[Pil-pc-oceania] Article in The Age on GM foods etc

[Kerry Dawborn]

Hi Everyone,

Thought you might find it encouraging to read the article below, and 
know that it came from The Age in Melbourne, today - first time I've 
seen an article like this prominently displayed in a mainstream 
newspaper... But I admit I haven't been looking hard...

cheers,

Kerry


  Food production must not be controlled by the few

Gyorgy Scrinis
The Age
August 17, 2007

A NEW report prepared for the Federal Government on genetically modified 
canola crops is being used to support the lifting of state bans on 
growing commercial GM canola. Federal Agriculture Minister Peter 
McGauran says this report confirms that GM canola would offer 
significant economic and agronomic benefits for Australian farmers.

Yet the report contains no new revelations, and even acknowledges the 
possible market advantages of remaining GM-free and the continued strong 
public opposition to GM food.

The introduction of moratoriums in most states that began in 2003 were 
largely based on economic and trade considerations, with farmers, 
farmers' organisations, processors and food marketers concerned about 
the loss of overseas markets and the loss of the price premiums being 
received for non-GM canola crops.

The report acknowledges that there may still be price premiums and 
greater market opportunities for non-GM crops. The European Union has 
maintained its ban on the importing of GM canola seeds, and many food 
companies prefer non-GM canola for human consumption because of consumer 
rejection of GM foods. Of the 20 canola-producing countries, only Canada 
and the United States grow GM crops and this amounts to just 17 per cent 
of global canola production.

One problem with growing GM canola is that the engineered genes quickly 
contaminate the fields of non-GM canola, as has happened in Canada and 
the US. So many conventional non-GM farmers as well as organic farmers 
oppose the introduction of GM canola and other crops.

In 2003, the decision to impose state bans on GM canola was made in the 
context of strong and continuing public opposition to GM foods, with 
surveys around the world confirming that most citizens do not want to 
eat GM foods.

The varieties of GM canola licensed to be commercially grown if the bans 
are lifted are herbicide-tolerant varieties. Monsanto, the world's 
biggest seed company, owns the Roundup-tolerant varieties

and Bayer, the world's biggest agri-chemical, company owns the 
Basta-tolerant ones.

These GM crops are engineered to survive being sprayed with chemical 
weedkillers that would otherwise kill the crop itself. 
Herbicide-tolerant crops are thereby being used to expand the range of 
situations in which, and the doses of, chemical herbicides that can be 
applied.

As weeds related to canola --- radish, turnip and charlock --- also 
become resistant to the herbicides, other even more toxic chemicals will 
be used. GM crops offer, at best, a Band-Aid solution to weed-management 
problems or other agro-ecological crises facing chemical-industrial farmers.

Aside from some narrow and questionable economic and agronomic benefits, 
the bigger question is what else we are committing to when we open the 
door to GM canola and other food crops.

First, there are new health and ecological risks. The genetic 
modification of plants to introduce new agronomic traits may also induce 
other changes in the plant and the ultimate food product. Few 
independent studies have been conducted into the safety of GM foods, yet 
our food regulators continue to approve these foods for environmental 
release and human consumption largely based on data supplied by the 
companies that own these GM seeds. GM crops also introduce an entirely 
new form of pollution into the environment: genetic pollution.

Second, GM crops enable the continuation and extension of 
chemical-industrial agricultural practices, and may exacerbate some of 
the existing ecological problems associated with them. For example, GM 
crops introduce a higher level of uniformity into food crops, and 
accelerate the erosion of seed diversity and other forms of biodiversity.

Genetic engineering is essentially a tool for finetuning 
chemical-industrial agriculture, rather than offering ecologically 
sustainable alternatives to it, and further locks farmers into this 
system of production.

Third, genetic engineering is allowing the further concentration in 
corporate ownership and control of the agri-food system. GM seeds are 
patented and controlled by a handful of global corporations. These 
corporations not only own the seeds, but also the chemical inputs that 
these seeds require to perform as intended. Farmers must pay "technology 
fees" on top of the price of the seeds, and are also asked to sign 
contracts that stipulate how these seeds are to be used. GM technology 
brings the total control of the global food supply within reach of this 
handful of global corporations.

To accept the introduction of GM crops is to allow what will amount to a 
significant shift in the structures and practices of agricultural 
production. I refer to this in terms of a broader shift from a 
chemical-industrial to a genetic-corporate system of agri-food 
production. The development of new nanotechnologies for agri-food 
production --- such as nano-chemical pesticides --- is

likely to reinforce these agro-ecological and socio-economic trends.

Opposing GM crops and maintaining the state bans on GM canola is a way 
of resisting the genetic-corporate and nano-corporate takeover of the 
global agri-food system, and of maintaining a space in which 
alternative, ecologically sustainable and socially equitable ways of 
producing and sharing seeds, crops and foods may flourish.

/Dr Gyorgy Scrinis is a research associate in the Globalism Institute at 
RMIT University./

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