largely the result of the influence of large agricultural corporations According to Henry Miller, who had a leading role in biotechnology issues at the FDA from 1979 to 1994, “In this area, the US government agencies have done exactly what big agribusiness has asked them to do and told them to do.” The Ag biotech company with the greatest influence was clearly Monsanto. According to the New York Times, “What Monsanto wished for from Washington, Monsanto and, by extension, the biotechnology industry got. . . . When the company abruptly decided that it needed to throw off the regulations and speed its foods to market, the White House quickly ushered through an unusually generous policy of self‐policing.”
This policy was heralded by Vice President Dan Quayle on May 26, 1992. He chaired the Council on Competitiveness, which had identified GM crops as an industry that could boost US exports. To take advantage, Quayle announced “reforms” to “speed up and simplify the process of bringing” GM products to market without “being hampered by unnecessary regulation.”2 Three days later, the FDA policy on non‐regulation was unveiled.
The person who oversaw its development was the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Michael Taylor, whose position had been created especially for him in 1991. Prior to that, Taylor was an outside attorney for both Monsanto and the Food Biotechnology Council. After working at the FDA, he became Monsanto’s vice-president.
*Note from Mom* Michael Taylor is now being considered to head “Food Safety” by the Obama adminstration. Write the White House and tell them, no thanks!
THE FDA COVERS UP HEALTH RISKS
Taylor’s policy needed to create the impression that unintended effects from GM crops were not an issue. Otherwise their GRAS status would be undermined and they would need the extensive testing and labels that are normally required for food additives. But internal memos made public from a lawsuit showed that the overwhelming consensus among the agency scientists was that GM crops can have unpredictable, hard‐to‐detect side effects. Various departments and experts spelled these out in detail, listing allergies, toxins, nutritional effects, and new diseases as potential dangers. They urged superiors to require long‐term safety studies.3 In spite of the warnings, according to public interest attorney Steven Druker who studied the FDA’s internal files, “References to the unintended negative effects of bioengineering were progressively deleted from drafts of the policy statement (over the protests of agency scientists).”4
FDA microbiologist Louis Pribyl, PhD, wrote about the policy, “What has happened to the scientific elements of this document? Without a sound scientific base to rest on, this becomes a broad, general, ‘What do I have to do to avoid trouble’‐type document. . . . It will look like and probably be just a political document. . . . It reads very pro‐industry, especially in the area of unintended effects.
The scientists’ concerns were not only ignored, their very existence was denied. The official FDA policy stated, “The agency is not aware of any information showing that foods derived by these new methods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”6 In sharp contrast, an internal FDA report stated, “The processes of genetic engineering and traditional breeding are different and according to the technical experts in the agency, they lead to different risks.”7 The FDA’s deceptive notion of no difference was coined “substantial equivalence” and formed the basis of the US government position on GMOs.
Many scientists and organizations have criticized the US position. The National Academy of Sciences and even the pro‐GM Royal Society of London8 describe the US system as inadequate and flawed. The editor of the prestigious journal Lancet said, “It is astounding that the US Food and Drug Administration has not changed their stance on genetically modified food adopted in 1992. . . . The policy is that genetically modified crops will receive the same consideration for potential health risks as any other new crop plant. This stance is taken despite good reasons to believe that specific risks may exist. . . . Governments should never have allowed these products into the food chain without insisting on rigorous testing for effects on health.”9 The Royal Society of Canada described substantial equivalence as “scientifically unjustifiable and inconsistent with precautionary regulation of the technology.”
GMOS ARE INHERENTLY UNSAFE
There are several reasons why GM plants present unique dangers. The first is that the process of genetic engineering itself creates unpredicted alterations, irrespective of which gene is transferred. The gene insertion process, for example, is accomplished by either shooting genes from a “gene gun” into a plate of cells, or using bacteria to infect the cell with foreign DNA. Both create mutations in and around the insertion site and elsewhere.11 The “transformed” cell is then cloned into a plant through a process called tissue culture, which results in additional hundreds or thousands of mutations throughout the plants’ genome. In the end, the GM plant’s DNA can be a staggering 2‐4% different from its natural parent.12 Native genes can be mutated, deleted, or permanently turned on or off. In addition, the insertion process causes holistic and not‐well‐understood changes among large numbers of native genes. One study revealed that up to 5% of the natural genes altered their levels of protein expression as a result of a single insertion.
