Force-Feeding The World

[Guest guest]

Force-Feeding The World

 

Robert Vint, UK Coordinator of Genetic Food Alert

http://www.saynotogmos.org/global_south2.htm

 

America's 'GM or Death' ultimatum to Africa

reveals the depravity of its GM marketing policy

 

Zambia has been told by the USA to use $50 million to buy America's

GM maize through the World Food Programme or face starvation. When

The US tried to force GM food aid on India an unnamed USAID

spokesman told the media " beggars can't be choosers " .1

 

In 1998 Monsanto sent an appeal to all Africa's Heads of State,

entitled 'Let The Harvest Begin',2 which called upon them to endorse

GM crops. Monsanto were following the advice of the world's leading

PR company to avoid the 'killing fields' of health and environmental

issues in the GM debate, such as the absence of independent safety

testing, and to shift the debate to focus on supposed benefits for

the poor. Western 'greens' should be singled out for demonisation

for preventing biotech corporations from 'feeding the world'.

 

Ministers in Western governments have been bombarded with propaganda

calling upon them to ignore the 'selfish' objections of their own

citizens - consumers, health advocates, environmentalists and food

retailers - because this technology was the only hope for the

world's poor. American TV audiences have seen hundreds of adverts

depicting smiling well-fed Third World farmers joyfully growing GM

crops. None of this propaganda is based on fact and, significantly,

none of it originates from the nations that would supposedly benefit

from this technology.

 

Monsanto's letter-writing exercise could well have been the most

catastrophic PR stunt in history. In response the Food and

Agriculture representative of every African nation (except South

Africa) signed a joint statement called 'Let Nature's Harvest

Continue' that utterly condemns Monsanto's policy. It stated: " [We]

strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our

countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push

a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor

economically beneficial to us " ,y " we think it will destroy the

diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural

systems that our farmers have developed for millenia, and that it

will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves " .2

on this page

Force-Feeding the World

more global south

Famine as Commerce

UN Dead Wrong

UNDP Pushes GE

Golden Rice

 

 

more education

Scientists Speak

Scientific Studies

Corporate Ties

Regulatory

Other GMO Issues

Farmer's Woes

In the Field

Force-Feeding The World (continued)

Since that memorable occasion four years ago none of these African

nations have accepted GM food or crops. The situation is no better

for Monsanto in other parts of the Global South.

 

Europeans were told that their insistence on labelling and

regulation of GM food and crops would restrict the development of a

technology desperately needed by the poor. But no poor nation was to

be heard making such claims. What are we to make of the claims when

dozens of poor nations themselves decide to regulate, label or ban

these products? And how sincere does American concern for the poor

appear when their Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick, responds by

threatening these nations with sanctions? Such threats are numerous:

 

America's treatment of Sri Lanka is one of the most shameful

examples of its coercive policies. Sri Lanka's Health Ministry

banned GM imports for a year on 1st May 2000, because of the

untested nature of GM foods, and renewed this ban on 1st May 2001

after the discovery of imported chocolates, oils and soups

containing GMOs. Within ten days the US began to use the WTO to

threaten sanctions. As a result the new import ban was postponed to

1st September 2001, but the President sent a 'strongly worded'

letter to President Bush to demand that the US stopped dumping

untested GM foods in his country. US threats continued and by August

peasant groups across Asia were protesting about them. Hundreds of

letters of solidarity were sent to the Sri Lankan Government. On the

14th August a petition from 200 organisations demanding an end to US

threats was presented the Bush Government. " Sri Lanka should not be

subject to oversight or punitive action by the WTO because of its

efforts to protect its citizens from the unknown risks posed by

genetically modified organisms, " the groups said in their letter to

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. These appeals were

ignored and on 3rd September Sri Lanka surrendered to threats from

the US backed up by its ally Australia. 3

 

Mexico's Senate unanimously backed GM food labelling in November

2000. Within three months the USA was threatening to impose

sanctions via NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Area - unless

the decision was reversed.4

 

The Secretary-General of the Thai Food and Drug Administration

revealed in July 2001 that a US trade delegation had threatened to

impose trade sanctions on Thailand if proposals to label GM foods

were approved.5

 

China introduced GM food labels and documentation requirements for

GM imports in May 2001. By October Ann Veneman, US Agriculture

Secretary (and previously Director of a Monsanto subsidiary), was

objecting to the inspection of imports of US GM soya. By March 2002

China had been forced to 'temporarily' abandon its inspections and

to allow unregulated imports of US GM soya.

