|
|
 
|
To know the truth about GM crops, ask the Canadians
(Friday, Aug. 8, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Michael Meacher, The Independent (UK), 08/06/03: What would happen if early next year the Government decided to allow GM
crops to be grown commercially in this country? To find out, go to
Canada. where GM crops were introduced into the prairies in 1997. With
what results? I have just spent a week in Saskatchewan and Ontario
finding out.
When the technology was first applied in the prairies seven years ago,
the farmers were enthusiastic. Monsanto and the other big biotech
companies promised that there would be higher yields, less herbicide
usage, little or no cross-contamination and ready containment of
"volunteers" (plants that survive the harvest and become weeds when
different crops are later planted). It has not turned out like that at all.
Yields were found to be lower because contamination was wider than
predicted, herbicide use was not reduced, and often had to be increased,
and volunteers were much more difficult to deal with than expected.
There were no gains to consumers that might have balanced the losses to
the farming producers. And the environmental impacts, assumed to be
benign on the specious principle that GM crops were "substantially
equivalent'' to non-GM varieties, turned out to be seriously adverse.
There was damage to wildlife, new superweeds were generated and
ecosystems that support insects and birds were destroyed.
There are several lessons that Britain can, and should, learn from the
Canadian experience. The most important is that "co-existence'' - a
framework to ensure that organic and conventional farming can survive
and prosper alongside GM farming - is a mirage. In Saskatchewan,
organic oilseed rape (which the Canadians call canola) has been wiped
out by cross-contamination from Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" GM canola.
The issue for Britain is that if it is impossible to separate off
organic oilseed rape in the vast spaces of the Canada prairies, it is
inconceivable that it can be kept separate in the very much smaller land
area of Britain where farms exist cheek by jowl together.
Even more disturbing is that pollution of organic crops does not come
primarily airborne, from pollen, but from contamination of the seed
supply. The most famous example of this in Canada is the case of the
farmer Percy Schmeiser. He saved seed from his harvest and planted it
the next year, only to find that some of it was GM, even though he had
never allowed any GM crops on his farm. Extraordinarily, he was taken to
court by Monsanto on the grounds that the company had patented the gene
in the GM plants on his farm and he had infringed the patent. The
company won the lawsuit. If that has been happening in Canada, there is
no reason to doubt that Monsanto will use the same tactics in Britain.
Another problem is the removal of volunteers and GM weeds. Volunteers are
already resistant to the chemical weedkiller (glysophate, known as
Roundup Ready) used for cultivation, and weeds and other plants can also
acquire this resistance through the transgene flow from the GM oilseed
rape and wheat. So in addition to the two or three field sprays by
glysophate, it is then necessary to use other, old-fashioned, toxic
chemicals such as 2,4-D to destroy remaining weeds. The President of the
Canadian NFU, whom I met, quoted a university study showing that the
cost of chemical spraying to Canadian farmers now amounted to nearly
£200m a year.
This problem is further compounded by two other unexpected factors that I
encountered in Canada and that would also occur in Britain if GM
commercialisation were ever introduced here. One is that volunteers
don't just spring up the year after the original harvest. The seeds may
subsist in the ground for years, and volunteers often arise three to
five years later.
Labelling and liability are also issues both in Canada and the UK.
Contrary to the general impression that North America is quite content
with GM and not worried by it, several recent polls have shown that
92-97 per cent of Canadians believe that their government should require
companies to label GM products. In the EU, labelling of GM food will
soon be required above a 0.9 per cent threshold, though that will still
not tell consumers what they really want to know - whether this food is
GM-free or not.
Liability - the question of who pays if an organic or conventional
farmer has his business damaged or his livelihood ruined by
contamination from GM crops - is now becoming a crunch issue both in
Canada and Europe. There is huge resistance from the biotech industry on
both sides of the Atlantic to accepting any responsibility for the
contamination they cause.
One other highly relevant piece of evidence shown to me by the Canadian
NFU about the current battleground in Canada concerns the tactics
adopted by Monsanto to get the unpopular idea of GM wheat accepted. A
draft letter, to be signed by prominent farmers in key positions,
details the "mutual understanding and agreement" between each of them
and Monsanto about how they will assist, secretly, in "ensuring the
positive introduction of Roundup Ready Wheat in Canada".
We have to ask: is the same happening here, or will it happen here in the
future?
The author was Minister for the Environment from 1997 to 2003.
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=430971 | |
