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What’s
the Fuss Over Frankenfoods?
Written by Freydis, 1999
Genetically Modified
Organisms (GMO) 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 Genetically Modified
(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 and soybeans in order to increase yields and decrease
insect damage?
This is no idle
question and food quality is a serious
concern for everyone, especially in an age obsessed with
bacteria, disease, and food-borne illness. The frequent
outbreaks of toxic e-coli are reminders of just how dangerous
tainted food can be.
Biologists and farmers have been altering the
genetics of their crops using traditional methods for thousands
of years, long before Gregor Mendel
conducted his experiments demonstrating genetic influences on 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.
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) won't make it go away and does nothing to
resolve the issue.
The flaw is not with
the technology but how it's 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 ...
Although
the benefits of greater food production seem obvious, in
practice GM foods are already destabilizing farming
in more ways than one, 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.
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 more money selling it to the entire world.
Can you say monopoly?!
When one starts to
think about it this is a very scary development,
do we really want multi-nationals to have a
monopoly over our food production? Traditional
farmers can’t compete, once they’re out
of business all the seeds 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, while the few mutations
that can eat the crops 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 crop. 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 overuse of antibiotics
creating resistant disease is a fitting
comparison. Present annoyances seem to always be
more critical than a future crisis. This is an
exceptionally dangerous way to go about doing things, like
racing down a dark and narrow road at night without your headlights
on.
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're 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 crafted 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 is going
into building these seeds should be spent on
studying their consequences and effects and trying to find ways to
prevent or even counteract
the negative consequences.
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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