 

Similar sanctions threats have also been issued by the USA against

wealthier nations such as Canada (March 2002 in response to plans to

introduce labelling), Argentina (Monsanto Warns Argentina to Loosen

GE Crop Restrictions April 2002) and the entire European Union (for

labelling GM food and for regulating GM crops)

 

These acts of diplomatic terrorism by the USA may be objectionable

but some of the steps it has taken to force acceptance of GM food

and crops by these nations are more extreme. America reasoned that

if no-one else wanted the crops then at least starving nations would

accept them. As one USAID spokesman said " beggars can't be

choosers " . America is now the majority stakeholder in the World Food

Programme, which it uses to facilitate the dumping of its crop

surplusses, so it was not difficult to ensure that its unsellable GM

crops ended up in virtually all WFP aid packages. As the World Food

Programme's previous American Executive Director, Catherine Bertini,

boasted: " Food is power. We use it to change behavior. Some may call

that bribery. We do not apologize " .1

 

But America is finding that it cannot even give its GM crops away:

 

In March 2000 The Independent (UK) reported on growing protests in

an article entitled 'America finds ready market for GM food -- the

hungry'. It stated that 'Aid is the last unregulated export market

open to US farmers as worried European and Asian consumers shun GM

grain and introduce strict import and labelling rules' and reported

on protests by the Malaysia-based Third World Network and by

Ethiopia's Dr Tewolde Gebre Egziabher who, on behalf of an alliance

of Third World nations, stated " Countries in the grip of a

crisis.. ..should not be faced with a dilemma between allowing a

million people to starve to death and allowing their genetic pool to

be polluted " .6 A report by Food First (USA) written around this time

concluded: " The US food aid system appears to disregard the rights

and concerns of recipient citizens in order to assure profits for US

agribusiness giants. It is a system that allows for the misspending

of public funds in ways that benefit the private sector; a system

that takes advantage of the lack of regulation concerning the

genetic engineering of food; and a system that undermines democratic

decision making about food consumption " .7

 

In the Philippines in April 2000 the nation's main farmers union,

the KMP, protested about USAID dumping unsellable GM food on the

country via the WFP. Rafael Mariano, chair of the KMP, condemned the

deal, saying " The US Department of Agriculture does not conceal the

true objectives of the program. It shamelessly describes the 'Food

for Peace' as a 'concessional sales program to promote exports of US

agricultural commodities' " .8 South Africa's Biowatch joined in the

protests, stating " Africa is treated as the dustbin of the world. To

donate untested food and seed to Africa is not an act of kindness

but an attempt to lure Africa into further dependence on foreign

aid " .8

 

In June that year cyclone-hit Orissa, India, was the unknowing

recipient of unlabelled and illegal GM food aid from the US. India's

Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology detected the

dumping, condemned it as a hidden subsidy for America's biotech

industry and issued a declaration calling for a ban on the practice.9

 

The Association of Burundi Consumers (ABUCO) and other organisations

wrote to President Clinton in September 2000 to protest about

dumping of unlabelled maize in Burundi and to ask why food exported

to Europe was labelled but food aid to Africa was not.10

 

In January 2001 Bosnian officials rejected 40,000 tonnes of GM

animal feed provided as aid by the US.11

 

Equador halted imports of World Food Programme aid for poor children

in May 2001 after the children held protests outside the WFP

offices.12 The food was from the USA and 55% of the ingredients were

GM so making it illegal in Equador.13

 

Later, in April 2001, Bolivians were furious to discover that their

food aid from the USA contained high levels of GM soya and cornmeal -

which were illegal under Bolivian law. US Ambassador Manuel Rocha,

ignoring the regulations, told Bolivia that " if they didn't like

genetically engineered food, they should think twice about ever

visiting the US because that is what we offer to visitors. " 14 Tests

of Bolivian food aid in 2002 have revealed Star Link corn and other

varieties banned in the EU.

