The Scourge of GMOs

Hello everyone. I am new to London Commons and was asked by a member of this site to post the following letter, which was sent to the Minister of the Environment (Rona Ambrose) and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food (Chuck Strahl) earlier this month. Updated information has been added and I encourage everyone to post comments and corrections, as well as any information regarding the relevance of this issue to the London area. The original letter contained footnotes, however, I had difficulty posting the letter as such and therefore had to separately list my sources. As a final note, I am certainly not naive enough to believe that anyone in the corporately-tied Conservative Party will feel compelled to act on the demands of this letter, but any form of citizen dissent is preferable to idleness and complacency.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Mrs. Ambrose/ Mr. Strahl,

Subject: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
 

I am writing to request that your government immediately reverse the potentially hazardous policies adopted by the previous Liberal government toward the cultivation, consumption, labeling, importation and exportation of GMOs in Canada.
 

Currently, approximately 60 percent of canola crops, 27 percent of corn crops, and 17 percent of soybeans are genetically modified in Canada, and because this country has a voluntary negative labeling policy for GMOs, companies are able to avoid informing consumers of whether or not their products contain GM ingredients. This is happening despite polls indicating that roughly nine out of ten Canadians (88 percent) want mandatory, positive labeling for all GM products, as many consumers feel they cannot distinguish between GM and non-GM products without such labeling.
 

Proponents of GMOs argue that they can be used to feed the world’s hungry (through increased crop yields), reduce the need to spray large quantities of harmful pesticides, provide more nutritious crops by injecting them with additional nutrients, and allow farmers to grow crops on soils that were previously infertile (by genetically modifying crops to adapt to specific soils, precipitation levels, and environments). As well, the U.K.-based Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA), and the European Union (EU) have determined most GM foods to be safe for consumption. GM wheat saves farmers fuel and topsoil as seeds can be planted directly into untilled soil, while GM rice – with its resistance to insects and diseases and ability to grow on marginal lands – is seen as the answer to Third World famine and the next evolutionary phase in farming.
 

Such claims are only partly true. For instance, certain GM crops have been found to contain more pesticides than regular crops, and Greenpeace has debunked Syngenta’s (a major GM firm) assertion that their vitamin A-enriched golden rice can provide sufficient nutrients for third world children suffering from beta-carotene (vitamin A) deficiency. In order to get an adequate daily dose of vitamin A, children would have to ingest 3.7 kilograms of boiled golden rice a day, whereas two carrots, a mango and a bowl of ordinary rice would accomplish the same nutritional feat.
 

Unfortunately, the Conservatives’ silence on GMOs during the 2006 Federal Election, and its failure to answer Greenpeace and Sierra Club questionnaires designed to establish each party’s respective stance on the issue, suggests that your government either condones the approach taken by the Liberals toward GMOs, supports the disputed views of GMO proponents, or, worse yet, has no opinion on this catastrophic issue. I would therefore like to articulate the concerns that I and other citizens have over the large-scale integration of GMOs into the North American food market.
 

First, the exploitation of GM crops by agribusinesses and GM firms can lead to the marginalization of regular and organic crops (and the farmers who grow them) through contamination and sterility. As evidenced by a case study involving Bt maize in Kenya, it is now known that the introgression of GM plants with regular plants reduces genetic diversity and increases the number of nontarget species that are exposed to or affected by a transgene(s), which may result in insect resistance, increased insecticide use, and associated environmental and human health risks. “Suicide” and “terminator” transgenes have been known to prevent pollen development, reduce seed germination, and render regular and organic crops sterile through cross-pollination, which can devastate farmers who save and trade seeds for subsequent crops and eliminate the careers of farmers who grow non-GM crops for a living.
 

Second, by contaminating regular and organic crops and thereby homogenizing local food systems, GM crops strip communities of their food sovereignty and create a sense of powerlessness by depriving citizens of their choice to eat GM-free foods. Farmers who may not have wanted to cultivate GM crops are forced to do so after contamination, and they are expected to pay royalties on GM seeds and crops they never initially asked for. As mentioned above, GM terminator seeds also prevent farmers from saving seeds (and therefore money) for consecutive years and producing hybrid crops, and instead require farmers to purchase seeds on a yearly basis, which many poor farmers cannot afford.
 

