Global Campaign Against Monsanto and Genetic Engineering

[Guest guest]

Global Campaign Against Monsanto and Genetic Engineering

JoAnn Guest

Jan 03, 2004 11:50 PST

 

Interview with Ronnie Cummins on the

Global Campaign Against Monsanto and Genetic Engineering

 

Corporate Crime Reporter news;letter (Washington, D.C.) Jan. 25, 1998

 

INTERVIEW WITH RONNIE CUMMINS, DIRECTOR, CAMPAIGN FOR FOOD

SAFETY, LITTLE MARAIS, MINNESOTA

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Monsanto/interviewron.cfm

 

On February 7, 1999, representatives of morethan 50 activist groups

from around the globe will meet in Cuernavaca, Mexico to plan a

global

grassroots campaign against the Monsanto Corporation and genetically

engineered foods.

 

While mass-based grassroots campaigns have partially blocked

genetically engineered foods thus far in Europe, U.S. activists

have been stymied by a powerful Monsanto lobbying campaign that

has coopted the public interest movement inside the beltway,

intimidated the media, and forced several dozen unlabeled, untested

genetically engineered foods onto the marketplace.

 

Ronnie Cummins hopes to follow the lead of the European anti-genetic

engineering movement, reinvigorate U.S. activists here, and push for

a ban of all genetically engineered foods and crops in the United

States.

 

Cummins has been campaigning for food safety and sustainable

agriculture for a number of years now, leading the campaign against

bovinegrowth hormone in 1994-96. He is currently the director of the

Campaign for Food Safety, a

non-profit public interest organization based in Little Marais,

Minnesota.

 

We interviewed Cummins on January 19, 1999.

 

CCR: What is the status of food safety in the United States?

CUMMINS: The United States has the most contaminated food supply

in the industrialized world, according to official government

statistics putout by the Centers for Disease Control.

 

CCR: In what way is the food supply contaminated?

 

CUMMINS: There are several types of contamination. One is

chemical contamination -- pesticide, herbicides and fungicides,

drug residues from animal antibiotics and also from steroids and

hormones, contamination that is airborne from incinerator plants

and other industrial polluters.

 

Then there is contamination related to filthy meat and poultry

slaughterhouses and factory farms-- e-Coli, salmonella,

camphylobacter,listeria and other pathogens. And since 1994,

consumers now have to worryabout

genetic contamination as well, since the government has allowed the

commercialization of 37 new genetically engineered foods and

crops, with no special pre-market safety-testing required, nor

labelling.

 

CCR: The government Canada last week banned Monsanto's bovine growth

hormone

in dairy products and beef. I believe Europe has a moratorium on it.

CUMMINS: Yes, the only industrialized country in the world that

has made this genetically engineered animal drug, rBGH, legal is the

UnitedStates.

 

CCR: If you go out and buy a gallon of milk, what are the chances

that the milk comes from an rBGH-treated cow?

 

CUMMINS: The chances are pretty good because approximately seven

or eight percent of all U.S. dairy cows are being shot up with

this drug every two weeks. And since non-organic milk is typically

pooled -- genetically engineered milk is being co-mingled with

the regular milk -- you have most people getting at least trace

doses of rBGH in their milk and dairy products -- unless they are

buying organic dairy products or products certified and labeled

" rBGH-free " such as Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

 

CCR: What is rBGH and why do you think it should be banned from

the market?

CUMMINS: Genetically engineered bovine growth hormone is a

genetically engineered animal drug

that Monsanto developed. It mimics a chemical hormone that

occurs naturally in a cow's body. When you shoot up a milk cow with

Monsanto's rBGH, it forces the cow

to produce excess quantities of a potent chemical messenger called

IGF-1,which in turn forces them to give 15 to 25% more milk.

 

We call rBGH " crack for cows, " because when you shoot up a

cow with rBGH, it revs up their system in such a way that it

causes major stress on the cows, major animal health problems.

The government admits that there are 22 serious health problems

in cows that result from shooting them up with this drug.

 

This drug is dangerous for the cows, dangerous to humans,

bad for the environment, and certainly bad for family dairy farmers.

When you shoot up the cow with this drug, the animals suffer

a much higher rate of mastitis -- which is an infection of the

udder. Dairy farmers then shoot up the cows with more antibiotics

to fight off the infections, and many of the antibiotics end up

as residues in the milk, because the U.S. government does not

have an adequate system for monitoring the antibiotic residues in

the milk.

