BioDemocracy News #38

[Guest guest]

BioDemocracy News #38 February/March 2002

Market Pressure: Busting BGH and Biotech

By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

 

Quotes of the Month:

 

" In this 'Biotech Century' of out-of-control technology, public

relations spin, and indentured science and government, global

marketplace pressure campaigns have become a powerful tool for

consumers to demand safe and sustainably-produced food, to call for

Fair Trade and economic justice, and to drive genetically engineered

foods and crops off the market. " Interview with John Stauber, author

of Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and

Gambles with Your Future and publisher of PR Watch www.prwatch.org

1/26/02

 

" Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food.

Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its

safety is the FDA's job.'' Phil Angell, Monsanto's Director of

Corporate Communications, New York Times 10/25/98

___________

BIOTECH BOASTING: ARE FRANKENFOODS CONQUERING THE WORLD?

 

In January, a biotech industry front group, International Service for

the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), announced, with

great fanfare, that global acreage of genetically engineered (GE)

crops had increased 19% in 2001. According to ISAAA, 5.5 million

farmers last year planted 130 million acres (52.6 million hectares) of

GE crops, a 30-fold increase since 1996. For the year 2000, ISAAA had

reported a somewhat smaller 11% growth in GE acreage. Cheerleaders

for Frankenfoods, including Monsanto and the American Farm Bureau,

hailed ISAAA's most recent projections as " proof " that the Biotech

Century was going forward, despite widespread opposition in Europe and

Asia, and increased rumblings of discontent among North American

consumers and farmers.

 

Although most of the corporate media dutifully regurgitated ISAAA's

press release on the " progress " of agbiotech, a closer more critical

look at the evidence reveals a somewhat different story. First of

all, ISAAA estimates on crop acreage are based on interviews with

" true believers, " farmers who are growing GE crops. Secondly, ISAAA

gets its funds from corporations such as Monsanto, Aventis, and

Pioneer (Dupont). In addition, previous assertions made by the group'

s spokesman, Clive James have subsequently been proven false. For

example, James claimed that 1998 plantings of GE soybeans resulted in

a 12% yield increase, when in fact yields fell 6-12%.

 

Finally, even assuming ISAAA's estimates are correct, BioDemocracy

News believes they are inflated); biotech industry trends themselves

tell a different story. For example: global GE crop acreage grew over

thirty-fold in 1996; 675% in 1997; 255% in 1998; and 143% in 1999. In

comparison, puny 11%-18% growth rates in 2000 and 2001 indicate a

sharp leveling off in demand for GE seeds worldwide, rather than an

increase--obviously a reaction to the growing global opposition

against Frankenfoods. ISAAA boasts that 5.5 million farmers around

the world are now growing GE crops (another questionable figure) but

forgets to mention that there are 2.4 billion farmers and rural

villagers who are not growing GE crops.

 

Despite industry rhetoric, very few countries are willing to ignore

public opposition and allow the commercial cultivation of GE soybeans,

corn, cotton, or canola, the only four crops currently being grown on

any significant scale. While farmers in 130 nations are currently

producing certified organic crops, a grand total of three nations,

(the US-with 68% of the world's GE crops, Canada-6%, and

Argentina-22%) are still producing 96% of the world's Frankencrops.

Several highly touted GE crops, the Flavr Savr tomato and Monsanto's

Bt potato, have already been taken off the market. Moreover the US,

Canada, and Argentina are finding that that their major overseas

customers such as Europe, Japan, and South Korea no longer want to buy

GE crops, even for animal feed. In Europe, the largest agricultural

market in the world, grassroots market pressure has forced all of the

major supermarket chains and food companies to remove GE ingredients

from their consumer products. Meanwhile, on the regulatory front, no

new GE crops have been approved for commercialization in the EU since

1998.

 

Syngenta (formerly Novartis), the largest biotech company in the

world, has removed all GE ingredients from its consumer food products.

Because of increasing marketplace pressure, 25% of all animal feed in

the EU is already GE-free. In a recent poll 80% of British consumers

said they would avoid purchasing meat or dairy products from animals

fed GE feed. Even China, which was supposed to be the Promised Land

for agbiotech, has been reluctant to embrace Frankencrops (other than

Bt cotton), sensing that the real future for their agricultural

exports to Asia and the EU will be non-GE and organic crops.