The Royal Society of Canada acknowledged that “the default prediction” for GM crops would include “a range of collateral changes in expression of other genes, changes in the pattern of proteins produced and/or changes in metabolic activities.”13 Although the FDA scientists evaluating GMOs in 1992 were unaware of the extent to which GM DNA is damaged or changed, they too described the potential consequences. They reported, “The possibility of unexpected, accidental changes in genetically engineered plants” might produce “unexpected high concentrations of plant toxicants.”14 GM crops, they said, might have “increased levels of known naturally occurring toxins,” and the “appearance of new, not previously identified” toxins.15 The same mechanism can also produce allergens, carcinogens, or substances that inhibit assimilation of nutrients.
Most of these problems would pass unnoticed through safety assessments on GM foods, which are largely designed on the false premise that genes are like Legos that cleanly snap into place. But even if we disregard unexpected changes in the DNA for the moment, a proper functioning inserted gene still carries significant risk. Its newly created GM protein, such as the Bt‐toxin, may be dangerous for human health (see below). Moreover, even if that protein is safe in its natural organism, once it is transferred into a new species it may be processed differently. A harmless protein may be transformed into a dangerous or deadly version. This happened with at least one GM food crop under development, GM peas, which were destroyed before being commercialized.
FDA scientists were also quite concerned about the possibility of inserted genes spontaneously transferring into the DNA of bacteria inside our digestive tract. They were particularly alarmed at the possibility of antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes transferring. ARM genes are employed during gene insertion to help scientists identify which cells successfully integrated the foreign gene. These ARM genes, however, remain in the cell and are cloned into the DNA of all the GM plants produced from that cell. One FDA report wrote in all capital letters that ARM genes would be “A SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD,” due to the possibility of that they might transfer to bacteria and create super diseases, untreatable with antibiotics.
Although the biotech industry confidently asserted that gene transfer from GM foods was not possible, the only human feeding study on GM foods later proved that it does take place. The genetic material in soybeans that make them herbicide tolerant transferred into the DNA of human gut bacteria and continued to function. That means that long after we stop eating a GM crop, its foreign GM proteins may be produced inside our intestines. It is also possible that the foreign genes might end up inside our own DNA, within the cells of our own organs and tissues.
Another worry expressed by FDA scientists was that GM plants might gather “toxic substances from the environment” such as “pesticides or heavy metals,”16 or that toxic substances in GM animal feed might bioaccumulate into milk and meat products. While no studies have looked at the bioaccumulation issue, herbicide tolerant crops certainly have higher levels of herbicide residues. In fact, many countries had to increase their legally allowable levels—by up to 50 times—in order to accommodate the introduction of GM crops.
The overuse of the herbicides due to GM crops has resulted in the development of herbicide resistant weeds. USDA statistics show that herbicide use is rapidly accelerating. Its use was up by 138 million pounds in the first nine years of GM crops.17 But over the next two years, it jumped by another 120 million pounds (estimated). Between 2005 and 2006, the use of Roundup herbicide—used on GM Roundup Ready crops—was up by 38%. And because Roundup is becoming less effective on weeds, farmers are now using more toxic herbicides, such as 2‐4D, which has increased by 237% from 2004 to2006.18
All of the above risks associated with GM foods are magnified for high‐risk groups, such as pregnant women, children, the sick, and the elderly. The following section highlights some of the problems that have been identified.
GM DIET SHOWS TOXIC REACTIONS IN THE DIGESTIVE TRACT
The very first crop submitted to the FDA’s voluntary consultation process, the FlavrSavr tomato, showed evidence of toxins. Out of 20 female rats fed the GM tomato, 7 developed stomach lesions.19 The director of FDA’s Office of Special Research Skills wrote that the tomatoes did not demonstrate a “reasonable certainty of no harm,”20 which is their normal standard of safety. The Additives Evaluation Branch agreed that “unresolved questions still remain.”21 The political appointees, however, did not require that the tomato be withdrawn.1
According to Arpad Pusztai, PhD, one of the world’s leading experts in GM food safety assessments, the type of stomach lesions linked to the tomatoes “could lead to life‐endangering hemorrhage, particularly in the elderly who use aspirin to prevent [blood clots].”22 Dr. Pusztai believes that the digestive tract, which is the first and largest point of contact with foods, can reveal various reactions to toxins and should be the first target of GM food risk assessment. He was alarmed, however, to discover that studies on the FlavrSavr never looked passed the stomach to the intestines. Other studies that did look found problems.
Mice fed potatoes engineered to produce the Bt‐toxin developed abnormal and damaged cells, as well as proliferative cell growth in the lower part of their small intestines (ileum).23 Rats fed potatoes engineered to produce a different type of insecticide (GNA lectin from the snowdrop plant) also showed proliferative cell growth in both the stomach and intestinal walls (see photos).24 Although the guts of rats fed GM peas were not examined for cell growth, the intestines were mysteriously heavier; possibly as a result of such growth.25 Cell proliferation can be a precursor to cancer and is of special concern.
