The Rise and Fall of "Frankenfood"

by Ronnie Cummins and Ben Lilliston

Europe rejects USA's genetically engineered foods

A specter is haunting the boardrooms of Monsanto and the Gene Giants. Mass public resistance against genetically altered foods and crops (GAFs and GACs) in Western Europe and India, spearheaded by an incredible grassroots campaign in Britain, appears on the verge of spreading into North America and across the globe.

Rumors are circulating in Europe that two of the largest GE transnationals, Novartis and AstraZeneca, may bow out of ag- biotech altogether. If mass anti-biotech campaigns catch fire in North America and Japan - and solidarity and cooperation continue to increase among activists in the North and South - the Brave New World of ag-biotech may be short-lived.

Consumer polls over the past ten years that show that 80 to 90 percent of Americans support mandatory labeling of GAFs, and that 60 percent or so would attempt to avoid buying GAF products. There isn't more of a controversy yet in the US because many consumers erroneously believe that there aren't any GE foods on the market. A 1999 study by the International Food Information Council, a government- and industry-funded group, found that 47 percent of Americans believe that there aren't any genetically engineered foods on the market yet. In fact, about one-third of the Midwest's soybeans now are GACs.

Last summer, European Union (EU) environmental ministers moved to implement the legal equivalent of a three-year moratorium on any new approvals of GE foods or crops. The moratorium will remain in effect until more stringent EU safety regulations are put in place in 2002. Not since April of 1998 has a GE food been approved in Europe.

The EU decision comes in the wake of a massive grassroots movement across the continent that has provoked a stampede by major supermarket chains, fast-food restaurants, food producers, and animal feed companies to abandon GAFs and GACs.

The European biotech trade association, EuropaBio, criticized the moratorium as "deplorable." Republican Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri (sometimes known as the "Senator from Monsanto") lashed out against the EU ban in the Washington Post, and US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky warned that the White House was considering economic retaliation by filing a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization.

On May 17, the British Medical Association called for a moratorium on altered foods and crops, warning that the spread of untested and unlabeled gene-altered foods could lead to the development of new allergies and antibiotic resistance in humans. The British doctors criticized the US government's refusal to conduct "pre-market safety-testing."

Heretofore unpublished federal Food and Drug Administration documents obtained by the International Center for Technology Assessment [www.icta.org] and the Alliance for Bio-Integrity [www.bio-integrity.org], show that even the FDA's own scientists had serious differences over the FDA's "no labeling" and "no safety-testing" policy on gene-altered foods.

According to the Alliance, the internal documents reveal that "FDA officials repeatedly cautioned that foods produced through recombinant DNA technology entail different risks than do their conventionally produced counterparts and that this input was consistently disregarded by the bureaucrats who crafted the agency's current policy, which treats bioengineered foods the same as natural ones." The evidence shows the agency violated the US Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in allowing the marketing of GAFs without testing.

When Nature magazine publicized a Cornell University study showing that pollen from Bt corn crops could kill monarch butterflies - "the Bambi of the insect world"- Americans were finally alerted to the fact that millions of acres of altered crops had already been planted - and harvested - in the US.

Other studies showed that Bt-spliced crops kill beneficial insects such as lace-wings and ladybugs, kill beneficial soil microorganisms, damage soil fertility, and may be harming insect-eating birds. On April 15, the Times of London reported on a scientific study that proved that bees could spread GE-tainted pollen for a distance up to four kilometers.

Under media pressure, USDA head Dan Glickman was compelled to admit: "We can't force-feed consumers ... There are certainly more and more questions being asked about biotechnology, and those questions must be answered."

Lower Yields; More Spraying

Charles Benbrook, a respected US scientist [www.biotech-info.net] has reported "overwhelming" and "indisputable" evidence that farmers planting Monsanto's genetically engineered Roundup Ready Soybeans (RRSs) are experiencing significantly lower yields than farmers who are growing conventional, non-GE soybeans. Benbrook also warns that promises of reductions in pesticide use are exaggerated at best and fraudulent at worst. Benbrook notes that the only proven way to reduce pesticide use is through organic or sustainable agriculture practices.

An article in the British magazine New Scientist (relying on recently released USDA data) concluded that herbicide-resistant and Bt crops are neither producing higher yields nor reducing pesticide use.

A study by the Center for Ethics and Toxics [www.cetos.org] published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medicinal Food disclosed that Monsanto's RRSs contain 12 to 14 percent lower levels of naturally occurring phytoestrogens, which are thought to protect against breast cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis.

An article in the journal Cancer revealed links between glyphosate - the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup - and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer. In 1998, more than 112,000 tons of glyphosate, the world's largest-selling herbicide, was sprayed across the globe. That year, a full 71 percent of all GACs were engineered to be resistant to herbicides such as Roundup.

After US corn buyers Archer Daniels Midland and A.E. Staley announced they would no longer purchase altered corn that was unapproved for sale in the EU, 20 percent of corn farmers in some areas returned their altered seeds. Major European supermarket chains, food producers and animal feed companies are starting to turn to Brazil for soybeans. Prices paid to US soybean farmers have dropped to a 27-year low, with overall US soybean exports declining by 38 percent. The US has lost $400 million in corn exports to Europe over the past two years because of the EU public's rejection of GE corn. (In the US, GE and non-GE soybeans continue to be co-mingled.)

Japanese officials have refused to support the US position of "no labeling" for GE foods. Japan, a major buyer of North American grains and oilseeds, may be forced to turn to Australia, France and Brazil for GE-free canola and soya. Monsanto Canada CEO Ray Mowling warned the Canadian Grain Council that the global controversy over Monsanto's "Frankenstein foods" and the growing "effectiveness of GMO opponents" pose a major threat to agricultural biotechnology.

