Because this is REALLY important
Oct. 21st, 2003 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ambitious_wenchArtemii, I hope you don't mind that I've posted your work here. It is, of course and without doubt, yours. I'm posting it again here because it is REALLY important that this information be shared in as wide an arena as possible.
[Here is the long-promised deconstruction. It isn't done, but after working on it for five hours over more days I've come to terms with the fact that I would write a tome if I didn't stop at some point. I urge you to stick through it, not just because of the time/energy I invested but more because I think the information included is vital and little-known, especially though not exclusively amongst Americans.]
This is one of the BiotechFive's (henceforth referred to as BF) big lies that many non-smallfarmer/non-sustainableagricultu
Here we go again. Every time a pro-GMO American (including members of the U.S. Administration) talks about people who are against GMOs, they call them "emotional" -- as if A) you can't use logic to be against them; B) emotion is clearly more flawed than logic anyway. Never do they mention that the majority of the world's billions are against them; never do they mention that in reality most people in most other countries are far more educated on these issues than most Americans.
That's the claim. The claim is far from substantiated, however.
The published US evidence - most of which has been sponsored by the BF - hardly unbiased on the subject. Not coincidentally, they have squelched most of the studies that have found differently, going so far as to discredit respected scientists, buy people off (by offering payoffs, jobs, etc.) and buy up the research. When that doesn't work, they are quite happy to sue people into oblivion.
Which most still don't even know, as I point out every time I do one of these deconstructions.
"Eighty percent of the nation's soy crop is genetically engineered with a gene from a hardy bacterium that makes soy resistant to a popular weed killer [mostly Round-Up]. Fully one-third of U.S. corn contains a gene from another bacterium that kills bugs [BT]. ...
...scientific papers and patents that help Monsanto enjoy its Microsoft-like lock on the commercial market for genetically modified seeds: 90 percent of the 140 million acres under biotech cultivation worldwide were sowed with Monsanto's corn and soy. And 70 percent of processed U.S. food contains at least some genetically modified ingredients, the company says." ["Biotech crop inventors turn to more exotic manipulation", AP article, 27 June 2003]
Um, how?
To be less concise: Most people are hungry because they don't have enough money to buy enough food. GMOs make farmers more reliant on transnational corporations (especially the BF) by requiring:
This is such a gross oversimplification of the reasons why people and countries are against GMOs that it doesn't even seem worth debunking.
See last comment.
This is not true. It is, as I said above, simply that most of the research currently available in the US is so. Independent research has repeatedly shown GMOs to be far from safe; to readily crossbreed with non-GM crops, usually dominating in the crossbreeding; to mutate at random several generations down from the genetic change (so that clones of the same genetic modification can become drastically different from their parent and each other, suddenly, several generations down the line -- yes, sometimes to plants with traits never before seen on earth); to be genetically separate enough from natural plants to be distinguishable in DNA tests; and so on. In addition, the lack of labelling in America means not only that people who buy orange juice are better informed than people eating GMOs (due to the stricter labelling requirements for the former), but also that people with allergies could be eating something they are allergic to without it even being in the ingredient list (not even getting into people who are allergic to pesticides, are vegetarian/vegan [not aware they are eating genes of animals], etc.). The StarLink Corn debacle made this perfectly clear.
No, they haven't.
Yes, it is, but not in the way you mean.
It makes cotton cheaper to grow for highly subsidized American producers, further undercutting the price of cotton and forcing West African producers out of business.
It is subsidies by 'First World' countries that are causing this, not GMs, as evidenced by the fact that some of the countries causing this problem do not allow much if any planting of GM crops.
Why? 'Cause you say so? And the global south doing what the 'First World' says has gone so well so far, that of course they would immediately do what you suggest! Yeah!
'Cause, you know, they produced so little before 'First World' fertilizers and pesticides. I have this bridge I think you'd be interested in ...
I think that others can say it far better than my sarcasm, however. For example:
"There is strong grassroots opposition to GMOs in the region [Africa] and industry is working hard to break this down and has already gotten the attention of both South African and other governments. ... There are many reasons for the current and projected food crisis. Among the most important are lack of income to buy food, lack of infrastructure like roads to get products to market, trade policies that disadvantage farmers in the developing world, lack of inputs, lack of information, and unsustainable farming practices. More productive crops will do little to alleviate hunger if deficiencies in those areas are not addressed as well."