 

It is for that reason that the Government Accounting Office

recommended to the FDA, both in 1992 and 1993, not to approve

this drug. They said -- we've already got a problem with excessive

antibiotic residues in our milk supply and if you legalize rBGH,

the problem is going to get much worse.

 

The first concern regarding human health hazards is increased

antibiotic residues in dairy products. The second major hazard is

IGF-1.

 

There is mounting scientific evidence that humans who have high

levels of IGF-1 in their blood stream are more susceptible to breast

cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer.

 

CCR: If this is the case, then why did the U.S. government

approve it?

 

CUMMINS: It appears that the reason the U.S. government approved

the drug is because of a rampant conflict of interest in the

Clinton administration with the Monsanto Corporation. The top

scientists at the FDA at the time they were approving rBGH, such as

Susan

Sechen and Margaret Miller, had previously worked for Monsanto as

researchers.

 

And the top decision maker at the FDA on approval and

labeling, Michael Taylor, previously worked for the King & Spaulding

lawfirm, which has Monsanto and its subsidiary Searle as a major

client.

AfterTaylor left the FDA he once again went back to work for King &

Spaulding.

 

CCR: But it's not just rBGH that disturbs you about Monsanto.

CUMMINS: Monsanto has a 100 year history of producing toxic

chemicals, such as Agent Orange, PCBs, and NutraSweet, poisoning

workers,polluting communities, and then avoiding liability. In

Washington they

havebeen prime lobbyists for so-called tort reform--limiting the

damages from

those poisoned by chemical corporations and other polluters. And

Monsanto is the world leader in trying to force genetically

engineered foods and crops down the throats of consumers around

the world.

 

rBGH is important because it is the first product of

genetic engineering.

 

It was commercialized in the U.S. in 1994.

 

But since then there have been 37 other genetically engineered

products approved in the United States and a couple of dozen in

countries like Canada, Japan and Europe. The majority of these

new genetically engineered products have been commercialized by

Monsanto. These include crops such as the Round-Up resistant

soybeans, cotton and corn. The Bt cotton and Bt corn, which have

a pesticidal soil microorganism, Bt, spliced right into them. There

are also

genetically engineered tomatoes and rapeseed (canola) plants

marketed by Monsanto

 

Monsanto has been the most vocal of a handful of companies

across the globe pushing this technology. Others include DuPont,

Novartis, Agrevo, Dow, Eli Lilly, and Zeneca.

 

CCR: Monsanto says that splicing the pesticide Bt into the plant

is a good thing, because it eliminates the risk of spraying

pesticides.

 

CUMMINS: Bt is a soil microorganism. It is the most important tool

for organic farmers across the world and for farmers who are

trying to use fewer toxic chemicals. Say you are trying to grow

potatoes organically. If you have an infestation of potato

beetle, you would spray a bit of Bt on your crops, just the

minimum amount you need to repel the beetles, and just for the

shortest amount of time. In a similar fashion, Bt is used by organic

farmers as an emergency tool to repel corn borers in corn, or

boll-worms in cotton, or potato beetles in potatoes. It is the most

important natural bio-pesticide found out there in nature that we

have.

 

Unfortunately, Monsanto has now stepped up and said, look,

we are going to take that Bt and gene-splice it into the genome

of crops like cotton, corn and potatoes, so that every cell of

these plants will permanently be producing Bt. This will repel the

pests so farmers won't have to spray all of those nasty toxic

insecticides on the plants.

 

The problem with this line of reasoning, and the reason that

organic farmers are up in arms about gene-altered Bt crops, is that

as anyfarmer knows, if you overuse a biopesticide such as BT, the

pests willdeveloppermanent resistance to it. And there is a heck of

a difference

between using Bt as an emergency tool -- spraying small amounts -

- to gene splicing it into the plant.

 

And sure enough, we are already starting to see signs that a

variety of pests are developing

resistance to Bt.

 

Monsanto could care less about this. The problem is that

once Bt is rendered useless, how are organic farmers going to

survive economically? The answer is they are not going to be able

to. They are going to be forced to turn to toxic chemicals after

a few years or else go out of business.