 

Agbiotech industry propaganda about feeding the world through

increased productivity is no longer credible. As Amory and Hunter

Lovins, founders of the Rocky Mountain Institute, point out:

" Genetically engineered crops were created not because they are

productive but because they're patentable. Their economic value is

oriented not toward helping subsistence farmers to feed themselves but

toward feeding more livestock for the already overfed rich. " Currently

63% of the world's GE crops are soybeans, used primarily for animal

feed. Corn, again mainly for animal feed, makes up 19% of all GE

crops, while rapeseed, used for animal feed and cooking oil, makes up

5%. Even cotton, which constitutes 13% of all GE crops, provides feed

for cattle, in the form of cottonseed and cotton gin trash.

 

A look at ISAAA's figures for 2001 and 2000 reveal that most of the

growth in global GE acreage in 2001 resulted from increased

cultivation of Monsanto's flagship GE product, herbicide-resistant

Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans, by farmers in Argentina (where Monsanto

is selling RR seeds at bargain basement prices, trying to boost sales)

and the US (where farmers have to grow more and more soybeans in order

to obtain government subsidies and to make up for record low prices of

soybeans on the world market). One might ask why US farmers are

buying so many RR soybeans, since they cost more (US soy farmers have

complained about Monsanto selling RR beans at a much lower price in

Argentina) and since RR varieties actually produce a 6-12% lower yield

as documented by Dr. Charles Benbrook and others.

 

The answer to the riddle of why US farmers and their counterparts in

Argentina are planting so many RR soybeans does not bode well for the

future of GE crops. In Argentina, Monsanto's seeds are the cheapest

seeds available. If Monsanto sold RR seeds worldwide at such low

prices they would lose much of their profitability as a company. In

Latin America, Monsanto and their allies (Cargill and Archer Daniels

Midland) are desperate to develop a major market for RR soybeans,

since Argentina's next door neighbor, Brazil, now the largest producer

of soybeans in the world, has a ban on GE soybeans and has taken over

the major US overseas soybean markets in the EU, Japan, and Korea,

where anti-GE sentiments are strong.

 

Government Subsidies--Why US Farmers Plant GE Crops

 

American farmers are planting millions of acres of RR soybeans and

other GE crops, not because there is a market demand for them, but

because they are receiving taxpayer subsidies from the US government.

Although gene-altered RR seeds and Roundup herbicide are expensive,

herbicide-resistant soybeans are more convenient and less

time-consuming to grow than traditional varieties-enabling farmers to

plant, weed, and harvest more and more acres in a limited amount of

time. Instead of having to till weeds with their tractors and spray

several different toxic pesticides, farmers need only spray Monsanto's

potent broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup, which kills everything

green-except for the GE soybean plants. Especially for cash and

time-strapped farmers earning most of their money from off-farm

employment (US family farmers get about 90% of their net income from

jobs off the farm), this " efficiency " makes RR soybeans seem

attractive.

 

Far more important is the fact that in the US, the more acres a farmer

plants in soybeans (or other subsidized crops like corn or cotton),

the more money the farmer gets from the government farm subsidy

program, which last year paid out $28 billion. Of this $28 billion in

farm subsidies, at least $7-10 billion went to farmers growing GE

crops. Thus even though Cargill or ADM routinely rob farmers by

paying them less for a bushel of RR soybeans or Bt corn than it took

to grow them, farmers can count on recouping their losses with a

subsidy payment from the USDA.

 

The fundamental flaw, from an economic standpoint, of US farmers

ignoring global opposition to Frankenfoods and planting more and more

GE soybeans so as to collect more and more subsidy payments from the

government, is that there is already a huge global surplus of

soybeans, not to mention corn and cotton. This massive surplus is

quite profitable for the crop commodities giants like Cargill and ADM,

cotton buyers, and the big factory farm cattle feedlots and hog farms,

who can count on getting cheap grain and fiber from farmers desperate

to sell at any price, but it's nothing less than a recipe for disaster

for rural America. Billion dollar subsidies are the driving force for

GE soybeans and corn, but they are also the major destructive force

flooding the market and lowering the price for soybeans paid to the

farmers. This ever-declining price results in farmers planting even

more soybeans or corn. The end result of this process will likely be

the elimination of most small and medium sized farms in the US who

depend upon subsidies (with the notable exception of organic farms,

which are selling products which consumers want). Organic farmers

currently receive no US government subsidies whatsoever.

