BioDemocracy News #37 Frankencorn Fight: Cautionary Tales

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Subject [biodemocracy]BioDemocracy News #37 Frankencorn Fight: Cautionary

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BioDemocracy News #37 Jan/Feb 2002

Frankencorn Fight: Cautionary Tales

By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

 

Quotes of the Month:

 

" Corn diversity is essential to the future of our agricultural

systems. Jack Harlan, the famous botanist, has noted that genetic

diversity 'stands between us and catastrophic starvation on a scale we

cannot imagine. " Press Release by Greenpeace Mexico 9/1/01

 

" We have to get away from the romantic anachronism that developing

countries should strive for self-sufficiency in food. " John Block,

former US Secretary of Agriculture, 1986

 

" For people who want to buy corn, there really isn't much choice but

to come to us. " Bob Kohlmeyer, Cargill Corporation, Des Moines

Register 11/15/00

 

" We have a saying in our company. Our competitors are our friends. Our

customers are the enemy. " James Randall, Archer Daniels Midland

Corporation, quoted in Fortune magazine 4/26/99

 

" Farmers don't like to hear that we're essentially a ward of the

government, that we're on a workfare program, " Alan Libbra, Illinois

farmer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 12/5/01

 

" Regardless of what the biotechnology industry wants us to believe,

agricultural genetic engineering is an imprecise science. it relies on

methods that include the haphazard insertion of genetic elements into

a plant's genome. This in turn may result in the disruption of complex

gene interactions and may lead to potentially catastrophic results. "

Dr. Michael Hansen & Ellen Hickey, Global Pesticide Campaigner, April

2000

 

 

BIODIVERSITY BOMBSHELL

 

On September 4, 2001 Mexican officials admitted that an alarming

number of genetically engineered (GE) corn plants have been detected

growing alongside traditional corn varieties over a widespread area in

the state of Oaxaca. For millennia corn has been sacred to the Maya

and other native people of Mexico. Over centuries small farmers have

carefully bred and preserved thousands of different traditional

varieties of corn, called landraces, which are specific to each

geographical region, soil type, and micro-climate of the country.

Corn, or maize as it is called traditionally, remains today the most

important crop for a quarter of the nation's 10 million indigenous and

small farmers. Corn tortillas play a major role in the diet of Mexico'

s 100 million people. Critics have warned that GE corn should never

be imported into Mexico, the most important world center of

biodiversity for corn, since the gene pool of the nation's 20,000 corn

varieties and plant relatives, including the progenitor species of

corn, called teosinte, could be irreversibly damaged by " genetic

pollution " from the genetically engineered (herbicide-resistant or

Bt-spliced) maize being aggressively marketed by Monsanto, Syngenta

(formerly called Novartis), and other agbiotech transnationals.

 

Under pressure to protect the nation's corn biodiversity, Mexican

authorities have proclaimed a moratorium on domestic cultivation of GE

corn. Meanwhile, they have ignored the massive dumping of millions of

tons of cheap (US taxpayer-subsidized) GE corn by corporations such

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. Agronomists and

environmentalists fear that Mexican farmers have now, perhaps

unknowingly, spread this imported Frankencorn into most of the

corn-growing regions of the country, by planting GE corn from the US

which was supposed to be sold for human food consumption only. Since

impoverished Mexican farmers are looking for the cheapest corn seed

possible to plant, they are increasingly choosing to buy the imported

GE-tainted corn from the US, since it is considerably cheaper than

non-subsidized Mexican varieties.

 

CORN DUMPING: COLLATERAL DAMAGE

 

Compounding Mexico's genetic pollution problem is the fact that major

overseas buyers of corn (Europe, Japan, Korea) are stubbornly refusing

to buy gene-altered corn. Consequently North American exporters are

finding it necessary to dump increasing amounts of GE-tainted maize on

captive markets such as Mexico, China, Egypt, Colombia, Malaysia, and

Brazil. Nineteen percent of the US corn, 14 million acres, is now

genetically engineered, although GE acreage is down 30% from two years

ago, mainly due to global resistance against Frankenfoods.

