How Europe is Re-colonising America with Help from the Natives

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21 Nov 2004 16:52:10 -0000

 

How Europe is Re-colonising America with Help from the Natives

 

 

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The Institute of Science in Society Science Society

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ISIS Press Release 21/11/04

 

How Europe is Re-colonising America with Help from the

Natives

 

 

A major row has erupted over an industry-led proposal to

make GM soya in Argentina " sustainable " , and the blame is

laid squarely at Europe's door. Dr. Mae Wan Ho reports

 

Argentina's GM soya woes

 

Argentina, once the " bread-basket " of the world, has been

transformed since 1997 into a GM soya republic (see

" Argentina's GM woes " , SiS 20 http://www.i-

sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis20.php). Within the past decade, more

than 160 000 families of small farmers have been driven off

their traditional mixed/rotation farms to be replaced by

large-scale soya monocultures. From the 38 000 hectares

planted in 1970, soya expanded to 13 million hectares or

more today, practically all GM. Around 70% of the harvest is

converted to oil, most of which is exported, providing 81%

of the world's exported soya oil and 38% soya meal, mostly

fed to cattle.

 

As a result, Argentina is devastated by massive rural

depopulation and impoverishment, increased deforestation and

desertification. The use of the herbicide glyphosate

increased nearly four fold from 28 million litres to 100

million litres in 2002; and additional, highly toxic

herbicides, some banned in other countries, have had to be

brought back in use, as numerous glyphosate-tolerant weeds

sprang up.

 

Peasants living near GM soya fields and other inhabitants

near plantations that have taken over the suburbs are

suffering serious health problems from the aerial herbicide

sprays, including birth defects and cancers.

 

With an increase in poverty, a glut in soya and severe

deficit of other agricultural produce, the government began

to promote soya as a 'healthy alternative' to the

traditional meat and milk. As a result, many people,

especially the poor, are forced into a predominantly soya-

based diet and to suffer nutritionally damaging effects

including the early onset of puberty, possibly linked to

high levels of phytoestrogens in soya.

 

Before the introduction of GM crops, Argentina was one of

the countries with the highest certified organic production.

Organic crops can no longer be produced, due to transgenic

contamination, while Argentinean honey has been downgraded

because of chemical residues.

 

Cattle-farming too, has been displaced by soya to marginal

areas and flood planes, and worse, to livestock feed lots,

where rather than feeding on pastures, the cattle are fed

grains, especially soya, with added antibiotics and

hormones.

 

Traditional grass-fed Argentinean beef, much prized by

locals and visitors alike, is fast disappearing, as are the

pampas, the beautiful grasslands for which Argentina is

renown.

 

" Sustainable Soya " ?

 

What can bring Argentina's downward spiral to a halt?

Industry is proposing more of the same: to increase the

production of exportable grain from sixty to one hundred

million tonnes per annum, an expansion that will probably

require ten or more million hectares of GM crops planted in

addition to the existing 15 million hectares cultivated.

That proposal is supported by government institutions such

as the Ministry of Agriculture (SAGPYA), the National

Institute of Technology in Agriculture (INTA), the National

Service for Animal and Plant Health (SENASA), and the

National Research Institute (CONICET).

 

But, to increase production of exportable soya at this

juncture carries the real risks of an ecological catastrophe

as well as social upheavals. So, industry needs the help of

non-government organisations (NGOs). Hence the initiative,

" Sustainable Soya " , started under the mandate of the World

Wildlife Fund (WWF), via its Argentinean agency Fundacion

Vida Silvestre, together with Fundación Ambiente y Resursos

Naturales, Greenpeace, the Faculty of Agronomy of the

University of Buenos Aires and several companies.

 

The initiative was presented in a report published by the

WWF in Gland, Switzerland, in September 2004, Managing the

soya boom: Two scenarios of soy production expansion in

South America.

