The real perils of biotech

The public discussion about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) almost invariably focuses on bitter disputes about the safety of GMO crops. While many argue that the technology poses threats to natural systems and to human health, most research suggests that this is not the case. Still, peer-reviewed studies fall on both sides of the question. Given the enormity of the risk, the Green Party firmly supports the precautionary principle. It is clear that early research demonstrated risks to the health of dairy cows if the GMO product bovine growth hormone (BGH) was used in herds. Canada refused to register bovine growth hormone. This aspect of our dairy industry is a strong reason to protect Canadian consumers from U.S. milk supply, as our current supply management system does. We should not rapidly expand the introduction of GMO crops. We should, at a minimum, label GMO products to allow consumers to make an informed choice about what they are buying. Nevertheless, while the issue of safety occupies most of the debate, it is not the only public policy concern. Whether one believes GMOs will be proven safe or dangerous, we should all be concerned about the threat to food security posed by increasingly monopolistic corporate control of the world’s seeds. For millennia, farmers have cultivated crops from thousands of seed varieties. Local farmers saved seeds ideally suited to local conditions. Hundreds of varieties of grains, vegetables, legumes, pulses, and so on were cultivated and improved through natural selection. New information, like the seeds themselves, was shared. The advent of corporate agriculture and seed patenting threatens global food security. It is increasingly illegal in countries around the world, including Canada, for farmers to save their seed. As the climate crisis worsens, agriculture is inevitably facing increasing threats. It is well understood that the more diverse a system is, the more resilient it will be. A monoculture of one crop is vulnerable to a disease or insect in a way that diversified plantings are not. Yet, the global industrial enterprise of agribusiness is forging ahead to reduce and simplify available seed and control seed through contracts and patents. Making the situation even more perilous, two big agriculture giants are now merging. Monsanto controls nearly 60 per cent of the world’s proprietary seeds, while its new parent company, Bayer, controls 70 per cent of the world’s chemical inputs and pesticides in agriculture. The public relations claims of the benefits of simplified, genetically impoverished agriculture is that we will “feed the world’s poor.” But it is the poor, some of whom are growing their own food, and the local food supply that are most at risk; it is the small farmer who depends on collecting and saving seed who is at risk. And the total global food production has not increased as the boosters had claimed. It does not require masses of evidence to point out the obvious: large multinationals are not altruistic. They exist and thrive, as any private corporation does, on returning profit to shareholders. The mantra about GMOs and “feeding the world’s poor” is transparent in its hypocrisy. The real research to feed the world and build in resilience is coming from poor farmers. John Vidal reported on one such effort in the United Kingdom’s The Guardian. Debal Deb is an Indian plant researcher, working without research funding and trying to keep under the radar of Monsanto. He is documenting and cultivating the wide variety of traditional varieties of rice—more than 1,300 strains. And he is documenting the varieties that can grow in drought conditions, and which can grow under four to five feet of water. His diverse community-based seed bank is a hope for the world. Whoever decided that patenting and restricting access to seed was a way to feed the world? It never was. It is a way to drive up profits for multinationals. We must reconsider the kind of agriculture we need to adapt to climate change, develop resilience, and share knowledge through networks of farmers. In that effort, multinational monopolistic for-profit corporations are not the solution; they are in the way. Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada and the Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C. The Hill Times

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The real perils of biotech

Whoever decided that patenting and restricting access to seed was a way to feed the world?

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