 

Corn dumping in Mexico has accelerated since the advent of the 1994

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under the relentless

pressure of globalization, Mexico has been transformed from being a

major producer of corn (producing 98% of its needs for example in

1994) to a major importer, ranking third in the world (after Japan and

Korea) in terms of imports from the US and Canada. The reason for this

is simple. Corn costs essentially $3.40 a bushel for family-sized

farmers in the US and Canada to produce, and even more for a small

farmer in Mexico. Yet Cargill and ADM, due to their monopoly control

of the market, pay US farmers less than $2.00 a bushel, with the US

taxpayer picking up the remainder of the tab. This enormous subsidy in

turn gets reimbursed to farmers, although large corporate farms get

the lion's share of the US's annual $20-30 billion in farm price

support payments. Even with enormous taxpayer subsidies, most years US

farmers have trouble even recuperating their costs of corn

production-leading to demands by family farmers for a breakup of

Cargill and ADM's grain monopoly. Only organic corn farmers, operating

outside ADM and Cargill's cartel, are receiving a fair price for their

harvest. And of course North American organic corn growers are

increasingly alarmed over the fact that " genetic pollution " or gene

flow from GE corn fields are starting to contaminate their valuable

crops.

 

Longstanding Mexican government regulation of corn supply and prices,

support for small corn growers, and price subsidies for corn tortillas

for Mexican consumers have been eliminated, all at the behest of

Cargill, ADM, and ADM's powerful Mexican partner, Gruma/Maseca. The

end result of this globalization process is that small and

medium-sized farmers, both North and South of the border, can't make a

living, while ADM and Cargill (and their preferred customers such as

McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Tyson, Smithfield) make a killing. Meanwhile,

consumers, who have been promised that Free Trade would result in

lower prices, are paying more for food every year. Corn tortillas, the

main staple of the Mexican diet, have risen in price 300% since NAFTA

came into effect.

 

SOUTHERN CORN BLIGHT: A CAUTIONARY TALE

 

As botanists and plant breeders warn, contaminating Mexico's

irreplaceable corn landraces and germplasm pool could be

" catastrophic " for farmers and consumers. For example in 1970,

millions of acres of the US corn crop were devastated by a Southern

corn leaf blight which destroyed 15% of the total US harvest (50% of

all corn in some areas), leading to over $1 billion in losses, not to

mention marketplace shortages. By going to the " germplasm " bank of

thousands of traditional varieties cultivated in Mexico, and

withdrawing several varieties which were resistant to the Southern

corn blight, plant breeders were able to use conventional

cross-breeding and come up with a single blight-resistant hybrid

variety which was planted in 1971-thereby saving billions of dollars

in losses and maintaining global food security.

 

Underlining the central importance of corn biodiversity and preserving

traditional varieties or landraces, researchers have also found in

recent years that a perennial variety of corn's original parent,

teosinte, found in Mexico, contains genes that can protect plants from

seven of the nine principle viruses that infect corn crops in the US.

 

Of course if herbicide-resistant and Bt corn had already been

polluting Mexico's centers of corn biodiversity before 1970, no one

knows if the traditional variety resistant to Southern corn blight

would still have been around to save the day. Likewise no one can

predict the impact of Frankencorn pollution on virus-resistant

teosinte varieties and other corn plant relatives. But one thing is

certain, if globalization continues to drive several million Mexican

farmers from the land, and forces traditional growers to shift to

growing non-corn export crops, most of the nation's heirloom corn

varieties or landraces will be lost forever, since centralized seed

banks (which typically store rather than cultivate their thousands of

different varieties) cannot properly preserve landraces which are no

longer being cultivated in their native areas. Analysts estimate that

almost a million small farmers-primary breeders and stewards of

thousands of corn and other crop landraces--already have been driven

from their cornfields and communal lands (ejidos) since Mexico

essentially turned over control of its agricultural sector to Cargill,

ADM, and other North American food giants.

 

Even US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists have

previously warned that genetically engineered crops should not be

grown where wild relatives exist (prohibiting for example GE cotton

from being grown in parts of southern Florida, where wild relatives of

cotton exist), much less in biological centers of diversity such as

the maize-growing areas of Mexico. Of course this concern over genetic

pollution didn't prevent the EPA in October 2001 from giving the green

light to allow Bt corn to continue to be grown for seven more years in

the US, ignoring environmental and public health concerns voiced by

scientists and consumer groups--knowing full well that millions of

tons of GE-tainted corn continue to be exported by US corporations to

centers of corn biodiversity such as Mexico, Central America, South

America, and the Caribbean.

 

Genetic engineering of agricultural crops and corn dumping not only

pose a serious threat to Mexico (and Central America's) corn

biodiversity, but also pose a threat to continental peace and

stability as well. Since NAFTA went into effect, local and regional

markets for indigenous and small farmers in the region have been

undermined and destroyed. Farmers are finding it increasingly

difficult to sell their corn, beans, coffee, or other crops. Rural

poverty and hunger have increased, forcing millions of campesinos to

migrate to the US. Mounting desperation has also spawned widespread,

at times violent, agrarian conflicts in Mexican states such as

Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero and threatens to reignite armed struggle

across Central America.