--Raymond K. Bokor of the Agricultural Reform Movement in Ghana
This page has a fairly lengthy bibliography to more information on how GMO crops are failing, and failing in, Africa.
NO.
THEY.
ARE.
NOT.
This regurgitating lies and propaganda thing sure is FUN!
More lies.
Which is a whole other can of worms (e.g., how publicly sponsored research ends up in the mits of transnationals such as the BF).
Bzzt. Try again.
Because people weren't growing cassava and corn just fine thousands of years before Europeans showed up, right?
Activists they are talking about (such as myself) aren't against "globalization". We're against the setup that has allowed transnational corporations free rule of the planet, with no regards for the environment, human rights, governments, etc. etc. We would like to see a world where Money is not The One True God.
Another gross oversimplification of others' positions (and yet again the implication that there's only one reason anyone is against GMOs).
Why yes, GMOs are responsible for the gap between rich and poor! (AND there's only one level of rich and one level of poor in the WHOLE WORLD!) I'm so glad you showed me the light!
To be less sarcastic--
There are so many causes of displaced farmers -- and so many reasons why this is desirable under the current global system. Yes, you heard me right -- the destruction of small farmers helps the current system.
A mere fraction:
"Though agriculture was the carrot to lure the Third World into the WTO [World Trade Organization] and other trade agreements, it has turned into the most contentious issue as the Third World is devastated by the dumping of cheap and subsidized agricultural products from the United States and the European Union.
"The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) requires that countries open their economies to agricultural products. With American markets already saturated, the U.S. is aggressively pushing to open up foriegn markets -- with great success [see recent public posts of mine for more info on this]. ...
"While beefing up agribusiness with agricultural subsidies (the US and the EU subsidize their agriculture to the combined tune of almost $1 billion a day) which are denied to the poor farmers in the [global] South, and lowering world prices, the AOA has become a form of control of the food system that puts power squrely in the hands of export producers, large business and elites, at the expense of family farmers. For example, the U.S. exports corn at prices 20 percent below the cost of production, and wheat at 46 percent below cost. ...
"The impact has been severely felt in the Third World. For example, as a result of the removal of tariffs on agricultural products [starting with NAFTA], Mexico, a country once self sufficient in basic grains, today imports 95 percent of its soy, 58 percent of its rice, 49 percent of its wheat, and 40 percent of its meat. This has resulted in Mexican corn farmers being put out of business. ...
"The AOA has been the economic engine for promoting industrial agriculture -- replacing family farmers with agribusiness, family farms with corporate farms, and biodiversity with monocropping. ...
"Both the IMF and the World Bank helped pave the way for the liberalization of agriculture through conditionalities. These conditions include mandates that borrowing countries focus on cash crops [something that nations such as Greece had to do to join the EU as well], promote industrial agriculture and remove subsidies for poor farmers. Dismantling of the safety net, for example public distribution systems, has left poor communities dependent on the vagarities of an open market. ...
"Displaced from their lands, farmers have been forced to eke a miserable livelihood in cities where they form the core of cheap labor for the sweatshops. In India, we have witnessed poor farmers consuming pesticides to end their lives.
"In the U.S. ... [s]mall family farms have been overwhelmingly replaced by large commercial farms, with 8 percent of farms accounting for 72 percent of sales. ...
"Women and children are the worst affected [globally]. As they and their families are thrown off the land, they form the labor pool for sweatshops. For example, since the passage of NAFTA in 1994, Mexico is home to over 2,700 maquiladoras (assembly sweatshops producing for export) -- employing over 1.3 million Mexican workers, mostly young women, who are paid on average 50 cents an hour, have no job security or benefits, and are often subject to sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Sex trafficking has increased, finding a real home in the global economy. ...
"Via Campesina [the world's largest small farmer organization, a transnational one] has emphasized that farmers want markets, but they want domestic and regional markets. Ninety percent of food is grown for domestic consumption. Only 10 percent is grown for export. Why would they sacrifice the 90 percent for a slim chance at increasing the 10 percent share? Agriculture has to be about feeding our families and communities. Or else it might turn into the situation in India, the third largest producer of food in the world with its granaries overflowing with 40 to 80 million tons of excess food grains -- and home to over 380 million starving people and recurrent starvation deaths [due to conditionalities placed upon its food sharing programs by world trade bodies and structural adjustment requirements]. ...
