Five Reasons to Avoid Genetically Modified Crops

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http://www.mercola.com/blog Five Reasons to Avoid Genetically Modified Crops This is a topic I have frequently discussed. Now TheEcologist, published in London, and the world's longestrunning environmental magazine, vigorously opposes GM foods.It is read by people in over 150 countries. The August issue has a lengthy article (posted below) titled"5 Reasons To Keep Britain GM-Free." Although it discussesgenetically engineered crops from Britain's perspective, thepoints it makes are applicable to any country. The fivereasons are: GM Will Remove Consumer Choice Health Risks Have Not Been Disproved Farmers Will be Destroyed The Environment Will Suffer GM Crops Will Not Feed The Poor One of the sub-topics under "Farmers Will be Destroyed" is"Organic Farmers Ruined." Unfortunately, that is starting tohappen now in the United States as more and more organiccrops become contaminated with the genes from geneticallyengineered crops. Over time, the new "USDA ORGANIC" labelmay come to represent an inferior organic product comparedto organic crops from those countries that are not allowinggenetically engineered crops to be grown.The fastest way to dramatically reduce the acreage ofgenetically engineered crops being grown in the UnitedStates is to pass mandatory labeling legislation. Oncegenetically engineered foods are required to be labeled,manufacturers will begin using non-genetically engineeredingredients. And if food manufacturers stop buyinggenetically engineered crops, farmers will stop growingthem. It is the basic law of supply and demand. Remove thedemand, and the supply will quickly go away. The Economist August 2003 =========================================================from: http://www.theecologist.org/article.html?article=432 5 reasons to keep Britain GM-free The Ecologist spells out the five overriding reasons why thecommercialisation of GM crops should never be allowed in theUK 1. GM WILL REMOVE CONSUMER CHOICE The UK government's official adviser on GM, the Agricultureand Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), has said itwould `be difficult and in some places impossible toguarantee' that any British food was GM-free if commercialgrowing of GM crops went ahead. In North America, farmerscan no longer be certain the seed they plant does notcontain GM genes. GM CROPS CONTAMINATE Cross pollination GM genes are often `dominant' - ie, they are inherited atthe expense of non-GM genes when cross-pollination occursbetween GM and conventional species. With the first GM cropsconsidered for commercialisation - oilseed rape and sugarbeet and maize - the `gene flow' (ability to contaminatenon-GM varieties) is `high' and `medium to high',respectively. To prevent cross-pollination, the official advice in the UKis that there should be a separation distance of just 50metres between GM oilseed rape and non-GM varieties. Butpollen can travel a lot further than that. Bees, forexample, regularly fly for up to 10 kilometres; hence,oilseed rape pollen has been found in hives 4.5 kilometresfrom the nearest GM crop field. Tree pollen grains have beenrecorded in the essentially treeless Shetland Isles, whichare 250 kilometres from the nearest mainland. And theUniversity of Adelaide has published research into windpollination distances that shows oilseed rape pollen cantravel for up to 3 kilometres. SEED MIXING AND SPILLAGE GM seed, or parts of GM root crops like sugar beet, may beshed and left in a field where they may grow later. Combine harvesters move from field to field, and leftover GMseed may be spilt if equipment is not cleaned properly. Lorries removing a harvested crop from a farm may spillseed near fields where non-GM or organic crops are grown. For crops with very small seeds like oilseed rape spillagecan be high.In May 2002 the European Commission's JointResearch Centre (JRC) echoed the AEBC almost verbatim whenit warned that if GM crops were widely adopted, preventingcontamination of organic food would be `very difficult andconnected to high costs, or virtually impossible'. The biotech industry is fully aware of this. As DonWestfall, vice president of US food industry consultancyPromar International, says: `The hope of the [GM] industryis that over time the market is so flooded [with GM] thatthere's nothing you can do about it. You just surrender.' Likewise, the Soil Association's investigation into theimpact of GM in the US concludes: `All non-GM farmers inNorth America are finding it very hard or impossible to growGM-free crops. Seeds have become almost completelycontaminated with GM organisms (GMOs), good non-GM varietieshave become hard to buy, and there is a high risk of cropcontamination.' 