by Sue Kedgley
It was to be expected, but still a shock, to find Bill Gates and the Rockefeller foundation at the conference (they weren’t excluded like the NGOs) launching a new bold sounding “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. In partnership with various UN agencies, aimed at ‘lifting millions out of poverty and hunger by increasing the productivity and profitability of small scale farms in Africa. The hype was tremendous, and the media lapped it up. Aimed at alleviating dire poverty in Africa ‘developing better and more appropriate seeds’ and providing fertilizer etc directly to small farmers, no mention was made of genetic engineering until a bold journalist asked directly whether the seeds would be genetically engineered. They then admitted that some would be, such as a new strain of Nevica rice which ‘takes the flavour of Asia and the robustness of rice in West Africa to produce a high yielding rice.
This fuelled the worst fears of NGO’s that the food emergency, as its called, would be used to sneak GE seeds into Africa, directly to small farmers. GE was also mentioned by many developed delegates as a solution to the problem, and the Americans and Philippines hosted a private lunch for delegates (which I couldn’t attend unfortunately) to propound the virtues of GE and biotechnology. So GE seems very much back on the world agenda, as GE corporations use the food emergency to make another global push to get their seeds into the developing world, which will end seed saving and extend further corporqate control of the food chain from seed to fork.
I was not allowed to speak at the conference, or attend any bilateral meetings or negotiating sessions, presumably for fear that I might not reflect the party line. This did leave me free to roam and speak to delegates, attend NGO sessions and in other ways get a more direct understanding of the predicament of many countries than listening to the official speeches. I did feel our contribution of seven million dollars to the emergency fund was puny, compared to many countries, however. Though some of New Zealand’s contributions seemed to go down quite well.
It’s the final day of the conference now, and the NGOs have finally been allowed a few minutes to present their declaration to the conference. It is a strongly worded, hard hitting document, in stark contrast to the mealy mouthed compromise coming out of the main conference. Am off to the presentation, and it will be interesting to see how many delegates turn up to hear it. I will tell you all about it if I can get my technology to work!
[Frog: This was the second post in a series of three sent to me by Sue K while attending the conference in Rome. Here's the first.]
Published in Campaign | Environment & Resource Management by Sue Kedgley on Sun, June 8th, 2008
Tags: aid, bill gates, conference, engineering, Food, GE, genetic, poverty, Rome, seed, Sue Kedgley
More posts by Sue Kedgley | more about Sue Kedgley
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
yah. Provide your reasons please. One would think...
Can you make an argument that the risks (GE) out weigh the benefits? How about (eg) omega 3 in plants more vitamins…. and the list seems endless??
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So GE has absolutely no role whatsoever?
This should be a rational debate about the advantages technology can bring to food productivity. This post hijacks it into an emotive debate about “corporate control”. Cross breeding crops and animals would at one time been thought of as meddling with nature, and now it is commonplace.
If you can state clearly what is wrong with genetic engineering, as a concept, then go for it. If it is just an emotive campaign that is little more than barking GE bad, GE bad, it’s not organic, we can’t prove it’s safe (butter almost certainly isn’t except in small doses), then it’s luddite talk.
If GE can increase yields, fortify crops, resist pestilence and combat diseases of malnutrition then all good and well, it should be embraced. To shut it out like luddites who feared the aeroplane would kill because it could crash, who feared electricity was dangerous (it can be), who feared the steam engine (because it was the first contraption to move by itself without wind or waves), who feared photography (because it would steal a man’s spirit), is sheer nonsense, and is the politics of the truly ignorant.
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You have to respect the ability of the EU to co-opt Greens to the food security cause and now the gall of the land of beef hormones to call their corporate GE seed the way to “Green” Africa. Doing that and silencing anyone actually identifying with the Green cause activism from responding would have been a “white noise black rain experience” I am sure.
However, given free trade in food would do more for the worlds poor in providing more affordable food and the poor have more pressing concerns than middle class sensibilities about their quality of food (and yes concern about food safety is valid …), I am unable to empathise more.