"Countries like the United States have subsidized big farmers to capture world markets, depressing the global commodity prices of crops that developing countries count on while wiping out even more poor farmers [within and outside their own borders]. The result is a reverse Robin Hood effect -- robbing the world's poor to enrich American agribusiness.
"An example of this effect is trade in cotton, a principle commodity crop. New subsidies mean that many U.S. cotton growers -- whose average net worth is $800,000 -- will receive half of their income in subsidies from the government this year. This is even though only a relatively small share of the farm population, just 25,000 of America's 2 million farmers, actually raise cotton."
--Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First, native of India
from an interview in Multinational Monitor's July/Aug. 2003 issue [emphases mine]
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13MON4.html
[Here is the long-promised deconstruction. It isn't done, but after working on it for five hours over more days I've come to terms with the fact that I would write a tome if I didn't stop at some point. I urge you to stick through it, not just because of the time/energy I invested but more because I think the information included is vital and little-known, especially though not exclusively amongst Americans.]
Genetically Modified Food and the Poor
New York Times Op-Ed
Published: October 13, 2003
Brazil has wisely decided to end a three-year ban and allow its soybean farmers to plant genetically modified crops that require less pesticide.
This is one of the BiotechFive's (henceforth referred to as BF) big lies that many non-smallfarmer/non-sustainableagricultu
But the decision has been controversial. Few global issues provoke a more emotional debate than that of genetically engineered crops,
Here we go again. Every time a pro-GMO American (including members of the U.S. Administration) talks about people who are against GMOs, they call them "emotional" -- as if A) you can't use logic to be against them; B) emotion is clearly more flawed than logic anyway. Never do they mention that the majority of the world's billions are against them; never do they mention that in reality most people in most other countries are far more educated on these issues than most Americans.
which contain transplanted genes from other species to make them easier to grow or more nutritious or flavorful.
That's the claim. The claim is far from substantiated, however.
The evidence suggests that such foods are safe
The published US evidence - most of which has been sponsored by the BF - hardly unbiased on the subject. Not coincidentally, they have squelched most of the studies that have found differently, going so far as to discredit respected scientists, buy people off (by offering payoffs, jobs, etc.) and buy up the research. When that doesn't work, they are quite happy to sue people into oblivion.
(Americans have been eating them for six years)
Which most still don't even know, as I point out every time I do one of these deconstructions.
"Eighty percent of the nation's soy crop is genetically engineered with a gene from a hardy bacterium that makes soy resistant to a popular weed killer [mostly Round-Up]. Fully one-third of U.S. corn contains a gene from another bacterium that kills bugs [BT]. ...
...scientific papers and patents that help Monsanto enjoy its Microsoft-like lock on the commercial market for genetically modified seeds: 90 percent of the 140 million acres under biotech cultivation worldwide were sowed with Monsanto's corn and soy. And 70 percent of processed U.S. food contains at least some genetically modified ingredients, the company says." ["Biotech crop inventors turn to more exotic manipulation", AP article, 27 June 2003]
and could reduce world hunger.
Um, how?
To be less concise: Most people are hungry because they don't have enough money to buy enough food. GMOs make farmers more reliant on transnational corporations (especially the BF) by requiring:
- that you buy seed from them every year, as it is illegal and in most cases (due to the genetic changes) impossible to save seed as small farmers around the world have done for hundreds to thousands of years;
- that if your crops are contaminated by someone else's GM crops, you must pay the company whose GM seed it is, as even if it wasn't your intent, you're still now growing something patented [this has been played out in court and the farmer lost];
- that you need to buy more (or any) pesticides to douse your (possibly newly) monocultured field, both because GMs are only resistant to certain things and because monoculture itself causes/increases pesticide dependence;
- that you need to invest even more money in pesticides and other technology to go against the superweeds that are created by interbreeding with GM crops and the pests that inevitably become resistant to the pesticide the GM crop has made you dependent upon;
- that you need to plant more GM crops than non-GM crops, because GM crops have been shown in study after study and report after report to be less productive than non-GM crops, often 40% so or greater.
But genetically modified crops have not overcome widespread resistance mostly because the industry is tightly controlled by five conglomerates.
This is such a gross oversimplification of the reasons why people and countries are against GMOs that it doesn't even seem worth debunking.
The companies must realize that relaxing their grip on the technology is in their long-term interests.
See last comment.
