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  • From: Lucy Goodman <goodows AT infinet.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Dennis Avery is a shill
  • Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 16:54:34 -0500

I did some looking on the archives of a list I used to run and found
among other things the (very nicely written) report Dorene (aka Alliums)
wrote. I can post other items to if we want to drag this out.


"An Informed Discussion of GMOs:"
Dennis Avery, Rebecca Goldburg and Rick Nichols at
The Future of Our Food & Farms Regional Summit
December 1, 2000, Valley Forge, PA

by Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden
Phoenixville, PA

"This discussion will not become a polemical slash and burn," Rick
Nichols, Philadelphia Inquirer food columnist and moderator of the
lunchtime Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) panel, sternly reminded the
audience of mostly sustainable agriculture practitioners. No one envied
his task
of keeping Dennis Avery, Director of the Hudson Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues and Rebecca Goldburg, Senior Scientist at Environmental
Defense (not to mention the audience!) polite and on-topic, but Nichols,
as promised, kept everyone congenial.

Avery, given permission to begin the session, stated that according to
"peer-reviewed journals, high-yield farming since World War II has saved
16 million square acres for wildlife. The global forest is 16 million
square miles. High-yield farming is a conservation triumph."

"We face," Avery says, "the challenge of affluence" as the world's
population will reach 8.5 billion by 2035, then slowly decline. To feed
these people a high-quality, Western-style diet high in meat and dairy
products, growers must triple their current output. To meet this
challenge without losing wildlife habitat, the world will have to
quadruple yields
on current acreage. Free trade will raise prices from 25% to 50% so that
not only will US growers' overproduction be profitably sold overseas to feed
the hungry, but farmers in countries such as India and China will be
affluent enough to consume meat and dairy products as we do in the West.

"Organic agriculture just doesn't have the yields," Avery said. "To feed
itself organically, Europe would have to cut down forests equal in size
to France and the UK combined. Wildlife would suffer. . ."

"I'd like to hear Rebecca Goldburg's views now," Nichols broke in
smoothly. Avery managed to deflate himself in mid-polemic while the
audience stared
at Nichols in awe, realizing that here was a moderator in control!

Goldburg, describing her involvement in the StarLink corn controversy,
says that "our regulatory system is in knots. We don't have the science to
know whether this [genetically engineered] protein is an allergen [to humans]
or not." As we don't have the regulations, experience or infrastructure
to separate GMO from non-GMO foods, mixing of
approved-for-human-consumption and unapproved (EPA approved StarLink
corn for animal feed or
industrial uses only) corn is happening.

Goldburg admitted that she was skeptical of GMOs' ability to feed the
world, but stressed that the issues involved, though complex, were worth
thinking through. "We shouldn't settle for simple answers to complicated
questions."

Seeing that Goldburg had said her piece, Nichols followed up on Avery's
comments. "If increasing affluence requires diets high in protein and
animal products and countries like India and China are abandoning their
traditional diets for our Western-style diets, is this new diet
something that they are asking for? Or are we [the West] pushing it on them?"

"They want it!" announced Avery. "We have nothing to do with it! There
has never been a voluntarily vegetarian society - except perhaps the
Aztecs. But they had cannibalism. If we don't dramatically increase our
yields,
the forests of the world will be clear-cut for chicken feed."

Nichols then turned to Goldburg. "Aren't there some advantages to GMOs?"
Monsanto had just waived the patent rights for Golden Rice, genetically
engineered to produce Vitamin A, so that Third World farmers could grow
it for their children to prevent river blindness, a condition caused by
Vitamin A deficiency.

"Unfortunately," Goldburg said, "the issue isn't as simple as these
children aren't getting enough Vitamin A. Lots of green vegetables
contain Vitamin A." To split beta-carotene (the usual form in Golden
Rice, as
well as green vegetables) in half to produce Vitamin A, children must
have sufficient fat and protein in their diets and a healthy liver free
of parasites. Otherwise, beta-carotene passes through the body, unchanged
and unused. Without a more varied diet, improved sanitation (to reduce
parasite load) and access to health care, 'it's not clear that Golden
Rice will
help" says Goldburg.

"The trends show that free trade raises incomes," says Avery. As the
world welcomes global trade, people would have the income for diets to make
Golden Rice bioavailable.

