Cameron Duodu
LETTER FROM THE NORTH
The news that American farmers have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Monsanto, for introducing “potentially dangerous genetically modified (GM) seeds to world markets without adequate testing”, couldn’t have come at a better time.
Following so hot on the heels of the “Battle of Seattle”, the lawsuit signals that the attempt by transnational companies like Monsanto to use superior technology to recolonise the world on behalf of the rich nations, will be resisted even by some of the very people who are supposed to benefit from the new recolonisation (for which read “globalisation”).
The lawsuit, although filed in a United States federal court, targets the worldwide operations of Monsanto.
It is a “class action” by farmers from the US and France, acting on behalf of “farmers worldwide”. It accuses Monsanto of forming a worldwide cartel to monopolise the market for genetically modified seeds. Monsanto’s alleged “co-conspirators” are other agricultural biotech companies, including DuPont, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Dow Chemical, Novartis and AstraZeneca.
Monsanto is also accused of violating international human rights by rushing genetically modified seeds to market “before sufficient testing of the environmental and human health effects” have proved the seeds and crops grown therefrom to be “safe.” This latter accusation is very clever, for it means that even if Monsanto wins in the US courts, it can be pursued at the international level as an abuser of human rights.
Monsanto has dismissed the suit as groundless. But in a rebuttal which unwittingly betrays the alliance between the transnationals and the World Trade Organisation, Monsanto declaimed: “Efforts to block technology should not be undertaken in the courts but in the regulatory context.” The company added that it had met “all US and overseas regulatory requirements for testing its products”.
But this is precisely the point: just how did Monsanto manage to meet these regulatory requirements?
Indeed, it will be interesting to see how Monsanto answers in court the allegation that it employed “spin” to help obtain regulatory approval. Did it, for instance, use political lobbyists, especially ex- White House staff, to plead its cause, both in the US and in Britain? If it did, why was this necessary in a matter that was purely technological rather than political?
Some people regard opposition to the methods of Monsanto and other firms engaged in the production of genetically modified foods as opposition to “scientific progress”. This is a mistaken viewpoint for past experience shows that if scientific progress is left to scientists and governments alone, it can bring terrible calamity to humankind.
Look at nuclear weapons. When these were first being developed in the US, none of the scientists ever dreamed that the technology would get into the hands of terrorist nations. But we now know that such nations are urgently attempting to acquire nuclear bombs.
Worse than that, once-powerful nations that have become poor overnight might not be able to afford to keep the watchful eye that is needed on their nuclear plants. Certainly, Chernobyl has proved that no country is safe if radiation leaks out from any part of the planet. Yet when organisations were formed to oppose nuclear weapons, they were demonised and hunted by the very Western governments which claimed to be dedicated to the public welfare.
An even more interesting reason why we shouldn’t trust scientists totally is provided by the case of British beef. Scientists with the highest credentials apparently sat down and signalled their approval, watched while greedy farmers carried out the totally reprehensible practice of cannibalistically feeding British cattle meat products from sheep.
When signs appeared that a disease called scrapie had moved from sheep to cattle, and become bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease), which killed humans, it took months before the alarm was raised.
After the slaughter of thousands of cattle, the British and their scientists are now saying that British beef is safe again. But some people have refused to be reassured. Yet, having scored such a remarkable own-goal, is the British beef industry repentant? No – it is heaping execrations on the French for refusing to buy British beef. And the British government is backing the farmers, instead of telling them and the rapacious animal- feed plants that created the problem: “Hey, we can’t force the French to buy your beef if they don’t feel it’s safe, OK? You’ve brought this upon yourselves.”
The same attitude is being adopted towards genetically modified foods. Even the US Food and Drug Administration – once trust-worthy – has allowed these foods to be mixed with non-genetically modified foods. Soya beans and maize are the greatest culprits.
Yet if the modified foods are as safe as governments and their scientists assure us, then the manufacturers should be forced to label them as genetically modified foods and leave us to choose. Instead, the manufacturers go to great lengths to prevent the food being labelled and have, in effect, been smuggling it on to our tables.
Do our governments want to give the manufacturers the freedom to sell unlabelled modified foods to us, but refuse us the freedom of knowing what goes into what we are buying?
This hypocritical attitude is nauseating. These governments claim to operate a free market – but they do so only on behalf of the manufacturers, who happen to be rich and strong. Poor old Johnny Consumer is left, meanwhile, to find his way through the labyrinths of the alternative information superhighway before he knows what he can safely eat.
I mean the idea that one’s good old mealie pap and cow-tail or cow-foot soup, may have been genetically modified doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? Tchah! No wonder there are so many cancers about.