Republican News · Thursday 26 June 2003

EU and US spar over GM foods

BY ROISIN DE ROSA

Everyone knows that it would be nice if cotton was softer and fluffier. Rabbits are soft and fluffy. So scientists took a little bit of DNA out of the rabbit genome, stuck it into the cotton seed, and cotton balls are now softer and fluffier.

That's genetic modification (GM) of plants - a marvel of science. And GM is only the first step down the road to nanobiotechnology - the living/non-living hybrids that science promises will be a trillion-dollar industry by 2015, which, we are told, will 'grow' everything from hamburgers to plastics to bicycles.

The problem is, who will control (and sell) the products that humans no longer need to work their days away to produce. Who will be God's rep on earth? Monsanto, the largest of the big GM five, is in the running through its substantial GM food concerns. Monsanto produces 90% of the GM crops currently being grown commercially, has spent $96 billion on biotech research, and made a profit last year of some $2.6 billion.

But the vast majority of Europeans don't want GM foods or GM crops. This is a question exercising the EU coming up to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in September, where the pressure is on from the US for the EU to allow imports of GM food and seeds.

Last month, the Bush Administration, gung ho for GM foods, filed a complaint with the WTO against the EU. The US, joined by Argentina, Canada and Egypt, challenged the EU moratorium on imports of GM foods since 1998. Robert Zoellick, US trade representative, claims it violates WTO rules and Monsanto is claiming multi-million dollar figures of income foregone from lost EU markets.

Brussels upped the ante in what has been a rumbling transatlantic row with an ultimatum to the US that it would begin imposing $4 billion in sanctions if the US Congress did not repeal a foreign sales provision that illegally benefits large American exporters.

Then, on 4 June, the EU ratified the UN Biosafety Protocol, which regulates trade in GM foods and obligates exporters to label foods as GM, a practice the US strongly opposes. It also allows a country to ban GM foods.

At the recent G8 meeting in Evian, George Bush took the opportunity to claim that the EU ban was discouraging developing countries from growing GM crops and this was resulting in increased hunger and poverty in the world's poorest nations. EU opposition to GM foods was tantamount, claimed Bush, to a death sentence on millions of starving people.

But 80% of the undernourished children in the developing world live in countries with food surpluses. Hunger in today's world has more to do with the distribution of food and income, not to mention land ownership.

GM seeds are more expensive than conventional seeds and farmers are not allowed to save seed for the following year's production, so they need to buy more. Worse, the seeds are sterile, genetically modified not to germinate. In some cases a chemical can be purchased to 'turn on' these 'terminator' seeds - but that is a further expense.

Much in the news recently has been so-called golden rice, a GM rice containing a gene that produces beta-carotene, which converts into vitamin A. Half a million children in the world suffer from Vitamin A deficiency and become blind, so 'golden rice', it is argued, will make a big difference.

Scientific journals, however, say otherwise. To convert beta-carotene into vitamin A, the body requires sufficient body protein and fat, which is exactly what undernourished children lack. The problem for the millions of undernourished children today is not that they eat rice that hasn't enough vitamin A in it. The problem is that poverty forces them into a diet of only rice.

Tony Blair, as usual, is the odd man out in this EU affair, along with Prime Minister Aznar in Spain. They are in favour of GM foods, and four years ago, Blair allocated £13 million "to improve the profile of the biotech industry". It didn't work, and the people of Britain remain opposed to GM foods.

After three years of dawdling, the British government has initiated a consultation process to decide the matter. But Margaret Beckett, Environment Secretary, decided off her own bat, even before the start of the debate, to agree to 18 licensing applications to grow and import crops such as GM maize, oil seed rape, sugar beet and cotton. An unnamed minister told the Financial Times that the GM debate is simply a PR offensive. "They are calling it a consultation," he said, "but don't be in any doubt, the decision is already taken."

Former environment minister Michael Meacher has this week been heaping embarrassment on Blair et al by accusing the government of downplaying evidence that GM crops could present a public health risk.

The debate is scheduled to end by September, which neatly sidelines the results of three-year farming trials of GM crops to evaluate their environmental effects, which were supposed to be released in June but will now appear only by the end of September, and so won't inform the debate.

One of the consultation meetings happened earlier this month in the King's Hall in Belfast. People were angry that the British government had already decided to license GM commercial production and the importation of GM foods.

The farmers expressed strong convictions, especially after the BSE crisis, that they did not want GM crops, or hormone treated animals, or to be part of Monsanto's expensive effort to corner the seed markets of the world.

The farmers in the King's Hall thought a better prospect by far was to let Ireland try its hand at cornering a small part of the §25 billion organic market in the EU. But there is the rub - how can GM crops co-exist with non-GM organic crops? The bees don't have fences to cross or no-fly zones to contend with, as they carry pollen from one flower to another. There is no question that once GM seeds are here, organic farming is off the agenda, perhaps for good.

Farmers are adamant about the need to retain Ireland's key competitive advantage of 'green' agriculture. They are anxious to exploit these advantages in the niche industry that commands premium prices for organic farm produce.

"It is our unique advantage, as an island, that no other European country can match, and we are allowing this advantage to be thrown away," says Gerry McHugh, Sinn Féin agricultural spokesperson. "If GM food and crops come into the Six Counties, then we have thrown away the image of Irish agriculture as clean, green, and non GM," he argues. "And what is Dublin Minister Joe Walsh's attitude to GM crops? Why isn't the minister defending the interests of Irish farmers, especially against the British minister, who cares little for Irish agriculture?"

There is no question that once GM seeds are here, organic farming is off the agenda, perhaps for good