THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

17 March 2004

Dear Friends and colleagues,

Re: GMOs’ DISAPPOINTING RECORD

The article below, written in conjunction to the recent Meeting of the Parties to the Biosafety Protocol in Kuala Lumpur, illustrates the disappointments that farmers worldwide face with GM crops.

Coupled with the environment and health concerns relating to GMOs, these issues support the push for a strict rules on the movements of GMOs and for an international regime on liability and redress.

With best wishes,

Lim Li Lin and Chee Yoke Heong

Third World Network

121-S Jalan Utama

10450 Penang

Malaysia

Email: twnet@po.jaring.my

Website: www.twnside.org.sg

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REF: Doc.TWN/Biosafety/2004/J

FARMER’S BANE

By Tan Cheng Li, The Star, Malaysia, Tuesday March 2, 2004

IT HAS been a decade since the first genetically modified (GM) crop, the Flavr Savr tomato, hit supermarket shelves. But it failed miserably due to health concerns, high prices and because it bruised, contrary to what it was engineered for. Subsequent GM crops such as corn, cotton, soybean and canola had better results and were embraced by American farmers.  

Last year, transgenic crops grew on over 67 million ha. Three countries accounted for 95% of this area: the United States (66%), Argentina (23%) and Canada (6%). Of the 40 GM crops approved for commercialisation in the United States, the most popular are corn, soyabean, cotton and canola.  

The rest of the world, however, continue to eye GMOs suspiciously. And with reason. Past experiences have done little to raise confidence in them. Some farmers found GM crops to be neither cheaper to cultivate nor more bountiful than conventional ones. Genes from GM crops have also jumped to non-modified varieties. Some studies even found harmful health effects.  

The following cases support the push for strict rules on transporting GMOs and for an international regime on liability and redress. They also illustrate why groups want a moratorium on GM crops until we know more.  

Cotton blunder 

Monsanto’s Bt cotton Bollgard was promoted in Sulawesi and India with promises of excellent performance, reduced pesticide use and higher yields. The seeds did not live up to those promises but left behind social and economic failures. (Bt refers to the gene for an insect-killing toxin isolated from the soil microbe Bacillus thuringiensis and inserted into cottonseed.)  

Indonesia approved trial planting of Bollgard in 2001 in south Sulawesi. But instead of the promised yield of two to four tons per ha, farmers got only 1.1 tons on average. A quarter of the over 4,300ha planted produced nothing. Farmers could not settle their loans with the Indonesian subsidiary of Monsanto which provided the seeds. Worse, the following year, prices for seeds were raised and for cotton, lowered. “Farmers had to pay higher production cost, produced less, and were paid less for their harvest. Some refused to sell and burnt their fields in protest,” says Hira Jhamtani of the National Consortium for Forest and Nature in Indonesia (Konphalindo).  

Early last year, the company stopped selling the seeds, citing losses due to unsettled loans. In December, Monsanto pulled out of Sulawesi and the government stopped the Bt cotton programme.  

The company blamed the crop failure on misplanting. Hira asserts it was a combination of factors. Firstly, the wrong pest was targeted. Bollgard is designed to resist Helicoverpa armigera but not Empoasca, the more serious pest in Sulawesi. The local dry climate was also overlooked and a drought triggered an explosion of another pest which badly affected Bollgard, although not other cotton varieties. Farmers ended up spraying more pesticide to curb the pest infestation.  

“The Bt cotton was planted on the assumption that if it works in other countries, it will work in Indonesia. But it simply did not fit. The company and government did not take into account local conditions,” says Hira.  

Non-governmental organisations sued the goverment in 2001 for allowing cultivation of Bt cotton without proper assessment and public consultation. They lost the case but an appeal to the Supreme Court is pending. Farmers and the local government threatened to sue the Monsanto subsidiary but never acted on it. “The irony is that farmers are the ones held liable if GM crops do not perform well, whereas in reality they are victims of misinformation. As in the Sulawesi case, companies can abandon programmes without being liable to solve problems that occur when their GM crops fail to perform,” says Hira. 

“This is why we need an international regime on liability and redress. It should protect small farmers and include socio-economic liability and a value judgement.”  