 

A major nightmare for the US grain and cotton farmers (including those

growing GE crops) who are surviving on taxpayer subsidies is that

government support may soon be declining. Bush administration

officials, hell-bent on subsidizing the military-industrial complex to

the tune of $380 billion a year and cutting taxes for large

corporations and the wealthy, have recently warned agribusiness

lobbyists that crop subsidies may decline over the next few years.

This could be bad news indeed for non-organic farmers, but also bad

news for Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, Bayer, and the other Gene Giants.

Without $7-10 billion a year in government crop subsidies paid out to

US farmers growing GE crops, we're likely to see a significant

decline, rather than an increase, in GE acreage next year. For

updates on the growing global opposition to GE foods and crops click

on the Daily News section of the OCA's website at

www.organicconsumers.org.

 

 

BGH: MONSANTO AND THE DAIRY INDUSTRY'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

 

Seven years ago, Feb. 4, 1994, despite nationwide protests by consumer

groups, Monsanto and the FDA forced onto the US market the world's

first GE animal drug, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH,

sometimes known as rBST). BGH is a powerful GE drug produced by

Monsanto which, injected into dairy cows, forces them to produce

15%-25% more milk, in the process seriously damaging their health and

reproductive capacity. Despite warnings from scientists, such as Dr.

Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union and Dr. Samuel Epstein from

the Cancer Prevention Coalition, that milk from rBGH injected cows

contains substantially higher amounts of a potent cancer tumor

promoter called IGF-1, and despite evidence that rBGH milk contains

higher levels of pus, bacteria, and antibiotics, the FDA gave the

hormone its seal of approval, with no real pre-market safety testing

required. Moreover, the FDA ruled, in a decision marred by rampant

conflict of interest (several key FDA decision makers, including

Michael Taylor, previously worked for Monsanto), that rBGH-derived

products did not have to be labeled, despite polls showing that 90% of

American consumers wanted labeling--mainly so they could avoid buying

rBGH-tainted products. Family farm advocates joined consumers in

demanding a ban on rBGH, predicting that the controversial drug would

drive milk prices down, aggravate an already serious problem of milk

overproduction, give factory-style dairies added production capacity

(since these were the dairies expected to use the drug), and tarnish

the image of milk and dairy products.

 

All of the major criticisms leveled against rBGH have turned out to be

true. (For more on the hazards and controversy surrounding rBGH click

on www.organicconsumers.org and go to the rBGH section). Since 1994,

every industrialized country in the world, except for the US, has

banned the drug. Even the Codex Alimentarius, the food standards arm

of the World Trade Organization, has refused to back up Monsanto's

claim that the drug is safe. In 1998, Canadian government scientists

revealed that Monsanto's own data on feeding rBGH to rats, carefully

concealed by the company and the FDA, indicated possible cancer

dangers to humans. Since rBGH was approved, approximately 40,000

small and medium-sized US dairy farmers, 1/3 of the total in the

country, have gone out of business, concentrating milk production in

the hands of industrial-sized dairies, most of whom are injecting

their cows with this cruel and dangerous drug.

 

In a 1998 survey by Family Farm Defenders, it was found that mortality

rates for cows on factory dairy farms in Wisconsin, those injecting

their herds with rBGH, were running at 40% per year. In other words,

after two and a half years of rBGH injections most of these drugged

and supercharged cows were dead. Typically, dairy cows live for

15-20 years. Alarmed and revolted by rBGH, consumers have turned in

droves to organic milk and dairy products or to brands labeled as

rBGH-free. Nonetheless, use of the drug has continued to increase in

the US (and in nations like Brazil and Mexico) especially in large

dairy herds, so that currently 15% of America's 10 million lactating

dairy cows are being injected with rBGH. Compounding the problem of

rBGH contamination, most of the nation's 1500 dairy companies are

allowing the co-mingling of rBGH and non-rBGH milk, thereby

contaminating 80-90% of the nation's milk and dairy supply (including

all of the major infant formula brands). For a list of organic and

rBGH-free dairies in the US consult the Organic Consumers Association

(OCA) website.