Rats fed GM potatoes showed proliferative cell growth in the stomach and intestines.
1 Calgene had submitted data on two lines of GM tomatoes, both using the same inserted gene. They voluntarily elected to market only the variety that was not associated with the lesions. This was not required by the FDA, which did not block approvals on the lesion‐associated variety. The FlavrSavr tomato has since been taken off the market. After the FlavrSavr, no other biotech company has submitted such detailed data to the FDA.
GM DIETS CAUSE LIVER DAMAGE
The state of the liver—a main detoxifier for the body—is another indicator of toxins.
Rats fed the GNA lectin potatoes described above had smaller and partially atrophied livers.26
Rats fed Monsanto’s Mon 863 corn, engineered to produce Bt‐toxin, had liver lesions and other indications of toxicity.27
Rabbits fed GM soy showed altered enzyme production in their livers as well as higher metabolic activity.28
The livers of rats fed Roundup Ready canola were 12%–16% heavier, possibly due to liver disease or inflammation.29
Microscopic analysis of the livers of mice fed Roundup Ready soybeans revealed altered gene expression and structural and functional changes (see photos).30 Many of these changes reversed after the mice diet was switched to non‐GM soy, indicating that GM soy was the culprit. The findings, according to molecular geneticist Michael Antoniou, PhD, “are not random and must reflect some ‘insult’ on the liver by the GM soy.” Antoniou, who does human gene therapy research in King’s College London, said that although the long‐term consequences of the GM soy diet are not known, it “could lead to liver damage and consequently general toxemia.”31 Rats fed Roundup Ready soybeans also showed structural changes in their livers. 32
GM FED ANIMALS HAD HIGHER DEATH RATES AND ORGAN DAMAGE
In the FlavrSavr tomato study, a note in the appendix indicated that 7 of 40 rats died within two weeks and were replaced.33 In another study, chickens fed the herbicide tolerant “Liberty Link” corn died at twice the rate of those fed natural corn.34 But in these two industry‐funded studies, the deaths were dismissed without adequate explanation or follow‐up.
In addition, the cells in the pancreas of mice fed Roundup Ready soy had profound changes and produced significantly less digestive enzymes;35 in rats fed a GM potato, the pancreas was enlarged.36 In various analyses of kidneys, GM‐fed animals showed lesions, toxicity, altered enzyme production or inflammation.37,38 Enzyme production in the hearts of mice was altered by GM soy.39 And GM potatoes caused slower growth in the brains of rats.
GM CROPS TRIGGER IMMUNE REACTIONS AND MAY CAUSE ALLERGIES
Allergic reactions occur when the immune system interprets something as foreign, different, and offensive, and reacts accordingly. All GM foods, by definition, have something foreign and different. And several studies show that they provoke reactions. Rats fed Monsanto’s GM corn, for example, had a significant increase in blood cells related to the immune system.50 GM potatoes caused the immune system of rats to respond more slowly.51 And GM peas provoked an inflammatory response in mice, suggesting that it might cause deadly allergic reactions in people.52
It might be difficult to identify whether GM foods were triggering allergic responses in the population, since very few countries conduct regular studies or keep careful records. One country that does have an annual evaluation is the UK. Soon after GM soy was introduced into the British diet, researchers at the York Laboratory reported that allergies to soy had skyrocketed by 50% in a single year.53 Although no follow‐up studies were conducted to see if GM soy was the cause, there is evidence showing several ways in which it might have contributed to the rising incidence of allergies:
• The only significant variety of GM soy is Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” variety, planted in 89% of US soy acres. A foreign gene from bacteria (with parts of virus and petunia DNA) is inserted, which allows the plant to withstand Roundup herbicide. The protein produced by the bacterial gene has never been part of the human food supply. Because people aren’t usually allergic to a food until they have eaten it several times, it would be difficult to know in advance if the protein was an allergen. Without a surefire method to identify allergenic GM crops, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others recommend examining the properties of the protein to see if they share characteristics with known allergens. One method is to compare the amino acid sequence of the novel protein with a database of allergens. If there is a match, according to the WHO, the GM crop should either not be commercialized or additional testing should be done. Sections of the protein produced in GM soy are identical to shrimp and dust mite allergens,54 but the soybean was introduced before WHO criteria were established and the recommended additional tests were not conducted. If the protein does trigger reactions, the danger is compounded by the finding that the Roundup Ready gene transfers into the DNA of human gut bacteria and may continuously produce the protein from within our intestines.55
• In addition to the herbicide tolerant protein, GM soybeans contain a unique, unexpected protein, which likely came about from the changes incurred during the genetic engineering process. Scientists found that this new protein was able to bind with IgE antibodies, suggesting that it may provoke dangerous allergic reactions. The same study revealed that one human subject showed a skin prick immune response only to GM soy, but not to natural soy.56 Another study showed that the levels of one known soy allergen, called trypsin inhibitor, were as much as seven times higher in cooked GM soy compared to a non‐GM control.57
• GM soy also produces an unpredicted side effect in the pancreas of mice—the amount of digestive enzymes produced is dramatically reduced.58 If a shortage of enzymes caused food proteins to breakdown more slowly, then they have more time to trigger allergic reactions. Thus, digestive problems from GM soy might promote allergies to a wide range of proteins, not just soy.
