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GE Foods Tutorial
Biotech corporations make bold claims about
the ability of genetically engineered foods to change the
world--promises ranging from feeding the world's hungry to
saving the environment.
Here's a look at some of the promises made
by the industry, some facts that put these promises in dispute,
and how industry's actions sometimes undercut their assurances.
Promises and realities
Promise: Biotech
will feed the world's poor.
Reality: Biotech
companies are more interested in the corporate bottom line
than helping the poor.
Consider the case of the "terminator
seed" technology, pursued by Monsanto, one of the largest
biotech companies.
 The
terminator seed is a genetic engineering technology that sterilizes
seeds produced by crops. The technology would force farmers
to purchase seeds every year from companies who sell the seeds.
Analysts worry that under terminator technology,
many staples for the world's poorest people, including wheat,
rice and soybeans, would be under the control of international
agribusinesses. Up to 1.4 billion farming families worldwide
may be forced to buy into the terminator technology.
"It's terribly dangerous, says Hope
Shand, of the Rural Advancement Foundation International,
a Canadian group. "Half the world's farmers are poor
and can't afford to buy seed every growing season. Yet they
grow 15 to 20 percent of the world's food."
Monsanto recently announced that, because
of public opposition, it would not commercialize terminator
technology. However, the company said it will continue to
pursue several related gene technologies, and could change
its mind about the terminator in the future.
If the multinationals really want to help
feed the poor, would they come up with technologies so pernicious?
Promise: Genetically
engineered "golden rice", enriched with Vitamin
A, will save thousands of children from blindness and solve
the problem of malnutrition in the Third World.
Reality: A person would have to eat nine pounds of genetically
engineered "golden rice" to satisfy his or her daily
need of Vitamin A, according to Greenpeace research.
"It is clear from these calculations
that the GE industry is making false promises about 'Golden
Rice'. It is nonsense to think anyone would or could eat this
much rice, and there is still no proof that it can provide
any significant vitamin benefits anyway," said Greenpeace
Campaigner Von Hernandez in the Philippines, where the first
grains of the genetically engineered rice were delivered to
the International Rice Research Institute last month for breeding
into local rice varieties.
The Rockefeller Foundation is one of the
principal sponsors of golden rice. But even its president,
Gordon Conway, says the biotech industry has tried to promote
golden rice too much, too soon.
"The public relations uses of Golden
Rice have gone too far," he says. "The industry's
advertisements and the media in general seem to forget that
it is a research product that needs considerable further development
before it will be available to farmers and consumers."
Promise:
Biotech will save the environment.
Reality: Biotech is a risky experiment
that may have vast environmental repercussions.
 The
companies behind genetic engineering don't have a great environmental
track record. Some of these companies are the same ones that
developed pesticides such as DDT and Agent Orange; and as
we've learned over the past few decades, the development of
deadly pesticides has had disastrous implications for wildlife
and human development.
U.S. farmers already have planted millions
of acres of GE corn. Three years after GE corn was launched
on a massive commercial scale, Cornell University scientists
discovered that the mutated corn may be deadly to Monarch
butterflies. What other surprises may be in store?
Besides the risks to wildlife, scientists
and environmentalists have several concerns about GE foods,
ranging from the potential rise of pesticide-resistant "superweeds"
to genetic contamination of the environment.
(See "threats
to the environment" for more details.)
Promise: GE crops
require fewer pesticides.
Reality: Biotech companies are using
GE technologies to help sell higher quantities of the pesticides
they manufacture.
Many of the companies behind biotech, in
fact, such as Monsanto, DuPont and Novartis, are the same
ones that manufacture toxic pesticides.
 One
of the most popular categories of GE foods are crops that
are resistant to pesticides, meaning that more pesticides
can be applied.
Monsanto, for example, has created the
Roundup Ready soybean, which is engineered to withstand higher
doses of Monsanto's Roundup pesticide.
Recent research shows that farmers are
using the same, and in some cases higher, quantities of pesticides
on GE crops as non-GE crops.
Promise: GE crops
produce larger yields.
Reality: Researchers have demonstrated
that genetically engineered seeds do not significantly increase
crop yields.
In one study involving more than 8,200
field trials, Roundup Ready soybeans produced fewer bushels
of soybeans than non-GE soybeans. The study was conducted
by Dr. Charles Benbrook, the former director of the Board
of Agriculture at the National Academy of Scientists.
Promise: GE crops
are more nutritious.
Reality: Laura and
Robin Ticciati, authors of Genetically Engineered Foods: Are
They Safe? You Decide, report that GE
foods may lead to the deletion of important food elements.
Genetic engineers, they say, may intentionally
remove or inactivate a substance they consider undesirable
in a food. The substance may have unknown but crucial qualities,
such as cancer-inhibiting abilities.
GE crops may also exhibit counterfeit
freshness. Engineers are designing crops that appear fresh
for much longer periods. However, nutritional content of the
food may decrease over that period of time, even as the food
continues to appear fresh.
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