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What’s
the Fuss Over Frankenfoods ?
Genetically modified
organisms are increasingly on the radarscopes of
aware Americans, but especially European
consumers. Public debate on the issue is often
very volatile which invariably means that fact is
reduced to sound bite and debate centers on
tangible sensationalism rather than the
obscurities of strategically critical issues.
Presently most of the arguments involve GM
plants, not so much the animal life yet, although
both are equally real and possible. Basically the
question becomes: is it safe to alter the genes
of crop foods such as wheat, soybeans, rapeseed
etc. in order to increase yields and decrease
insect damage?
This is no idle
question, food quality is a heavily regulated
concern especially in an age obsessed with
disease, bacteria and food-borne illness’
and a country with anti-bacterial everything
– the Lysol generation. The E-coli outbreaks
as in hamburger are a prime example for American
audiences, but the Bovine spongiform encephalitis
AKA mad-cow disease is equally applicable in the
public psyche, although the connection between cause and effect
is not totally certain in the case of BSE. Still disease is on
the rise and increasingly difficult to kill with
known methods and since food is something everyone uses,
the quality and safety of it is of paramount
concern to the public.
Fundamentally,
biologists and farmers have been altering the
genetics of their crops ever since Gregor Mendel
conducted his experiments with plants. The
question of genetically modified food is really
one of how much is too much and not an issue of whether it
should happen at all. Scientific developments now allow
a crop plant, such as soybeans, to be customized genetically in
ways that radically leap beyond traditional ‘mate and see’
techniques. Instead of crossbreeding one good copy with another
good copy, biochemistry can insert genes from one plant or even
animal into another. The classic example is the tobacco plant
that had firefly glow-genes added to it; the tobacco plant
glowed in the dark! Although somewhat of a novelty it was
definitely an effective concept demonstrator.
And really just about anything can
be done with genetic material, especially on simple organisms
like insects and plants. I think the scientific effectiveness of
bioengineering is what scares people more than anything else.
But sticking our heads in the sand and ignoring it or banning
genetic engineering altogether (as some politicians have
actually proposed to do) wont make it go away and does nothing
to resolve the issue. Fear of GM itself is unfounded and often
ludicrous, example - eating GM foods will not change your own
genetic material as some think.
The flaw is not with
the technology but how it is implemented. And
this implementation is definitely a thorny issue.
Presently the essential goal of GM crop growing
is to increase the yield per acre by lowering
insect caused causalities and raising the
percentage of harvestable food. And what could
possibly be wrong with that? Well here goes ...
‘Why we can
feed the starving millions with a new farming
revolution!’ Or so GM proponents claim. But
is this such a good idea, I mean do we really
want to feed every hungry mouth so they can grow
up to make even more hungry mouths? Wasn’t
one green revolution bad enough? I personally
think that if this is the sole reason for GM
foods the whole concept should be scrapped
because it is a recipe for global disaster. This
could turn out to be one of the most serious
repercussions; a global food production
revolution would have unimaginable political and
economic repercussions, most of them unpleasant
and all of them destabilizing. This is the last
thing an overpopulated and environmentally
fragile world needs.
But GM foods are
already destabilizing the farm market, and it’s
not a pretty sight. If one farmer uses GM crops
and his neighbor doesn’t, the neighbor will
end up losing out because he simply can’t
harvest and sell as much. Now it may be easy to
say that the traditional farmer is less efficient
and deserves to be run out of business if he
persists in his regressive ways but it isn’t
quite that simple. You see GM seeds are
proprietary, in other words mega-super-global
corporations like Monsanto or ADM own the seeds
and the recipe to build them. Farmer Bob has to
fill out a very complicated lease in order to use
GM seeds and must plant them in specific
locations free to be monitored and inspected by
the parent corporation, must turn in all unused
seeds, can’t sell or keep any extras and
well you start to get the picture I’m sure.
Not only that but the pesticides used on the GM
crops are sold by the owner of the seeds. If you
buy seeds from Monsanto you have to spray them
with ‘Round-Up’, or whatever chemical
the company has engineered the plants to be
immune to. GM seeds are big business and the
multi-nationals that spend millions developing
the technology have only one goal in mind:
making even bigger bucks and selling it to the
entire world. Can you say business 'monopoly'?
When one starts to
think about it this is a very scary development,
do we really want multi-nationals to have a
monopoly to our food production? Traditional
farmers can’t compete, once they’re out
of business al the seed for growing crops will
have to come from these corporations. If you want
to eat you will have to pay them.