 

FRANKENCORN: ADDITIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS

 

The threat to thousands of traditional varieties of corn in Mexico is

just one of the environmental hazards of genetically engineered corn.

Other environmental dangers include:

 

.. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)-spliced corn and crops pose a mortal

threat to organic and sustainable (low-chemical input) agriculture,

since they may soon destroy the effectiveness of organic farmers' most

important biopesticide. In its non-GE, natural Bt spray form, Bacillus

thuringiensis is the most important pest control agent in organic

agriculture, with yearly sales in the US alone of $60 million. This

non-GE spray form of Bt is applied externally and evaporates within

2-7 days. Scientists predict that the super-potent, long lasting toxin

found in Bt gene-spliced corn and other plants are likely to give rise

to Superpests such as corn ear-worms which will be immune to the

natural organic Bt sprays.

.. Bt-spliced crops such as corn damage the soil food web, killing

beneficial soil microorganisms and reducing soil fertility. Bt corn

leaches its powerful genetically engineered poison into the soil (a

toxin which differs considerably from the naturally occurring Bt soil

bacteria) and remains toxic up to eight months, even after being

plowed under the soil.

.. Bt-spliced crops kill off natural predators and disrupt the balance

among insects, leading to pest infestations.

.. Bt-spliced crops kill beneficial insects such as lacewings and

ladybugs.

.. Bt-spliced crops, due to increased insect mortality, reduce the food

supply for birds and other insect predators such as bats.

.. Bt-corn pollen (ingested along with other Bt-contaminated corn

tissue) kills monarch butterflies and related species, such as the

endangered Karner Blue butterfly.

.. Herbicide-resistant GE corn, sprayed with Monsanto's Roundup Ready

weed killer, kills all the foliage in and around cornfields, depriving

butterflies and related insects of important food sources such as

milkweed. Roundup or glyphosate residues also remain in the soil and

water, killing soil microorganisms and marine life.

 

FRANKENCORN: HUMAN HEALTH HAZARDS

 

Bt corn is designed to punch holes in the intestines of certain

insects and kill them. But what does it do to the gut, immune system,

and other vital organs of humans and animals? A good question,

especially since the biotech industry, EPA, and other government

officials have never bothered to look at this public health issue,

despite growing concerns expressed by a broad cross-section of

scientists and public interest consumer groups. Everyone by now has

heard about the StarLink corn fiasco 18 months ago, when an illegal

and likely allergenic variety of Bt corn contaminated 10% of the US

corn crop and forced a billion dollar recall of 300 brand name

products, including Kraft Taco Bell shells. But what about the other

varieties of Bt corn, the stuff you're likely eating every time you

bite into a corn product which is not labeled " organic? "

 

The Gene Giants claim that Bt corn is chemically " substantially

equivalent " to conventional corn, and that eating it, therefore, will

have exactly the same physiological impact as consuming regular corn.

Well-respected experts such as Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers

Union point out that this is not true. The Bt endotoxin and proteins

expressed in every cell of genetically engineered corn are different

from what humans and animals have ever eaten before. The haphazard

insertion of a " genetic cassette " (including promoters, vectors, and

antibiotic resistance marker genes) into the corn host genome is

essentially random since scientists don't know if or when the foreign

gene will be spliced into the plant's DNA, which of hundreds or even

thousands of proteins will be expressed or generated, or even how many

copies of the gene will be produced. Bt, the naturally occurring soil

bacteria, is not the same as Syngenta or Monsanto's patented and

gene-altered Bt forcefully injected into GE corn. Although there's a

lot we don't know yet about the potential hazards of eating GE corn,

in terms of toxins, allergies, and impacts on the human gut and

digestive system, there are enough danger signs already to give us

pause for thought. Mounting evidence includes the following:

 

.. Hundreds of Americans over the past year have reported allergic

reactions to the FDA after eating corn products likely containing

StarLink corn or other Bt varieties.

.. Scientists have pointed out that all Bt corn varieties produce

proteins closely related to the suspected allergen in StarLink corn.

.. Cattle and other animals have been observed on a number of farms in

the Midwestern US refusing to eat genetically engineered corn, while

simultaneously munching conventional corn, along with the entire

cornstalk, right down to the ground.

.. In a well-funded and carefully-designed experiment carried out by

Dr. Arpad Pusztai in the UK in 1995-99, rats fed lectin-spliced

potatoes (Bt is a member of the lectin family) suffered significant

damage to their gut, immune system, and other vital organs. Pusztai

later warned--after he was abruptly fired and his lab was shut

down--that all gene-spliced lectins, including Bt crops, should be

carefully investigated for possible adverse human health impacts.