Finally, pro-GMO countries are arguably engaging in a form of modern cultural imperialism by insisting that countries opposed to GMOs abandon their views and begin importing GMOs, and by inadvertently contaminating crops in countries that forbid GMOs. For example, despite the fact that a majority of European citizens oppose the cultivation, consumption and voluntary negative labeling of GMOs, and because the European Union decided to continue a ban on the importation of GM varieties of oil seed rape and maize due to contamination and health concerns, the United States, Canada, and Argentina protested the EU’s decision as an impediment to trade at the World Trade Organization in 2003 and essentially won the case in February 2006. The implication of this ruling - and because pro-globalization institutions such as the WTO can impose unfair trade policies on member states - is that even if a majority of citizens in a country or continent oppose the importation of GMOs, and even if these citizens have the backing of their respective governments, they may still be required to import and possibly consume products that they have no interest in purchasing or consuming (again reinforcing a sense of powerlessness and lack of choice). Meanwhile, a Canadian variety of GM canola has been found growing wild in Japan, which, like the European Union, has strict policies that essentially forbid the sale and purchase of GM products and require mandatory, positive labeling for all GMO imports. We need to be asking ourselves: how did this happen?
 

The answer is no mystery. Industrialization, and the growth of capitalism into multi-national corporate capitalism, gave birth to an industrialized food system that has since consolidated control over food systems and consumer choice in the hands of a few powerful agribusinesses and GM firms (primarily Monsanto, Syngenta, Aventis, Dupont and Dow). These GM firms are intent on controlling the world’s agricultural industry by patenting GM genes, seeds and all related technologies, which in turn can be sold to farmers and producers for considerable profits. This strategy serves the interests of GM firms by exploiting the royalties of GM crops and the farmers who, either intentionally or unintentionally, use them, while ignoring the needs of independent small-scale farmers who do not want to cultivate GM crops or continually pay the aforementioned royalties; consumers who do not want to consume GM products that are potentially hazardous to their health; countries and continents that do not want to import, purchase or cultivate GMOs; and citizens who have a right to know what is in their food.
 

The undeniably grim situation that I have outlined here has been upheld by institutions such as the WTO (as discussed above) and the Canadian Federal Court, which ruled in 2001 that Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser “should have known” Roundup Ready seeds that blew onto his field were owned by Monsanto, and that Mr. Schmeiser should have notified the firm to determine what, if any, royalties he owed to them. For its part, the Canadian government has failed to respond to the desire of Canadians for a mandatory, positive labeling policy for all GM products, and has consistently clashed with European and African countries over the potential commercialization of GM terminator seeds by advocating field trials at the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biodiversity.
 

Given the fact that the destructive and irreversible effects of GMOs far outweigh their supposedly utopian economic and environmental benefits, I am urging your government to adopt the GMO policies proposed by Greenpeace to the Canadian delegation at the 2005 UN Biosafety Protocol meeting in Montreal. The proposals call for the following:

1)     The Canadian ratification of the UN Biosafety Protocol (also known as the Cartagena Protocol), which governs transboundary movements of GMOs and outlines international labeling requirements. If Canada is unwilling to ratify the treaty, “clear, precise and comprehensive…identification and documentation measures for all transboundary movements” of GMOs should be established domestically.

2)     The announcement of a moratorium on the release of GMOs until the “58 precautionary” measures recommended by a 2001 Royal Society of Canada report on GMOs have been fully implemented. An interim regime designed to address and remediate contamination issues and protect organic farmers should be established in the meantime, and steps should be taken at our borders to prevent regular and organic crops from coming in contact with GM products while Canada restructures its GMO policies.

The adoption of these proposals by the Canadian government – which would presumably come after being reviewed by a parliamentary committee or debated in the House of Commons – would merely be a step in the right direction. Ideally, Canada would join our brothers and sisters around the world who have managed to delay or outright prevent the spread of GMOs.
 

The possibility of a GM-free world is not out of reach: several Californian communities have successfully blocked the cultivation of GM crops in their respective areas and the European Union and African countries (such as Zambia and Kenya) continue to be extremely reluctant to import or produce GM products or accept GM crops as foreign food aid. In Brazil, members of the Landless Movement are fighting the cultivation of GM crops by uprooting and destroying GM crops on industrial farms and growing their own, organic crops on unused land. Alternative media outlets such as The Tyee and AlterNet are providing citizens with critical analyses on the local and humanitarian implications of GMOs in the face of a complacent mainstream media, and GM-free zones have been established in the Philippines, Poland, Europe, Costa-Rica, Mali, Prince Edward Island, and Powell River in British Columbia.
 

