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[Fwd: Rachel #637: Against the Grain]




> .           RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #637           .
> .                    ---February 11, 1999---                    .
> .                          HEADLINES:                           .
> .                       AGAINST THE GRAIN                       .
> .                          ==========                           .
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> 
> AGAINST THE GRAIN
> 
> A new book by Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey, AGAINST THE GRAIN,
> makes it clear that genetic engineering is revolutionizing U.S.
> agriculture almost overnight.[1]
> 
> In 1997, 15% of the U.S. soybean crop was grown from genetically
> engineered seed. By next year, if Monsanto Corporation's
> timetable unfolds on schedule, 100% of the U.S. soybean crop (60
> million acres) will be genetically engineered.[1,pg.5] The same
> revolution is occurring, at the same pace, in cotton. Corn,
> potatoes, tomatoes and other food crops are lagging slightly
> behind but, compared to traditional rates of change in farming,
> they are being deployed into the global ecosystem at blinding
> speed.
> 
> The mass media have largely maintained silence about the genetic
> engineering revolution in agriculture, and government regulators
> have imposed no labeling requirements, so the public has little
> or no knowledge that genetically altered foods are already being
> sold in grocery stores everywhere, and that soon few traditional
> forms of food may remain on the shelves.
> 
> Genetic engineering is the process whereby genes of one species
> are implanted in another species, to give new traits to the
> recipient. Traditionally the movement of genes has only been
> possible between closely-related species. Under the natural
> order established by the Creator, there was no way dog genes
> could get into cats. Now, however, genetic engineering allows
> scientists to play God, removing genes from a trout or a
> mosquito and implanting them in a tomato, for better or for
> worse.
> 
> Three federal agencies regulate genetically-engineered crops and
> foods -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S.
> Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Environmental
> Protection Agency (EPA). The heads of all three agencies are on
> record with speeches that make them sound remarkably like
> cheerleaders for genetic engineering, rather than impartial
> judges of a novel and powerful new technology, and all three
> agencies have set policies that:
> 
> ** No public records need be kept of which farms are using
> genetically-engineered seeds;
> 
> ** Companies that buy from farmers and sell to food
> manufacturers and grocery chains do not need to keep
> genetically-engineered crops separate from traditional crops, so
> purchasers have no way to avoid purchasing genetically
> engineered foods;
> 
> ** No one needs to label any crops, or any food products, with
> information about their genetically engineered origins, so
> consumers have no way to exercise informed choice in the grocery
> store. In the U.S., every food carries a label listing its
> important ingredients, with the remarkable exception of
> genetically engineered foods.
> 
> These policies have two main effects:
> 
> (1) they have kept the public in the dark about the rapid spread
> of genetically engineered foods onto the family dinner table,
> and
> 
> (2) they will prevent epidemiologists from being able to trace
> health effects, should any appear, because no one will know who
> has been exposed to novel gene products and who has not.
> 
> Today Pillsbury food products are made from
> genetically-engineered crops. Other foods that are now
> genetically engineered include Crisco; Kraft salad dressings;
> Nestle's chocolate; Green Giant harvest burgers; Parkay
> margarine; Isomil and ProSobee infant formulas; and Wesson
> vegetable oils. Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos and Ruffles Chips --
> and french fried potatoes sold by McDonald's -- are genetically
> engineered.[1,pg.92]
> 
> By next year, if Monsanto's plans develop on schedule -- and
> there is no reason to think they won't -- 100% of the U.S.
> soybean crop will be genetically engineered. Eighty percent of
> all the vegetable oils in American foods are derived from soy
> beans, so most foods that contain vegetable oils will contain
> genetically engineered components by next year or the year
> after.[1,pg.52]
> 
> It is safe to say that never before in the history of the world
> has such a rapid and large-scale revolution occurred in a
> nation's food supply. And not just the U.S. is targeted for
> change. The genetic engineering companies (all of whom used to be
> chemical companies) -- Dow, DuPont, Novartis, and preeminently,
> Monsanto -- are aggressively promoting their genetically
> engineered seeds in Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, India,
> China and elsewhere. Huge opposition has developed to Monsanto's
> technology everywhere it has been introduced outside the United
> States. Only in the U.S. has the "agbiotech" revolution been
> greeted with a dazed silence.
> 
> Monsanto -- the clear leader in genetically engineered crops --
> argues that genetic engineering is necessary (nay, ESSENTIAL) if
> the world's food supply is to keep up with human population
> growth. Without genetic engineering, billions will starve,
> Monsanto says. However, neither Monsanto nor any of the other
> genetic engineering companies appears to be developing
> genetically engineered crops that might solve global food
> shortages. Quite the opposite.
> 
> If genetically engineered crops were aimed at feeding the
> hungry, then Monsanto and the others would be developing seeds
> with certain predictable characteristics: (a) ability to grow on
> substandard or marginal soils; (b) plants able to produce more
> high-quality protein, with increased per-acre yield, without
> increasing the need for expensive machinery, chemicals,
> fertilizers, or water; (c) they would aim to favor small farms
> over larger farms; (d) the seeds would be cheap and freely
> available without restrictive licensing; and (e) they would be
> for crops that feed people, not meat animals.
> 
> None of the genetically engineered crops now available, or in
> development (to the extent that these have been announced) has
> any of these desirable characteristics. Quite the opposite. The
> new genetically engineered seeds require high-quality soils,
> enormous investment in machinery, and increased use of
> chemicals. There is evidence that their per-acre yields are
> about 10% lower than traditional varieties (at least in the case
> of soybeans),[1,pg.84] and they produce crops largely intended
> as feed for meat animals, not to provide protein for people. The
> genetic engineering revolution has nothing to do with feeding
> the world's hungry.