One of the problems is that the companies have done nearly all the research on the crops' safety on their own or financed it elsewhere. If they want to build consumer confidence, they should embrace independent tests of the products' safety and impact.
This is not true. It is, as I said above, simply that most of the research currently available in the US is so. Independent research has repeatedly shown GMOs to be far from safe; to readily crossbreed with non-GM crops, usually dominating in the crossbreeding; to mutate at random several generations down from the genetic change (so that clones of the same genetic modification can become drastically different from their parent and each other, suddenly, several generations down the line -- yes, sometimes to plants with traits never before seen on earth); to be genetically separate enough from natural plants to be distinguishable in DNA tests; and so on. In addition, the lack of labelling in America means not only that people who buy orange juice are better informed than people eating GMOs (due to the stricter labelling requirements for the former), but also that people with allergies could be eating something they are allergic to without it even being in the ingredient list (not even getting into people who are allergic to pesticides, are vegetarian/vegan [not aware they are eating genes of animals], etc.). The StarLink Corn debacle made this perfectly clear.
While safety concerns have been the focus of debate,
No, they haven't.
the real problem is that genetic engineering is hurting the poor.
Yes, it is, but not in the way you mean.
It makes cotton cheaper to grow for highly subsidized American producers, further undercutting the price of cotton and forcing West African producers out of business.
It is subsidies by 'First World' countries that are causing this, not GMs, as evidenced by the fact that some of the countries causing this problem do not allow much if any planting of GM crops.
Poor countries should fight back by adopting the technology themselves.
Why? 'Cause you say so? And the global south doing what the 'First World' says has gone so well so far, that of course they would immediately do what you suggest! Yeah!
Unfortunately, so far most of them have failed to approve it. African farmers work tiny plots without the benefit of fertilizers, irrigation or pesticides.
'Cause, you know, they produced so little before 'First World' fertilizers and pesticides. I have this bridge I think you'd be interested in ...
I think that others can say it far better than my sarcasm, however. For example:
"There is strong grassroots opposition to GMOs in the region [Africa] and industry is working hard to break this down and has already gotten the attention of both South African and other governments. ... There are many reasons for the current and projected food crisis. Among the most important are lack of income to buy food, lack of infrastructure like roads to get products to market, trade policies that disadvantage farmers in the developing world, lack of inputs, lack of information, and unsustainable farming practices. More productive crops will do little to alleviate hunger if deficiencies in those areas are not addressed as well."
--Raymond K. Bokor of the Agricultural Reform Movement in Ghana
This page has a fairly lengthy bibliography to more information on how GMO crops are failing, and failing in, Africa.
The risks they face from genetic modification are remote --
NO.
THEY.
ARE.
NOT.
but unlike Europeans, the average African would benefit hugely from crops engineered to resist bugs or need little water.
This regurgitating lies and propaganda thing sure is FUN!
The other reason Africans do not grow such products is that the major companies like Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta have no financial interest in developing them for African crops -- and tightly control the technology.
More lies.
There are two methods of transferring genes, for example. Both were developed by universities, but industry giants now hold the licenses.
Which is a whole other can of worms (e.g., how publicly sponsored research ends up in the mits of transnationals such as the BF).
The companies permit others to do research with the technologies but want control over any product commercialized as a result. Several poor nations are trying to develop improved versions of local crops, but these efforts have been crippled by the biotech companies' control over the technology.
Bzzt. Try again.
The world shouldn't ban genetically modified food. It should develop a cassava root resistant to the mealy bug and drought-proof corn.
Because people weren't growing cassava and corn just fine thousands of years before Europeans showed up, right?
Antiglobalization activists
Activists they are talking about (such as myself) aren't against "globalization". We're against the setup that has allowed transnational corporations free rule of the planet, with no regards for the environment, human rights, governments, etc. etc. We would like to see a world where Money is not The One True God.
are right that corporate greed is the problem.
Another gross oversimplification of others' positions (and yet again the implication that there's only one reason anyone is against GMOs).
But they are wrong that genetically modified crops should be banned. The real crime of genetic modification is not its risks but that it is squandering its promise, widening the gap between rich and poor.
Why yes, GMOs are responsible for the gap between rich and poor! (AND there's only one level of rich and one level of poor in the WHOLE WORLD!) I'm so glad you showed me the light!
To be less sarcastic--
There are so many causes of displaced farmers -- and so many reasons why this is desirable under the current global system. Yes, you heard me right -- the destruction of small farmers helps the current system.
