Bad Seeds: The Future of Food

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19628/

 

The Future of Food

 

Bad Seeds

By Denise Caruso, AlterNet

 

Posted on August 23, 2004,

http://www.alternet.org/story/19628/

 

In less skillful hands, a film about genetically

modified (GM) food could have been tough sledding for

regular folks to sit through. Making visual sense of

the science alone would be a daunting task. But The

Bad Seeds is an engaging and lucid presentation of not

only the science of genetic engineering, but of the

people and the politics behind what looks to be a

pitched battle to control the global food supply.

 

Deborah Koons Garcia, a long-time documentary

filmmaker (and wife of the Grateful Dead's Jerry

Garcia), spent the past three years writing, directing

and producing Food for her Mill Valley, CA-based Lily

Films. The idea for the film came after her

award-winning educational series " All About Babies, "

an in-depth examination of the first two years of a

child's life. She's had a lifelong concern about how

food is grown, and " I always wanted to make a big film

about agriculture that was as thorough as 'Babies,' "

said Garcia.

 

She's said that her goal in making the film was to

produce a cross between Silent Spring – Rachel

Carson's historic shot-heard-'round-the-world about

the dangers of chemical pesticides – and The Battle of

Algiers, the 1965 film by Gillo Pontecorvo that became

a training film for the Black Panthers as well as

those who opposed the Vietnam War.

 

And it's true, The Future of Food makes no secret of

its desire to see GM seed and food removed from the

food supply. But its rendition of the science of

genetic modification (and its potential risks) is

clear and accurate. And the many startling facts that

it presents about both the agriculture industry and

the U.S. government that continues to prop it up with

taxpayer subsidies make the film very difficult for a

reasonable person to dismiss as mere anti-GM

propaganda.

 

Fear of a Modified Planet

 

In farming, a monoculture is the result of cultivating

a single plant variety over a large area of land.

Monocultures make a single strain of plant – one

particular variety of soybean, for example, out of the

hundreds that may exist – particularly vulnerable to

being wiped out by a single pest, microbial infection

or some other environmental stressor, like an

unseasonable heat wave or cold snap.

 

In fact, according to the film, a monoculture caused

the 1845 potato blight and subsequent famine in

Ireland that killed a million people. When the same

blight hit Peru, where potatoes originated and many

different strains are still grown, its effect was far

less devastating.

 

One of the hazards that's already come to pass with GM

crops is that seeds from modified, " transgenic " plants

are contaminating fields planted with traditional,

non-GM crops. History provides ample evidence that

this type of contamination and other unintentional

plantings of GM seed may gradually create dangerous,

invasive species-type monocultures on many of the most

fertile, diverse and productive crop lands in the

world.

 

" A single genotype that's preferential crowds out

diversity, and that is a threat to food security, "

says one of the scientists interviewed in the film.

" Without access to genetic resources, we will have

challenges we cannot solve. "

 

And while this is a frightening enough proposition, it

becomes clear in The Future of Food that there are

other, equally insidious " monocultures " involved in

this story.

 

The second, more figurative monoculture is developing

as a result of consolidation in the food supply chain.

Today only four clusters of seed companies provide

seed to farmers around the world. In the last decade,

this consolidation has started to happen in the retail

sector too. Within the next 10 years, one expert

estimates, all retail food will come from six American

firms. This level of corporate control means we'll

have virtually no choice about what's on our store

shelves.

 

As another scientist in the film says, " Whoever

controls the seed, controls the food. "

 

The third and possibly most frightening monoculture is

the political one that Garcia details. It's already

contaminated most of what could pass as public

discourse, and it's co-evolved between government

regulators and industry. Industry, in the case of GM

food, meaning primarily the Monsanto Company.

 

A one-stop shop for global industrial agriculture,

Monsanto has also managed to install a revolving door

between its corporate headquarters and most of the

agencies in the U.S. government that regulate its

products.

 

During the first Bush administration, for example,

after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scientists

protested the lack of regulation for GM foods, the

agency hired Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto

official, to write a new, industry-friendly FDA policy

for GM food crops. Linda Fisher, a former executive

vice president at Monsanto, is now deputy

administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.

(According to the film, Fisher has actually been back

and forth between Monsanto and EPA three times.) Ann

Veneman, the head of the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, is a former Monsanto executive. So is

Mickey Cantor, former Secretary of Commerce. As is

Clarence Thomas: now a Supreme Court judge, formerly a

lawyer in Monsanto's pesticide and agriculture

division.

 

One is tempted to begin this next sentence with " As a

result ... " But of course we don't know why, exactly,

the U.S. EPA and FDA have determined that GM crops and

the foods produced from them should be classified

under the rubric " GRAS " – generally recognized as

safe. In any case, the fact remains that these

products require no labeling, no traceability, no

corporate liability and no ongoing collection of data

on health effects.

 

And the GRAS designation doesn't even touch the patent

laws that allow companies like Monsanto to prosecute

farmers who end up with Monsanto plants that they

didn't sow contaminating crops on their own property.

Just blowing in from a neighboring field is good

enough for the company to drive onto thousands of

farmers' properties and demand a sample of whatever is

growing in their fields. One farmer in the film, who

was being sued by Monsanto, believes the company has

sent 9,000 patent infringement letters demanding

payment, and has 100 active lawsuits against farmers.