 

In May 2001 tests arranged by Colombia Consumers (COCO) of Colombian

food aid supplied to the National Program of Food and Nutrition

Program revealed that the soya was an incredible 90% genetically

modified.15

 

In June 2000 Guatemalans protested about the presence of GM corn in

imported aid for drought-hit peasants,16 while eight leading

Nicaraguan organisations made similar complaints about the

activities of the WFP and USAID after food samples tested positive

for GM. A US Embassy spokesperson said emphatically, " We are not

using genetically-altered seeds. Neither USAID nor any other agency

is promoting or financing the distribution of such seeds within

Nicaragua. " Representatives of the World Food Programme also

issued 'denials' which on close reading did not deny anything.17

 

In the last few months America's controlling stake in the World Food

Programme has given it the power to exploit Africa's crisis by

offering its 'GM or Death' ultimatum to Zambia, Zimbabwe and

Mozambique. It is only because the US can prevent the WFP from

purchasing available non-GM food from Southern nations that it able

to tell these nations that they must buy GM maize, that they must

buy it from the US and that it must be unmilled.

 

Financially, this aid primarily benefits the US biotech industry

rather than the poor. The US offered Zambia $50 million (the annual

sum the biotech industry spends on TV ads) on strict condition that

it only be spent on GM maize from the USA. India has vast surplus

stocks of rice - 65 times as much as Africa needs - that would be

available at half the cost of the US maize, but Zambia is forbidden

to buy this with the money. Similar conditions were imposed on

Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi. Zambia's response marks

the death of the 'feeding the world' PR strategy. Referring to the

maize, President Levy Mwanawasa said " if it is not fit then we would

rather starve " 18 - and the national paper added " If the US insists

on imposing this genetically modified maize on our people, we will

be justified in questioning their motive " .18

 

In a region devastated by HIV/AIDS, where much of the population

have deficient immune systems, where bacterial diseases are

widespread and where outdated antibiotics are in widespread use

there are sound medical reasons to reject crops containing genes for

antibiotic resistance. This is the very reason for which they have

been rejected in Europe. 19

 

Monsanto and its Government cronies are desperate for real

television footage of starving Africans gratefully eating GM food -

so desperate that they would allow millions to starve if they fail.

But independent experts agree that agricultural biotechnology is, at

best, irrelevant to famine prevention.

 

American GM agricultural systems are irrelevant to poor and famine-

stricken nations. US farms employ under 2 million farmers yet will

require in 2002 a subsidy of over 20 thousand million dollars. This

subsidy does not help American family farms, most of which face

bankruptcy, but it does provide an essential indirect subsidy to the

biotech corporations. Poorer nations cannot support agricultural

systems that are so capital-intensive and that employ so few.

 

Indian food and trade policy analyst, Devinder Sharma,

says: " Somehow, biotechnologists prefer to turn a blind eye to the

ground realities, missing the realities from the commercial

interests of the biotechnology industries. In their over-enthusiasm

to promote an expensive technology at the cost of the poor, they

have forgotten that biotechnology has the potential to further the

great divide between the haves and have-nots.. .. Biotechnology

will, in reality, push more people in the hunger trap. With public

attention and resources being diverted from the ground realities,

hunger will only grow in the years to come " .20 Ethiopia's Food and

Agriculture spokesman, Tewolde Egziabher, agrees, adding " this

notion that genetically engineered crops will save developing

countries misses the real point. The world has never grown as much

food per capita as it is doing now, yet the world has also never had

as many hungry. The problem is not the amount of food produced, but

how it is both produced and distributed. For example, farmers in

developing countries who buy genetically engineered seeds that

cannot reproduce--and so can't be saved and used for next year's

crop--become tied to transnational companies like Monsanto " .21

 

A Christian Aid report states " GM crops are taking us down a

dangerous farm track creating classic preconditions for hunger and

famine " 22, whilst an ActionAid statement concludes " The use and

patenting of GM food and farming technologies in developing

countries could have extremely serious economic implications.. ..the

worst off are likely to be the poorest farmers.. ..this may

ultimately lead to the very poorest leaving farming altogether,

exacerbating the shift to cities and increasing urban poverty " .23

 

Even Steve Smith, Director of biotech corporation Novartis (now

Syngenta), admitted in 2000 that " If anyone tells you that GM is

going to feed the world, tell them that it is not. To feed the world

takes political and financial will " .24

 

There is no global shortage of food, nor is there likely to be one

in the near future. Europe and America destroy surplus crops each

year - but so do some of the poorest nations. The problem is not

production but distribution. During every famine the affected nation

exports food. Millions of people - including many farm labourers -

are now too poor to buy the crops grown in their own nations - or

even on the land they work. They starve while much of the world's

food crops are bought by the West to feed cattle, pigs and chickens -

and while much of the farmland is used, as required by the IMF, to

grow cotton, coffee, tobacco and flowers for export. The millions of

tons of surplus Indian rice that the Zambians are forbidden to buy

is rotting in warehouses because the poor of India cannot afford to

buy it. Malawi, too, had non-GM surplusses until a few months ago,

but was required by the World Bank to sell them to service its debt.

