Genetic Engineering and Environmental Racism

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15895

 

 

Genetic Engineering and Environmental Racism

Don Fitz, Synthesis/Regeneration

May 13, 2003

Viewed on May 13, 2003

 

 

As drought plagued southern Africa in the summer of 2002, biotech companies lost

no time in exploiting hunger for profit. The US offered to " help " by donating

food from GMO (genetically modified organism) crops. But African scientists knew

there was a catch. They had seen demonstrations showing that Europe wanted no

part of the technology. They knew that GMOs were associated with health and

environmental dangers. Worst of all, the Percy Schmeiser case suggested that if

GMO seed was planted in Africa, the next generation of GMO plants could result

in farmers owing " technology fees " to biomaster Monsanto.

 

Countries throughout Africa denounced the food-for-control ploy of the US. US

spokespersons brayed that African leaders were letting their people starve.

After massive US bullying, most African countries agreed to accept GM corn if it

was milled (ground so that seeds could not be planted). Zambia refused GM food

of any kind. The conflict scored a tremendous moral victory in exposing the

cynical complicity of the US government in fronting for corporate greed.

 

Opposition to GMOs coheres in 1998

 

For decades, biologists have known that a gene can be removed from a cell,

modified, and reinserted into the same cell or a different cell from another

species or even the other kingdom (plant and animal). As the technology

developed rapidly, during the 1980s and 1990s, scientists warned that the

process was inherently risky. Its critics spelled out in detail the range of

health, environmental and social problems that genetic " engineering " could

bring.

 

In 1998, many of those critics came together for " The First Grassroots Gathering

on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering. " The Gathering was in St. Louis, the

home town of Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's most aggressive proponent of

GMOs. The company's spokespeople claim that genetic engineering is necessary to

feed the world's growing population.

 

At the 1998 Gathering, researchers explained how shooting a gene into an inexact

location in a foreign species produces unpredictable results. Farm advocates

spoke of how genetic engineering produces lower yield, not the higher yield

promised by Monsanto. Health experts warned that genenetic engineering is used

to allow greater quantities of herbicides, which affects the health of farm

workers. Genetically engineered foods produce toxic reactions as well as food

allergies, which are most serious in children.

 

Those at the event learned how genes can escape from domestic crops to their

wild relatives, giving weeds immunity to herbicides. Genetically engineered

microorganisms can unpredictably kill crops and genetically engineered plants

can harm wildlife.

 

The Gathering attracted many newcomers to movement politics who were shocked to

hear from Jane Akre and Steve Wilson how Fox News in Florida bent to pressure

from Monsanto, suppressed their story on rBGH milk and ultimately dismissed the

reporters.

 

Vandana Shiva pulled the diverse knowledge together, explaining the way genetic

engineering is used by corporations to monopolize the seed supply and raise the

cost of farming so that agribusiness can consolidate its control worldwide.

 

Increasing danger, exploding opposition

 

Since the 1998 Gathering, threats from the biotech industry have increased

profoundly while opposition to it has exploded. The international movement for

labeling genetically engineered food gained tremendous world-wide support as it

exposed corporations who were terrified that telling consumers that their food

was genetically engineered would be putting a skull and crossbones on it.

Opponents have pulled up so many test fields of GMO crops that companies and

governments have taken to hiding their locations.

 

Biotech proponents have frenetically sought to silence criticism as they shriek

that corporate-funded research is the only road to scientific truth. When he

began his investigations, Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute in

Scotland was neither for nor against genetic engineering. But when results of

his own studies showed that rats fed genetically engineered potatoes had damaged

internal organs, he felt compelled in 1998 to warn the public. He was

involuntarily retired from his position and condemned in a report by the British

Royal Society.

 

In 2001, the journal Nature published findings of University of California

researcher Ignacio Chapela showing that genetically contaminated corn

cross-pollinated with native Mexican species hundreds of miles away. For the

first time in its heretofore distinguished history Nature bowed so low to

corporate greed that it printed a retraction of Chapela's article (based on

methodological disagreements which did not challenge the finding of

cross-pollination).

 

About the same time, the world became aware of the plight of Saskatchewan farmer

Percy Schmeiser. Monsanto's corporate police had trespassed on Schmeiser's

fields to steal canola plants for testing. Monsanto sued Schmeiser for patent

violations when genetic testing showed the presence of Roundup Ready Canola DNA.

The court ruled in Monsanto's favor, declaring irrelevant Schmeiser's testimony

that he never used the Monsanto product and that wind-blown pollen had

contaminated his fields.

 

Hunger in 2002

 

These events set the stage for countries of southern Africa telling the US " No

GMOs " in summer 2002. One of the most eloquent spokespersons on the dangers of

GMOs to Africa has been Ethiopia's Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, a winner

of a Right Livelihood Award in 2000. Egziabher believes that, even though global

warming is making droughts more frequent, Ethiopia is able to feed itself by

storing surplus food during bumper harvests.