• The higher amount of Roundup herbicide residues on GM soy might create reactions in consumers. In fact, many of the symptoms identified in the UK soy allergy study are among those related to glyphosate exposure. [The allergy study identified irritable bowel syndrome, digestion problems, chronic fatigue, headaches, lethargy, and skin complaints, including acne and eczema, all related to soy consumption. Symptoms of glyphosate exposure include nausea, headaches, lethargy, skin rashes, and burning or itchy skin. It is also possible that glyphosate’s breakdown product AMPA, which accumulates in GM soybeans after each spray, might contribute to allergies.]
It is interesting to note that in the five years immediately after GM soy was introduced, US peanut allergies doubled. It is known that a protein in natural soybeans cross‐reacts with peanut allergies, i.e. soy may trigger reactions in some people who are allergic to peanuts.59 Given the startling increase in peanut allergies, scientists should investigate whether this cross‐reactivity has been amplified in GM soy.
BT‐TOXIN, PRODUCED IN GM CORN AND COTTON, MAY CAUSE ALLERGIES
For years, organic farmers and others have sprayed crops with solutions containing natural Bt bacteria as a method of insect control. The toxin creates holes in their stomach and kills them. Genetic engineers take the gene that produces the toxin in bacteria and insert it into the DNA of crops so that the plant does the work, not the farmer. The fact that we consume that toxic pesticide in every bite of Bt corn is hardly appetizing.
Biotech companies claim that Bt‐toxin has a history of safe use, is quickly destroyed in our stomach, and wouldn’t react with humans or mammals in any event. Studies verify, however, that natural Bt‐toxin is not fully destroyed during digestion and does react with mammals. Mice fed Bt‐toxin, for example, showed an immune response as potent as cholera toxin, 60, became immune sensitive to formerly harmless compounds,61 and had damaged and altered cells in their small intestines.62 Moreover, when natural Bt was sprayed over areas around Vancouver and Washington State to fight gypsy moths, about 500 people reported reactions—mostly allergy or flu‐like symptoms.63,64 Farm workers and others also report serious reactions6566676869 and authorities have long acknowledged that “people with compromised immune systems or preexisting allergies may be particularly susceptible to the effects ofI The Bt‐toxin produced in GM crops is “vastly different from the bacterial [Bt‐toxins] used in organic and traditional farming and forestry.”71 The plant produced version is designed to be more toxic than natural varieties,72 and is about 3,000‐5,000 times more concentrated than the spray form. And just like the GM soy protein, the Bt protein in GM corn varieties has a section of its amino acid sequence identical to a known allergen (egg yolk). The Bt protein also fails other allergen criteria recommended by the WHO, i.e. the protein is too resistant to break down during digestion and heat.
If Bt‐toxin causes allergies, then gene transfer carries serious ramifications. If Bt genes relocate to human gut bacteria, our intestinal flora may be converted into living pesticide factories, possibly producing Bt‐toxin inside of us year after year. The UK Joint Food Safety and Standards Group also described gene transfer from a different route. They warned that genes from inhaled pollen might transfer into the DNA of bacteria in the respiratory system.73 Although no study has looked into that possibility, pollen from a Bt cornfield appears to have been responsible for allergic‐type reactions.
In 2003, during the time when an adjacent Bt cornfield was pollinating, virtually an entire Filipino village of about 100 people was stricken by mysterious skin, respiratory, and intestinal reactions.74 The symptoms started with those living closest to the field and spread to those further away. Blood samples from 39 individuals showed antibodies in response to Bt‐toxin, supporting—but not proving—a link. When the same corn was planted in four other villages the following year, however, the symptoms returned in all four areas—only during the time of pollination.75
Bt‐toxin might also trigger reactions by skin contact. In 2005, a medical team reported that hundreds of agricultural workers in India are developing allergic symptoms when exposed to Bt cotton, but not when
axposed to natural varieties.76 They say reactions come from picking the cotton, cleaning it in factories, loading it onto trucks, or even leaning against it. Their symptoms are virtually identical to those described by the 500 people in Vancouver and Washington who were sprayed with Bt (see table on next page).