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libertyscott – Can you prove that GE has provided any of the benefits that you spout? No. Because all the evidence is that pest and chemical resistant GE strains just breed more tolerant pests. There never has been an increase in production from GE. GE is a failed technology, while it systematically destroys biodiversity amongst the varieties it competes with. Keep it in the lab I say. where we can get the benefits (medically at least) and keep it out of the natural environment.
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I was a little puzzled at Kedgley being part of the NZ delegation, considering she isn’t even part of the government!
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Parliament is part of the government?! Parliamentarians often make up part of the delegations, as do officials from ministries. Her inability to speak formally is a reflection that she is not part of the ruling coalition. The delegation to Bali had parliamentarians and staff members from almost all the parties in parliament.
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GE is great for cheaply producing drugs and vaccines, etc.
When it come to food however it is another case, by making them pest resistant you get more tolerent pest and more chemicals in your food supply, by increasing productivity you rain nutrients from the soil to an increased degree whic means more fertiliser since less nutrients are being returned. more fertiliser means you need money to purchase it which means you change from food crops to cash crops and thus the entire thing is counter productive. biodiversity is another sacrifice which results in those resistant crops all sucumbing easily to diseses they arnt protected against.
all higher productitivity GE means is more money for corporations like monsanto.
GE as a whole though can be benificial, esspecially in drug synthesis, a big problem at the moment though is the (justified) requirement for a closed environment. however this should not be a legal requirement where the organism is a large multicellular one that is easily steralised and is a finished product. what i mean by this is that bovine who are modified to produce medicine should be allowed in fields aslong as they are sterilised, plants are harder to do but the same principles apply.
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Do we know what seeds they’re going to be using or whether they’ll be terminator seeds?
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Oh, wait, here it is:
http://www.agra-alliance.org/about/genetic_engineering.html
So, they’re developing 1000 new varieties of seeds using conventional, non-GE means. Naturally, this is still a bad thing, right? After all, their aim is to make the crops more pest resistant – which, as you say, will result in more tolerant pests. And it will increase yields – which, as you say, will drain nutrients from the soil and increase fertiliser use.
With 1000 varieties, perhaps the biodiversity argument doesn’t apply, but the other two does.
Actually, perhaps we could take the argument further. If more pest resistant crops and higher yields result in more resistant pests and more fertiliser usage, why don’t we cultivate (using non-GE methods, of course) *less* pest resistant and *lower* yielding crops?
I trust the Greens will add this to their manifesto this year?
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Frog- You say “Can you prove that GE has provided any of the benefits that you spout? No.”
I can’t, but neither can you prove there will wont be any. You’re blanking out the chance that science will advance the technology further. Why do that? The utter arrogance that you have a monopoly of foresight of scientific knowledge is too incredible for words. Could anyone have foreseen the benefits of harnessing electricity, of cross-breeding, of using isotopes for chemotherapy, of the wheel? No. You can’t say “all the evidence is that pest and chemical resistant GE strains just breed more tolerant pests.”
So just give up right? Just throw away biotechnology because YOU haven’t been convinced. It isn’t failed. It is like telling Charles Darwin that because he hasn’t found the missing link, his theory is flawed, failed, throw it away. It is like telling the Wright Brothers that – oh you can’t fly fast, high or with enough payload to carry passengers and freight – so give up, stick to trains and ships.
You’re scaremongering pure and simple. Of course if we had rigorous enforcement of property rights then the issue of contamination could be enforced through tort law – which would in itself provide an excellent discipline on what you are concerned about.
GE is just a tool, a very sophisticated tool that most people don’t understand. Pest resistance has been crossbred into plants and animals for generations. You assume farmers don’t know what they are doing, you’re also assuming they get forced – they don’t. Let choice flourish, let tort law protect property rights over those who don’t want “contamination”. Then let GE technology flourish.
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It looks like nothing has been learned from the first green revolution then.
People shouldn’t be asking how another green revolution can be implimented, but why one is needed in the first place.
Malthus wasn’t wrong. He was dead right!
Just look at the sudden surge in population growth after the first green revolution, and see what happens if this one works too.
Only problem is that nobody has figured out how to make the planet any bigger yet.