 

Hunger is due to the country's being too poor to ship stored food from one

location to another. International food aid agencies could assist impoverished

African countries by cash donations that would help develop their transportation

systems as well as strengthen local farms. In contrast, the US concept of food

aid is to create dependency in Africa by dumping US GMO food that Europe won't

touch.

 

Egziabher also fears that economic dependency on GMO food from the US is fraught

with health, environmental and patent dangers.

 

One of the main GMO crops is corn. Donated GMO food could become the entire diet

of starving people, as opposed to only a portion of food eaten by those in other

parts of the world. This means that any long-term effects of allergenicity,

cancer, or birth defects (which have not been adequately studied), could be

multiplied for victims of famine.

 

What would happen if African farmers saved GM seed and replanted it? GM pollen

is known to kill butterflies, which are important pollinators for African crops.

GM crops have lower yield, since they are designed for farmers who can afford

large amounts of pesticides. Many animals refuse to eat stems and leaves of GM

corn. If pigs eat GM food, their reproductive capacity can be reduced.

 

Despite the treatment of Chapela by Nature, African scientists know that wind

can spread GM pollen across the continent. If that contaminates enough African

crops, Europe would not buy them, leaving desperate farmers crushed.

 

African governments also know of the Percy Schmeiser case. If fields are

contaminated by GM pollen and the next generation of corn tests positive for GM,

farmers would become patents violators and owe technology fees to Monsanto and

other biomasters. Massive impoverishment could cause the transfer of land

throughout Africa.

 

Returning to St. Louis, May, 2003

 

The 1998 Biodevastation Gathering sparked subsequent events in Seattle, New

Delhi, Boston, San Diego and Toronto. The anti-genetic engineering movement has

won the hearts and minds of Europe and India and support from governments in

southern Africa. In the US, there is a strong alliance between anti-GE

activists, family farm organizations, and the anti-globalization movement. Now

is the time for the anti-GE movement to reach out to social justice, peace and

environmental movements.

 

On May 16-18, 2003, the Biodevastation series will return to St. Louis for the

gathering on " Genetic Engineering: A Technology of Corporate Control. " The

Gateway Greens are working with the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis

to make this the cutting edge event defining links between environmental racism

and biotechnology industries. Subtitled " A Forum on Environmental Racism, World

Agriculture and Biowarfare, " the gathering is organized around five main themes:

" The International Threat to Farms and Farmers, " " Corporate Greed and

Environmental Racism, " " Biowarfare, " " Globalization and Food Imperialism, " and

" Crop Contamination and the Future of Indigenous Agriculture. " Each theme will

have a panel and associated workshops, including a workshop for coordinating

future actions.

 

As genetic engineering drives the price of farming too high for the poor, it

pushes them off their land, destroys ecosystems existing in harmony with the

land, transforms its victims into " terrorists " if they resist, and leaves them

to discover the unknown effects of eating genetically contaminated food when

their bodies have been poisoned with countless agricultural chemicals.

Biodevastation 7 will be the first time a gathering focuses on how genetic

engineering is used to crush people of color. Even more important, it will

develop more coordinated resistance between the expanding numbers of people who

realize the danger of the technology.

 

Upcoming actions across the U.S.

 

May 18 -- 20 An anti-globalization convergence will coincide with the World

Agricultural Forum (WAF), scheduled for May 18-20 in downtown St. Louis. Every

two years, the WAF brings together the biotech industry, Western scientists and

US Officials who try to coerce government leaders of the global South into

accepting corporate control of food and fiber through the sale of GMOs. MoRAGE

(Missouri Resistance Against Genetic Engineering) is calling for action at this

year's WAF.

 

Farmers from all over North America will attend Biodevastation 7 and actions at

the WAF. Some will go to the WAF site on May 18 to demand that their concerns be

heard. MoRAGE will have speakers with alternatives to the globalization of

agriculture in downtown St. Louis.

 

Get more information on WAF actions at WorldAgForum.com or call 314-771-8576.

 

May 19 - June 19. A fun and educational Caravan Across the Cornbelt will bicycle

from St. Louis to Washington DC where the Biotechnology Industry Organization

(BIO) will hold its annual convention in June. The Caravan will be a month-long

bicycle spectacle covering over 1000 miles, featuring puppet shows,

presentations, speak-outs, clown acts, and music. All concerned citizens,

clowns, puppeteers, bike riders, messengers, farmers, and eaters of food are

invited to bring a bicycle and join the ride! Contact caravan.

 

June 20 - 22, Washington, DC and Sacramento, California. People will gather in

Washington in response to the annual convention of BIO. Contact larcher.

At the same time, trade ministers from all around the world will be meeting in

Sacramento CA at the invitation of US Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman. This

WTO-level meeting is designed to promote the biotech agenda in preparation for

this fall's WTO ministerial meeting in Cancún, Mexico. Contact wto.

Don Fitz is the editor of Synthesis/Regeneration.

 

Get more information on Biodevastation 7 at BioDev.org or 314-353-8176.

 

 

 

© 2003 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

 

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