A mere fraction:
"Though agriculture was the carrot to lure the Third World into the WTO [World Trade Organization] and other trade agreements, it has turned into the most contentious issue as the Third World is devastated by the dumping of cheap and subsidized agricultural products from the United States and the European Union.
"The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) requires that countries open their economies to agricultural products. With American markets already saturated, the U.S. is aggressively pushing to open up foriegn markets -- with great success [see recent public posts of mine for more info on this]. ...
"While beefing up agribusiness with agricultural subsidies (the US and the EU subsidize their agriculture to the combined tune of almost $1 billion a day) which are denied to the poor farmers in the [global] South, and lowering world prices, the AOA has become a form of control of the food system that puts power squrely in the hands of export producers, large business and elites, at the expense of family farmers. For example, the U.S. exports corn at prices 20 percent below the cost of production, and wheat at 46 percent below cost. ...
"The impact has been severely felt in the Third World. For example, as a result of the removal of tariffs on agricultural products [starting with NAFTA], Mexico, a country once self sufficient in basic grains, today imports 95 percent of its soy, 58 percent of its rice, 49 percent of its wheat, and 40 percent of its meat. This has resulted in Mexican corn farmers being put out of business. ...
"The AOA has been the economic engine for promoting industrial agriculture -- replacing family farmers with agribusiness, family farms with corporate farms, and biodiversity with monocropping. ...
"Both the IMF and the World Bank helped pave the way for the liberalization of agriculture through conditionalities. These conditions include mandates that borrowing countries focus on cash crops [something that nations such as Greece had to do to join the EU as well], promote industrial agriculture and remove subsidies for poor farmers. Dismantling of the safety net, for example public distribution systems, has left poor communities dependent on the vagarities of an open market. ...
"Displaced from their lands, farmers have been forced to eke a miserable livelihood in cities where they form the core of cheap labor for the sweatshops. In India, we have witnessed poor farmers consuming pesticides to end their lives.
"In the U.S. ... [s]mall family farms have been overwhelmingly replaced by large commercial farms, with 8 percent of farms accounting for 72 percent of sales. ...
"Women and children are the worst affected [globally]. As they and their families are thrown off the land, they form the labor pool for sweatshops. For example, since the passage of NAFTA in 1994, Mexico is home to over 2,700 maquiladoras (assembly sweatshops producing for export) -- employing over 1.3 million Mexican workers, mostly young women, who are paid on average 50 cents an hour, have no job security or benefits, and are often subject to sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Sex trafficking has increased, finding a real home in the global economy. ...
"Via Campesina [the world's largest small farmer organization, a transnational one] has emphasized that farmers want markets, but they want domestic and regional markets. Ninety percent of food is grown for domestic consumption. Only 10 percent is grown for export. Why would they sacrifice the 90 percent for a slim chance at increasing the 10 percent share? Agriculture has to be about feeding our families and communities. Or else it might turn into the situation in India, the third largest producer of food in the world with its granaries overflowing with 40 to 80 million tons of excess food grains -- and home to over 380 million starving people and recurrent starvation deaths [due to conditionalities placed upon its food sharing programs by world trade bodies and structural adjustment requirements]. ...
"Countries like the United States have subsidized big farmers to capture world markets, depressing the global commodity prices of crops that developing countries count on while wiping out even more poor farmers [within and outside their own borders]. The result is a reverse Robin Hood effect -- robbing the world's poor to enrich American agribusiness.
"An example of this effect is trade in cotton, a principle commodity crop. New subsidies mean that many U.S. cotton growers -- whose average net worth is $800,000 -- will receive half of their income in subsidies from the government this year. This is even though only a relatively small share of the farm population, just 25,000 of America's 2 million farmers, actually raise cotton."
--Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First, native of India
from an interview in Multinational Monitor's July/Aug. 2003 issue [emphases mine]
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13MON4.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-10-21 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-21 04:46 pm (UTC)I am hoping that they too will learn of the wrongness of GMO crops.
If you wish me to, I will simply link to it.
Edie
no subject
Date: 2003-10-22 07:59 am (UTC)And then they wonder why Europe is banning GM foods left and right. In addition, I can't think of a worse way to treat your customers than to force something on them that they *don't want*.
And the _real_ cause of famine (especially in Africa) today is not lack of food: it's disruption of farming due to WAR and drought.
Keep rantin' girlfriend.
-m