> 
> The plain fact is that fully two-thirds of the genetically
> engineered crops now available, or in development, are designed
> specifically to increase the sale of pesticides produced by the
> companies that are selling the genetically engineered
> seeds.[1,pg.55] For example, Monsanto is selling a line of
> "Roundup Ready" products that has been genetically engineered to
> withstand heavy doses of Monsanto's all-time top money-making
> herbicide, Roundup (glyphosate). A Roundup Ready crop of
> soybeans can withstand a torrent of Roundup that kills any weeds
> competing with the crop. The farmer gains a $20 per acre
> cost-saving (compared to older techniques that relied on lesser
> quantities of more expensive chemicals), but the ecosystem
> receives much more Roundup than formerly. To make Roundup Ready
> technology legal, EPA had to accommodate Monsanto by tripling
> the allowable residues of Roundup that can remain on the
> crop.[1,pg.75]  Monsanto's patent on Roundup runs out in the year
> 2000, but any farmer who adopts Roundup Ready seeds must agree
> to buy only Monsanto's brand of Roundup herbicide. Thus
> Monsanto's patent monopoly on Roundup is effectively extended
> into the foreseeable future -- a shrewd business maneuver if
> there ever was one. However, this should not be confused with
> feeding the world's hungry. It is selling more of Monsanto's
> chemicals and filling the corporate coffers, which is what it
> was intended to do. "Feeding the hungry" is a sales gimmick, not
> a reality.
> 
> Monsanto's other major line of genetically engineered crops
> contains the gene from a natural pesticide called Bt. Bt is a
> naturally-occurring soil organism that kills many kinds of
> caterpillars that like to eat the leaves of crops. Bt is the
> pesticide of choice in low-chemical-use farming, IPM [integrated
> pest management] and organic farming. Farmers who try to
> minimize their use of synthetic chemical pesticides rely on an
> occasional dusting with Bt to prevent a crop from being overrun
> with leaf-eating caterpillars. To them, Bt is a God-send, a
> miracle of nature.
> 
> Monsanto has taken the Bt gene and engineered it into cotton,
> corn and potatoes. Every cell of every plant contains the Bt
> gene and thus produces the Bt toxin. It is like dusting the crop
> heavily with Bt, day after day after day. The result is entirely
> predictable, and not in dispute. When insect pests eat any part
> of these crops, the only insects that will survive are those
> that are (a) resistant to the Bt toxin, or (b) change their diet
> to prefer other plants to eat, thus disrupting the local
> ecosystem and perhaps harming a neighboring farmer's crops.
> 
> According to Dow Chemical scientists who are marketing their own
> line of Bt-containing crops, within 10 years Bt will have lost
> its usefulness because so many insects will have developed
> resistance to its toxin.[1,pg.70]  Thus Monsanto and Dow are
> profiting bountifully in the short term, while destroying the
> usefulness of the one natural pesticide that undergirds the
> low-pesticide approach of IPM and organic farming. It is another
> brilliant -- if utterly ruthless and antisocial -- Monsanto
> business plan.
> 
> Ultimately, for sustainability and long-term maximum yield,
> agricultural ecosystems must become diversified once again. This
> is the key idea underlying organic farming. Monoculture cropping
> -- growing acre upon acre of the same crop -- is the antithesis
> of sustainability because monocultures are fragile and unstable,
> subject to insect swarms, drought, and blight. Monocultures can
> only be sustained by intensive, expensive inputs of water,
> energy, chemicals, and machinery. Slowly over the past two
> decades, the movement toward IPM and organic farming has begun
> to take hold in this country -- despite opposition from the
> federal government, from the chemical companies, from the banks
> that make farm loans, and from the corporations that sell
> insurance. Now comes the genetic engineering revolution, which
> is dragging U.S. agriculture back down the old path toward vast
> monocultures, heavy reliance on machinery, energy, water, and
> chemicals, all of which favors the huge farm over the small
> family operation. It is precisely the wrong direction to be
> taking agricultural technology in the late 20th century, if the
> goals are long-term maximum yield, food security, and
> sustainability.
> 
> It is a wrong direction for another reason as well.
> 
> When 100% of the soybeans in the U.S. are grown from Roundup
> Ready seed -- next year -- then 100% of America's soybean farmers
> will be dependent upon a single supplier for all their seed and
> the chemicals needed to allow those seeds to thrive. In sum,
> Monsanto will have achieved a monopoly on a fundamental food
> crop. It is clear that Monsanto's goal is a similar monopoly on
> every major food crop here and abroad. If something doesn't
> change soon, it is safe to predict that a small number of "life
> science" corporations (as they like to call themselves) -- the
> majority of them American and the remainder European -- will have
> a monopoly on the seed needed to raise all of the world's major
> food crops. Then the hungry, like the well-fed, will have to pay
> the corporate owners of this new technology for permission to
> eat.
> 
> [To be continued.]
> 
> ==========
> [1] Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey, AGAINST THE GRAIN;
> BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF YOUR FOOD [ISBN
> 1567511503] (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1998).
> Available from Common Courage Press, P.O. Box 207, Monroe, ME
> 04951. Tel. (207) 525-3068.
> 
> Descriptor terms: agriculture; biotechnology; genetic
> engineering; regulation; usda; fda; epa; corporations;
> food safety; food security; pesticides; bt; glyphosate;
> roundup; monsanto; dow; dupont;
> 
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-- 
dawn 
aka gardenbetty

We will be known by the tracks we leave behind... —Dakota proverb