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Introduction to geneticallly modified food and farming
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Download our flyer for a concise overview
Basic facts
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) include patented viruses, bacteria, seeds, crops, trees, insects, fish, crustaceans, poultry and livestock infected with foreign DNA from viruses, bacteria, plants and/or animals. 60% of GM crops currently on the market are resistant to weedkillers, 40% produce built-in pesticides, and many contain genes that may spread antibiotic resistance to livestock and humans. Experimental GM plants include pharma crops (which produce plastics, industrial chemicals, and drugs such as blood thinners, blood clotters and contraceptives); traitor crops (whose growth cycle is disrupted if not sprayed with an antidote); and terminator crops (which produce sterile seeds). Once released, GMO seeds and crops can never be recalled.
Contamination incidents in 39 countries prove that GMO crops infect related species, unrelated species, agricultural seed supplies, and the human food chain. (see www.gmcontaminationregister.org.
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Patents on life
GM seeds and crops are patented as a corporate strategy to control the world's agricultural seed supply, together with the biopiracy of traditional varieties bred by farmers over millennia. Whoever controls the seeds controls the food. Monsanto owns patents on thousands of agricultural crop genes. Under the World Trade Organisation's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement, contaminated farmers lose ownership of their crops and the right to save and plant their own seeds, and face demands for patent royalties, extortion letters and patent infringement lawsuits, as happened to thousands of farmers including Percy Schmeiser. According to the Irish Patent Office, EU and Irish patent law offers no protection to contaminated farmers here.
Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. The company once earned its money almost exclusively through agrochemicals. But in the last ten years they've spent about US$ 10 billion buying up seed producers and companies in other sectors of the agricultural business. Their last big acquisition was Seminis, the biggest producer of vegetable seeds in the world. Monsanto holds extremely broad patents on seeds. Most of these are related to GMOs. Monsanto has also claimed patent rights on such non-Monsanto inventions as traditionally-bred wheat from India and soy plants from China. Many of these patents apply not only to the use of seeds but all uses of the plants and harvest that result.
The big picture is chilling to anyone who mistrusts Monsanto's record disinterest for environmental safety. Central control of food supply has been a standard ingredient for social and political control throughout history. By creating a monopoly position, Monsanto can force dangerous experiments like the release of GMOs into the environment on an unwilling public. They can ensure that GMOs will be sold and consumed wherever they say they will.
By claiming global monopoly patent rights throughout the entire food chain, Monsanto seeks to make farmers and food producers, and ultimately consumers, entirely dependent and reliant on one single corporate entity for a basic human need. It's the same dependence that Russian peasants had on the Soviet Government following the Russian revolution. The same dependence that French peasants had on Feudal kings during the middle ages. But control of a significant proportion of the global food supply by a single corporation would be unprecedented in human history. To ensure that doesn't happen, itís time for a global ban of patents on seeds and farm animals.
Health risks
Scientific evidence shows that GMOs are genetically unstable, contain novel proteins that our immune systems do not recognise, and impact living organisms and ecosystems in ways that are impossible to predict. No long-term health studies justify industry claims that GM food is safe. Scientific investigations of death and disease attributable to GM food in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population have led to accusations of criminal negligence and corruption of the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority, the UK Food Standards Agency, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) - which are infiltrated by agbiotech lobbyists and routinely accept biased and pseudo-scientific risk assessments submitted by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. The FSAI's CEO, Dr. John O'Brien – a former Director of the International Life Sciences Institute lobby group – actually denies the existence of any evidence of GM food health risks!
A leaked European Commission document submitted to the WTO admits "there is no unique, absolute, scientific cut-off threshold available to decide whether a GM product is safe or not".
More detailed information including scientific and medical papers on the health risks of GM food and crops may be found on the following web sites:
Center for Food Safety: www.centerforfoodsafety.org
EcoNexus: www.econexus.info
GeneWatch: www.genewatch.org
Independent Science Panel: www.indsp.org
Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology: www.genok.org/english/default.asp
Seeds of Deception: www.seedsofdeception.com
Union of Concerned Scientists: http://go.ucsusa.org
No benefits to farmers and consumers
According to the EC's Joint Research Centre's report on "Scenarios for co-existence of genetically modified, conventional and organic crops in European Agriculture", GM foods have no benefits to consumers and GM crops may cause 40% higher costs for EU farmers.
In January 2006, the Friends of the Earth report Who benefits from GM crops? found that in the ten years since the introduction of GM foods in Europe, the biotech industry has failed to deliver any benefits for consumers or the environment, and has not played any role in solving hunger and poverty. Research now confirms that over time, GMO crops have lower yields, poorer quality, less nutrition, require increased use of toxic chemicals, lead to pesticide resistance, livestock death, crop failure, and create GM superweeds that spread across farmland, roads, national parks, golf courses, cemetaries, gardens and urban areas. Massive failure of GM crops in India has led to reports of thousands of farmer suicides. Insurance companies refuse to provide cover for GMO crop risks.
60% of GMO crops are grown in the USA, Canada, and Argentina. 90% are grown in just six countries. There is no commercial release of GM crops in Europe, apart from Spain where widespread contamination has destroyed the EC claim that GMO crops can "co-exist" with conventional and organic farming (download report).
EU law requires animal feed and food contaminated by more than 0.9% of GM ingredients to carry a GM label, with a loophole exempting meat and dairy produce from animals fed on a GM diet. Most non-organic Irish meat and dairy produce now comes from livestock fed on GM soya, maize and rapeseed. The Irish government and the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) claim farmers must embrace GM crops to remain competitive, despite higher production costs and no market for GM-labelled food in Europe because of rejection by the majority of EU member states, food brands, food retailers and consumers! In fact, Irish farmers, food producers and exporters who avoid GM animal feed are already securing higher premia and greater access to the export markets for beef and dairy produce.