 

GM crops can do nothing to address the true causes of famine.

Inasmuch as they benefit wealthy farmers - who can afford the GM

seeds and the chemicals that must be used with them - at the expense

of smallholders, GM crops actually exacerbate the inequality that

causes famine. Exported GM cash crops, such as Bt cotton

and 'controlled-ripening' coffee, will not feed the poor - nor will

profits from them go to the poor to enable them to buy food.

 

GM 'controlled-ripening' coffee, being developed in the USA, does

away with the need for coffee-pickers - so threatening with

unemployment (and therefore malnutrition) up to 60 million destitute

coffee-pickers in over 50 nations.25

 

The 'Vision 2020' development project in the state of Andhra

Pradesh, India, will involve the clearance of 20 million cotton

growers and other smallholders from the land to make way for vast

automated plantations of GM cotton. The wealthiest landlords will

profit whilst millions of refugees will face starvation. 26

 

A handful of biotech corporations, such as Monsanto, now have

virtual monopoly control of agricultural seed and chemical sales in

many Southern nations - making the food security of these nations

vulnerable to stock-market fluctuations. The corporations have the

power to buy up any local seed company and thereby remove

traditional seed varieties from the market. To ensure a continuing

market for their products they are determined to destroy the

traditional practice of saving seed from one harvest for planting in

the next season. If farmers use their own seeds they will not buy

from corporations. To prevent this practice the companies already

give priority to the marketing of F1 hybrids - plants that produce

sterile offspring. But even more desirable for them are 'terminator

crops' - seeds genetically modified to ensure that they grow into

sterile crops - and 'traitor crops' - crops genetically modified so

that they fail to grow or ripen unless sprayed with a chemical

bought from the same company. Only when the biotech companies have

monopolised the seed industry and forced Third World nations to

accept GM crops will they be able to universalise Terminator and

Traitor crops and so permanently trap Third World farmers.

 

Through the 'GM or Death' aid policy it may be possible to force the

poor to eat GM food but it still seems difficult to force poor

nations to plant GM crops. The most effective technique is to ensure

that they are planted without consent. Several nations have

discovered that GM seeds have been illegally sold to farmers without

their consent - sometimes GM seed has deliberately been marketed as

conventional seed, often conventional seed supplies contain

suspiciously high levels of GM contamination and, finally, GM seeds

provided as food aid have been accidentally planted by farmers. This

seems to be the cause of the widespread GM contamination of maize in

Mexico, where GM varieties are banned.

 

Deliberate contamination through food aid neatly complements

America's strategy of forcing GM food down the throats of the

starving. Having successfully contaminated Mexico, America hopes to

repeat the exercise across southern Africa. America has made it very

clear to the African nations obliged to receive its aid that it will

only provide whole kernels of maize and will not mill them to

prevent them from growing. They know that wealthy farmers in these

nations, desperate to obtain seed corn for next year's crop, will be

able to pay more for this corn than will the starving poor. Once GM

crops are illegally growing throughout southern Africa, America

reasons, how will they be able to ban these crops?

 

GM crops have no future. The people of Europe, Asia, Africa,

Australia and Latin America refuse to eat them. Farmers in India,27

Brazil 28 and the Phillippines 29 are burning and destroying them.

The people of America are blissfully unaware of their existence -

but, when asked, 93% want GM food labelled and most would try to

avoid it. In response the share values of Monsanto are crashing. The

US is on the verge of a GM trade war with the rest of the world. Now

the principal marketing strategy of the biotech indus try, refined

over the years, has descended into blatant terrorism that threatens

the food security of dozens of nations and the lives of millions.

 

23rd August 2002

Robert Vint, National Coordinator

Genetic Food Alert

coordinator

 

References

Africa's Tragedy: Famine as Commerce. Devinder Sharma 06/08/02

 

Selling Suicide: farming, false promises and genetic engineering in

developing countries. Christian Aid

 

PANAP Press Release 14 August 2001 Asian Groups Strongly Protest

U.S. Threat of WTO Retaliation on Sri Lankan GMO Ban

 

(a) US Agribusiness Fights Mexico Mandatory Labels for GE Foods IS

MEXICO GETTING STRONG-ARMED ON BIOTECH LABELING? Rural UPdates!