2. HEALTH RISKS HAVE NOT BEEN DISPROVED Pro-GM voices claim that after six years there have been noadverse health effects from eating GM foods in the US. Butthen, there has been no effort by the US authorities to lookfor health impacts either. GM APPROVAL SYSTEMS LAX Safety data comes from the biotech firms themselves.Independent, peer-reviewed research showing that GM foodposes no danger to human health is not required. OneMonsanto director said: `[We] should not have to vouchsafethe safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling asmuch of it as possible.' `Substantial equivalence' The common methodology forgovernment food-safety requirements in North America andEurope has traditionally been a comparison between a foodand a conventional counterpart. The assumption is thatexisting foods have a long history of safe use. So, if a GMcrop is found to be `the same' as a non-GM counterpart, itcan claim this history. This is called `substantialequivalence'. But GM crops are not the same, because of therandom nature and uncertain consequences of modification.Biotech firms acknowledge this when it suits them - stating,for example, that their GM varieties are distinctive enoughto warrant their own patents. There have been no properly controlled clinical trialslooking at the effects of short- or long-term ingestion ofGM foods by humans. Moreover, as Dr Arpad Pusztai (who wassacked when he printed research about the effects of GMpotatoes on lab rats) warns: `There is increasing researchto show they may actually be very unsafe.' THREE MAJOR CONCERNS Allergic reactions Genetic modification frequently usesproteins from organisms that have never before been anintegral part of the human food chain. Hence, GM food maycause unforeseen allergic reactions - particularly amongchildren. Allergens could be transferred from foods to whichpeople are allergic to foods they think are safe. When a newfood is introduced, it takes five to six years before anyallergies are recognised. In 2000 GM `StarLink' maize was found in taco shells beingsold for human consumption in the US - even though the maizehad only been approved for animal feed. StarLink is modifiedto contain a toxin that could be a human allergen; it isheat stable and does not break down in gastric acid -characteristics shared by many allergens. Antibiotic resistance Genetic modification could also makedisease-causing bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Thiscould lead to potentially uncontrollable epidemics.Antibiotic-resistance genes are used as `markers' in GMcrops to identify which plant cells have successfullyincorporated the desired foreign genes during modification. A 2002 study commissioned by the UK's Food Standards Agency(FSA) showed that antibiotic-resistance marker genes from GMfoods can make their way into human gut bacteria after justone meal (see box below). Two years previously, the BritishMedical Association had warned: `The risk to human healthfrom antibiotic resistance developing in micro-organisms isone of the major public health threats that will be faced inthe 21st century.' Industrial and pharmaceutical crops Since 1991 over 300open-field trials of `pharma' crops have taken place aroundthe world. In California, for example, GM rice containinghuman genes has been grown for drug production.Pharmaceutical wheat, corn and barley are also beingdeveloped in the US, France and Canada. Last year in Texas 500,000 bushels of soya destined forhuman consumption were contaminated with genes from maizegenetically modified by the US firm Prodigene so as tocreate a vaccine for a stomach disease afflicting pigs. Amajor concern is that GM firms are using commodity foodcrops for pharm-aceutical production. If there were suchthing as a responsible path with `pharma' GM it would be touse non-food crops. 3. FARMERS WILL BE DESTROYED Within a few years of the introduction of GM crops in NorthAmerica the following occurred: Almost all of the US's $300m annual maize exports andCanada's $300m annual rape exports to the EU disappeared; The trade for Canadian honey was almost completelydestroyed because of GM contamination; Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea - thebiggest foreign buyers of US maize, stopped importing NorthAmerican maize; Just like domestic consumers, food companies - includingHeinz, Gerber and Frito-Lay - started to reject the use ofGMOs in their products. Former White House agriculture expert Dr Charles Benbrookcalculates that the lost export trade and fall in farmprices caused by GM commercialisation led to an increase inannual government subsidies of an estimated $3-5 billion. In December 2000 the president of Canada's National FarmersUnion, Cory Ollikka, said: `Farmers are really starting toquestion the profit-enhancing ability of products that seemto be shutting them out of markets worldwide.' Farm, which represents UK farmers, has said: `Farmers arebeing asked by the agro-biotech companies to shoulder theeconomic and public-image risks of their new technology, forwhich there appear to be few or no compensating benefits.The claimed cost