Seeds of Discontent
© Robert Anderson PhD
First published in Canterbury Today
An old South Island farmer once told me, “South Island farmers are a cautious lot. Always take a long time to make up their minds, but once they have there’s no changing 'em.” It seems that, while North Island folk have continued their vociferous resistance to genetic engineering (GE), South Island farmers have taken a watchful brief.
With mounting pressure from Uncle Sam to join the fray,[i] there is a growing unease among our farming fraternity generally. New Zealand’s unique isolation is seen as a perfect ‘biotechnology laboratory,’ but is this wise from a business point of view? The realization is beginning to dawn that New Zealand cannot afford to be the off-season playground for US biotech companies. One Kiwi exporter lost NZ$500,000 from contamination of his corn product.[ii] Many of our exports, such as strawberries and apples, have commanded a premium in Europe and Japan, and are likely to remain so as their consumers demand non-GE foods. Grave concern has also been expressed by beekeepers over the effects GE contamination could have on their markets. Based on Canadian studies, their concerns are well founded[iii] considering that the European Union banned imports of Canadian honey because Canadian producers could not guarantee their honey was free of pollen from GE plants. Conventional farmers should not be expected to accept liability for economic loss caused by GE contamination, a fact studiously ignored by the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (RCGM).
Our Australian neighbours are also showing signs of concern. Their Network of Concerned Farmers (NCF)[iv] – an Australia-wide network of farmers concerned about the economic, environmental and social impacts of GE crops - are far from satisfied by the warm words and vague aspirations of the biotech corporations. Pro-GE lobbyists like to present those concerned about GE as deranged, pie-in-the-sky activists getting in the way of practical farmers keen to adopt the technology. Having hard-working practical farmers, like those in the Australian NCF, point out the hard-nosed economic shortcomings of adopting GE is a major setback.
Even trials could be a threat to the economic well-being of New Zealand farmers if contamination is not strictly managed and, judging from experience elsewhere, we should not hold our breath[v]. To those countries now growing GE-crops, this has become an all too frightening reality. As one NZ sausage maker found out, the US can no longer produce GE-free despite all their assurances to the contrary. It is proving impossible to prevent contamination despite all the precautions in the world. These effects are clearly illustrated by an extract from The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) report on “Co-existence between genetically modified crops, and conventional and organic crops.” This report states: “Consumer caution has meant whole areas where GMO cultivation gives rise to an increased risk of contamination being effectively boycotted whether or not contamination has actually occurred. The mere fact that GE wheat was on an experimental basis in a particular German federal state caused the largest German milling group to stop buying wheat from that area.”
Genetic engineering is rapidly proving the Chernobyl for the US farming community. For the first time in decades, the US will not turn an agricultural trade surplus. Their Agriculture Department is unable to explain how Bush managed to run down a US$13.6 billion agricultural trade surplus in 2001 to zero in 2005. “Ironically, the very thing farmers have been told for years would be their saviour - a cheaper dollar - is worsening the ag trade balance,” wrote Alan Guebert of the Journal Star (Illinois). “Despite the dollar's now falling to new lows against most of the world's major currencies, the US's 2005 ag exports will be $6.3 billion less than in 2004.” With US giants like Monsanto having to bribe foreign officials[vi] not to carry out viability tests on its crops and collecting fines of US$1.5 million for doing so, the light at the end of the tunnel for US biotech crops does not look good.
Four years after a genetically engineered corn variety (StarLink), banned for human consumption, turned up in US taco shells and was pulled from the market, contaminated grain is still showing up in the nation's corn supply.[vii] While the health effects of StarLink are still unsettled, many US consumers agonize that the government remains unprepared to deal with unexpected health problems from GE crops, especially those now being field-tested to mass-produce vaccines, other pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. The countless billions paid out by the Bush administration to subsidise their GE venture is rapidly proving an untenable burden. A UK report claimed that around £6.5 billion was handed out as farm subsidies over the past three years in the US for maize and soya because of low prices caused by trade losses due to GE crops.[viii] Contamination has also cost the US an estimated £1 billion in lost foreign trade, while one particular product recall left a bill of about £600 million. Their latest solution to this problem is to rubber stamp the inevitable contamination. A recent release from the Institute of Science in Society[ix] (London) stated: “The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a proposal on 24 November 2004 to allow experimental GE crops grown on “test” sites to legally enter the food chain. The FDA proposal came in response to a 2002 Bush Administration initiative in the wake of widespread contamination of US food supplies and exports in 2000 with unauthorised Starlink GE corn, which continued to be detected in the US grain supply and in food shipments to Bolivia, Japan and South Korea as recently as autumn 2003.
