The real problem with GM is not necessarily the genetic modification itself. OK, we don't know whether the GM crops are more or less health, and we don't know whether GM food is detrimental to the health in the long term, because it largely hasn't been tested. But humans have been doing genetic modification for a long time - not in the lab manipulating the molecules, but in the field, manipulating the healthier, bigger grains or fruits to grow more. For example, in pre-industrial, agricultural Peru, there are 2000 potato varieties, with as many as 50 varieties per village - all of which stem from genetic modification by peasant farmers. (Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977 [1996], 177)
No, the real problem with GM is human freedom. Large agribusiness companies, like Monsanto, are the developers of GM seed, and they patent that seed so that it belongs to them. Farmers then have to pay Monsanto to use their seed. This doesn't seem like much of a problem, at this stage. But we have to look deeper.
Monsanto, et al, have developed terminator seed - that is, seed that will produce fruit one year, but the fruit it produces is infertile, meaning that farmers then have to re-buy seed the following year, and cannot re-plant what they have just grown. This traps farmers into buying seed yearly. Pretty bad, but again, not the end of the world, especially if their net profits are still up.
The next stage is that Monsanto sues farmers who don't use their seed if some of it happened to land (and grow) on the farmer's land. This happened in Canada, where a farmer was sued after seed, probably from a passing truck (although it may have been purposely planted by Monsanto), landed in a farmer's field - Monsanto then trespassed on his property, collected samples of the crop, and successfully sued him for not paying for their seed when he was growing (just a tiny bit of) their crop. This farmer then had to burn all the rest of his seed (generations of carefully grown and carefully improved seed), because of fear of continued sueing. They destroyed the farmer's life, destroyed the farmer's life work of seed-improvement. This is not unique, and not even unusual - hundred of farmers have reported threat-letters from Monsanto, and have reached settlements that they are not allowed to discuss.
The next stage, once farmers give in and buy Monsanto's seed, is for Monsanto to spread disease that their seed is protected against - any farmer with Monsanto's seed gets a good crop, any without is blighted and yields little or no harvest - forcing them to get Monsanto's seed. This, to the public knowledge, has not yet happened, although it is well within the companies ability and moral structure - it is likely, if not to have already happened, that it will happen soon.
At this point, Monsanto have a virtual monopoly on almost the entire world's food production. As we require food to live, Monsanto also have vast control over our life - if a nation disobeys them, they take away the (terminator) seed, spread blight, removing the food, and so the nation dies.
What is at issue in GM debates is the very freedom of human life. What Monsanto will tell you is that they're just trying to end world poverty. Don't believe them. They're on the path to the domination of human life, and they know it. And they want it. And they are willing to destroy lives to get it. This, if anything, is a cause worth fighting.
Some may say that the activists who destroy fields of GM crops are terrorists. They are not. They are activists, fighting for human freedom where government and society is failing. The real terrorists are the GM companies in their quest for global control. Stop them, and fight to make them illegal - fight to make them stop.
For more info, watch the documentary film The Future of Food (trailer, torrent download, torrent 2). Or go to GMWatch.eu.
Monsanto's tactics are also addressed in Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which is good reading and heightened my fear of corn. :)
ReplyDeleteThere are certain social aspects which, I feel, are rightly within the control of the state: national defense, postal services, road maintenance, education, and so on. Some of these are key to living (defense) and some are not (postal services). It surprises me that the state has not taken a stronger hand in a key survival element, the production of food. In a sense, this has been privatized out to Monsanto and other companies when this does not seem the right sphere to operate food production.
You've raved about The Omnivore's Dilemma before, I really should read it. And Corn.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the government should take a much more active role in food production, as this is one of the most basic parts of infrastructure, although I guess it hasn't really been seen that way. The EU certainly have more involvement than America, and Europe has been generally anti-GM, even at the government level (although, sadly, with pressure some of that may be being eroded by Monsanto et al.). I just hope it doesn't get as bad as I expect it will (at least in some countries, if not globally).