Avery then asked Goldburg if she favored recent genetic engineering
techniques to transfer corn's superior ability to convert sunlight to
energy to rice plants, whose natural photosynthesis apparatus is not as
efficient. "The increased efficiency could save an area for wildlife the
size of France!" he stated.

"I'm not against it," Goldburg said, "but will it actually work?" as
many promising GMO techniques have not worked as hoped for or expected once
they reached large-scale production. The real difference between her and
Avery, she felt, was over the need to increase food production. While she
agreed that population would rise by the middle of the century, she disagreed
with Avery that the population would rise to more than 8 billion or that the
continued intensification of agriculture was necessary as yields would
probably only need to rise by 30%. "Agriculture must become more
sustainable and ecologically friendly" Goldburg said if both the finite
planet and the rising population were to survive.

Avery strongly disagreed that agriculture intensification was destroying
the natural world, citing that the New York State Pathology Lab, when
releasing data on the dead birds it analyzed for West Nile Virus, found
that few of these birds died of accidental pesticide poisoning. [Avery
neglected to mention that most of these birds were crows, rather than
the songbirds usually studied.] "Large-scale, intensive, zero-discharge
hog farms are
the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to produce pork."

The audience, especially the agricultural professors from Penn State,
Cornell, and Rutgers, was stunned. Dr. Peter Ferretti, tenured professor
of Penn State's Department of Horticulture and a man who has trained
most of Penn State's graduates currently in Extension, recovered first. "He's
full of shit!" said Ferretti.

Nichols, ever the alert moderator, filled in the sudden silence. "Are
there any downsides to GMOs?" he asked Avery.

"StarLink shows how GMOs can get away from us," said Avery. As there's
nothing in the data to prove StarLink is allergenic, it should be
approved for human consumption and the Terminator Technology used in
future GMOs to render them sterile and thus, environmentally safe.

The audience, reeling from the revelation that intensive hog farms had
achieved zero-discharge of their manure, was in too much shock to even
hiss at the mention of much-despised Terminator Technology.

Nichols checked his watch and announced that it was time for audience
questions to the panel. He sternly reminded everyone to be respectful of
each other's views.

Dr. Bill Liebhardt of the University of California at Davis, was first.
"Dennis Avery stated that organic agriculture has only 55% to 60% of
conventional agriculture's yields. I've spent my career examining the
data for Pennsylvania, the MidWest and California and I've never seen those
yield losses. Where are you getting your data?"

Avery claimed that there were no peer-reviewed studies of organic
agriculture, except for an English study that found organic wheat yields
were 44% lower than conventional wheat. Liebhardt asked for specifics.
Avery then stated that it was moot because there was a shortage of
organic nitrogen. The audience started getting that stunned "where the
heck did THAT come from?" look once again, Avery refused to provide
Liebhardt with data, let alone the name of the journal he'd read this
study in and as Liebhardt seemed ready and willing to recite the entire
Rodale Institute 15-year comparison of organic and conventional
agriculture published in the November 11,1998 issue of Nature, along
with other studies from his career, Nichols stepped in as moderator and
asked for the next question.

"What does the data say about yields using John Jeavon's BioIntensive
methods vs. conventional agriculture?" asked a Maryland Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) farmer.

"I'm not familiar with John Jeavons," said Avery. " But it's probably
too labor intensive and thus too expensive to feed the world. Besides, our
kids don't want to spend their lives weeding with a short handled hoe."

"Okay, " said the Maryland farmer, recovering better than the audience
who was wondering how one could claim to be a critic of sustainable
agriculture and not be familiar with one of the best selling authors of the
agricultural and gardening sector. "What about Permaculture? Bill Mollison
specifically designed his techniques to be labor-efficient."

"I'm not familiar with Bill Mollison, either," said Avery. The audience
beginning to wonder just what form of "organic agriculture" Avery
referred to in any of his quotes and whether it was worth asking when Nichols
granted the floor to Rochelle Kelvin of the Appalachian Natural Sales Group.

"First, a comment," said Kelvin. "I visited Nepal recently and found
that many of the houses had a large Pepsi logo painted on the side. The
villagers told me that Pepsi was paying them $2 a house to paint the
logo. So, the idea that we in the West aren't pushing our products on
traditional societies is just silly."

"Next," Kelvin said. "I'd like the panelists to state where their
funding comes from."