Bt Spray
Sneezing,
runny nose,
exacerbations of asthma
Watery, red
Itching, burning,
inflammation,
red,
swelling
Fever,
some in hospital
Bt Cotton
Sneezing, runny nose
Watery,red
Itching, burning, eruptions, red, swelling
Fever,
some in hospital
Download the complete 28 page report with Pictures and documentation at: http://www.responsibletechnology.org
Ten Reasons Why GE Foods Will Not Feed the World
prepared by The CornerHouse, UK
It is often claimed that genetically engineered crops are the only way to
feed a growing world population. Yet close analysis suggests that there are
at least 10 good reasons why the widespread adoption of genetic engineering
in agriculture will lead to more hungry people – not fewer.
1. Feed, Not Food
2. Engineering for Convenience
3. Substituting Tropical Cash Crops
4. Increasing Farm Debt
5. Promoting Inefficient Farming
6. Increasing Destitution
7. Unsustainable Agriculture
8. Lower Yields
9. Increased Corporate Control
10. Misreading the Problem
1. Feed, Not Food
The two main GE crops grown commercially in the United States – soybeans
and maize (corn) – are used to feed livestock, not people.
This may be good for GE companies and their partners in the grain trade,
but it will do little to relieve world hunger. Indeed, livestock production
in many Southern countries has often been at the direct expense of poorer
people’s diets.
Egypt, for instance, encouraged by USAID, invested heavily in livestock
from the 1970s onwards. The country now grows more food for animals than
for humans. Human supplies of grain have been made up through US imports
which contributes to Egypt’s external debt. The consistent beneficiaries
have been large US grain merchants which have exported US grains at hugely
subsidised prices to Egypt.
2. Engineering for Convenience
Much genetic engineering research in food has been directed at meeting the
commercial needs of food processors rather than the nutritional needs of
poorer consumers.
A report by the US Biotechnology Industry Organization suggests that more
biotech effort will be devoted to genetic techniques for delaying ripening
or rotting of fruits and vegetables and for improving their appearance so
that they can be transported over ever longer distances and kept on
supermarket shelves for longer.
Maintaining a system whereby food has to travel such long distances may be
good news for oil companies, airlines and motor manufacturers, but it is an
energy- and resource-intensive system which contributes little to the
nutritional health of hungry people in either South or North – and does
much to undermine it.
3. Substituting Tropical Cash Crops
Using genetic engineering to create substitutes for tropical cash crops
will destroy the livelihoods of the rural poor in many Third World
countries – aggravating poverty and hunger.
Several applications of biotechnology are aimed at growing tropical cash
crops in the North, or at producing in laboratories the substances
currently derived from such crops.
Canola, for example, has been genetically-engineered to produce oils which
would replace coconut and palm oils. Coconut oil provides seven per cent of
the total export income of the Philippines, the world’s largest exporter of
coconut oil, and direct or indirect employment for 21 million people, about
30 per cent of the country’s population. Other tropical crops at risk
include vanilla and cocoa.
Although some of these cash crop producers will be able to switch to
growing other crops, many will not. With their income from export earnings
slashed, few Southern countries will be in a position to compensate such
workers and farmers. They will be left to fend for themselves: many are
likely to become malnourished for lack of cash to buy food.
4. Increasing Farm Debt
Unlike many of the seeds currently grown by Third World farmers, GE crops
do not come free. Attempts through legislation and genetic engineering
techniques to sterilize seeds, and to deny farmers’ their ancient right to
save and exchange seeds from previous harvests will force them to buy their
seeds every year. In addition, farmers will also need to buy chemical
herbicides and fertilizers; without theses the GE seeds will fail to
achieve viable yields.
Many small farmers, who are already hard pressed by competition from
heavily-subsidised food imports from the US and by the removal of subsidies
on water and energy under structural adjustment programmes, will slide into
debt.
The result is likely to be yet another wave of farm bankruptcies, leading
to landlessness for poorer farmers and an increased concentration of land
as wealthier farmers and speculators buy up bankrupted farms.
By threatening the farm livelihoods of the very poor, GE crops can only
undermine the food security of small producers – hardly a policy for
“feeding the world”.
5. Promoting Inefficient Farming
Proponents of genetic engineering in agriculture argue that farm
bankruptcies are a regrettable but necessary price of greater efficiency in
agriculture.