 

CCR: Monsanto also makes Round-Up herbicide-resistant crops. What

are they about?

 

CUMMINS: Broad spectrum herbicides kill everything green. They

are incredibly potent. The largest selling broad spectrum

herbicide is Monsanto's Round-Up. You see ads for it in the media

for people

to use around their homes to kill weeds. Local, county and

state governments use Round-Up to spray along roads and

powerlines to combat weeds. You see drug authorities claiming

they are going to use Round-Up to eradicate marijuana.

 

Soybeans are an important crop in the United States.

If you

were to use Round-Up on a soybean field, you could only spray the

field before the plant popped out of the ground. These herbicides

are so powerful that they will kill anything that grows..

 

Monsanto decided that they will genetically engineer soybean

seeds so that the soybean plants would be resistant to

herbicides, including the broad spectrum Round-Up, so that you

could basically spray a world record amount of Round-Up on the

genetically engineered soybean plants and yet they will still

survive.

 

Monsanto argues that -- our company's herbicides aren't as toxic as

our competitors, so the world will be greener and we'll all be

better off if farmers plant our herbicide-resistant seeds. Of course,

that's nonsense.

 

CCR: Popular resistance to genetically engineered foods is

stronger in Europe than here. Why?

 

CUMMINS: The main reason why the European resistance to

genetically engineered foods has been so strong is first of all,

the fact that the historical experience of the Europeans with genetic

engineering during the Nazi era was horrific. When Monsanto or Dow

gene engineers pop up and say they are going to create a master race

of plants, Europeans are not that impressed.

 

Europeans also have a more heightened consciousness regarding out-of-

control technologies because

of recent nuclear plant accidents like Chernobyl and the advanced

state of environmental destruction in areas such as Eastern Europe.

 

So, people are more skeptical about Big Science over there.

 

Secondly, Europe, since 1996, has gone through a food crisis

triggered by the mad cow epidemic in Great Britain and other

countries.

 

Consumers have learned in Europe that industrialized

food production, in this case, feeding back dead and diseased

animals on an industrial scale to animals, has unleashed a deadly

and incurable brain wasting disease called CJD, which is the human

equivalent of mad cow disease.

 

Even though only 30 or 40 people have died from this particular

disease, scientists in the UK are

still warning that it could reach hundreds of thousands or even

millions before

this epidemic runs its course. So, people are very concerned

about what is going into their food.

 

Finally, the media in Europe have publicized the debate over

food safety and genetic engineering much more thoroughly than in the

UnitedStates.

 

In the U.S., if you ask someone on the street about genetically

engineered food, probably the only " Frankenfood " they have ever

heard of is

the bovine growth hormone. When the U.S. media did publicize the BGH

controversy in 1994 and 1995, there was a tremendous upsurge in

consumer concern about this, there were protests and milk dumps all

over the

country, 325 dairies pledged to not use rBGH, there were hearings

in Congress, a bill introduced in Congress and a federal court

case was launched.

 

But, now five years later, most consumers have no idea that there are

45 million acres of genetically engineered crops across the country,

37 ge foods and crops, and that most processed foods on supermarket

shelves have

at least traces of genetically engineered ingredients.

 

So, the American public is just now starting to learn that industry

and government have covertly genetically engineered a lot of the food

out there and that they're not allowed any choice over the matter

becausethe government says that it doesn't have to be labelled.

 

The government is

disregarding polls which have shown over and over again in the last

tenyears that 80 to 95 percent of American consumers want a choice

in themarketplace.

 

They want to know whether foods have been genetically

engineered or not, so that they can exercise their right to not buy

them.

 

Time magazine, in its January 13, 1999 issue, did a poll

which asked Americans -- " Do you want genetically engineered food

to be labelled? " And 81 percent said yes.

 

Only 14 percent said it wasn't necessary.

 

Even more frightening to the gene engineers and

companies like Monsanto, 58 percent of Americans told Time

magazine that if genetically engineered foods were labelled, they

would not buy them.

 

CCR: Last year, the Department of Agriculture proposed under new

federalregulations that genetically engineered food could be

labelled as organic.How did that happen?

 

CUMMINS: Because there is such a problem with food safety, and ge

foods, moreand more consumers over the past decade have been turning

toorganic food. Last year, $5 billion worth of organic foods were

sold in the U.S. This is only about 1.5 percent of the total food

dollar, but it is a market that is expanding rapidly -- 25

percent expansion every year.