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Oh, liberty – such dramatics! Such hysterics! I never said that GE should be scrapped, only that it should be kept in the laboratory. I never said that it would never produce any results, only that it had failed to do so to date and that the environmental costs/risks were too high to let such failed technology free into the wild.
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Indeed, Doug. People don’t breed when they’re die of starvation. Or when they use condoms. Either or.
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Frog, you still need to substantial the “corporate control” argument. Does that refer to fertiliser – an argument which applies to any attempts to breed higher yielding crop – or to seeds? And if it’s seeds, surely, non-GE seeds won’t have any issues regarding terminator seeds, and even if it is GE, it still doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re terminator seeds.
Or does “corporate control” refer to something else entirely?
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keithng – US-based Monsanto is the world’s largest producer of GM crops. 90 percent of the area under biotech cultivation worldwide has been sowed with the company’s GM tolerant and pest-resistent variaties. Monsanto is also famous for it’s continuous takeovers of seed companies, in order to better control the market. If this isn’t corporate control, what is? This is just one multinational company.
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>
>>I was not allowed to speak at the conference, or attend any bilateral meetings or negotiating sessions, presumably for fear that I might not reflect the party line.
>
Why would you presume (or ass/u/me) that? The reality is that you went, at your own cost, as a private individual (otherwise the party should have paid your costs) and were never part of NZ’s formal delegation. The fact that that formal delegation allowed you to tag along with them (albeit not as a registered delegate and therefore not able to attend the bilateral meetings, or speak in the main assembly, should not have been either a surprise or disapointment to you.
So way was the point of making that point? I’d really like to know.
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On another point.
There seems to be a general view that Genetic Engineering is something that happens only in a laboratory. This has never been true, and most Genetic Engineering that has taken place over the years has been undertaken by farmers and gardeners splicing varieties of planty that they valued or liked to create a hybrid. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_%28biology%29)
I seem to remember (I may be wrong) walking past Ms. K’s house a few years ago, and admiring a hybrid rose plant that was blossoming bloomingly.
I do hope that all who post here (and anywhere else) on the vileness of Genetic Engineering will ensure that their homes and gardens are cleared of all hybrid plants, and run campaigns to ensure thast local bodies (such as Wellington City Council) do the same. After all, it’s just not on WCC celebrating the many varieties or rose that can be produced through graft-facilitated Genetic Engineering as it does so blaringly in the Rose Garden at the Botanical Gardens!
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“Indeed, Doug. People don’t breed when they’re die of starvation. Or when they use condoms. Either or.”
The problem is population not food, we should be implementing population control measures not planning how to feed the people. If we are having problems feeding the world now how will we feed the world when we have millions more mouths to feed.
Anyway with the world running out of oil we should be looking at sustainable agriculture and gm crops do not seem to be sustainable.
If you are interested type “The World according to Monsanto” into youtube and check out the movie, its in 12 parts
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GE is another tool. Like any tool, it could be used for good or harm.
There are real legal concerns around GE, but these mainly involve patenting of genomes not GE per se. There are cases of farmers having their crops taken off them because they had some patented seed that had fallen off a truck in with their crop. This is a serious concern, but is not a problem with the technology but with the legal system of the USA. Provided third world governments refuse to recognise genome patents this will not be a problem.
There are also real concerns about specific things that people can do with GE – as I said it can be used for good or harm. For example, making a plant resistant to a herbicide could give it the potential to become a difficult to control weed, and can also encourage over-use of herbicides (higher costs and higher herbicide residue in product). Using terminator seeds could be damaging to subsistence farmers, as they could not keep their own seed but would need to purchase it each year. These are genuine concerns about particular applications of GE – NOT concerns about GE as a technology.
These concerns are valid reasons to carefully consider particular applications of GE (or any technology for that matter) on a case-by-case basis. They are NOT reasons to ban GE outright. They are problems with applications of the technology, not the technology itself.