Role of the World Trade Organisation
Transnational agbiotech corporate giants like Monsanto and BASF have coopted the World Trade Organisation to try to force the world to legalise patented genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops, GM animal feed and GM food, despite (a) abundant evidence of health, agronomic, environmental, legal and food security risks. The governments of the USA, Canada and Argentina have filed a WTO trade dispute against the EU which claims that the EU's previous de facto embargo on GM food and crops, together with bans on GM crops in various member states, violate the Free Trade Agreement.
Irish government policy
Unlike eight European governments and 175 regional governments which ban or restrict GM crops in 22 EU member states, the UK and Irish governments have never voted against legalising GM food and crops in the EU Council of Ministers, and have caved in to a non-binding legally flawed EC proposal "to ensure the co-existence" of GMO crops with conventional and organic farming on the island of Ireland. The Irish government has played a leading role to promote GM crops in Europe, despite growing cross-party opposition from MEPs, Senators and TDs.
GMO crops can not "co-exist" with conventional & organic farming
In 2003, the EC issued a non-binding and legally flawed EC Recommendation for EU Member States to establish national strategies "to ensure to co-existence of GM crops with conventional and organic farming", despite global evidence that so-called "co-existence" leads to contamination.
In December 2005, the Irish Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan published Ireland's draft strategy "Report on co-existence of GM and non-GM crops", a year after a changed deadline which prevented the majority of invited stakeholder groups from participating in a related public consultation process which also excluded 86% of the stakeholders who will be materially affected by the policy. This clearly violates the legal requirements for public participation in environmental decision-making required by the Aarhus Convention and EU law. The Minister now plans to finalise the strategy by end of 2006 or early 2007 pending negotiations with the Department of Finance on a compensation fund for contaminated farmers! Read about the consultation process and download the report.
In June 2006, Greenpeace published Impossible co-existence: Seven years of GMOs have contaminated organic and conventional maize: an examination of the cases in Catalonia and Aragon (928 KB PDF file). The report shows that the EC's strategy for "co-existence" is a recipe for widespread contamination.
In July 2006, the UK published its draft strategy on "co-existence" which was widely described as a farce. Notable among its blunders is a recommended separation distance of 35 meters for GM rapeseed, despite scientific evidence that wind-blown pollen from GM rapeseed has contaminated conventional crops 26km from its source, a voluntary system of compensation for ruined non-GM farmers, and permission for GM crops to be grown at secret locations (rejecting a public register of sites sanctioned by EU law)! If approved, the UK stragegy is a recipe for irreversible GM contamination of Irish food and farms across the border with Northern Ireland. Media coverage.
No insurance
Insurance companies rate GMO risks in the same category as Thalidomide and HIV-AIDS, and refuse to provide GM risk cover to farmers. Instead of requiring up-front insurance for any party intending to grow GM crops, the Irish Department of Agricultureís strategy ìto ensure the co-existence of GMO crops with conventional and organic farmingî recommends a ìpollute first, legislate laterî approach allowing the commercial release of GMO crops to see what happens, before setting up a dodgy government-run industry-funded compensation scheme for contaminated farmers who suffer economic losses and/or are forced out of business as a result. See Report on coexistence of GM and non-GM crops in Ireland, published by the Irish Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, 7 December 2005: www.agriculture.gov.ie/gm_coexistence.
The role of the Irish media
The Irish TV and print media provide only very limited and often biased coverage of the GM controversy. There are obvious conflicts of interest.
The Chairman of the Irish times Trust (which owns the Irish Times) is Prof. David McConnell who is not only a leading player at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin (funded by the agbiotech industry), but is also Co-Chair of the European Action on Global Life Sciences lobby group). His astonishing public denial of the existence of any evidence of GM food health risks, if often reflected in his newspapers's bias on the subject.
Ireland's former Attorney General, Dermot Gleeson, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Independent Newspaper Group, is also Chairman of the Irish Institute for Bioethics whose report "Genetically Modified Crops and Food: Threat or Opportunity for Ireland?" (published on 28 November 2005) reads like a Monsanto press release.
The Irish Farmers Journal has utterly failed in its responsibility to inform Irish farmers about the agronomic, economic and legal risks of GM farming, and has supported the myth that the Irish Farmers Association has had until recently "no position" on GM farming. The Journal operates from the Irish Farmers Organisation (IFA) headquarters in Dublin. It claims to be "the unbiased voice for progress and development on Irish farms" and "the voice of Ireland's farming industry", with a stated aim "to be the best source of Irish agricultural and rural information" and "to provide the focus for open debate on agricultural development as the best source of information for the Irish agricultural industry and the families dependent on it." The IFA is a member of COPA-COGECA (Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations in the EU + General Confederation of Agricultural Co-operatives in the EU), the largest and most influential farming organisation in Europe. COPA-COGECA regularly lobbies the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions for EC legislation to approve GM seeds and crops and to prohibit the member states from establishing GMO-free zones. Donal Cashman (the former IFA President and Board member of the Agricultural Trust which owns the Irish Farmers Journal) is the President of COGECA and a former Vice-President of COPA.
Personal responsibility
International participants at the recent Green Ireland Conference warned that our governments' collusion with the WTO and the agbiotech industry will cause massive economic losses to our food, farm and tourism sectors, and that Bord Bia's failure to address the issue has already tarnished our clean green image as Ireland – the food island.
Government sovereignty derives from the duty to protect its citizens. When a government fails to do so, civil society stakeholders must take responsibility. Please take action to keep Ireland GM-free, for as Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world!"
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