 

In a poll done by NovartisCorporation in February 1997, 54 percent

of the American public

said that they want organic farming to become the dominant form

of agriculture in this country. So, the big food and biotech

companies

arelooking at this and saying -- this is not a good thing.

 

The organicindustry is

no longer just a few hippies selling some wilted looking produce

at a few tiny stores, this is now starting to be a big industry.

Corporate America needs to either take over this industry or keep it

marginal.

 

So, trade associations such as the Biotechnology Industry

Organization, the National Food Processors Association, Grocery

Manufacturers of America, and the Farm Bureau, sat down with the

Clinton

Administration and said -- let's draw up some federal regulations

on organic foods so that you can call genetically engineered

foods organic, so you can call irradiated foods organic, so you can

callthe products of factory farms organic, as well as foods

produced with toxic sludge organic. "

 

In addition, the Food Giants said " let's give the government a

monopoly over the word organic. Let's make it illegal for any organic

certifiers to

have standards higher than the minimum USDA standards, which,

we believe should be the lowest in the world. And let's ban anything

thateven implies organic, like eco-labels. "

 

So, the government released their proposed federal

regulations in December 1997, right before Christmas. But they

got a big surprise.

 

During the public comment period, 280,000

Americans wrote in irate letters, faxes, and e-mails to the USDA

basically saying " Hell no, we will not accept genetic engineering,

irradiation, toxic sludge, antibiotics, factory farming, or these

other industrial food processes under the organic label. "

 

By May 1998, the USDA realized they had a major problems.

Even companies like Monsanto told the USDA -- you better back off

on this biotech being okay under the organic label thing because it

isstarting to damage our entire reputation, it is starting to

damage the entire biotech industry. Back off for a few years and

we'll try again later.

 

The USDA admitted that they received 20 times more comments

from citizens on their proposed organic regulations than any

other USDA regulation in the history of the agency. So they said,

okay, obviously organic consumers don't want this, so we'll come

back with some better proposed rules.

 

Unfortunately, the USDA came up with a position paper on October

28, 1998 that is the beginning of the second set of proposed

regulations which showed they are still up to their old tricks. They

aretemporarily backing off on genetic engineering, sewage sludge and

irradiation, but they still want industrial agriculture practices to

enterinto the organic market forcefully.

 

But it appears that these latest proposals are not going to fly with

consumers either.

 

So, there is going to be a continuing battle throughout the

rest of this year and for the next several years over the

government's attempt to degrade organic standards and outlaw

dissent.

 

CCR: Farmers around the world are concerned that Monsanto is

undermining the age old practice of seed saving. What is

happening there?

 

CUMMINS: Traditionally, farmers would save their seeds and

exchange them. Over time, farmers improved the seed stock,

through trial and error. Since the Second World War, we have had

the development of a small number of seed companies developing

hybrid seeds. The seed companies were however never able to develop

hybrid seeds for rice and wheat and a number of other crops that they

really wanted to monopolize. So, farmers continued to save those

seeds.

 

The chemical and genetic engineering companies are saying that it is

not

a good idea for farmers to be able to save seeds any longer. We

have invested a lot of money into developing these seeds, they say,

and we don't want farmers to save them.

 

When you buy Monsanto's genetically engineered seed, you

have to sign a contract agreeing that you will not save and

replant the seeds.

You have to give Monsanto the right to enteryour farm and inspect

the premises to make sure you are not

saving your seeds. They want you to force you to come back to

Monsanto everyyear to buy the seeds.

 

It was revealed in the press about six

months ago that Monsanto was trying to prosecute several hundred

farmersfor saving seeds.

 

Last year the USDA and a company called Delta & Pine

Land Company, a cotton seed producer, announced they had a joint

patent for what is called the terminator technology. Delta & Pine

has since then been bought out by Monsanto.

 

The research on the Terminator Gene was done with taxpayer money and

now the exclusive rights to the patent are going to be held by

Monsanto.

The terminator gene is the solution to the seed monopoly's

problem of farmers saving seed. These seeds will not reproduce.

