permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: GMO article
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 08:33:52 -0500
From: Jane Jewett <jewet006@UMN.EDU>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Hi folks,

         This was new on the "Common Dreams" website this morning:

Genetically Modified Morals--A Global Food Fight, by Kathleen McAfee
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0613-09.htm

Jane Grimsbo Jewett
Information Exchange
Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture
University of Minnesota
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--Aristotle, Economics (paraphrased)

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Published on Friday, June 13, 2003 by the International Herald Tribune
Genetically Modified Morals
A Global Food Fight
by Kathleen McAfee


NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- The dispute over whether countries may decline imports of genetically engineered seeds and foods, long a point of 
contention between the United States and developing countries, is straining relations between America and Europe as well.

The battle reflects an intensifying struggle between government-backed U.S. agribusiness and farmers worldwide. It is often portrayed as a 
debate about science, but also at stake are issues of environmental risk and economic and cultural sovereignty. Will countries and farmers 
in a globalized economy retain any choice over what they eat, what they produce and what kind of agriculture systems they employ?

Present European Union policies restrict imports of genetically modified food and the release of genetically engineered living organisms 
into the environment. Revisions under discussion would allow modified imports, but require that they be labeled as such.

In Europe, where agricultural landscapes and local products are highly valued, experience with mad cow disease has heightened distrust of 
large-scale, industrialized farming. U.S. officials contend that such attitudes are irrational and that EU regulations are not based on 
scientific evidence.

On May 13, to the dismay of diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, the United States announced that it will file a complaint against the 
EU moratorium that has kept genetically modified food off store shelves in Europe. A week later, President George W. Bush accused the EU of 
contributing to hunger in Africa by blocking imports from the United States of "high-yield bio-crops," which he called "more productive." 
The U.S. trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has called the EU policies "Luddite," "immoral," and an unfair trade practice harmful to 
America.

U.S. officials charge that current European attitudes force developing countries that want to export to Europe to adopt policies that are 
against the interests of their own peoples, as when southern African governments rejected famine relief in the form of American genetically 
modified corn late last year.

Actually, few African exports to Europe would be affected by current EU rules. When they declined U.S. genetically modified food aid, 
southern African governments had other concerns. One was the possible health risk of consuming unprocessed modified corn, which is not a 
major part of U.S. diets. The other was the unknown consequences of releasing modified corn into ecosystems in southern Africa, where corn 
is the main staple grain.

Until these concerns could be addressed, African governments asked the United States to follow World Food Program guidelines by providing 
funds to purchase locally preferred and appropriate foods, as other donor countries did.

The U.S. argument that such policies are "immoral" takes as a given that modified crops have been proven to be free of health or 
environmental hazards. It also presumes that modified crops would reduce African hunger because they yield more than conventional varieties.

In fact, average yields from currently available modified food-crop seeds are slightly lower than yields of comparable nonmodified 
varieties. This is not surprising, because modified crops have been designed mainly to deal with pest problems, not to produce more food. 
Crop genetic engineering is a long way from developing varieties that could produce more food under African conditions.

Meanwhile, transnational companies that have patented much of the current genetic-engineering technology - as well as genes - have little 
incentive to invest in developing crops for countries where farmers are too poor to buy premium seeds and agrochemicals.

In any case, lack of quality crop varieties is not the major obstacle to African food production; the bigger problems in Africa are poor 
roads and storage facilities, lack of credit and fertilizer, degraded soils, labor shortages and farm prices depressed by imports of cheap 
food from the United States and Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized.

In addition, the question of environmental risk is proving more vexing than enthusiasts of genetic modification first thought. Some 
scientists worry that synthetic genes and their products may contribute to the loss of vital maize genetic diversity, or that they may 
damage soil microbes and other organisms that keep agro-ecosystems productive.

Until such ecological problems have been solved, countries may reasonably prefer not to accept genetically modified seeds. The U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the trade representative's office have nonetheless made the 
promotion of genetically modified crops a policy priority. The United States has fought hard against the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a 
global treaty that will give countries the option to decline genetically modified seed imports if they are shown to pose ecological or 
socioeconomic risks.

Promoters of U.S. farm exports argue that low-income countries that are losing their food self-sufficiency as markets become global are 
actually better off because their farming systems are inefficient.

But flooding world markets with the products of U.S. agriculture creates dangerous patterns of dependence, puts farmers in developing 
countries out of business, undermines rural communities and rarely helps the hungry. Until the United States is prepared to offer Africa 
what it really needs to overcome famine - support for infrastructure, inputs, marketing, fair pricing, and farmer-centered research on 
sustainable farm management and local crop improvement - it should stop lecturing anyone about morality.

The writer is an assistant professor of geography and sustainable development 
at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Copyright © 2003 the International Herald Tribune

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