Banning GE outright (or banning any technology) is a valid position for an individual to hold for emotional or religious reasons. But it is not scientific, and ultimately will fail – people who do not feel the same way emotionally or have different religious beliefs will use it anyway. But lobbying for careful assessment of the risks and benefits of each application of a technology is sensible and might result in avoiding the potential negative consequences while taking advantage of the benefits.
Find a specific problem with a particular application of GE being proposed, and we might then have something to discuss.
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frog – all you’ve said is that Monsanto is a corporation. We know. But how is its involvement in AGRA increasing corporate control? How is developing new non-GE seed varieties furthering corporate control?
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Easy, just make those who want to produce and plant GE strictly liable for any damage they cause. If its such great stuff, what’s to worry. If they’re not sure, maybe it will be kept in the lab long enough to tell. Of course, insurance companies have said they’d never insure as the risks are incalculable – on par with war and some natural disasters. Might this be a clue?
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Frog said: “I never said that it would never produce any results, only that it had failed to do so to date and that the environmental costs/risks were too high to let such failed technology free into the wild.”
Debatable of course, but the environmental costs/risks need to be outweighed against benefits – and so I guess we await to see what scientists develop. They may prove you wrong, but you may prove to be wrong too – I’m keeping an open mind on it, the Green rhetoric on this SOUNDS very closed minded. Not proven, ban it outside the lab – end of argument.
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Its called the precautionary principle. Why should something unproven with huge potential risks not be kept in the lab until shown to be safe? In the States, if it looks like a tomato, it is declared to be a tomato and can be released without further ado. If there’s money in it, they don’t give a toss about the consequences.
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“If we are having problems feeding the world now how will we feed the world when we have millions more mouths to feed.”
Oh that’s an easy one Paranoid Peter,
They just have another green revolution like the one that the Rockefeller foundation started back in the early 40′s. Thats what saved India. And India has no food problems now, despite having over a billion mouths to feed. I think pollution is starting to become a bit of a problem for them though.
Talking of Youtube, you might be interested in what Jane Goodall has to say on the subject of overpopulation. It only takes a few minutes out of your life, but she has actually talked to some of the people who are worst effected by overpopulation.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B6JLvIxdbjQ&feature=related
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Valis,
“Why should something unproven with huge potential risks not be kept in the lab until shown to be safe?”
Well you could say that about renewable energy sources like tidal and wave farms too. The impilcations to the ecosystem caused by such new technology are very well understood by ecologists, but if it looks green it’s declared to be green. It seems to work both ways really.
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I think the best thing to do is rather than argue in pros and cons of ge by its potential success, let’s take a moment to look at the technology failures it’s already appalling track record on safety.
Some applications of GM technology have lead to sterility and mutations in livestock, massively stunted growth in rats. We are seeing GE crops being approved for the food supply without any independent safety testing. Many regulatory bodies are relying on industry safety testing which doesn’t even include eating trials.
The major issue is not about whether you can grow super crops or not, it’s how you allow the technology to be used in a way that completely shifts the power base and therefore the security of our food supply.
It is imperative for the future security of this planet that citizens contain sovereign control over their own food supply. Companies should not be able to obtain patents on plant strains that have been selectively bred over generations. This has been happening for ages and it is a major cause of rapidly rising food prices. Biotech food companies are blatantly stealing botanical culture off communities and then selling it back to them. Of course farmers are leaving the farms in droves because they can no longer afford the patent fees for seed. And if they try and save their own seed, they get sued by the seed companies.
The big question we need to ask ourselves is do we want to have the genetic material of our food supply owned by a small number of very powerful corporations? Is that really very smart of us?
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“Biotech food companies are blatantly stealing botanical culture off communities and then selling it back to them.
For Example?
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“For Example?”
Ever heard the term biopiracy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopiracy
Check out the latest winners of the Captain Hook Awards for the worst culprits of biopiracyt http://www.captainhookawards.org/
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itstheeconomystupid:
“Companies should not be able to obtain patents on plant strains that have been selectively bred over generations.”
These patents are legal in the USA. Does New Zealand recognise such patents? Do the third world countries recognise these patents? I am not sure myself. If so, this is a serious concern. Alternatively, if others do not recognise the patents it is just a legal issue within the USA.
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