 

So, if you manage to corner the market in India for wheat seeds

by perhaps giving them away to farmers or giving them good credit

in exchange for the seed, when the farmers go to save their

seeds, as they have always done, they are not going to work. So,

they are going to have to come back to the seed monopoly to purchase

their seeds.

 

This technology is not going over well in countries around

the world. You've had Monsanto's experimental crops burned in India.

 

You'vehad mass demonstrations in places the Philippines.

 

The Terminator is a form of technological fascism.

 

Last year, there was a telling controversy in this regard.

Monsanto forked over $150,000 to the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

The Grameen Bank is the best known micro-lender in the world. It

lends small amounts of money to hundreds of thousands of poor

peasants inBangladesh. It has been a successful project.

 

Monsanto and the Grameen Bank announced they were launching

a joint project to make high-tech genetically engineered inputs

available to low-income peasants in Asia. There was a tremendous

uproar over this and the Bank was forced to give back the money

to Monsanto and back out of the deal.

 

CCR: Other activists around the world are engaging in civil

disobedience and destroying test genetically engineered crops.

 

CUMMINS: In the last several decades there have been several mass

citizen movements here and in Europe -- the civil rights

movement, anti-war movements, and the anti-nuclear movement. In

Europe, over the last three years, we are seeing a new mass anti-ge

and food

safety movement that rivals in scale the European anti-nuclear

movement of the 70s and 80s. We are seeing explosions of energy at

thegrassroots.

 

This movement is saying -- we refuse to have one more fascist

technology crammed down our throats, in this case genetically

engineered food. People have organized all over Europe and

destroyed the test crops of genetically engineered foods.

 

Groupslike Greenpeace have blocked the pathway of ships unloading

genetically engineered soybeans and corn. There have been protests

at the ministerial meetings of the European Commission. There have

been actions in which Novartis and Monsanto's offices have been

occupied byprotesters.

 

Farmers in France last year destroyed the entire shipment of

Btcorn seeds that were sent into the country. There have been

boycotts instituted that

have been successful to the point where major supermarket chains

in countries like Austria,

 

Germany, UK and Switzerland are now saying they will not accept

genetically engineered foods or ingredients.

 

In the UK, the parliament banned genetically engineered

foods in their canteens and cafeterias. Thousands of school

districts across Europe have banned these products. The European

Commission has responded by starting to develop laws that will

require mandatory labelling of genetically engineered foods and

crops. Activists are trying to force U.S. companies to segregate the

crops so that retailers and consumers have a choice in Europe.

 

CCR: Isn't it impossible to segregate the genetically engineered

crops from those that are not genetically engineered?

 

CUMMINS: No it is not impossible. The giant grain companies like

Cargill and Continental and ADM like to say that it is

technically impossible, but on the other hand, they are selling

" identity preserved " grains which are guaranteed not to be

genetically engineered--at a higher price of course--to EU buyers

who aredemanding these products.

 

CCR: Let's take milk. Can you tell whether milk has rBGH in it or

not?

 

CUMMINS: Approximately ten percent of the fluid milk in the U.S.

todayis labelled that it does not have rBGH in it. In today's New

YorkTimes, for example, there is an article about rBGH.

There is a

picture of Farmland Dairy milk. Farmland Dairy is one of the biggest

dairies in the New York City area. Right on their carton, they are

saying -- our farmers aren't using rBGH.

 

But for 90 percent of the non-organic milk in the U.S., consumers are

left in the dark as to whether it does contain genetically

engineered ingredients. To our knowledge, the only way a consumer

can guarantee that processed food or produce is not genetically

engineered nowadays is to buy organically certified food.

 

CCR: If these foods were labelled as genetically engineered,

consumers wouldn't buy them and the technology would be dead.

 

CUMMINS: Mandatory labelling, as called for in the May 27. 1998

lawsuit ofthe Center for Food Safety against the FDA, would slow

down the

technologyto the point where the public could take a long, hard look

at it and decidewhether it had any benefit or not.

 

As the head of Asgrow Seed Company,which is now a Monsanto

subsidiary admitted, labelling genetically

engineered food in the U.S. would be comparable to putting a skull

andcrossbones on it.

 

At this point, the public--even those who don't know that much about

this technology-- are using common sense and

saying -- if industry and government are going to such lengths to

conceal from us the fact that they are genetically

engineering our food, then it must be dangerous.

 

CCR: Do you believe that the technology is dangerous?