savings are either non-existent orexaggerated. The long-term health and environmental impactsare still uncertain. And consumers don't want to eat GMfood. So why would farmers sow something they can't sell?' HIGHER COSTS, REDUCED PROFITS The Soil Association's US investigations found that GM cropshave increased the cost of farming and reduced farmers'profits for the following reasons: 1- GM varieties increase farmer seed costs by up to 40 percent an acre; GM soya and maize, which make up 83 per centof the GM crops grown worldwide, `deliver less income onaverage to farmers than non-GM crops'; 2- GM varieties require farmers to pay biotech firms a`technology fee'; 3- The GM companies forbid farmers to save their seeds forreplanting; contrary to traditional practice, farmers haveto buy new seed each year; and 4- GM herbicide-tolerant crops increase farmers' use ofexpensive herbicides, especially as new weed problems haveemerged - rogue herbicide-resistant oilseed rape plantsbeing a widespread problem; contrary to the claim that onlyone application would be needed, farmers are applyingherbicides several times. Even a 2002 report by the US Department of Agriculture, akey ally of the biotech industry, admitted that the economicbenefits of cultivating GM crops were `variable' and thatfarmers growing GM Bt corn were actually `losing money.' LOWER YIELDS The University of Nebraska recorded yields for Monsanto'sRoundup Ready GM maize that were 6-11 per cent less thanthose for non-GM soya varieties. A 1998 study of over 8,000field trials found that Roundup Ready soya seeds producedbetween 6.7 and 10 per cent fewer bushels of soya thanconventional varieties. Trials by the UK's National Institute of Agricultural Botanyshowed yields of GM oilseed rape and sugar beet that were5-8 per cent less than conventional varieties. CORPORATE CONTROL GROWS Adopting GM crops would place farmers and the food chainitself under the control of a handful of multinationalcorporations such as Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and DuPont.For US farmers this has meant: 1- Legally-binding agreements that force farmers to purchaseexpensive new seeds from the biotech corporations eachseason; 2- Having to buy these corporations' herbicides (at a costconsiderably above that of a generic equivalent) forherbicide-tolerant crops; 3- Paying the biotech firms a technology fee based on theacreage of land under GM; 4- The development of so-called `traitor technology' cropson which particular chemicals will have to be applied if thecrops' GM characteristics (such as their time of floweringor disease resistance) are to show; 5- The invention of `terminator technology' that stops GMplants producing fertile seeds; thus farmers are physicallyprevented from sowing saved seed and have to buy new seedfrom the biotech firms instead; and 6- Biotech firms buying up seed companies. This createsmonopolies and limits farmers' choices still further. DuPontand Monsanto are now the two largest seed companies in theworld. As a result of their control of the seed industry,farmers are reporting that the availability of good non-GMseed varieties is rapidly disappearing. PRISONERS TO GM US farmers are obliged by their contracts to allow biotechcompany inspectors onto their farms. As with all crops,leftover seed from GM plants can germinate in fields sinceused to grow different crops; the seeds produce so-called`volunteers'. If biotech company inspectors find any suchplants, they can claim - and have repeatedly done so - thatthe farmers are growing unlicensed crops and infringingpatent rights. For example, David Chaney, who farms inKentucky, had to pay Monsanto $35,000; another Kentuckyfarmer agreed to pay the firm $25,000; and three Iowafarmers are on record as having paid it $40,000 each. Theseand other farmers have also had to sign gagging orders andagree to allow Monsanto complete access to their land insubsequent years. Crops have also been destroyed and seedconfiscated. The biotech industry currently has legalactions pending against 550 farmers in North America. ORGANIC FARMERS RUINED Internationally, the organic movement has rejected GMbecause of its potential for genetic contamination and itscontinued reliance on artificial chemicals. The SoilAssociation reports that in North America `many organicfarmers have been unable to sell their produce as organicdue to contamination'. Contamination has already: 1- meant the loss, at a potential cost of millions ofdollars, of almost the entire organic oilseed rape sector ofSaskatchewan; 2- cost US organic maize growers $90m in annual income (thelosses were calculated by the Union of Concerned Scientistsin an analysis for the US Environmental Protection Agency);and 3- forced many organic farmers to give up trying to growcertain crops altogether. Last month a survey by the OrganicFarming Research Foundation found that one in 12 US organicfarmers had already suffered direct costs or damage becauseof GM contamination. 