.. Gene-altered antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes, similar to

those contained in Bt corn, have been found in the guts of bees which

had consumed the pollen from GE plants. Sophisticated studies in the

Netherlands and Britain have indicated that ARM genes can likely

combine with bacteria already present in the human throat, mouth, and

gut. These " armed genes " can then give rise to new virulent,

antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, exacerbating the already

serious problem of antibiotic resistant pathogens such as salmonella,

now routinely found in non-organic meat and other animal products. The

British Medical Association and the World Health Organization have

recommended that the use of antibiotic resistance genes in GE corn and

other food crops be eliminated.

 

FRANKENCORN AND MICE: ANOTHER CAUTIONARY TALE

 

Concerned that industry and government have failed to carry out proper

scientific studies on the safety of GE corn and other Frankenfoods, a

young Dutch science student, Hinze Hogendoorn, recently decided to

take matters into his own hands. Dr. Mae Wan-Ho, a British geneticist

and world renowned critic of biotechnology, reported the results of

this simple, yet remarkable animal-feeding experiment on her website

www.i-sis.org in December 2001. Here are excerpts from Dr. Ho's

report:

 

" A Dutch farmer left two piles of maize in a barn infested with mice,

one pile GM (genetically modified), the other non-GM. The GM pile was

untouched, while the non-GM pile was completely eaten up. Incredible!

Young undergraduate Hinze Hogendoorn, from University College, Utrecht

devised his own laboratory tests and confirmed the finding, and more.

An activist group (Jongeren Milieu Aktief) presented the report Hinze

has written to the Dutch parliament on December 11, 2001 and is

featuring it on their new website (www.talk2000.nl).

 

Hinze couldn't find a single scientific report on animals being tested

for preference of GM versus non GM food on the web when he began. On

extending his search to effects of GM foods on animals, he came across

reports from companies developing GM foods, all declaring there were

no adverse impacts. But he also came across independent researchers

who have reported harmful effects, including Dr. Arpad Pusztai, who

found GM potatoes damaged the kidney, thymus, spleen and gut of young

rats.

 

[Hinze] was stumped at first, because he would have needed to go

through a lot of bureaucracy to experiment on animals. However, he

managed to rescue 30 female six-week old mice bred to feed snakes from

a herpetology centre. [Hinze gave] them a staple food along with the

two foods [GM and non-GE corn and soya] that were to be compared, so

they could really show their preference without being starved.

 

Large cages were used so the mice had plenty of room to move around.

At the beginning, all the mice were weighed before they were put into

the cage.The mice had not eaten for some time, but amazingly, they

[immediately] showed very definite food preferences [preferring the

non GM corn and soya]. For the next [nine] week, Hinze continued to

give the mice GM and non GM maize or soya chunks. the mice consumed

61% non GM and 39% GM food when given free choice.

For the next experiment, Hinze tested for the [health] effects of GM

food. Over the next 10 days, he kept track of the amount of food that

the two groups consumed each day, and weighed the mice, halfway

through and at the end of the experiments.

The group fed GM ate more, probably because they were slightly heavier

on average to begin with, but they gained less weight. By the end,

they actually lost weight. In contrast, the group fed non GM ate less

and gained more weight, continuing to gain weight until the end of the

experiment. The results were statistically significant.

That was not the only difference observed. There were marked

behavioral differences. The mice fed GM food " seemed less active while

in their cages. "

The most striking difference was when the mice were weighed at the end

of the experiment. The mice fed GM food were " more distressed " than

the other mice. " Many were running round and round the basket,

scrabbling desperately in the sawdust, and even frantically jumping up

the sides, something I'd never seen before. " They were clearly more

nervous than the mice from the other cage. " For me this was the most

disconcerting evidence that GM food is not quite normal. "

Another " interesting result " is that one of the mice in the GM cage

was found dead at the end of the experiment. Hinze concluded, " At the

end of everything, I must admit that the experiment has done nothing

to soothe my qualms concerning genetically enhanced food. "

FRANKENCORN OR PESTICIDES: CHOOSE YOUR POISON

The hazards of genetically engineered corn, and other GE foods, are

frightening. But even if global resistance were able to drive GE corn

off the market tomorrow, we would still be left with a highly toxic,

chemical-intensive, industrial-style system of corn production which

is depleting soil fertility, poisoning municipal water supplies, and

quickly turning indigenous people and family farmers into an

endangered species. Even without Frankencrops, we would still be

facing an out-of-control globalization process, which is driving

millions of farmers off the land and forcing desperate peasants to

chop down remaining forests--in the process driving hundreds of

thousands of landraces and traditional varieties of plants,

microorganisms, (and animals) into extinction.

