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Genetically modified morals: A global food fight
(Tuesday, June 17, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Kathleen McAfee, International Herald Tribune: NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- The dispute over whether countries may decline
imports of genetically engineered seeds and foods, long a point of
contention between the United States and developing countries, is straining
relations between America and Europe as well.
The battle reflects an intensifying struggle between government-backed U.S.
agribusiness and farmers worldwide. It is often portrayed as a debate about
science, but also at stake are issues of environmental risk and economic
and cultural sovereignty. Will countries and farmers in a globalized
economy retain any choice over what they eat, what they produce and what
kind of agriculture systems they employ?
Present European Union policies restrict imports of genetically modified
food and the release of genetically engineered living organisms into the
environment. Revisions under discussion would allow modified imports, but
require that they be labeled as such.
In Europe, where agricultural landscapes and local products are highly
valued, experience with mad cow disease has heightened distrust of
large-scale, industrialized farming. U.S. officials contend that such
attitudes are irrational and that EU regulations are not based on
scientific evidence. (CropChoice editor's note: They might want to take a loook at a new study from the Independent Science Project, available at http://www.indsp.org/ISPreportSummary.php )
On May 13, to the dismay of diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic, the
United States announced that it will file a complaint against the EU
moratorium that has kept genetically modified food off store shelves in
Europe. A week later, President George W. Bush accused the EU of
contributing to hunger in Africa by blocking imports from the United States
of "high-yield bio-crops," which he called "more productive." The U.S.
trade representative, Robert Zoellick, has called the EU policies
"Luddite," "immoral," and an unfair trade practice harmful to America.
U.S. officials charge that current European attitudes force developing
countries that want to export to Europe to adopt policies that are against
the interests of their own peoples, as when southern African governments
rejected famine relief in the form of American genetically modified corn
late last year.
Actually, few African exports to Europe would be affected by current EU
rules. When they declined U.S. genetically modified food aid, southern
African governments had other concerns. One was the possible health risk of
consuming unprocessed modified corn, which is not a major part of U.S.
diets. The other was the unknown consequences of releasing modified corn
into ecosystems in southern Africa, where corn is the main staple grain.
Until these concerns could be addressed, African governments asked the
United States to follow World Food Program guidelines by providing funds to
purchase locally preferred and appropriate foods, as other donor countries
did.
The U.S. argument that such policies are "immoral" takes as a given that
modified crops have been proven to be free of health or environmental
hazards. It also presumes that modified crops would reduce African hunger
because they yield more than conventional varieties.
In fact, average yields from currently available modified food-crop seeds
are slightly lower than yields of comparable nonmodified varieties. This is
not surprising, because modified crops have been designed mainly to deal
with pest problems, not to produce more food. Crop genetic engineering is a
long way from developing varieties that could produce more food under
African conditions.
Meanwhile, transnational companies that have patented much of the current
genetic-engineering technology - as well as genes - have little incentive
to invest in developing crops for countries where farmers are too poor to
buy premium seeds and agrochemicals.
In any case, lack of quality crop varieties is not the major obstacle to
African food production; the bigger problems in Africa are poor roads and
storage facilities, lack of credit and fertilizer, degraded soils, labor
shortages and farm prices depressed by imports of cheap food from the
United States and Europe, where agriculture is heavily subsidized.
In addition, the question of environmental risk is proving more vexing than
enthusiasts of genetic modification first thought. Some scientists worry
that synthetic genes and their products may contribute to the loss of vital
maize genetic diversity, or that they may damage soil microbes and other
organisms that keep agro-ecosystems productive.
Until such ecological problems have been solved, countries may reasonably
prefer not to accept genetically modified seeds. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the trade
representative's office have nonetheless made the promotion of genetically
modified crops a policy priority. The United States has fought hard against
the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a global treaty that will give
countries the option to decline genetically modified seed imports if they
are shown to pose ecological or socioeconomic risks.
Promoters of U.S. farm exports argue that low-income countries that are
losing their food self-sufficiency as markets become global are actually
better off because their farming systems are inefficient.
But flooding world markets with the products of U.S. agriculture creates
dangerous patterns of dependence, puts farmers in developing countries out
of business, undermines rural communities and rarely helps the hungry.
Until the United States is prepared to offer Africa what it really needs to
overcome famine - support for infrastructure, inputs, marketing, fair
pricing, and farmer-centered research on sustainable farm management and
local crop improvement - it should stop lecturing anyone about morality.
The writer is an assistant professor of geography and sustainable
development at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. | |