That facet of GM
foods is certainly worth pause for thought, but
still GM crops are not like cars that can be
built by a company and used for 20 years. Biology
is constantly in flux, evolution doesn’t
stop for farmer Bob or ADM. Monsanto may make
billions but they will go bankrupt if they don’t
keep up the research and development (R&D). Insects and disease will
react to the modified crops because the bugs that
can’t eat them die and the few mutations
that can will multiply. Inevitably GM seeds will
need to be constantly altered to keep these
threats minimized, but by doing so we are
indirectly breeding super-insects, bugs that will
be tougher to kill and more able to eat anything.
In other words genetically modified food will be
associated with genetically modified insects,
likewise their evolution will be hastened just as
much as the crop foods are.
GM bugs are yet
another problem, but the super-weeds that are
evolving alongside GM crops may be even worse.
Since GM crops are not grown in greenhouses they
spread around via wind, birds and bugs just like
every other seed-bearing plant. Cross-pollination
occurs and instantly you have the hybrid genes
mixed with the traditional genes of old wheat or
weeds or whatever grows near the crops. And this
is no theoretical issue it has happened.
Sugar beets in Europe have mixed with wild ones
creating a pest that can’t be killed because
the crop beet is susceptible to the same poisons!
Plants aren’t
like animals in the way they reproduce or in the
way they can crossbreed. Plants were the first
life on land and have had a long time to evolve.
Plants have a very peculiar, yet poorly studied
ability to integrate foreign genetic material and
use it to their advantage. Even species with
different numbers of chromosomes can hybridize!
Existent weeds are insidious enough, think of
broomrape and witchweed, nearly microscopic seeds
that bury in the ground and live more than 20
years. When these and other weeds gain the gene
for resistance to present herbicides, what then?
Invent newer, more toxic poisons?
The most recent
repercussions of GM crops are the vitamins being
designed into some grains such as rapeseed with
vitamin A. How will this affect the food chain,
birds and other life that eats the seeds? Will it
kill them, give them super-vision, who knows ...
Another issue that should be
addressed is the fact
that no one agency regulates GM crops. Is the
herbicide resistance an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concern?
Is it a corporate business practice issue? All of the above? GM foods
aren’t poisonous to the consumer and the final food product
is exactly the same as that from traditional crops,
so how should the FDA be involved? Genetic crops
may be causing super weeds and super bugs but it's
not a direct relationships so who should be
punished and how is it to be controlled? It seems
that the American government is perfectly happy
to let the free-market deal with the problems and
solutions and I’m sure the hefty political
contributions from companies like ADM and
Monsanto effectively mollifies any loose cannons. No speed-bumps
there.
Unfortunately many
of these problems will be released into nature
before a solution is created if indeed ones even
exist. I think the over use of antibiotics
creating resistant disease is a fitting
comparison. Present annoyances seem to always be
more critical than the future crisis’. This is an
exceptionally dangerous way to go about doing things, like
racing down the highway at night with the headlights turned off.
The dangers of GM
crops are global concerns because even if
the EU, for instance, refuses to use them, countries like China
or Argentina will quickly pick up the slack
without a second thought. I think that anti-GM
organizations such as Greenpeace are really
dropping the ball for not only are they far-behind
the reality curve on how prevalent these crops
are but they are using ignorance and push-button
issues on food safety to propel their campaigns
into the limelight. Food safety may be a hot-topic
for BSE frightened crowds but it’s simply
not the real threat being crated by GMO. Any
legislator, activist or thinker dealing with GM
foods needs to be a realist. You can’t put
the toothpaste back in the tube, the technology
exists and it will be used. Instead we need to
focus on how best to use it and diligently work
to identify potential problems associated with
these crops before they become manifest
throughout the environment.
As much R&D going
into building these seeds should be spent on
studying their consequences and effects and trying to find ways to
prevent or even counteract
them. Indeed if such a policy were implemented
then perhaps we would actually realize that the costs outweigh
the benefits! A genetic solution may offer quick
results but strategically it’s probably
better to use traditional organic methods of crop
control such as using natural insect enemies to
control pest populations. But environmental
engineering like this takes time and effort to
set up and maintain; in a quick fix, capitalist self interest
first,
mega-bucks world it’s not likely. Not only that but with commodity prices
falling and so many farmers already going out of
business we need to seriously consider if GM
crops are necessary at all; could this
not be merely another artificial need sponsored
by advertising and promotional campaigns?
Ultimately the Multi National
Corporations (MNCs)
that create GM seeds will be responsible for the
environmental and farm related damages that occur.
It would seem to be in their long term interests
to find credible solutions to super-bugs and
super-weeds now before they become embroiled in
lawsuits from here to Buenos Aires. Already at
least one lawsuit has been leveled by farmers
against Monsanto for failing to warn of dangers
to the environment and also for unfair trade
practices through the combined monopoly of herbicide and food crop.
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