Genetically Engineered Foods Archives

Government in bed with corporations! Archive in GEF.

Friends,

It really is pathetic how blatently the "campaign donations" (sig. bribes) are now running the country and reaching for the world.

Comments?

Walt

Count Dracula Regrets
By Andrew Christie
Faultline.org
7-24-3

June 23 was the evening of the big debate on biotech in Sacramento.
The agricultural trade expo and international ministerial Ñ a party
thrown by the US Dept. of Agriculture for the biotech industry
costing $3 million taxpayer dollars Ñ had just opened across town.
Protests were raging in the streets. On the debate panel were three
food and social justice advocates in opposition, and three
government and biotech advocates in favor.

It was Q&A time. An Iowa farmer in the audience stood up. He had
some questions about the rules of international trade and the
process of their ratification in upcoming trade agreements.
Specifically, he wanted to know why it was that when his neighbors --
courtesy of Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, et al -- planted a genetically
engineered crop next to his, it is he, not his neighbor, who is
required to build barriers to prevent cross-pollination
contamination, at his expense; and why it is that Monsanto could sue
him for "theft" of their product is such pollination occurred but he
could not sue Monsanto for ruining his organic crop?

The hapless USDA counsel to whom the questions were directed took a
breath.

"Well," he said, "I don't know..." and paused. The rest of his
answer (along the lines of "but we're certainly going to be taking a
look at things like that in the future") was drowned out in audience
laughter.

On the same day, the dread presence of 20 or 30 Black Bloc kids,
with drums and balaclavas, terrorizing 100 police in full riot gear
in the street outside Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium, forced the
planned outdoor "ribbon cutting" ceremony inside, where US Secretary
of Agriculture Anne Venneman, courtesy of co-host SureBeam Corp. Ñ a
food irradiating company and former military contractor subsidiary
that paid $50,000 for hosting privileges Ñ declared the Ministerial
Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology
officially open.

Delegates shuttled from the Sheraton to the convention center and
back via an underground tunnel.

In that day's San Francisco Chronicle, reporting on the protests in
a front-page story and an accompanying feature on "Frankenfoods" -
both overwhelmingly negative on the nature and prospects of
genetically engineered food - USDA undersecretary J.B. Penn mustered
the case for the defense. He said it was hard for him to
understand "how protesters can be against something that can provide
people with more food."

The next day, Brian Leahy of California Certified Organic Farmers
tore into undersecretary Penn's defense as biotech's "nastiest,
dirtiest, lie; that this technology is going to feed hungry people.
It's going to make more people poor and hungry."

Leahy was giving testimony in a Sacramento Senate hearing room on
the prospect of crafting legislation to protect California's farmers
and citizenry from the adverse impacts of international trade
agreements and the technologies that were being heavily pitched just
down the street. The hearing came on the fourth day of protests
surrounding the Ministerial/Expo, as police continued to harry
protestors seeking to be heard on the same issues.

Opening the hearing, Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont), Chair of the
Senate Select Committee on International Trade Policy and State
Legislation, said that representatives of the biotech industry had
been invited to testify at the hearing, and had agreed to do so,
but, she noted sweetly Ñ Senator Figueroa notes everything sweetly
Ñ "they all cancelled in the last few days, and in the last few
hours."

Word of the debate held the previous evening had, evidently, gotten
around.

The other twelve panelists, trooping to the front of the room in
waves, presented a varied and devastating indictment of genetically
engineered food, its regulation and the resistance of industry
thereto, and the provisions of the trade pacts under which the
technology is being promoted. Of particular concern were the
implications of the current case brought by the United States
against the European Union for declaring a moratorium on the import
of genetically modified organisms. The US is trying to overturn the
ban under the rules of the World Trade Organization.

"If the WTO decides in the favor of the US," said Dr. Caroline
Lucas, Member of the European Parliament, "you are likely to see a
civil society backlash that will make the Seattle protests look like
a tea party." The power of trade pacts to overrule the laws of
sovereign states trying to protect the health of their citizens,
Lucas testified, means "democracy, accountability, and openness are
at stake."

Andrew Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety said that European
policy on GMOs is based on science, while acidly characterizing US
policy as "faith-based regulation." Due to biotech industry
lobbying, he said, "we have yet to pass our first law, in twenty
years of trying," as a result of which there is no federal
regulation of the production or sale of genetically engineered food.
However, this means that California now has a free hand to impose
its own regulations, as "with no laws to pre-empt, there is no issue
of federal pre-emption."

Will Brieger from the Office of the state Attorney General demurred
that the federal government can nullify a state law that it deems to
interfere with trade, that other nations would likely try to strike
any California law they considered to do so, and that the Attorney
General's office will be better able to fend off such challenges if
the Committee makes certain that any legislation is based on "a
thorough administrative record and sound scientific research."

Other panelists pointed out that the lack of research, and the
burden of proof, is on the other side. Michael Hansen of Consumers
Union noted that the lack of regulation of GMOs is matched by their
lack of testing for human safety; that in the instance of
Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" corn, the FDA simply noted that the
company had "submitted a summary of data" of its own tests of the
corn; the FDA itself has never made a determination of the product's
safety. "The government has not performed one experiment to
determine any impacts of these foods on human health or the
environmental impacts of genetically engineered crops," said
Kimbrell. "There is not one peer-reviewed study behind the industry
hype."

Dolores Huerta, testifying three blocks away from a city park named
after Cesar Chavez, with whom she co-founded United Farm Workers,
said "Many of the farm workers I talk to were farmers in Latin
America, forced off their land. They tell me they couldn't compete
with the big companies, and they had to come here and be turned into
laborers for the same corporations that now own their farms."

Huerta, noting that the real goal of genetically altered seeds is
the resulting ownership patent on that seed and crop, asked "What
will happen to our food supply when it is controlled by a few multi-
national corporations?" Huerta urged the Legislature "to take the
lead on this issue."

Anuradha Mittal of the Institute for Food and Development Policy
(Food First) amplified Huerta's point, saying that in Mexico, 600
farmers a day lose their land and come to the US to labor for big
agriculture; that in India two million farmers a year lose their
land due to the practice of dumping cheap grain on the country at
prices the local farmers can't compete with. "'Free trade' has
devastated the countryside in India," said Mittal. "Biotech and free
trade agreements combined will be even more devastating. The USDA
has said it will take diplomatic actions against any country that
rejects genetically modified food aid. The message is clear: 'You're
either with us or you're against us.' The same message will surely
come to the California legislature, but you can send a message to
the rest of the world about a different model of agriculture."

"We fought for generations to get the kind of strong laws we have
here in California," said Lisa Hoyos of the California Coalition for
Fair Trade and Human Rights, "and they are in danger of being eroded
in the coming wave of trade negotiations."

Concluding the hearing, Senator Figueroa said "We are mindful of the
threat of international trade agreements that undermine democracy
and pose a threat to the public welfare." She promised that "this
Committee will be monitoring the activities of the WTO. I think you
will see the State of California playing a larger role in this
issue."

The champions of biotech, big agriculture and free trade continued
to party a few blocks away, having theoretically avoided the Dracula
test - the process by which bad ideas hatched in secret are exposed
to the sunlight of public scrutiny - but only insofar as they had
managed not to be physically present in the room when the treatment
was administered.

The best they could manage was to make sure that no one of their
number had to sit in one of those chairs, face a senatorial panel,
and say "Well... I don't know. But we'll look into it."

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