In terms of output per unit of labour, small farms are less “efficient”
than large modernised ones. But in terms of gross output per unit of land,
smaller farms often outdo larger ones. In Thailand, holdings under one
hectare have been found to be almost twice as productive as holdings over
40 hectares.
Arguments for replacing “inefficient” small producers with “efficient”
large producers also fail to take account of the key role that small farms
(particularly household gardens invariably tended by women) play in
efficiently supplying informal household networks with food.
To displace such networks would almost certainly result in a dramatic fall
in the amount of unmarketed food available to poorer people.
6. Increasing Destitution
Many vulnerable smallholder producers displaced as a result of growing
genetically-engineered crops are likely to find themselves in a saturated
labour market. If they could get jobs, they would probably be low-paid,
insecure ones in the cities or on larger farms where workers are generally
paid piece rates.
In today’s global supermarket, food goes to those who have the money to buy
it. Only those who have the income to translate their biological needs into
“effective demand” get to eat. Those whose incomes are too low – who cannot
grow food for themselves – inevitably wind up malnourished.
The overall result of displacing “inefficient” small farmers is thus likely
to be increased famine and malnutrition – not a reduction in hunger as the
proponents of genetic engineering promise.
7. Unsustainable Agriculture
Genetic engineering in agriculture is likely to have adverse environmental
impacts which are in turn likely to undermine the ecological basis of food
production.
Genetically-engineered crops will stimulate the evolution of “superweeds”
and “superbugs” which will necessitate higher doses of chemicals and make
food supplies more vulnerable to pest damage.
The outcrossing of engineered traits to other plants also poses a major
threat to food production.
In addition, the adoption of genetically-engineered crops is likely to
reduce genetic diversity, resulting in fewer and fewer types of food crops;
the narrowing of the genetic base of food adds to the likelihood of pest
and disease epidemics.
Many of these problems stem from the fact that genetically-engineered crops
will be grown in industrial monocultures. Other forms of agriculture offer
far safer, proven andecologically-benign means of protecting crops against
pest damage.
8. Lower Yields
The genetically-engineered crops now being cultivated do not have
significantly increased yields. In some cases, yields are lower than those
for conventional varieties of the same crop.
In the first large-scale field trials in Puerto Rico in 1992 of Roundup
Ready plants, Monsanto scientists found statistically significant reduced
yields, averaging some 11.5 per cent, in three of seven trials.
Many of the first growers of Roundup Ready cotton in the Mississippi Delta
of the US complained in 1997 of low yields and poor quality, noting that
bolls dropped prematurely and were deformed. Over 50 growers filed
complaints with the newly-formed US Seed Arbitration Council; Monsanto has
since paid out substantial compensation.
Several analysts conclude that any further increases in crop yields in
modern food crops will almost certainly come from building on traditional
breeding methods – not from transgenics.
9. Increased Corporate Control
Mergers, takeovers, joint ventures and licensing agreements between plant
breeding companies, seed distributors, grain traders, chemical companies
and genetic engineering interests have resulted in some genetic engineering
companies gaining near-monopoly control over the growing and marketing of
some agricultural commodities.
Just ten multinationals (including Monsanto) have now cornered nearly 40%
of the world seed market. Monsanto itself estimates that half the US grain
industry is now using its genetically-engineered seed; it expects that by
the year 2000, all soybeans planted in the United States will be of its
Roundup Ready variety.
Seed companies may well take conventional varieties off the market or use
existing seed and patent legislation to restrict farmers growing such
varieties. The result could be a drastic reduction in farm biodiversity –
with a consequent increase in the vulnerability of crops to disease. Again,
hardly a way to ensure food supplies for the future.
10. Misreading the Problem
Underlying the biotech industry’s claim that GE foods are needed to feed
the world lies a fundamentally flawed analysis of the causes of world
hunger.
More food will undoubtedly have to be grown in future if the increasing
numbers of people in the world are to be adequately fed.
But the claim that GE crops have a positive contribution to make is only
plausible if one mistakenly assumes that the hungry must be hungry because
there is not enough food. In fact, more than enough food is already being
produced to provide the world with a nutritious and adequate diet –
according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme, one-and-a-half times
the amount required.
If one in seven people currently go to bed hungry, it is not because of an
absolute shortage of food, but because inequalities in political and
economic power deny food to people. As long as access to food depends upon
money, and as long as poorer people are excluded from food markets or from
land, significant numbers of people will be malnourished, hungry and
starving – whatever happens to the global food supply, and whatever happens
to the number of people in the world
Far from addressing these underlying structural causes of hunger, genetic
engineering will do much to exacerbate them. Ensuring food security
worldwide requires an approach to agriculturethat is, in almost every
respect, the reverse of that being promoted bybiotech companies and their
allies in government and regulatory authorities.