Syngenta's conventional (non-GE) corn and pesticides are just as scary

as their Frankencorn. Syngenta profits by selling corn farmers either

gene-altered Bt corn or its conventional (fertilizer and

pesticide-intensive) hybrids, along with its super toxic weed killer,

Atrazine, a known carcinogen. Unfortunately Atrazine not only kills

weeds, but also ends up as a dangerous residue in the meat and dairy

products of animals that have eaten Atrazine-sprayed corn. Atrazine,

along with its companion pesticides, have also polluted wells and

drinking water in 97% of the communities in the US Corn Belt. What's

more dangerous, eating Bt corn, consuming pesticide residues in your

Big Mac or non-organic dairy products, or drinking the tap water that

comes out of your faucet?

Similarly, Monsanto is in the business of selling toxic pesticides and

herbicides, whether it is to farmers growing GE crops, farmers growing

non-GE hybrid crops, Roundup-spraying drug warriors in Colombia or

California, or suburbanites trying to get that perfectly green lawn.

After 100 years of poisoning the public with substances like PCBs and

Agent Orange, Monsanto tells us that their latest toxic chemicals such

as Roundup, or their latest seed varieties, such as Roundup Ready corn

are perfectly safe. Should we believe them? Or what about Cargill?

They're happy to sell their chemical nitrate fertilizers (which also

end up in most Americans' drinking water) to farmers, whether they are

planting GE Frankencrops or just conventional industrial hybrids. Or

ADM, who are happy to sell you either GE corn or non-GE corn, as long

as they can drive the prices down which they pay to farmers, and drive

the prices up to their " enemy, " the consumer.

The solution of course to all this is to buy and eat organic food, and

to buy from local and regional farmers and companies, rather than the

transnational corporations whenever possible. Mexicans can protect

their health and preserve their biodiversity by boycotting gringo

GE-tainted corn and buying organic corn produced by Mexican farmers

cultivating traditional varieties. US consumers similarly can protect

their health, their drinking water, and their children by buying

organic and local. Fortunately this is what more and more people are

doing everyday, not only in the USA but across the world. Farmers in

130 nations are now producing certified organic food for a booming

market of organic consumers, making organic the fasting growing

component of world agriculture. Thirty million Americans are now

buying organic food and the numbers are rising every month. Since

September 11, sales of organic and natural food have increased 8%.

RAISE HELL NOT FRANKENCORN

Beyond voting with our consumer dollars and our knives and forks for a

sustainable and organic future, organic consumers also need to

organize ourselves into a potent political force. As the labor

populist Mother Jones told rural Americans 100 years ago: " It's time

to raise less corn and raise more hell. " Instead of letting the

politicians raise our taxes in order to subsidize the profits of the

Gene Giants and corporate agribusiness, we should be raising hell in

Washington and in our state capitals to raise corporate taxes to

subsidize healthy food and a healthy environment. Instead of

subsidizing GE corn, pesticide-intensive corn, and industrial-sized

farms, our billions of dollars in farm subsidies should be promoting

organic agriculture, saving family farms, and promoting Fair Trade,

not Free Trade, among nations.

The OCA, is organizing, along with our allies in the Genetically

Engineered Food Alert <www.gefoodalert.org> a national day of protest

against genetically engineered corn on February 6. We will be

targeting the largest food corporation in the US, Kraft/Phillip

Morris, as well as other companies and supermarket chains to remove GE

corn from US consumer products. On this day we will also be telling

the government to take Bt corn off the market, unless it can be proven

safe for human consumption and the environment (which of course it

cannot). At the same time we are calling on grain exporters and the US

government to protect corn biodiversity and to honor the global treaty

on Biodiversity (the Biosasfety Protocol signed in Cartagena,

Colombia, Feb. 2000) by ending the dumping of taxpayer subsidized GE

corn in Mexico and other nations.

We need your help to pressure Kraft and to leaflet major supermarket

chains on Feb. 6. We need to tell America's food giants to stop

selling Bt corn and other unlabeled and untested Frankenfoods. If you

are willing to help leaflet in your community, please send an email to

simon

To send a email to Kraft click here

http://www.gefoodalert.org/takeaction/

Stay tuned to BioDemocracy News and our website

www.organicconsumers.org for the latest news and developments. We have

thousands of articles posted on our website (and a convenient Search

Engine to find them) which deal with GE food, Mad Cow, food

irradiation, industrial agriculture, food safety, organic food, and

globalization. On our website you'll also find the latest information

and Action Alerts on current OCA campaigns, such as the Starbucks

campaign. Check us out.

*** End of BioDemocracy News #37***

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