CUMMINS: I believe that it is dangerous, not only to public health

but alsoto the environment. You have to look at each

one of the 37 genetically engineered foods and crops

individually, but overall genetic engineering creates new toxins, new

allergens, damages the nutritional value of food, and creates

" superweeds " and " superpests. "

 

This is a totally unnecessary and radical new

agricultural technology being rushed to market because these

companies wantto drive up

their stock prices, monopoly markets, and make more money -- not

because itis going to do any of things its corporate apologists say -

- like clean thetoxics out of agriculture, or feed the world's

hungry -- that's all a bunch of propaganda.

 

CCR: We have neighbors who engage in genetic engineering by

splicing parts of one kind of apple tree onto another. How is

that different from what Monsanto is engaged in?

 

CUMMINS: Traditional cross-breeding of plants and animals can

only occur in species and varieties that are closely related. In

nature, you are never going to have a pig mate with a human being

and produce an offspring. And you are never going to have a

flounder fish with an antifreeze gene spliced in it. You are

never going to have a tomato with its ripening gene reversed. You

will never find these things in nature. Only the mad scientists in

labcoats can cross-breed outside of nature's laws.

 

Genetic engineering is a radical new creation whereby

scientists can take anything in nature and splice it into

anything else. They can put human genes into animals and plants,

they can take soil microorganisms and splice them into animals.

 

They can literally create new human beings, new plants and new

animals. And they are beginning to do this.

 

This has nothing to do with traditional cross-breeding

techniques. This is totally new, radical, bizarre--and dangerous.

CCR: There is a campaign developing here in the U.S. against

Monsanto. What's going on?

 

CUMMINS: After several years of hearing from activists across the

U.S. and Canada that Monsanto is out of control and we ought to

do something about this, a group of organizations in the U.S.,

including the Institute for Ag and Trade Policy, the Campaign for

Food Safety and the Center for Food Safety in Washington, D.C.

decided that we should organize a formal campaign.

 

Over the last four months, we've started having conference

calls with 30 or 40 public interest organizations talking about

this. We are now to the point where we are going to have a formal

meeting down in Cuernavaca, Mexico the first week in February

with activists from all over the world to plan a global campaign

against Monsanto.

 

Over the last three years, we have organized something

called " Global Days of Action Against Genetic Engineering and

Factory Farming " and we are intending this year to make the theme

in 1999 and 2000 " Global Days of Action Against Monsanto. " The next

GlobalDays of Action will run from April 15-30.

 

The major component of the Monsanto Campaign will be public education

and public mobilization, direct action, citizens taking actions

in their local communities and states.

 

Monsanto was chosen as a personification of technology out

of control and the bigger problem, which of course is that giant

corporations have taken over our government, stolen our

sovereignty, and are now telling us what to do in every aspect of our

lives. So we are talking about massive public education, direct

action,traditional type

campaigning, picket lines, boycotts, divestment activities, lawsuits

and so on.

 

We are also talking about getting these issues into the

media. The Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit May 27, 1998

against all genetically engineered foods.

 

They argued that all 37

of these foods should be pulled off the market because they were

never properly safety tested, not properly labelled, and because they

violate the religious and ethical rights of people who wish to avoid

gene-altered foods.

 

The Center for Food Safety, Greenpeace, and 27 other groups also

fileda legal petition against the federal

government in September 1997, demanding that the EPA and the USDA

pull allBt crops off the market. This legal petition will soon

become alawsuit.

 

A group of us went into federal court in 1994 to try to get

rBGH taken off the market. But unfortunately, we lost in federal

court that time. But on December 15, 1998, based on new

information out of Canada, we went back into federal court and

filed a legal petition to get rBGH taken off the market.

 

The idea is to use litigation, public education, media work

and publicity in the first stage of the campaign. But eventually,

we want to build it into a serious corporate campaign to get

institutional investors to pull their money out of Monsanto and

reinvest their money in sustainable and organic agriculture.

 

We willwork with trade union, church, environmental, farm and and

farm workergroups to put the maximum pressure on this corporation.

 

There are 1000 multinational corporations across the globe that do $1

billion or more in business a year. These are the new global

lords of commerce who call the shots. But we believe that it's

now possible to begin to take on a strategic number of these

corporations,teach them a lesson, and hopefully catalyze a larger

local-to-global

process whereby we in civil society start to take back control over

theinstitutions that control our daily lives and put corporations

back intheir place.