 

" At best naïve and at worse cynical "

 

The Argentina-based Grupo de Reflexión Rural (GRR) is

alarmed at the development. This monoculture model, it says,

is essentially agriculture without farmers, and inevitably

leads to the concentration of land ownership and mass

depopulation of rural areas. And it cannot be reversed in

the manner proposed in the document. In reality, the policy

of the WWF is not to challenge the soya model, but to

facilitate its implementation within the areas currently

cultivated, while hopefully avoiding the social upheavals

that are expected and feared.

 

Defending the report, Matthias Diemer, head of WWF's forest

Conservation Initiative said, " The study shows that it is

possible to achieve higher production of soya without

destroying nature. "

 

But Jorge Eduardo Rulli, a spokesperons for GGR, is

extremely critical.

 

" Certain environmental organisations are supposed to search

to establish sanctuaries within the national parks and

exploit the remaining native forests, while acting as guides

and experts to help prevent the collapse of the ecosystems. "

He says, " The scientific and technical institutions are

naively pursuing a national biotechnology project,

neglecting that even the most minute laboratory procedures

are protected by patents, and placing the already depleted

resources of the State at the service of multinational

interests. "

 

" By accepting the reality created by the multinationals, the

WWF is condemning the south of our continent to the role of

commodity producers, with no means of defending our food

sovereignty and food security. " Rulli continues. " Their

reasoning is to multiply the capacity of commodity

production of our countries, while preserving only a

fraction of our forests and natural ecosystems. The

pretension of making soya production sustainable is at best

naïve and at worst cynical. "

 

Unfortunately, many small farmers have also been taken in,

and are trying to get their share of the perceived goodies.

They are arguing for land tenure, in the belief that they

don't have to pay royalties for their seeds, and drumming up

support for so-called agrarian reform, while fully complying

with the " sustainable " soya model. Many of the urban union

leaders, too, ignorant of the true damage of GM

monocultures, continue to press for a fairer distribution of

the gains, arguing that this would benefit consumers. They

denounce corrupt practices, such as the under-declaration of

grain exports, implying that better custom controls and

taxation could generate sufficient funds for solving the

acute social problems.

 

In the mean time, major charities such as the Rotary Club

and CARITAS continue with their plans to install " soya milk "

machines (called " mechanical cows " in Argentina) for use in

hospitals and areas of extreme poverty, and incorporating

soya-based foods in soup kitchens. In this way, they are

legitimising the monoculture of GM soya among the poor, and

establishing a double standard in nutrition, in which the

poor are fed on GM products.

 

According to GRR, all these groups are effectively colluding

with the multinationals that dominate our export market and

have converted Argentina into a soya republic.

 

Instead, the group declares: " We need to recover our

national dignity and denounce this soya model, and our

country's role as commodity producer and biotechnology

laboratory. We need to reconstruct the State by taking

charge of foreign trade and reorganise the Junta Nacional de

Granos (the organisation for the storage and distribution of

seeds at national level) that would maintain fair prices for

foods destined for the tables of Argentineans. We need to

return to the production of seeds, to recover our genetic

heritage, and create the foundations for a different

agrarian model, with food sovereignty and local development

as national objectives. "

 

Europe is to blame

 

Argentina's apparent success in export is also its most

abject failure, according to GRR, because export agriculture

has destroyed the tradition of a country that's able to

produce, and has, until quite recently, produced abundant

and diverse healthy foods; and at the same time, condemned

the vast majority of its people to hunger and misery. Just

as Argentina is failing to protect the interests of its

people, Europe is effectively forcing another continent

(Argentina and other Latin American countries) to produce GM

cattle feed that is overwhelmingly rejected by its citizens.

 

GRR is accusing the " globalised Europe " of attempting to

maintain a standard of living close to that of the US by

forcing Argentina into the role of commodity providers to

pay back its external debt. This has nothing to do with

peace and prosperity for the European Union, but " a sad and

perverse expression of the Europe's dirty colonial past " .

 

" Let us also remember that the external debt was imposed

upon us during a military dictatorship, at the cost of

widespread terror and thirty thousand lives. " Rulli warns.

 

For more information, e-mail:

grupodereflexionrural; or rtierra

 

 

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