4- If commercial planting of GM crops took place in Britain,the UK's burgeoning organic sector - now worth £900m, andset to increase with (supposed) government support - wouldperish. If, by some miracle, contamination could be avoidedthe costs involved would inevitably lead to organic farmersgoing bust. A study published by the JRC in May predictedthat efforts to protect conventional and organic crops fromcontamination would add 41 per cent to the cost of producingnon-GM oilseed rape and up to 9 per cent to the cost ofproducing non-GM maize and potatoes. 4. THE ENVIRONMENT WILL SUFFER INCREASED USE OF HERBICIDES The proponents of GM argue that the technology will lead toa reduction in the use of chemical weedkillers. But for themajority of GM crops grown so far, the evidence does notbear this out. Four years worth of data from the US Department ofAgriculture shows herbicide use on Roundup Ready soya beansis increasing. In 1998 total herbicide use on GM soya beans in six USstates was 30 per cent greater on average than onconventional varieties. The Soil Association's US investigation found that `the useof GM crops is resulting in a reversion to the use of older,more toxic compounds' such as the herbicide paraquat. WHY? Genes modified to make crops herbicide-resistant can betransferred to related weeds, which would then also becomeherbicide-resistant. Crops can themselves act like weeds. Because GM crops aredesigned to have a greater ability to survive, leftoverseeds can germinate in later years when a different crop isgrowing in the same field. The leftover volunteer plantswould then contaminate the new crop. In Canada, where GMherbicide-tolerant oilseed rape has been grown since 1998,oilseed rape weeds resistant to three different herbicideshave been created. These oilseed rape weeds are an exampleof `gene-stacking' - the occurrence of severalgenetically-engineered traits in a single plant.Gene-stacking was found in all 11 GM sites investigated in aCanadian ministry of agriculture study. As professor MartinEntz of Winnipeg's University of Manitoba observes, `GMoilseed rape is absolutely impossible to control'. Following a review of the Canadian experience, EnglishNature - the UK government's advisory body on biodiversity -predicted: `Herbicide-tolerant gene-stacked volunteers ofoilseed rape would be inevitable in practical agriculture inthe UK.' INCREASED USE OF PESTICIDES There has also been an increase in pesticide use by farmersattempting to cope with pest resistance created by GM Btcrops. Bt crops are modified to produce the insecticidaltoxin Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in all their tissues. However, the World Bank says insects can adapt to Bt within`one or two years'. And scientists at China's NanjingInstitute of Environmental Sciences have concluded that ifit was planted continuously Bt cotton would probably loseall its resistance to bollworm - the pest it is designed tocontrol - within eight to 10 years. Meanwhile, pests' adaptability to pest-resistant GM cropscould force farmers onto a `genetic treadmill' of ever moretechnical biotech fixes (including new varieties ofpest-resistant crops) and more frequent spraying, and moretoxic doses, of chemical pesticides. It could also destroythe effectiveness of Bt as a natural insecticide in organicagriculture. Perversely, GM pest-resistant crops could make agriculturemore vulnerable to pests and disease; they could end upharming beneficial soil micro-organisms and insects likeladybirds and lacewings that keep certain pest populationsin check. The Delhi-based Research Foundation for Science, Technologyand Ecology found in a study of four Indian states that `notonly did Monsanto's Bt cotton not protect plants from theAmerican bollworm, but there was an increase of 250-300 percent in attacks by non-target pests like jassids, aphids,white fly and thrips'. And researchers at Cornell Universityin the US found that the pollen from Bt corn was poisonousto the larvae of monarch butterflies. As GM `pest-resistant' crops fail to deliver, Australianfarmers have been advised to spray additional insecticide onMonsanto's Bt cotton by the Transgenic and Insect ManagementStrategy Committee of the Australian Cotton Growers ResearchAssociation. Overall insecticide applications on Bt maizehave also increased in the US. GENETIC POLLUTION GM crops may also reduce the diversity of plant life bycontaminating their wild relatives and indigenous cropvarieties in areas where the crops evolved. Widespread GMcontamination of conventional maize has already beendetected in Mexico. In Europe, contamination of wildrelatives of oilseed rape and sugar beet is consideredinevitable if GM commercialisation goes ahead. The sameapplies to wild relatives of rice in Asia. IMPLICATION If wildlife is harmed `unexpectedly' (ie,without that harm having officially been predicted), and anofficial risk assessment had not previously decided that GMcrops were safe, it is the state and society that will haveto pay for putting things right - if this is possible. 