 

The traditional name for this in the United States is

participatory democracy, but what we're really talking about is a

SecondAmerican Revolution--part and parcel of what will by necessity

be a GlobalRevolution.

 

CCR: Why Monsanto first?

CUMMINS: We are not going to let the other giant half-dozen genetic

engineering companies off the hook (Novartis, Dow, Dupont, Agrevo,

Zeneca,Eli Lilly), but Monsanto is the leader of the pack.

 

Monsanto holds the majority of the commercially patented products.

Monsanto has been theindustry leader in using strong-arm tactics to

try to suppress

debate over these issues in the media and in academia.

 

They effectively forcedNew York Times reporter Marion Burros off a

story on Monsanto in 1994.They got Fox TV producers Steve Wilson and

Jane Akre fired for a seriesthey did on rBGH in 1997.

 

They did in a story on BGH by Tony Hiss that was

scheduled for The New Yorker.

 

Monsanto is a bully and we need to teach this bully a

lesson, lest the other corporations, who are bad enough already,

start to feel that they can get away with the same thing.

 

CCR: What happened with Marion Burros?

CUMMINS: The basic story that appeared January 19, 1999, in the

New York Times, by Susan Gilbert, was going to appear several

years ago in the New York Times. Burros was going to write a

story focusing in on this IGF-1 issue.

 

Monsanto got wind of this,hired one of the top libel firms in the

United States to call upthe Times and threaten them that if they

went ahead with thisstory they were going to sue them.

 

Public relations firms working

for Monsanto had taped a interview Burros had given where she had

made some critical remarks about genetically engineered foods.

Monsanto argued that this meant Marion Burros was biased.

Theyalso alleged that Burros had some relative working in the

ClintonAdministration.

 

The bottom line was that the story was killed and

to this day, Marion Burros has not been allowed to write about

the issue again.

 

CCR: What happened to Tony Hiss?

CUMMINS: In 1994 Tony Hiss worked on an investigative story for the

New Yorker, but the New Yorker--pressured by Monsanto-- killed the

story

and Tony had to go to Harpers, which printed a watered-down version

of

it.

It was the same old story. The lawyers at the New Yorker and the TV

networks now have more control than the editors when it comes to

being

threatened

by Monsanto or other bully corporations. This is a pattern that has

occurred over and over again in the last five years.

CCR: What do you hear about Monsanto's financial situation?

CUMMINS: It is pretty shaky. They have so aggressively bought up

seed and research companies in their quest to bio-colonize the

world that they have used up most of their available capital.

They also don't have the money for a adequate sales force to sell

theirproducts, because they are pharmaceutical company as well as an

ag

biotechcompany.

So, they cut a deal last year with American Home

Products to buy them out. But that deal fell though. And as the

financial press has pointed out, Monsanto has been on relatively

shaky financial ground ever since. They have been able to get

some advances from Citibank, they have successfully sold some bonds,

they are trying to sell off NutraSweet. According to Chemical

Week and the Wall Street Journal they are trying to sell rBGH. But

basically, they are overextended. We suspect that they are going to

bebought out by

DuPont or another chemical-biotech-drug giant sometime in the next

coupleof years.

 

CCR: What will that do to the Monsanto Campaign?

 

CUMMINS: It doesn't matter who owns Monsanto -- DuPont or Dow or

American Home Products. They are basically the same company with

the same policies. This Monsanto campaign will continue as a

DuPont campaign if DuPont buys them out.

CCR: What is your prediction as to the future of genetically

engineered foods?

 

CUMMINS: Genetically engineered foods are going to fail, just like

nuclearpower. The kind of opposition that has developed in Europe

and that we areseeing increasing in Japan, Australia and New Zealand

is

going to spreadin the U.S.

 

You are going to see the kind of resistance across

the board that you saw in 1994 and 1995 against rBGH. We too are

going to build a mass movement comparable to the anti-nuclear

movement of the 1970s and 1980s. This time it is going to be a

mass movement for sustainable and organic agriculture. We will

make clear that chemical-intensive and genetically engineered

agriculture are a threat to the planet and we have to put an end

to it.