 

The major reason that rBGH is still on the market is that it is not

labeled. Supermarket dairy managers, following guidelines circulated

by the rBGH and biotech lobby, routinely lie to consumers, telling

them either that rBGH is not in their products, or that there's no way

to tell, and reassuring them that the FDA has certified that rBGH is

safe. Of course, every survey conducted since 1994 shows that if

consumers were given a choice, they would boycott rBGH-tainted

products. When Vermont passed a mandatory labeling law for

rBGH-derived dairy products in 1994, the rBGH lobby (led by

Kraft/Phillip Morris and the International Dairy Foods Association)

sued Vermont in federal court, forcing the state to rescind the law.

When many US natural food stores, consumer coops, and dairies began

advertising their products as rBGH-free, Monsanto's attorneys sent out

thousands of letters to these businesses, threatening to sue them.

Eventually Monsanto did sue two dairies, one in Iowa and another in

Texas, but was forced to settle out of court.

 

Responding to the global controversy surrounding the drug, Monsanto

put BGH for sale in 1998, but there were no takers. Transnational PR

firms working with the biotech industry have categorized Monsanto's

handling of the rBGH controversy as a " public relations disaster. " Now

this public relations disaster has come back to haunt the

fastest-growing brand name in the global food and beverage industry,

Starbucks.

 

STARBUCKS: FEELING THE HEAT ON BGH, FRANKENFOODS, & FAIR TRADE

 

Since March 2000, volunteers from the Organic Consumers Association

have handed out over 250,000 " Consumer Warning " leaflets to Starbucks

customers across the US and in at least five other nations where

Starbucks operates (Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel).

These leaflets call for Starbucks to remove rBGH and other GE

ingredients from their coffee beverages, bottled Frappuccino drinks,

ice cream, baked goods, and chocolates. The leaflets also call for

Starbucks to start brewing Fair Trade and organic coffee as their

" coffee of the day " at least one day a week, and to fulfill their

longstanding pledge to certify (via Fair Trade monitor or organic

certifiers) that they are paying a living wage to coffee farmers and

plantation workers who supply them with over 100 million pounds of

coffee every year. Starbucks recently gave in to another demand of

the OCA and allied groups, stating publicly that they will never use

GE coffee beans, now being field-tested in Hawaii and other places.

 

Starbucks is clearly rattled by the OCA market pressure campaign,

especially the criticism that 3/4 of the 32 million gallons of milk it

buys every year in the US are coming from dairies that allow cows to

be injected with rBGH. Once Starbucks' 15 million customers learn

that most of the latte or cappuccino drinks they're paying top dollar

for (3/4 of the volume of these drinks are milk) contain an extra dose

of pus, antibiotics, and growth hormones and that Fair Trade and

organic coffee constitute less than one percent of company sales, they

may decide to take their business elsewhere. Starbucks, the largest

gourmet coffee company in the world, now owns 4,000 cafes across the

globe, including 20% of all the coffee shops in the US. In addition,

its rBGH-tainted Frappuccino drinks are distributed to convenience

stores all over the US (and in Canada) by Pepsi, while Kraft/Phillip

Morris distributes Starbucks' ice cream and coffee beans to mainstream

supermarkets. Total annual sales for the company are approximately

$2.5 billion.

 

Besides swearing off GE coffee beans, Starbucks has responded to the

OCA's large and growing Frankenbucks pressure campaign by:

 

.. Emphasizing that 1/4 of their milk is now rBGH-free, and even using

terms like " rBGH-tainted " in referring to their rBGH-derived milk.

.. Offering organic milk and soymilk as an " option " in all of their US

cafes (but charging an outrageous 40 cents a cup for this option).

.. Offering organic yogurt in 1000 of their US locations.

.. Test-marketing organic baked goods in Seattle and Portland.

.. Promising to explore the possibility of removing all " GMOs "

(genetically modified organisms) from their product line.

.. Agreeing to sell Fair Trade and organic coffee beans (in bulk form)

in all their cafes worldwide.

