Disgusted at what is being done to our food supply, an increasing number of people are turning to joining food coops or purchasing organic food (grown from natural seeds without chemical agents). Unfortunately, many working people do not have this option. Those who rush home from work, grab the kids from daycare, dash to the clinic and try to get home in time for dinner may have to buy food the easiest way possibe-at the supermarket.
Through early 1998, many supermarkets at least had some food marked "organically grown." Through early 1998, this label meant something. But if the food industry has its way, the label will mean nothing. If Congress approves proposed changes, the "organic" label could be put on food which was genetically engineered, fertilized with sewage sludge, or irradiated with nuclear waste.
Genetic engineering is the process of inserting a gene from one species into a totally different species. The best-known example is the "flavr savr tomato," which is tomato whose seed had a fish gene spliced in so that it would have longer shelf life.
The first problem is that the unsuspecting consumer may be allergic to fish (or be allergic to the new artificial combination of genes). Those who shop to avoid certain toxic or allergenic foods will find it difficult to impossible to protect themselves as more and more bizarre products hit the supermarket. Far from helping to protect us, the biotechnology industry is working hard to ensure that food is never labeled as genetically altered, making it impossible for us to know the true content of food.
Are you a vegetarian, meaning you want to know if you are eating vegetables contaminated with fish genes? The food multinationals see no reason that you should have that right, since it could threaten their profits. Are you Jewish or Muslim, meaning you would like to know if your food has been spliced with pig genes? Irrelevant-your religious beliefes are being sacrificed on the alter of corporate greed.
It gets worse. We are aware of some toxic and allergic reactions to foods. But the nature of genetic engineering is that it creates food with a genetic strucutre which has never existed before. If a small number of people have allergic reactions to new genetic combinations, it may be extremely difficult to identify the problem and treat the reaction. Is the food company which created the problem going to admit it, compensate the people poisoned, and withdraw the product? Or will the corporation hire researchers to produce fake data, hire public relations firms to produce slick TV ads, and pay politicians to write laws making sure they can’t be sued? If you have any doubt of whether corportations will knowingly kill millions of consumers for profit, simply look at the history of the tobacco industry. The biotechnology industry is considerably more powerful than tobacco.
It gets worse. Monsanto is genetically engineering plants to be resistant to its herbicide Roundup. Other varieties are being designed to be resistant to pesticides. As agribusiness applies even more chemicals to its "designer crops," farmworkers are exposed to more toxins and working people buy produce with greater pesticide residues. (But it looks so shiny on the supermarket shelf!)
If agribusiness and chemical companies would only be so kind as to limit themselves to poisoning us in the ways already described. They are not so kind. The greatest threat posed by genetic engineering is the very real possibility of world famine.
That these people could justify what they are doing with the duplicitous claim that they want to feed the world’s hungry shows the depths of cynicism to which they plunge. They pronounce that they will be able to feed the hungry by growing more food per acre, by developing pest-be resistant plants, and by marketing produce with a longer shelf life.
The truth is that world famine exists side by side with destruction of massive quantities of food. Hunger exists because bankers make sure that food does not reach those who do not pay for it (unless they pose for a PR commercial). Increasing the quantity of food grown will do nothing to reduce hunger-but it will lower the price of food, thereby destroying the livelihood of millions of small farmers and allowing agribusiness to buy their land for a cheap price.
Remember the potato famine in Ireland? It is the classic example of what can happen from growing a small variety of vegetables (i.e., reduced biodiversity). As the food moguls spread like a plague across the planet, they replace native plants with those engineered in a far away laboratory. The world market forces each grower to rely on the “ideal” variety of vegetable. Hundreds or thousands of species of corn are reduced to a few score or less (just as dozens of automobile companies were replaced by the Big Three). Enter superweed. Enter superbug. Both mutated and now resistant to the most carcinogenic pesticide. The Irish potato looms on a global horizon.
Several factors increase the chances of this “silent spring.” The genetic structure of plants has evolved during milleia in an interconnected ecosystem. Genes do not exist in isolation, but as part of an interconnected whole. When a gene which causes a plant to resist pests is removed and put in another plant, it can have completely novel effects when it interacts with genes in the new plant. In additional to resisting insect pests, one such gene killed microorganisms in the soil which were necessary for plant growth.
A genetically engineered plant might cross-pollinate with related species to produce a new herbicide-resistant weed. Such a superweed could spread like kudzu, choking out edible crops. Unlike defective cars, it is not possible to recall a genetically engineered species gone wild.
If there is a massive world crop failure and hunger becomes more widespread than it already is, guess which class will get the food which is still available and guess which class will be given bullets to eat.
Agribusiness has almost completed its dream of exterminating the American family farmer. But there are tens of millions of farmers around the world who are actively resisting Monsanto’s "final solution" to organic vegetables. Family farmers are the natural ally of working people in demanding that we not be poisoned at the supermarket.
On July 17 - 19, 1998, environmentalists and food activists from throughout the US will get together for the "First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastaton: Genetic Engineering." Hosted by the Gateway Green Alliance , Pure Food Campaign and the Edmonds Institute, the gathering will be in St. Louis, home of Monsanto, the most powerful single player in the US biotechnology industry. The first group to become a cosponsor was the St. Louis branch of the IWW. If you want to find out more about the Gathering on Genetic Engineering, call the Gateway Greens at 314-727-8554 or send an e-mail to fitzdon@aol.com
A good part of the genetic engineering gathering will be devoted to building action networks between environmentalists, farmers and workers. If you come to St. Louis, wear your wobbly t-shirt.