At the very minimum, the Conservative government of Canada should adopt the proposals recommended by Greenpeace regarding the regulation of GMOs and, if public demand persists, eventually take steps to make Canada a GM-free nation. I am requesting that your government actively address this important issue as the future of this country’s food sovereignty and biodiversty; the health of Canadian citizens; and the ability of farmers and producers to choose what they produce are all at stake.
 
Sincerely,

Mike Hurley
First Year Social Justice and Peace Studies Student
King's University College at the University of Western Ontario
 
______________________________________________________________________
 
Sources:
 
Steven Chase, “Canadians want GM foods labeled, poll finds.” The Globe and Mail. 4 December 2003: A8.
 
David G. Victor and C. Ford Runge, “Farming the Genetic Frontier.” Foreign Affairs. 81. 3. 2002: 107-121.
 
Robert Parrlberg, “The Global Food Fight.” Foreign Affairs. 79. 3. 2000: 24 -30.
 
“The story of wheat,” The Economist. 24 December 2005: 28-30.
 
Johnjoe McFadden, “Top of the crops.” The Guardian. 23 August 2005: 20.
 
Agnes Sinai, “Seeds of irreversible change.” Le Monde diplomatique. Online. July 2001 <http://mondediplo.com/2001/07/06monsanto>
 
The Conservative Party Environmental Platform is less than one page and contains no policies regarding GMOs.  
 
“Federal Election 2006.” Greenpeace. Online. 25 November 2005 <http://www.greenpeace.ca/e/feature/elections2006/>.
 
“Analysis of Environmental Platforms of Federal Parties.” Sierra Club. Online. January 2006 <http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/vote-  canada/2006/scc-vote-2006.pdf>
 
Angelika Hilbeck and David Alan Andow, “Risk Assessment of Bt Maize in Kenya: Synthesis and Recommendations.” Environmental Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms Vol.1: A Case Study of Bt Maize in Kenya. Wallingford, UK: CABI International. 2004: 251-269.
 
Rosie S. Hails, “Genetically modified plants – the debate continues.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution (TREE). 15. 1. 2000: 14-18
 
Tom Sandborn, “Canada Pushes ‘Suicide Seed’ Trials.” The Tyee. Online. 14 Februar 2005  <http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/02/14/CanadaPushesSeedTrials/>
 
Zack Pelta-Heller, “More Than Just a Food Fight.” AlterNet. Online. 4 August 2005. <http://www.alternet.org/story/23884/>
 
Editorial, “The farmer, the canola, and mighty Monsanto.” The Globe and Mail. 26 January 2004: A14.
 
Murray Dobbin, “Sterile seeds, Canada’s impotence.” The Tyee. Online. 31 May 2005. <http://thetyee.ca/Views/2005/05/31/SterileSeeds/> 

David Welch, “Let them eat what they want; Canada should not stand in the way of Europeans making their own decisions about genetically modified foods.” The Globe and Mail. 7 July 2003: A11.
 
The WTO criticized the GMO policies of several EU countries and their delaying of the issuing of permits (for the importation of GMOs), but ultimately determined there was “no need to rule” on the matter. See: “WTO: EU’s GMO Policies Violate Trade Agreements,” GMO Compass. Online. 25 February 2006 http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/news/messages/200602.docu.html; and Robert Ali Brac De La Perriere and Frederic Prat, “Europe: not in our fields.” Le Monde diplomatique. April 2006: 14.
 
“Operation Return to Sender,” Greenpeace. Online. 30 May 2005
<http://action.web.ca/home/gpc/alerts.shtml?x=77647&AA_EX_Session+0f60176d2c79e115b53f76c439b3d7ab>
 
Susan George, “Europe’s harvest of contamination.” Le Monde diplomatique. April 2003. Online. <http://mondediplo.com/2003/04/14gmo>
 
Certain GM crops have been proven to cause infertility in both males and females (Sinai, “Seeds of irreversible change”), and British government officials recently approved a variety of BT maize known to cause kidney damage in rats. See: Paul Brown, “EU votes to continue ban on GM crops.” The Guardian. 5 June 2005: 4.
 
“Highlights from the Biosafety Protocol meeting in Montreal,” Greenpeace. Online. 3 June 2005 <http://www.greenpeace.ca/e/campaign/gmo/depth/bsp_0505/highlights.php>
 
Renaud Lambert, “Brazil: red state versus green revolution.” Le Monde diplomatique. January 2006: 8-9.