America's Masterplan is to Force GM Food on the World

[Guest guest]

Published on Monday, February 13, 2006 by the

Guardian/UK

America's Masterplan is to Force GM Food on the World

 

The reason the US took Europe to the WTO court was to

prise open lucrative markets elsewhere

 

by John Vidal

 

Just a few years ago, World Trade Organisation

officials used to act hurt when described by social

activists as irresponsible, secretive bureaucrats who

trampled over national sovereignty and placed free

trade over the environment or human rights. But that

was when the global-trade policeman ruled on disputes

that had little bearing on Europeans.

 

The WTO court's latest ruling will greatly increase

the number of people who believe the organisation

needs radical reform, if not burial. This week three

judges emerged after years of secret deliberation to

rule that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on

Genetically Modified (GM) food imports between 1999

and 2003, violating WTO rules. The court also ruled

that Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and

Luxembourg had no legal grounds to impose their own

unilateral import bans. " Europe guilty! " shouted the

US press. " This is glorious news for the Bush

administration, " said one blogger. Article continues

 

Actually, the judges said much more, but in true WTO

style no one has been allowed to know what. A few

bureaucrats in the US, EU, Argentina and Canada have

reportedly seen the full 1,045-page report, and an

edited summary of some of its conclusions has been

leaked. But no one, it seems, will take responsibility

for the ruling, which may force the EU to pay hundreds

of millions of dollars to compensate some of the

world's most heavily subsidised farmers, and could

change the laws of at least six countries that have

imposed GM bans.

 

In fact the US has mostly won a lot of new enemies.

Rather than going away, as the biotech companies and

Washington fervently hoped, the opposition to GM foods

seems to have been growing since 2004 when the case

was brought to the WTO. Europe, its member states and

its consumers all rejected the ruling last week,

making the WTO look even more out of touch and

incompetent to rule on issues about the environment,

health and consumer choice.

 

The European commission, which has been trying to

force GM crops into Europe over the heads of its

member states, says the ruling is " irrelevant " because

its laws have already been changed. Meanwhile,

individual countries who dislike being told what to

eat or grow by the EC as much as the WTO say they will

resist any attempts to make them accept GM.

 

In the past few days Hungary has declared that it is

in its economic interests to remain GM-free, and

Greece and Austria have affirmed their total

opposition to the crops. Italy has called the WTO

ruling " unbalanced " and Poland's prime minister has

pledged to keep the country GM-free. Local government

is even more opposed: more than 3,500 elected councils

in 170 regions of Europe have declared themselves

GM-free.

 

There is little the WTO, the EC or the US can do in

face of this coalition of the unwilling. If the US

again tries to impose its GM products on Europe - as

it did in the 90s, sparking the whole debacle - the

attempt will backfire. Europe's biotech industry may

now try to force the EC to use the WTO judgment to get

the six countries with import bans to repeal anti-GM

laws, but it will meet an even broader, more

determined movement.

 

In fact, Washington and the US companies are not that

bothered by Europe's predictable reaction. Europe has

all but dropped off the world's GM map. The companies

and the supermarkets know there is little or no demand

for GM crops, and that Europe's subsidised farmers are

reluctant to alienate the public further by growing

them.

 

It is now clear that the real reason the US took

Europe to the WTO court was was to make it easier for

its companies to prise open regulatory doors in China,

India, south-east Asia, Latin America and Africa,

where most US exports now go. This is where millions

of tonnes of US food aid heads, and where US GM

companies are desperate to have access, buying up seed

companies and schmoozing presidents and prime

ministers.

 

More than two-thirds of exported US corn now goes to

Asia and Africa, where once it went to Europe. As the

Monsanto man said this week about the WTO ruling: " Our

feeling is that it's important for countries other

than the EU to have science-based regulatory

frameworks. "

 

Like the tobacco industry, GM companies are now

focusing almost exclusively on developing countries.

But here the industry is meeting stiff opposition from

powerful unions and farming groups. Brazil has caved

in, but Bolivia may shortly become the first Latin

American country to fully reject GM. Some Indian

states are deeply opposed, and there have been major

demonstrations in the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia

and elsewhere. India's largest farmers' organisation

this week said the result of the WTO verdict would be

that the US would become more aggressive in dumping GM

food on to developing countries.

 

The US maintains that through the WTO it has won a

great victory for free trade, and passed a significant

milestone in US attempts " to have GM crops accepted

throughout the world " . Perhaps, but the battle is far

from won, and in the meantime anyone opposing the

crops is being reclassed as an enemy of America.

 

Within hours of the WTO decision, José Bové, the

French farmer who has led European protests, arrived

in New York to give an invited talk to Cornell

students about GM food - and was immediately sent back

to France by the US government.

 

john.vidal

 

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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