—————————————————————–
“Ten Reasons” is extracted from “Food? Health? Hope? Genetic Engineering
and World Hunger”, a 28-page briefing prepared by The Corner House, PO Box
3137, Station Road, Sturminster Newton, Dorset DT10 1YJ, UK. Email
<cornerhouse@gn.apc.org> Email versions available free.
—————————————————————–
Sarah Sexton/Larry Lohmann/Nicholas Hildyard/Tracey Clunies Ross
THE CORNER HOUSE
PO Box 3137,
Station Road,
Sturminster Newton,
Dorset DT10 1YJ
BRITAIN
Tel: +44 (0)1258 473795
Fax: +44 (0)1258 473748
Email: <cornerhouse@gn.apc.org>
Website http://www.icaap.org/Cornerhouse
Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety
Advocates Call for Immediate Ban of All GM Foods and GM Crops
(Los Angeles, CA.) – A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.
Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.
In the study, Austrian scientists performed several long-term feeding trials over 20 weeks with laboratory mice fed a diet containing 33% of a GM variety (NK 603 x MON 810), or a closely related non-GE variety used in many countries. Statistically significant litter size and pup weight decreases were found in the third and fourth litters in the GM-fed mice, compared to the control group.
The corn is genetically modified with genes that produce a pesticidal toxin, as well as genes that allow it to survive applications of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.
A book by author Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette, distributed to members of congress last year, documents 65 serious health risks of GM products, including similar fertility problems with GM soy and GM corn: Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce. Male mice fed GM soy had damaged young sperm cells. The embryo offspring of GM soy-fed mice had altered DNA functioning. Several US farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn varieties. Additionally, over the last two months, investigators in India have documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, and other serious health issues, including deaths, among buffaloes fed GM cottonseed products.
The principle GM crops are soy, corn, cottonseed and canola. GM sugar from sugar beets will also be introduced before year’s end.
Mr. Smith, who is also the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsible Technology says, “GM foods are likely responsible for several negative health trends in the US. The government must impose an immediate ban on these dangerous crops.” He says, “Consumers don’t need to wait for governmental action. They can download a free Non-GMO Shopping Guide at www.HealthierEating.org.”
Monsanto press offices in the UK and USA were unable to provide a comment on the findings for journalists yesterday.
The Institute for Responsible Technology’s Campaign for Healthier Eating in America mobilizes citizens, organizations, businesses, and the media, to achieve the tipping point of consumer rejection of genetically modified foods.
The Institute educates people about the documented health risks of GMOs and provides them with healthier non-GMO product choices.
The Institute also informs policy makers and the public around the world about the impacts of GMOs on health, environment, the economy, and agriculture, and the problems associated with current research, regulation, corporate practices, and reporting.
###
Institute For Responsible Technology
Media Contact: NJ Jaeger
Expert Contact: Jeffrey M. Smith
Email: njmail@cox.net
Phone: +1-310-377-0915
Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety
Corporate Communication: Univ.-Doz. Ingrid Kiefer
Tel: +43 50 555-25000; E-Mail: ingrid.kiefer@ages.at
Links
Austrian Study: http://www.ages.at/ueber-uns/presse/pressemeldungen/klarstellung-zu-neuen-er
Institute for Responsible Technology: http://responsibletechnology.org
Non-GMO Shopping Guide: http://www.responsibletechnology.org/DocumentFiles/144.pdf
Genetic Roulette: http://www.geneticroulette.com
Genetically Engineered Foods Pose Higher Risk for Children
Children face the greatest risk from the potential dangers of GM foods:
* Young, fast-developing bodies are influenced most
* Children are more susceptible to allergies
* Children are more susceptible to problems with milk
* Children are more susceptible to nutritional problems
* Children are in danger from antibiotic resistant diseases
Young, fast-developing bodies are influenced most
Children’s bodies develop at a fast pace and are more likely to be influenced and show the effects of genetically modified (GM) foods. That is why independent scientists used young adolescent rats in their GM feeding studies. The rats showed significant health damage after only 10 days, including damaged immune systems and digestive function, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, and potentially pre-cancerous cell growth in the intestines.