 

" It's like a return to the feudal system, " he said.

 

Roundup of Reliable Sources

 

While The Future of Food falls short of Garcia's goal

of creating a hybrid of Silent Spring and The Battle

of Algiers, that's hardly her fault. First, there's a

shameful lack of scientific data about genetic

engineering overall: simply not enough to support or

condemn GM food in the same way that Carson condemned

DDT. As one scientist says, transgenic manipulations

are " probably the largest biological experiment

humanity has ever entered into, " while there's been

virtually no long-term risk or safety analyses to

support their widespread deployment. As for Algiers:

so far, successful guerrilla warfare against

multinational corporations has proven to be even more

difficult to sustain than war on the equally elusive

target of terrorism.

 

That said, the film is an eloquent, compelling

introduction to one of the most complicated,

critically important and criminally overlooked issues

of the day. It's a story well-told, mostly by the

people who are living it – the film's " consultants, "

as they're called, are for the most part involved in

blowing the whistle, or trying to, on the present

situation.

 

They include Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director

of the Center for Food Safety; Charles Benbrook,

Ph.D., the former director of the Board on Agriculture

for the National Academy of Science whose extensive

research counters much of the biotech industry's hype;

Rodney Nelson of Nelson Farm Enterprises in North

Dakota, who claims his livelihood and reputation was

destroyed by a Monsanto lawsuit; Ignacio Chapela, the

U.C. Berkeley professor whose graduate student

discovered that the Mexican land races of maize had

been contaminated with Monsanto's Bt version – and

whose peer-reviewed results were subsequently

disavowed in pages of a leading science journal; and

Arpad Puzstai, the former Rowett Research Institute

scientist who was suspended from his position after

releasing preliminary results that transgenic potatoes

had stunted growth in rats.

 

And perhaps most famously, Percy Schmeiser, the

Canadian canola farmer whose fields were invaded by

Monsanto's " Roundup Ready " canola seeds which blew off

a neighbor's truck driving by his land. ( " Roundup

Ready " seeds have been genetically altered to resist

the popular herbicide, Roundup, so that farmers can

douse entire fields with the chemical and only the

crops survive. Monsanto sells farmer both the seed and

the herbicide.) Monsanto sued him for infringing on

its patent, and the case went all the way to the

Supreme Court in Canada; Schmeiser lost.

 

People who know the subject matter may have some

quibbles with Garcia's presentation. For example,

nowhere in the film does she say that she tried to

contact Monsanto for a comment, although apparently

she did and they didn't respond. Noting this would

have deflected at least the most obvious criticism

about why and how Food is an un-balanced

representation of the situation.

 

And some of the facts of the cases she presents – in

particular, the Percy Schmeiser case – may have

suffered a bit from wishful interpretation. The

Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser decision made

headlines around the world because for the first time

a company won control over the higher life form – in

this case, the plant – that contained its patented

gene, and not just the gene itself.

 

But according to an article on the decision, published

in the July-August 2004 issue of the newsletter

GeneWatch, " the Court was at pains to point out that

its decision was based on the facts as found at trial

and that in different factual circumstances, a

different legal outcome " might have resulted. The

factual circumstances were that a year after

Schmeiser's fields were contaminated, Monsanto's tests

showed that 95 to 98 percent of his plants contained

the company's patented gene.

 

" The issue is not the perhaps adventitious arrival of

Roundup Ready Canola on Mr Schmeiser's land in 1998, "

it says in Paragraph 92 of the decision. " What is at

stake in this case is the sowing and cultivation [its

emphasis] which necessarily involves deliberate and

careful activity on the part of the farmer. "

 

Nowhere does Schmeiser or the film explain the

conflict between the original, accidental arrival of

Monsanto's canola on his land and the court's finding

– undisputed by Schmeiser – that he'd sown and

cultivated the seeds once they were there. Analyses of

the case have been based on wildly diverging versions

of what actually happened. By not acknowledging this

factor in the court's decision, the film again opens

itself to accusations of selective interpretation of

the facts.

 

But these are small as quibbles go. If The Future of

Food starts making the rounds on VHS and DVD in living

rooms, as Garcia is hoping it will, it might well

start a movement that cannot be stopped in the usual

fashion; that is, by maligning researchers or suing

farmers. Garcia says she often sees people cry during

the film, or they " get so freaked out about food that

they stay awake at night and end up going through all

their cupboards checking ingredients and chucking

food. "

 

Such reactions might instigate a grassroots response

across the U.S. much like that which is happening in

California today: following the example of Mendocino

and Trinity counties, which have passed laws banning

genetically modified organisms, several other

California counties have begun GE-free campaigns.

Vermont and Maine are considering moratoriums or bans

as well. The power of such a response should not be

underestimated: In response to overwhelming negative

reaction from consumers and suppliers around the

world, Monsanto has dropped its Roundup Ready wheat

globally and withdrawn its applications for food use

in all countries except for the U.S.

 

Of course, it has already been approved for human

consumption here.

 

'The Future of Food' will be screened August 20-27 at

the ArcLight Theater in Los Angeles as part of the

International Documentary Association's InFACT

Festival. VHS copies are available now; DVDs will be

ready mid-September.

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights

reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19628/