5 GM CROPS WILL NOT FEED THE POOR The idea that GM will end global poverty is probably thebiggest of all the GM apologists' lies - the one used toaccuse anti-GM campaigners in rich countries of not caringabout the Third World. The truth is that the introduction ofGM crops into the developing world will result in decreasedyields, crop failures and the impoverishment of literallybillions of small farmers. DECREASED YIELDS As already statedon page 36, there is no evidence thatgenetic modification increases yields. But, just to make thepoint, consider the following: 1- a US Department of Agriculture report published in May2002 concluded that net yields of herbicide-tolerant soyabean were no higher than those of non-GM soya, and thatyields of pest-resistant corn were actually lower than thoseof non-GM corn; 2- in September 2001, the state court of Mississippi ruledthat a Monsanto subsidiary's `high-yielding' GM soya seedswere responsible for reduced yields obtained by Mississippifarmer Newell Simrall; the farmer was awarded damages of$165,742. But then, no commercial GM crop has ever been specificallyengineered to have a higher yield. CROP FAILURES Crop failures (and, therefore, drastically reduced yields)have already occurred with GM soya and cotton plants in thedeveloping world. This is largely due to the unpredictablebehaviour of these crops. GM soya's brittleness, forexample, has made it incapable of surviving heat waves. Andin 2002 `massive failure' of Bt cotton was reported in thesouthern states of India; consequently, in April the Indiangovernment denied Monsanto clearance for the cultivation ofits Bt cotton in India's northern states. THE RUIN OF SMALL FARMERS GM would force the two billion people who manage thedeveloping world's small family farms to stop their age-oldpractice of saving seeds. Each year they will have to buyexpensive seeds and chemicals instead. The experience ofNorth American farmers shows that GM seeds cost up to 40 percent more than non-GM varieties. TECHNOFIXES DON'T WORK Inadequate yields are not the cause of hunger today. AsSergey Vasnetsov, a biotech industry analyst with investmentbank Lehman Brothers, says: `Let's stop pretending we facefood shortages. There is hunger, but not food shortages.' In1994, food production could have supplied 6.4 billion people(more than the world's actual population) with an adequate2,350 calories per day. Yet more than 1 billion people donot get enough to eat. Furthermore, the type of GM crops being produced are almostexclusively for the processed-food, textiles and animal-feedmarkets of the West. Instead of being used to grow staplefoods for local consumption, millions of hectares of land inthe developing world are being set aside to grow GM corn,for example, to supply grain for pigs, chicken and cattle.In May, ActionAid published a report called GM Crops: goingagainst the grain, which revealed that `only 1 per cent ofGM research is aimed at [developing] crops [to be] used bypoor farmers in poor countries'. And ActionAid calculatesthat those crops `stand only a one in 250 chance of makingit into farmers' fields'. As the UN Development Programmepoints out, `technology is created in response to marketpressures - not the needs of poor people, who have littlepurchasing power'. SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVES Sustainable agriculture projects have led to millet yieldsrising by up to 154 per cent in India, millet and sorghumyields rising by 275 per cent in Burkina Faso and maizeyields increasing by 300 per cent in Honduras. Combined withreforms aimed at achieving more equitable land ownership,protection from subsidised food imports and there-orientation of production away from export crops tostaple foods for local consumption, sustainable farmingcould feed the world. In 1998 a delegation representing every African countryexcept South Africa submitted a joint statement to a UNconference on genetic research. The delegates had beeninspired by a Monsanto campaign that used images of starvingAfrican children to plug its technology. The statement read:`We strongly object that the image of the poor and hungryfrom our countries is being used by giant multinationalcorporations to push a technology that is neither safe,environmentally-friendly nor economically beneficial to us.We do not believe that such companies or gene technologieswill help our farmers to produce the food that is needed inthe 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will destroythe diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainableagricultural systems that our farmers have developed formillennia, and that it will undermine our capacity to feedourselves.' Sources: Briefing papers by Genewatch, Friends of the Earth,the Soil Association, GM Free Wales, Farm