March 29, 2001 http://www.defenders.org/rural3.html

(b) Industry mobilizes to modify Mexico's labeling measures February

12, 2001 -- Cropchoice news

 

 

 

US threatened trade sanctions to block GM labels, says Thai FDA just-

food.com editorial team http://www.just-food.com/news_detail.asp?

art=37810 & c=1 July 19, 2001

 

America finds ready market for GM food -- the hungry By Declan Walsh

Independent (UK) 30 March 2000

 

Food Aid in the New Millenium - Genetically Engineered Food and

Foreign Assistance Food First (USA)

[http://www.foodfirst.org/pubs/factsheet/2000/biotechfs1.html]

 

'Farmers decry dumping of hazardous GMOs from relief agencies,

biotech firms'. KMP Press Release, 14th April 2000

 

Action Alert (June 2000) STOP DUMPING GE FOOD! Research Foundation

for Science, Technology and Ecology, India rfste

 

5/9/00 BURUNDI: " GENETICALLY-MODIFIED " US FOOD AID SUSPECT. Text of

report by Burundi news agency Net Press on 5th September Source: Net

Press news agency, Bujumbura, in French 1834 gmt 05 Sep 00.BBC

Worldwide Monitoring/ © BBC 2000.

 

" Humanitarian " GM corn: U.S. Withdraws Genetically Engineered Corn -

Animal Feed Donation After Bosnia's Hesitation SARAJEVO, Jan 30,

2001 -- Agence France Presse

http://www.centraleurope.com/bosniatoday/news.php3?id=273802

 

EFE News Service May 18, 2001 ECUADOR-FOOD ECUADOR HALTS PROGRAM DUE

TO GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD

 

CHILDREN PROTEST IN FRONT OF THE OFFICES OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM 7

May 2001 Info & Photos from Red por una America Latina Libre de

Transgenicos Casilla 17-15-246-C Quito - Ecuador

ebravo

 

Let Them Eat Scrambled DNA: Genetically Altered Crops Included In

Bolivian Food Relief 22 Sept 2001 Earth Island Journal

 

TRANSGENICS FOUND IN PROGRAMS OF FOOD AID IN THREE COUNTRIES IN THE

ANDEAN REGION 05 May 2001 Red por una America Latina Libre de

Transgenicos transgen

 

U.N. SLAMMED FOR DISTRIBUTING GM CORN IN GUATEMALA Source: Reuters

http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/06/06122002/reu_47524.asp

 

Environmentalists Accuse World Food Program and USAID of

Distributing Genetically-Modified Foods SOURCE: NicaNet,

http://www.nicanet.org/hotline.php#topic1DATE: May 27, 2002

 

Dignity in hunger, The Post, Zambia, Editorial, July 30, 2002

www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/post/editcom.html

 

British Medical Association report: The Impact of Genetic

Modification on Agriculture, Food and Health 1999 ISBN 07279 1431 6

 

Biotechnology will bypass the hungry. Devinder Sharma. AgBioIndia

Mailing 28 June 2002

 

Why poor nations would lose in a biotech war on hunger. Marilyn

Berlin Snell interviews Tewolde Egziabher. Sierra Magazine,

July/August www.sierraclub.org/biotech

 

Selling Suicide: farming, false promises and genetic engineering in

developing countries. Christian Aid

 

AstraZeneca and its genetic research: Feeding the world or fuelling

hunger? ActionAid 1999 ISBN 1 872502 59 8

 

Steve Smith, SCIMAC and Novartis (now SYNGENTA), Tittleshall Village

Hall public meeting on proposed local GM farm scale trial, 29th

March 2000

 

Robbing Coffee's Cradle.... ActionAid

 

Prajateerpu: A Citizens' Jury/Scenario Workshop on Food and Farming

Futures for Andhra Pradesh, India. IIED 2002 ISBN 1 84369 191 4

 

Cremation Monsanto continues in Karnataka 05/01/02

http://www.krrsbtcottonsetafire.8m.com/

 

Friday January 26, 8:57 am Eastern Time

http://biz./rf/010126/n26491024.html Brazilian farmers

storm Monsanto, uproot plants

 

PRESS STATEMENT August 30, 2001 WE DARED TO STRIKE THE FIERCIEST

BLOW AGAINST MONSANTO by Greg Alvarez, Secretary General, KMP- Far

Southern Mindanao