.. Agreeing to brew Fair Trade coffee as their " coffee of the day " at

least one day a month in all US cafes.

.. Agreeing to buy at least one million pounds of certified Fair Trade

coffee in 2001.

 

 

The OCA is happy to report that grassroots pressure by our volunteer

network, as well as pressure applied by our allies such as Global

Exchange and several organizational members of the Genetically

Engineered Food Alert (Friends of the Earth, Pesticide Action Network,

Center for Food Safety), have already forced Starbucks to move at

least halfway in terms of meeting our demands. Now all we've got to

do is to keep up the pressure on Starbucks until they meet all of our

demands. After Starbucks surrenders (just as the upscale supermarket

chain, Trader Joe's, surrendered on November 14 of last year, removing

all GMOs from their brand name products), then we can turn our market

pressure campaigns on the other, even larger, food and beverage

companies: the national and regional supermarket chains, industry

giants like Kraft, the coffee giants, and even the fast food

chains-just as our counterparts in Europe, Japan, South Korea, India,

Brazil and other nations have already done.

 

A victory in the OCA's Frankenbucks campaign will send an important

message, not only to all of the 20,000 coffee shops across North

America (many of whom are already starting to do the right thing by

banishing rBGH and other GMOs from their menus and serving up organic

and Fair Trade products), but to the entire food, restaurant, and

beverage industry: consumers are sick and tired of having rBGH and

other untested and unlabeled Frankenfoods shoved down their throats.

There's only one future for American agriculture: meeting the

ever-growing market demand for healthy organic food, produced in a

humane and sustainable manner by small and medium-sized farmers.

 

On February 23-March 2, the OCA is organizing protests and leafleting

events in front of Starbucks cafes in over 600 locations worldwide.

These Global Days of Protest against Starbucks will coincide with the

annual stockholders meeting of the company, to be held in Seattle on

Tuesday February 26. While hundreds of protestors gather outside the

Starbucks stockholders meeting in Seattle, inside a group of concerned

investors will likely be calling for a vote on a resolution asking for

the company to label or remove rBGH and other GE ingredients from all

of Starbucks products.

 

If you are willing to join other OCA volunteers and leaflet a

Starbucks café in your community please send an email to

simon or call the OCA national office at

218-226-4164.

 

MARKET PRESSURE: BUSTING BIOTECH

 

The worst nightmare of Monsanto and the biotech industry is starting

to materialize: a mass-based consumer and environmental marketplace

pressure campaign in the heartland of Frankenfoods-North America. A

number of major US food companies are already responding to public

pressure and starting to sweep Frankenfoods off their products lists

and their grocery shelves: Gerber (baby food), Heinz (baby food),

Frito-Lay (at least for their corn), Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Trader

Joe's, and even McDonald's (at least for their French fries). Organic

consumers must make sure that Starbucks is the next company to fall in

line.

 

Greenpeace, the Organic Consumers Association, the Genetically

Engineered Food Alert www.gefoodalert.org and local activists all over

the US are now joining forces to drive GE foods and crops off the

market. Our central strategy, following the example of successful

European campaigns, will be to raise the level of public debate and

apply sustained pressure on strategic supermarkets and leading food

corporations to remove GE ingredients from their product lines and to

replace these products with GMO-free and organic items. At the same

time we're doing this in the US, our counterparts in Canada

(Greenpeace, Council of Canadians, Sierra Club, and National Farmers

Union) will continue targeting Loblaws (a nationwide supermarket

chain) and other companies. Meanwhile, our allies south of the US

border are building up a farmer/consumer/environmental coalition to

stop the US and Canada from dumping GE corn and other products on

Mexico and Latin America.

 

The Organic Consumers Association needs your financial support (you

can make a donation through our website or send a check to our

office), and, most of all, your volunteer labor. If you're willing to

leaflet Starbucks or a supermarket in your community send an email to

simon

 

Stay tuned to BioDemocracy News and the Daily News section of our

website for Action Alerts and breaking news and analysis

www.organicconsumers.org. We now have over 10,000 articles posted on

our website as well as a convenient Search Engine to find whatever you

need to know about GE foods, rBGH, organics, food safety, Mad Cow,

globalization, and the various OCA campaigns. Check us out!

 

***End of BioDemocracy News #38***