biotech

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)

Kat: You ruffled some high-powered plumage earlier this month when you spoke at the Global Food Systems forum hosted by Jeffrey Sach’s Earth Institute. After listening to executives from Monsanto, Pespsico, Nestlé, Unilever, and Syngenta declare their intention to help solve the world hunger and obesity crises (oh, and climate change, while they’re at it), you expressed the belief that these are social problems that can’t truly be addressed through technological fixes or marketing.

But the agronomists who spoke at the forum insisted that Africa’s soil is so poor, so depleted, that our only hope for eradicating hunger there lies in increasing crop yields via the patented biotech seeds and chemical fertilizers proffered by Monsanto, Syngenta, et. al. OK, so if agricultural conditions are so lousy in Africa, why, then—as this article in Sunday’s Los Angeles TImes reveals—are wealthy nations like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait snapping up Africa’s cropland “hoping to turn the global epicenter of malnutrition into a breadbasket for themselves?”

According to the Times, the Saudis are so worried about insufficient irrigation in their own country that they’re leasing land from Sudan, whose government is waving export taxes and granting low-cost 99-year leases to foreign investors on the grounds that “the new deals will help, not exploit, their country by creating jobs, promoting commercialization, and pumping much-needed investment into its agricultural industry.”

But what about pumping out Africa’s finite water resources onto crops for export when its own people are starving? Many African nations are facing the specter of water shortages and drought along with much of the rest of the world. Presumably, this isn’t what Jeffrey Sachs had in mind when he called for “increased food production in Africa.” What good do genetically modified drought-resistant seeds do for the world’s poor if the resulting crops are grown for the benefit of the affluent?

Dr. Nestle: Ruffling plumage was not my intention and, as usual, I just thought I was stating the obvious: American and European food and agriculture companies that exist for the purpose of earning profits for stockholders are not going to be able to do much to help poor farmers in Africa make a living. For one thing, Western companies depend on government subsidies to keep the prices of their products down and this undermines the ability of African farmers to sell crops at a decent price. For another, political instability and extreme poverty in Africa make it difficult to establish the conditions necessary for agricultural production.

Poverty means that people won’t have enough money to buy the seeds, fertilizer, and farm equipment that are required to make the “green revolution” work. That is why biotechnology companies spend most of their resources developing—and patenting—seeds designed for temperate zone agriculture and invest so little in research on crops that can grow under harsh tropical conditions. Mind you, genetically engineering crops that can grow in hot climates with poor soils and little water present difficult scientific problems that will not be solved easily. But no agricultural biotechnology company of which I am aware is putting much money into this kind of research quite simply because it has no obvious payoff other than public relations. Hence: Golden Rice.

I do not claim to know how to solve Africa’s need for agricultural development but I applaud efforts to help its farmers grow enough food to feed themselves and their families—and to have enough left over to sell at a profit. I thought the absence of Vandana Shiva at the conference was a big gap. It would have been interesting to see how its audience reacted to a report on what her Navdanya Center is doing to help small farmers in India grow multiple crops under sustainable conditions appropriate to their particular location. This approach seems to be working well to raise farmers out of dire poverty and is a model that I would think deserves serious consideration. Its one major drawback? It only helps farmers help themselves and will do little in the short run to raise the profits of the food and agriculture corporations represented at that meeting.

In the long run, of course, a population that is better off economically will be interested in buying better food and more consumer goods, which is what we see happening in China. China invested in its own agriculture right from the start of its economic development, but it has a stable government. All I was saying was that government stability and poverty are social problems unlikely to be solvable by genetically engineered crops, at least as currently managed.

I know today’s newspaper is destined to be tomorrow’s fishwrap, but there’s a prematurely stinky smell coming from today’s NY Times . Something is rotten in the District of Columbia, and I’m afraid it’s our roly poly congressional fish heads, who’ve caved in to lobbyists and refused to enforce the Country of Origin Labeling Laws on meats and produce.

COOL--as we like to call it ‘cause it sounds cool--was passed as part of the 2002 Farm Bill. But the meat lobby and grocery industry have stopped Congress from implementing it for five whole years now.

The seafood industry, on the other hand, saw a marketing advantage for products like wild-caught Alaskan salmon, which is widely regarded as healthier and more environmentally friendly than imported farm-raised salmon, and can therefore command a higher price.

So Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, a pretty scaly and flaky specimen himself, did the right thing for the wrong reasons, i.e. out of concern for his corporate constituents rather than consumers, and made sure the labeling law for seafood was enforced.

As usual, corporate interests trump consumer protection. Think I’m exaggerating? Here’s a question for you, and I’m sorry that it’s not a hypothetical: would you like to buy spoiled, rotten meat that’s been irradiated and then repackaged?

You probably wouldn’t; 71% of consumers have indicated that they’d rather not buy irradiated food. But the food industry has some spoiled, rotten food it would love to sell you.

So they’ve been pressuring the FDA to permit the use of euphemisms like “electronic pasteurization” in order to sell consumers spoiled food that’s been zapped and repackaged. And in cases where there’s supposedly no change in the taste of the food, there would be no label required at all.

Dr. Urvashi Rangan, a health policy scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union, discussed the proposed changes with Living On Earth’s Steve Curwood last week:

But wait, it gets worse. According to Dr. Rangan, the radiation process converts fat into a possibly carcinogenic “radiolytic byproduct”:

Now, if you’re not sufficiently grossed out by the thought of unknowingly consuming recycled rotted meat that may contain cancer-causing chemicals, read on:

The FDA’s accepting public comments on the proposed policy change until tomorrow, July 3rd, so if you’d like to weigh in you can go to the FDA’s website and type in the docket number 2005N-0272. (hat tip to OrangeClouds115 at Daily Kos.)

And if you’re still not convinced that there’s an entire industry dedicated to shoving unproven, potentially dangerous technology down our throats, an article in the Sunday NY Times business section reveals new questions about the safety of biotech products.

The article quotes Henry I. Miller—yes, the same Henry I. Miller who had an op-ed in last Friday’s NY Times trumpeting Monsanto’s bovine growth hormone as a tremendous boon to consumers and a great way to combat climate change—as emphatically declaring the undisputed safety of biotech food products:

Dr. Miller gave this ringing endorsement at a 2004 roundtable sponsored by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.

Now, researchers who’ve completed a four-year study organized by the United States National Human Genome Research Institute have released findings that raise all kinds of questions about the thousands of patents that have already been given to plant, animal, and microbial genes.

But then Dr. Miller doesn’t seem terribly prescient about a lot of things. If you want to have a laugh, revisit the unhinged hatchet job he penned for the National Review a few years back accusing Al Gore of being cuckoo on climate change. Do I smell roasting wingnuts? Between that and the rotting fishheads on Capital Hill, we could sure use some fresh air. Too bad the news is so stinky.