Indian farmers who grew Bollgard from 2002 found themselves in a similar predicament. They had to use more pesticides, yields were low and more labour was needed to pick the smaller-size cotton bolls - the costs were much higher than conventional varieties. Farmers have demanded compensation from Mahyco, a subsidiary of Monsanto which marketed the seeds.  

Starlink scandal 

In 1999, Friends of the Earth (FOE) found food products with the GM corn, Starlink, although it was only animal feed and not approved for human consumption because of concerns over possible allergic reaction. The corn was developed by Aventis (recently purchased by Bayer) and was sold to farmers by both Aventis and Garst Seeds.  

Some 300 food products were recalled in the United States alone. Three years after the scandal, about 1% of samples still show presence of Starlink. The corn has been withdrawn from the market but the cost of the scandal may exceed US$1bil (RM3.8bil). The Starlink case highlights the problem of GMO contamination. Once released, the consequences are unpredictable and the impacts unknown. 

Maize mess 

Three years ago, the DNA of GM corn was found in traditional corn varieties in Mexico. New studies late last year found the contamination had spread to more farms in nine states. The contamination was sourced to corn imported from the United States for food, feed and processing. Farmers, unaware that GM corn is in the shipment, had planted the seeds. (Mexico has prohibited planting of GM corn since 1998.) 

People are concerned because Mexico is the centre of the origin of corn. The transgenics threaten the diversity and genetic integrity of traditional corn varieties which are key to improving the quality and productivity of corn crops worldwide.  

Greenpeace Mexico has filed a legal case against Mexican authorities for violating the Protocol and failure to monitor shipments. “The cargo should have been identified and gone through a risk assessment,” says Greenpeace activist Liza Covantes. She says groups have, since 1997, warned the government about GM corn in imported shipments but it took no action.  

“The farmers do not know what to do. If they destroy the crop, they lose their seeds. If they keep them, they might degrade traditional varieties. The government has not said how it will contain the problem.”  

Mexican groups are also concerned about the trilateral agreement which Mexico had signed with the United States and Canada, which sets a 5% threshold for LMO content in GM commodity shipments.  

“This is troubling because 5% is high and you can plant many hectares of GM corn without knowing it,” says Ribeiro, a member of the ETC Group which works on cultural and ecological issues. In fact, tests by Greenpeace show LMO contamination of between 18% and 23% in grain cargoes.  

The Mexico national gene bank has even stopped its corn seed collection programme for fear of introducing GM traits into its store. It also tested for the presence of transgenes in its seed collection but found none.  

A report by FOE says contamination has also occurred in traditional cotton varieties in Greece, canola in Canada, soyabean in Italy, corn in Spain and papaya in Hawaii.  

Farming drugs 

Crops such as corn, soyabean, tobacco and rice are now being genetically engineered to produce phamaceutical proteins and chemicals such as topical contraceptive, growth hormones, blood clotter and thinner, industrial enzymes and vaccines - an activity dubbed “biopharming”. 

The US Department of Agriculture has authorised at least 346 open-air field trials of these crops since 1991. Two cases of crops contaminated with corn engineered to produce pig vaccine (by the company ProdiGene) occurred two years ago. In Nebraska, some 500,000 tons of contaminated soyabeans worth US$2mil (RM7.6mil) was destroyed. In Iowa, biopharm corn cross-pollinated a neighbouring field, and 63ha had to be burned.  

Because plants process proteins differently from humans and animals, there are concerns that a plant-produced “human” protein could be perceived as foreign by the body and elicit an allergic reaction. Trichosantin, a potent abortion-inducing drug, has been introduced into tobacco by means of an engineered virus which is also known to infect tomatoes and peppers.  

The National Food Processors Association and the Grocery Manufacturers of America have demanded that the biotechnology industry stop using crops to produce drugs.  

A telling sign is that despite 13 years of field testing, not a single plant-made pharmaceutical has received approval. The number of field trials of biopharming has dropped dramatically from a peak of 42 in 2000 to six last year. Last year, Monsanto closed its biopharming division. At the biosafety meeting last week, Mexican officials declared a ban on imports of biopharm crops.