 

CCR: Last week, we interviewed Dr. Sam Epstein. He said that

thirty years ago, the U.S. was way head of Europe on food safety

issues. Now, it is just the opposite. Why is that the case?

 

CUMMINS: In the U.S., we have a small number of big agribusiness

companies dominating everything. In Europe, the average dairy

farmer has 15 cows and they are making a decent living. In the

U.S., the average dairy farmer has 60 cows and they are facing

bankruptcy. In the U.S., we have 1.2 million farms left, but of

these farms, 53,000 of them produce half the food and fiber. The

agribusiness giants fully intend to drive the last million family

farmers

off the land and just end up with 100,000 factory farms producing

all of our food and fiber.

 

On a global scale they intend to drive twobillion small farmers and

rural villagers off the land.

In Europe, partly because they have proportional representation and

a more democratic system, farm and other

non-governmental public interest groups are much stronger than here.

Governments there can't afford to drive family farmers off the land

andthey can't afford to letagriculture, biotech and pharmaceutical

monopolies to get out of hand.

 

They can't ignore the fact that 90% of consumers are demanding

mandatory labelling and safety-testing of genetically engineered

foods,

andin the long-run are demanding that industrial agriculture be

phased out infavor of low-chemical input and organic agriculture.

 

CCR: One of the larger consumer groups in the U.S., the Center

for Science in the Public Interest has been remarkable quiet on

the issue of genetically engineered foods. Why?

 

CUMMINS: CSPI is a lukewarm advocacy organization. They claim

800,000 to 1 million members through their newsletter. But their

newsletter mainly addresses issue such as whether McDonald's

hamburgershave more fat than Burger King's hamburgers.

 

We need food safety groups that are willing to speak out on

chemical and genetic contamination issues. We certainly don't

have 800,000 rs like CSPI does subscribing to our electronic

newsletter, Food Bytes, but we are involved with 80 or so allied

organizations organizing a mass bass of consumer activists.. We

think downthe road, we will have a mass-based food consumer advocacy

united front inthe USA. Right now, we don't have that.

 

Instead of what we really need, right now in Washington, D.C., there

is the so-called Safe Food Coalition, which is headed by Carol Tucker

Foreman, a lobbyist and PR flack for Monsanto. Any public interest

coalition that allows a Monsanto lobbyist to speak to the media in

its name is a farce.

 

Inside the beltway, another pseudo-public interest group, Public

Voiceclaims to represent consumers' interest. But has Public Voice

ever come outstrongly on issues like food safety, factory farming,

nuclear irradiation,genetic engineering?

Not that we've seen. These groups like CSPI, Public

Voice, and the Consumer Federation of America are nothing but paper

organizations. Their strategy for influencing public policy is to

send

out

direct mail appeals and kiss the butts of the powers that be in the

Clinton

administration. Once the Republicans take back the White House,

they'll

be

cozying back up to them. We've got to get back to the old fashion

notion

of grassroots mobilization. There isn't any shortcut to building a

mass

baseof the millions of Americans who demand a transformation of our

agriculturesystem, and indeed a transformation of our entire

political-economicsystem. We have to do it and do it now. If CSPI

and these other

pseudo-progressive groups change their ways, we'll be happy to work

withthem. In the meantime we've got real work to do.

 

CCR: How many people do you expect in Mexico in February?

CUMMINS: We expect representatives from 50 groups from around the

world. It's February 3-7, 1999.

 

[Contact: Ronnie Cummins, Campaign for Food Safety, 860

Highway 61, Little Marais, Minnesota 55614. Telephone: (218) 226-

4164. E-mail: alli-. Web: www.purefood.org] To to

freeelectronic newsletter, Food Bytes, send an email to:

major-

 

with a simple message in the body of the letter:

pure-food-action

 

Ronnie Cummins, Director

Campaign for Food Safety/Organic Consumers Association

860 Hwy 61

Little Marais, Minnesota 55614

Telephone: 218-226-4164 Fax: 218-226-4157

email: alli- URL: http://www.purefood.org

 

Afilliated with the Center for Food Safety (Washington, D.C.)

http://www.icta.org

and the Organic Consumers Association

http://www.organicconsumers.org

 

To Subscribe to the free electronic newsletter, Food Bytes, send an

email to:major-

with the simple message in the body of the text:

pure-food-action

 

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