FDA Commissioner, Lester Crawford, described the proposed policy as “a high priority for the Administration and the industry, to enhance public confidence, avoid product recalls, and provide an ‘international model’ for similar policies around the world.” We can only hope that New Zealand does not become a party to such a policy of convenience.
Apart from the economic losses and possible dangers of GE foods, the most dangerous aspect of this technology is the latest attempts to produce drugs in food plants. These “Pharm” crops, as they are known, are engineered, in many cases with human genes, to produce a range of products. These include growth hormones, a digestive enzyme, AIDS and Hepatitis B vaccines, a contraceptive, an abortion-inducing chemical, a blood-clotting agent, and industrial adhesives. Plants are bargain-basement “bio factories” costing potentially just 10 percent of the normal fermentation manufacturing process. More than 300 field trials have taken place in the US, most in the open air with no containment. The location of these field trials is not known to neighbouring farmers nor to the public. A recent call for New Zealand to take “advantage” of this market[x] should leave the majority of our farmers with severe unease. The Pharm crop market could well prove the final straw breaking the camels back. As Dr Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a group long critical of the US regulatory scheme for agricultural biotechnology, said: “No one wants to discover drugs in their cornflakes.” Her comments were doubtless based on the catastrophe in which food crops were contaminated by an experimental pig vaccine that was spliced into GE corn. The firm responsible, Prodigene, was fined three million dollars for the contamination and had to destroy half a million bushels of soybeans destined for infant formula and burgers.[xi]
While “Pharming” can turn an ordinary-looking crop into a drug factory, producing vaccines, chemicals and other products, potentially for much less than it would ordinarily cost to make them, it carries grave risks. The question is, does New Zealand want such a risk? Virtually all GE crops offer no advantage to the consumer; in fact, quite the opposite. Trials of a GE onion, now taking place at Lincoln, seem rather pointless when our fourth largest export produces a wonderful crop of onions prized for their flavour by countries which import them. Why irreversibly contaminate our food supply with products that have already had adverse health reports? With the growing global calls for safe food products[xii] it beholds New Zealand to cling even more ferociously to its “Clean Green” image. With economic advantages clearly beginning to emerge, if I were still farming, I’d be listening closely to the market.
Robert Anderson BSc (Hons), PhD
(4 February 1942 to 5 December 2008)
Robert Anderson was a Trustee of Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Genetics, now Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility; www.psgr.org.nz. He authored The Final Pollution: Genetic Apocalypse, Exploding the Myth of Genetic Engineering and several other publications on environmental, health and social justice issues.
View his lectures on this site.
Enquiries for books written by Robert Anderson should be addressed to naturesstar@xtra.co.nz.
For further information see:
GE Free New Zealand in food and environment www.gefree.org.nz/
GE Free Northland in food and environment http://web.gefreenorthland.org.nz/
Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility www.psgr.org.nz
Sustainability Council of New Zealand http://www.sustainabilitynz.org/
The Soil & Health Association / Organic New Zealand http://organicnz.org.nz/
References:
[i] " NZ and Iowa promote closer biotech links" (23 March 2004)
[ii] Leaving GM Contaminated Crops in the Ground Goes Against Market Realities, www.sustainabilitynz.org/news_item.asp?sID=144.
[iii] The European Union recently banned imports of Canadian honey because Canadian producers cannot guarantee their honey is free of pollen from GE plants not yet approved by the EU. www.ezdenver.com/environmentnews.html
[v] Tamarillo trial Kerikeri. “Protesters gagged over trial botch-up” http://ngin.tripod.com/090702b.htm
[vi] Monsanto fined $1.5m fine for bribing Indonesian official. http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2005/01/13/more_monsanto_shenanigans.htm
[vii] “Banned GE StarLink Corn Still Contaminating 1% of US Corn Crop” http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/ge_corn_starlink.cfm
[viii] “GM Crops An 'Economic Disaster’ In The US” Uhlig R., Farming Correspondent The Telegraph - UK
[ix] “US to Rubber Stamp Transgene Contamination” ISIS Press Release 22/12/04
[x] “Iowa leader backs US-NZ 'pharma-crop' tie-in” NZ Herald 25.03.2004
[xi] “Pig Vaccine Contaminates U.S. Crops” The Guardian December 24, 2002