"Environmental Defense is funded primarily by its 300,000 members" said
Goldburg. "We also receive funding from private charitable foundations
such as Pew, MacArthur and Joyce."

"I'm funded by my federal pension," said Avery. "And by speaking fees
from conferences such as this. Some years, and this isn't one of them, I
received a salary from the Hudson Institute. I don't know who funds them."

"Oh, yes, you do!" said Nichols who hadn't taken any guff from anyone
the entire session and wasn't going to start now. "Answer the question
--give us the top five funders!"

"GM, Ford, Monsanto [hisses from the audience which was beginning to
roll with whatever was thrown at them], Dow and Lily," said Avery.

"One final question," said Kelvin. "Do the panels believe that it is
the right of growers to save seed and how does Terminator Technology
affect that right?"

Goldburg, after agreeing that growers had the right to save seed from
their own plants, stressed that the Terminator is an imperfect
technology. "Evolution works very hard to overcome sterility," Goldburg
stated. "We can slow the spread of an organism, but we can't stop it."
She could not cite any trials where this or any other "sterility"
technology was 100% effective- some plants always managed to reproduce.

"Hybrid seeds produce better yields," said Avery.

Next, the panelists were asked if they supported labeling products that
contain GMOs.

Avery said he might support labeling if the practice was more than just
an excuse for consumers to boycott products.

"Consumers should have the right to boycott whatever products they want
to boycott!" Goldburg said to Avery, but she supports labeling so
consumers can choose what they want to eat. Both panelists did agree
that labels should be more detailed - listing exactly what types of GMOs
a product contains, rather than a blanket "GMOs included" statement.

A Cornell professor then asked the panel what types of research and
testing should be done, premarket and for how long, to know that a
specific GMO
is safe for human consumption.

"We need more research to understand a new GMO's effects," says
Goldburg. "We don't currently have the regulation and we don't have the
science.
The USDA is only spending 1.5 million a year on biotech risk
assessment."

Goldburg's greatest concern is with food allergy testing - or lack
thereof. Reliable methods to screen proteins for possible allergy risk are
primitive and the research is underfunded. The only reason researchers
discovered that a brazil nut gene transferred to a soybean would cause
problems for those with a brazil nut allergy is that a fellow researcher
had a refrigerator full of blood serum from those sufferers to test the
soybeans against. "Most genes used in GMO research are from bacteria
that were
never part of the human diet," says Goldburg so they have never been
tested for allergic reactions in humans. Even among those who do have
allergies to
a specific food, like peanuts, not everyone is sensitive to the same
chemicals or the same level of chemicals. Goldburg would like to see
more serious research to develop a reliable model for allergy screening
and detailed labeling on foods so that those with known allergies can
avoid foods containing the chemicals they are sensitive to.

Avery believes that GMOs should be approved on a case by case basis,
each being rated on its own merits. "Allergies are natural," says Avery and
we should just learn to deal with them.

The question session ended with a Philadelphia Cooperative Extension
educator asking if the mechanics to create a GMO really could be
described as delivering a piano by catapult to the 11th floor of an
apartment building.

Goldburg agreed that the process is not as precise as researchers would
like. "We can't target where a genetic fragment will land in a cell's
DNA nor do we always get the intended effects," she said. "We have to
keep working to refine our techniques."

"We should only go by the results," says Avery, and not worry so much
about how we get there. Regular breeding is too slow and we don't have the
time to get the increased yields we'll need to feed the world without
depleting wildlife habitat.

Nichols closed the session, saying the image he would take with him was
of a little old grandmother sitting peacefully on the 11th floor of her
apartment building until she was suddenly squashed by a grand piano
heaved through
the window. Audience members were more sanguine.

"Avery's got an act, like Don Rickles, and he's taken it on the road,"
says Joseph Griffin of the Oley Institute. "There's no depth there."

"This session reminds us not to let a simplistic answer go
unchallenged," says Greg Bowman of the Food, Faith and Farming
Initiative of the
Mennonite Resources Network. "We have to ask the right questions and
insist on complete answers so that we can make informed and responsible
decisions about how to live together on this planet."


Lucy Goodman
New Paris, OH
Boulder Belt Organics
http://www.angelfire.com/oh2/boulderbeltcsa
Looking for local food? Check out
http://www.localharvest.org
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness
Stewart I. Udall




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