Children are more susceptible to allergies
Children are three to four times more prone to allergies than adults. Infants below two years old are at greatest risk-they have the highest incidence of reactions, especially to new allergens encountered in the diet. Even tiny amounts of allergens can sometimes cause reactions in children. Breast fed infants can be exposed via the mother’s diet, and fetuses may possibly be exposed in the womb. Michael Meacher, the former minister of the environment for the UK, said, “Any baby food containing GM products could lead to a dramatic rise in allergies.” GM corn is particularly problematic for children, as they generally eat a higher percentage of corn in their diet. Further, allergic children often rely on corn protein. Mothers using cornstarch as a talc substitute on their children’s skin might also inadvertently expose them via inhalation.
Children are more susceptible to problems with milk
Milk and dairy products from cows treated with the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH) contain an increased amount of the hormone IGF-1, which is one of the highest risk factors associated with breast and prostate cancer. The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association called for more studies to determine if ingesting “higher than normal concentrations of [IGF-1] is safe for children, adolescents, and adults.” Sam Epstein, M.D., Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition and author of eight books, wrote, “rbGH and its digested products could be absorbed from milk into blood, particularly in infants, and produce hormonal and allergic effects.” He described how “cell-stimulating growth factors . . . could induce premature growth and breast stimulation in infants, and possibly promote breast cancer in adults.” Dr. Epstein pointed out that the hormones in cows could promote the production of “steroids and adrenaline-type stressor chemicals . . . likely to contaminate milk and may be harmful, particularly to infants and young children.”
Children are more susceptible to nutritional problems
A 2002 report by the UK’s Royal Society, said that genetic modification “could lead to unpredicted harmful changes in the nutritional state of foods.” They therefore recommended that potential health effects of GM foods be rigorously researched before being fed to pregnant or breast-feeding women, elderly people, those suffering from chronic disease, and babies. Likewise, according to former minister Meacher, unexpected changes in estrogen levels in GM soy used in infant formula “might affect sexual development in children,” and that “even small nutritional changes could cause bowel obstruction.”
Children are in danger from antibiotic resistant diseases
Children prone to ear and other infections are at risk of facing antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, due to the use of antibiotic resistant genes in GM food. The British Medical Association cited this as one reason why they called for a moratorium of GM foods.
Reprinted with permission from the Institue for Responsible Technology, http://www.responsibletechnology.org/GMFree/AboutGMFoods/HigherRisksforChildren/index.cfm
See more wonderful Fight Back Friday ideas at the Food Renegade Blog, http://www.foodrenegade.com/fight-back-fridays-5/
An Inspiration for us all – Dr. Vandana Shiva
“Over the past three decades I have tried to be change I want to see.”
I was privileged to hear Dr. Shiva speak this weekend in Anaheim, CA. The topic of her talk was Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.
Vandana Shiva was a Physicist in India and left the world of science, she says, “When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests of powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a participatory, public interest research organization.
When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers’ rights and promote organic farming.
Navdanya/RFSTE’s journey over the past two decades has taken us into creating markets for farmers and promoting tasty, healthy, high quality food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen, biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food.”
She spoke about ‘a century of error’ in food technology. When the Indian farmers were encouraged to grow Bt cotton (a genetically modified cotton) their seed price went from 7 rupees to 7,000 rupees for them to buy seed. And the GE seed is made to be infertile so the farmers couldn’t save their seed to grow the next year. They got so in debt that 84% of the cotton farmers that were using the GE seed, committed suicide. Dr. Shiva calls this Bio-Piracy; The stealing by a large multi-national corporation [{Monsanto] of our food and seed supply.
It’s time for all of us to stand up and say, no, we won’t stand for this.
Instead of changing and then patenting (and owning!) our seeds, we need to get back to basics; organic and sustainable farming. Which can feed the world and will help climate change as well. In research that was done, biodiverse organic farms had the greatest food yield of any kind of farming. It can feed the world and is good for the environment as well. The number two issue of climate change is the factory farms of the world. Our government has been exacerbating this issue with subsidies (with our tax dollars!) to GE and factory farmers. We need to focus on many small, organic farmers so people can eat local and healthy food.
She said, “A healthy environment and a just world go hand-in-hand. In a time of changing climates and increasing food scarcity, sustainable and biologically diverse farms are the champions for food production that is resistant to disease, drought, and flood. By promoting the productivity of small independent farms we can increase the potential for social justice and biodiversity”
And she ended her wonderful and inspirational talk, with a reminder to also cultivate peace, happiness and joy.
You can visit her website here:
Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker. Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, she is the author of many books, including Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization (South End Press, 2001), Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End Press, 1997), Monocultures of the Mind (Zed, 1993), The Violence of the Green Revolution (Zed, 1992)
Ms. Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalization and founder of Navdanya (“nine seeds”), a movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds. In 1993, Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award). Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India ’s leading physicists. She holds a master’s degree in the philosophy of science and a Ph.D. in particle physics.