Direct actions already have rocked the US from coast to coast. In late July, a crop of Round-up Ready corn near Lodi, California was destroyed by a group calling itself the Lodi Loppers while another planting of bio-engineered corn was uprooted by a group called the "Cropitistas."

In August, the shadowy Seeds of Resistance cut down stands of genetically engineered corn in Old Town, Maine. "There is absolutely no benefit to humanity from corn plants sucyh as [these]," the activists declared. "They are only designed to sell more herbicide."

Chemical & Engineering News reported last May that Thomas Nickson, a Monsanto regulatory official, "now considers the labeling of genetically modified crops for export inevitable." According to C&E News, giant commodities traders Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland also believe currently co-mingled export crops will soon have to be segregated and labeled.

It will be necessary to make at least some minor concessions on labeling to head off a trade war with the EU. They also must prevent the emergence of a serious organized opposition movement in the US.

The White House and the Gene Giants believe that segregation and labeling of GE exports will placate Europeans and Asians, and that over time everyone will become fatalistic as they realize that GE crops and ingredients are everywhere. The USDA hopes that new federal organic standards will "ease the worries of biotech-wary consumers" by prohibiting the use of genetically engineered ingredients in foods labeled "USDA Organic." (In other words, if you don't want GE, buy organic.)

In the meantime, the White House and the Gene Giants intend to use the World Bank, the IMF, the OECD, and other corporate and biotech-friendly institutions to rewrite global trade laws so that individual countries no longer have the ability to respond to the public's demands to regulate genetic engineering and other out-of-control technologies.

Campaigners in the US and around the world must prepare for a protracted struggle. The battle has just begun.

Campaign for Food Safety, 860 Highway 61, Little Marais, Minnesota 55614; (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157, www.purefood.org

Ronnie Cummins is National Director of the Campaign for Food Safety. Ben Lilliston is the CFS Communications Director.

GEs? GMs? GMOs? GEOs? LMOs? We'll Call 'Em GACs & GAFs

If you're opposed to GE foods does that mean you should boycott General Electric? (No. GE is short for "genetically engineered.") GM stands for "genetically modified," not General Motors. GEOs are genetically engineered organisms, not fuel-efficient automobiles.

One of the problems about discussing transgenic animals, crops and foods is that the biotech industry insists on referring to them via impenetrably complex phrases or confusing and unpronounceable abbreviations. The problem is compounded when foreign languages contribute other befuddling terms to the mix.

In an attempt to get a handle on this biotech biz, Earth Island Journal has decided henceforth to refer to genetically altered foods and genetically altered crops as GAFs and GACs (pronounced "gaffes" and "gacks"). These eco-acronyms get our nod because they are not only memorable and easy-to-say but they describe, respectively, what transgenic crops are - gaffes - and what they threaten to do - gack!

Biotech Background

Biotech's leaders: Monsanto, Novartis, Dow, DuPont, AgrEvo and AstraZeneca.

Genetically Altered US Crops (1998): Corn: 26.5 percent (21 million acres). Soybeans: 27% (19 million acres). Cotton: 44% (5.8 million acres). Potatoes: 3% (50,000 acres). In 1999, altered corn grew to 40 percent of the US crop.

Companies Using Franken-Foods: Frito-Lay, General Mills, Gerber, Heinz, Kraft, Nabisco, Pillsbury, Procter & Gamble (Pringles), Quaker.

Is Your Kitchen GAF-Free? Probably not. GeneWatch [Council for Responsible Genetics, Cambridge, MA] says there's nowhere consumers can call for a list of products containing GAF ingredients. GeneWatch's Philip Bereano maintains that the US "should follow the old public health tradition now being used in Europe, called the precautionary principle, which embodies the age-old wisdom of 'look before you leap' .... The burden of proof should rest on the proponent of the new technology."

Brazil Fights Transgenics

Last June, Brazilian Federal Judge Antonio Souza Prudente halted Monsanto's attempts to market its genetically engineered Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans, arguing that "the irresponsible speed to introduce the advances of genetic engineering is inspired by the greed of economic globalization."

The US, Canada and Argentina are the only commercial producers of transgenic soybeans. An estimated 45 percent of US soybeans are genetically engineered crops (GACs).

Brazil, the world's largest soybean producer after the US, is the only large supplier not using Roundup Ready seeds. Monsanto remains determined to replace Brazil's native soybean crops with Monsanto's patented transgenic seeds. Monsanto Brazil plans to spend $550 million to build a Roundup manufacturing plant in Bahia State.

Nearly 20 percent of Monsanto's annual $8.6 billion in sales were attributed to sales of RR seeds. If Brazilian farmers were persuaded to use its RR seeds, Monsanto could realize an estimated $1 billion in yearly profits. Monsanto's lawyers have appealed Judge Souza's ruling.

Last summer, Governor Olivia Dutra pulled the plug on 79 experimental transgenic sites in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In neighboring Mato Grosso State, Gov. Jose Oreinio dos Santos ordered a five-year moratorium on transgenic crops.

San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Correspondent Jack Epstein reports that in Rio Grande do Sul "642,000 acres, or 30 percent of the state's crop, have already been planted with contraband [GAC] seeds" smuggled across the border from Argentina.

Brazilian Agriculture Secretary José Hermeto Hoffman has threatened to seize transgenic seeds or crops and predicts that "We will wipe out transgenic soybeans by early next year."